English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For August 23/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.august23.22.htm
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Bible Quotations For today
Do not be afraid, Paul; you must
stand before the emperor; and indeed, God has granted safety to all those who
are sailing with you.
Acts of the Apostles 27,1-4.8a.14-15.18-21a.22-26./:
"When it was decided that we were to sail for Italy, they transferred Paul and
some other prisoners to a centurion of the Augustan Cohort, named Julius.
Embarking on a ship of Adramyttium that was about to set sail to the ports along
the coast of Asia, we put to sea, accompanied by Aristarchus, a Macedonian from
Thessalonica. The next day we put in at Sidon; and Julius treated Paul kindly,
and allowed him to go to his friends to be cared for. Putting out to sea from
there, we sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were against us.
Sailing past it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, near the
city of Lasea. But soon a violent wind, called the northeaster, rushed down from
Crete. Since the ship was caught and could not be turned with its head to the
wind, we gave way to it and were driven. We were being pounded by the storm so
violently that on the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard, and on
the third day with their own hands they threw the ship’s tackle overboard.
When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and
no small tempest raged, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned. Since
they had been without food for a long time, Paul then stood up among them and
said, ‘Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and
thereby avoided this damage and loss. I urge you now to keep up your courage,
for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For last
night there stood by me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship,
and he said, "Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand
before the emperor; and indeed, God has granted safety to all those who are
sailing with you." So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it
will be exactly as I have been told. But we will have to run aground on some
island.’"
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on August 22-23/2022
Sheik Bashir, 40 years after your Martyrdom, you are still in our
conscience and hearts/Elias Bejjani/August 23/2022
Gantz says war would be 'tragic' to Lebanon if Hezbollah attacks Karish
Report: Hezbollah might risk war with Israel before border talks conclude
President Aoun meets Iraqi Ambassador on farewell visit, tackles general
situation with former Minister Fahmy
Central bank slashes gasoline subsidies again
Report: Lebanon hasn't been informed of imminent deal with Israel
Bou Saab holds 'lengthy' phone call with Hochstein
Govt. deadlock continues as Mikati, Bassil exchange blame
Bassil slams 'intentional power cuts' as 'crime against the people'
FPM MP says Mikati to meet Aoun amid 'positive' indications
Submarine mission off Tripoli postponed due to high waves
Sayyed Nasrallah: We are Convinced in Our Syria War Involvement, Will Take Part
in Any Future One
MoPH: 980 new Coronavirus infections, four deaths
ISF’s Osman talks cooperation with US embassy delegation
Mawlawi meets Sovereign Front for Lebanon delegation, several lawmakers, tackles
latest developments with UN’s Wronecka
Judges to meet in general assembly at Beirut Justice Palace on Tuesday
IDF on alert for Hezbollah provocation as Israel, Lebanon said nearing maritime
deal
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on August 22-23/2022
Euro hits 20-year low of $0.9951
Borrell: Answer from Iran to EU Proposal on Nuclear Deal was ‘Reasonable’
Tehran Insists on Expanding its Nuclear Program
Iran Says Prisoner Swap is Unrelated to Nuclear Talks
Zelensky Warns Russia Against Putting Ukraine Soldiers on Trial
Taliban Appoints Former Guantanamo Bay Detainee to Lead Fight in Panjshir
Palestinians Fly to Cyprus in Israeli Airport Pilot Program
Israel Court Rejects Call to Free Palestinian Hunger Striker
More Bodies Pulled from Iraq Shrine after Landslide
Five-Way Summit Anticipated in Egypt
Rival Iranian Kurdish parties reunite after 16-year split
Houthis Step Up UN Truce Violations, Oppressive Campaigns
Titles For The
Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on August 22-23/2022
The high-stake chess match between the US and Iran continues/Omri Nahmaias/FDD/August
22/2022
Iran Is Already Nuclearized, So Why Do We Need a Deal?/Eyal Zisser/Israel
Today/August 22/2022
Tehran’s $1 Trillion Deal: An Updated Forecast of Iran’s Financial Windfall From
a New Nuclear Agreement/Saeed Ghasseminejad/FDD/August 22/2022
What Republicans Should Do if They Win Big This Fall/Oren Cass and Chris
Griswold/The New York Times/August 22/2022
Biden...Summertime Santa Claus?/Sam Menassa/Asharq Al Awsat/August 22/2022
Dugin’s Blood and Putin’s Wounds/Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/August 22/2022
Biden Drops More Crucial Demands to Get Iran Deal/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone
Institute/August 22/2022
Iran Builds Its Own Online ISIS in America/Daniel Greenfield/ Gatestone
Institute/August 22/ 2022
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on August 22-23/2022
Sheik Bashir, 40 years after your
Martyrdom, you are still in our conscience and hearts
Elias Bejjani/August 23/2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/58062/elias-bejjani-bashir-gemayel-is-a-dream-that-will-never-die/
History tells us so clearly that patriotic, national, and religious causes
cannot be killed by assassinating their founders, or those who lobby for them.
In fact, the contrary usually happens.
History shows that major worldwide religions spread after the departure of their
founding leaders. Christianity, for example, spread all over the world after the
crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The Pharisees crucified Jesus, believing his death
would put an end to his new religion. They were disappointed, and Christianity
became the number one religion in the whole world. Luke 12:4 in the Holy Bible
reads, “Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body and can do nothing more.”
On August 23/1982, following in the steps of the Pharisees, Lebanon’s
collaborators joined by some regional tyrants deluded themselves into believing
that assassinating President-elect Sheik Bashir Gemayel, would also kill the
Lebanese cause. They thought killing Bashir would destroy Lebanon’s history and
identity, and sever the Lebanese from their roots.
What happened 2022 years ago, happened again in a way on August 23/1982. History
repeated itself and the contemporary Pharisees were no more lucky than the
Pharisees of the Christ era.
Today the Lebanese cause is known worldwide, and every day more Lebanese
everywhere are committing themselves to it in spite of the hardships and
difficulties.
On the annual anniversary of Bachir’s election as Lebanon’s president on August
23/1982, we renew our vows, and declare again our commitment to Bashir’s cause
and dream, to our national Lebanese identity, to liberation, to basic dignity
and to holy resistance against the occupation.
Bashir’s cause is not dead. It cannot die, will never die as long as one
Lebanese remains committed to Bashir’s patriotic beliefs and loyalty to Lebanon,
to its 7000 years of history and civilization
Bashir’s national dream for Lebanon is not dead, for no criminal can kill dreams
about freedom. Dreams are acts of intellectual imaging and portrayal of
aspirations, objectives and hopes that people endeavour to fulfill in reality.
Bashir’s dream is alive in the hearts and spirits of every patriotic Lebanese
all over the world.
Our deep-rooted Lebanese identity is unique. It was carved by our faithful
ancestors in Lebanon’s mighty mountains, and planted with sweat and blood in its
holy soil throughout seven thousand years of heroism and sacrifices. Generation
after generation, Lebanese have built Lebanon and made it into a fort and oasis
for freedom, and an asylum for the persecuted…. Lebanon may not be a big
country, but it is big in deeds.
For 7000 years Lebanon was successful in surviving with dignity, through
hundreds of invaders, tyrants and conquerors…all were forced to depart defamed
and in humiliation, defamed.
Bashir gave our identity worldwide dimension, and made it a cause and purpose
for each and every Lebanese. Lebanon’s liberation is the aim of every patriotic
Lebanese.
Virtues of dignity and resistance are known characteristics for Lebanon and its
people.
They are deeply rooted in Lebanon’s holy soil, and in the Lebanese minds,
spirits and conscience, as well as in their noble conduct and faith.
Bashir portrayed and personified wisdom, patriotic conduct, courage, national
devotion, leadership traits, and all other distinctive Lebanese virtues. He
carried the liberation torch, never abandoned the Lebanese cause, and became its
martyr. Bashir Gemayel scared those who feared truth, justice and sainthood. He
frightened collaborators, traitors and those who never believed in Lebanon’s
history and identity. He was a nightmare for all Lebanon’s enemies, when he was
alive, and still is years after his assassination.
Sheik Bashir, 40 years after your departure, you are still in our conscience and
hearts. Your dream is still our dream, and we are still fighting for the same
cause. Lebanon is still occupied and the 10452 km2 are not yet liberated. But in
spite of all hardships and difficulties, the torch that you carried is still
held high, and the battle rages. By God’s will, the fight will not cease before
the complete liberation of our Lebanon, the Lebanon that you loved, cherished
and worshipped.
Sheik Bashir, You are alive.
When the Pharisee’s murdered you, only your flesh passed away. And in that
moment your sanctified image was implanted forever into the hearts of your
people. Your heroism was sealed.
Bashir, you speak to the conscience of every Lebanese who believes in Lebanon
and its people. You live on in us, and in our blessed heritage.
Long Live Free Lebanon.
NB: This article was first published in year 2000. This above copy is
republished with slight additions and changes
Gantz says war would be 'tragic' to Lebanon if Hezbollah
attacks Karish
Agence France Presse/August 22/2022
Israel on Monday warned Hezbollah that any attack on its gas assets could spark
war, after the Iran-backed Lebanese group threatened to "sever" Israel's hands
if it taps a disputed offshore field. The warning from Defense Minister Benny
Gantz comes amid lengthy negotiations between Lebanon and Israel to settle a
dispute over their maritime border. Tensions spiked in June when a production
vessel chartered by Israel arrived near the Karish offshore gas field, which
Lebanon claims is within contested waters. Israel said on July 2 that it had
downed three drones launched by Hezbollah towards Karish. Hezbollah leader
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on August 9 that "the hand that reaches for any of
this wealth will be severed."
Asked if any attack by Hezbollah against an Israeli gas field could lead to war,
Gantz said: "Yes, that could trigger a reaction."
"Leading to several days of fighting and to a military campaign. We are strong
and prepared for this scenario, but we don't want it," the minister told
Israel's 103 FM radio station. Gantz said extraction from the gas field would
begin "when it is ready to produce," reaffirming Israel's claim to Karish.
"The State of Israel is both ready to protect its assets and ready to reach a
deal with the Lebanese government, via American mediation, on the Sidon
deposit," he said in reference to another gas field known in Lebanon as Qana.
"I believe that in the future, there will be two gas platforms. One on our side,
one on theirs. And I hope that we do not have to go through another round of
confrontations before then." He added that "war would be a tragedy to
Lebanon."Israel and Hezbollah last fought a devastating conflict in 2006. Israel
and Lebanon remain officially at war, with United Nations peacekeepers
patrolling the land border. Negotiations on the maritime border resumed in 2020,
with the talks stalling before being revived in June.
The initial discussions focused on a disputed area of 860 square kilometers, in
accordance with Lebanon's claims registered at the U.N. in 2011.
Lebanon subsequently requested the area be expanded by a further 1,430 square
kilometers, which includes part of the Karish field that Israel states is within
its exclusive economic zone recognized by the U.N.
Report: Hezbollah might risk war with Israel before border
talks conclude
Naharnet/August 22/2022
"Hezbollah is signaling it might risk war with Israel ahead of conclusion of
maritime border talks," Israeli newspaper Haaretz said. The daily added, in
remarks published Monday, that tensions are rising along Israel's northern
border. Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had threatened anew on Friday
that there would be an "escalation" if Lebanon does not get what it wants in the
sea border negotiations with Israel, accusing U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein of
"wasting time". "His time is running out," Nasrallah said, adding that "the eyes
should be on Karish, the sea border and northern Israel," regardless of the
outcome of the nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers.
President Aoun meets Iraqi Ambassador on farewell visit,
tackles general situation with former Minister Fahmy
NNA/August 22/2022
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, received Iraqi Ambassador to
Lebanon, Haydar Shayyah Barak, on a farewell visit marking the end of his
diplomatic missions in Lebanon.
President Aoun noted the efforts of Ambassador Barak during his stay in Lebanon
in developing bilateral relations between Lebanon and Iraq.
The President also praised the support which Lebanon receives from Iraq,
President, Government and people.
Finally, the President wished Ambassador Barak success in his new tasks.
Former Minister Fahmy:
The President met former Interior Minister, Mohammed Fahmy, and discussed with
him general developments. -- Presidency Press Office
Central bank slashes gasoline subsidies again
Naharnet/August 22/2022
The Central Bank and the Ministry of Energy have informed oil importing
companies that gasoline subsidization will be lowered by another 15% as of the
beginning of this week, LBCI TV reported on Monday. According to the new scheme,
the importing companies will now get 45% of their dollars through the Sayrafa
platform and 55% from the black market. Under the previous scheme, they used to
get 70% of their dollars via Sayrafa and 30% from the black market. Many
stations were closed on Sunday across Lebanon as queues of vehicles formed at
the few open ones. The Central Bank had slashed subsidization by 15% last week.
Report: Lebanon hasn't been informed of imminent deal with
Israel
Naharnet/August 22/2022
Commenting on an Israeli TV report about an imminent border demarcation deal
between Lebanon and Israel, a senior Lebanese political source told Turkey’s
Anatolia news agency that “Lebanon has not been informed of any stance over this
issue until now.” Israel’s Channel 12 had reported Sunday that “the signing of
the sea border demarcation agreement between Lebanon and Israel could take place
next week.” “The maritime border demarcation deal between Lebanon and Israel
will involve an Israeli concession regarding an offshore area in return for a
Lebanese concession over an area that is closer to the shore,” the Israeli
report said.
Bou Saab holds 'lengthy' phone call with Hochstein
Naharnet/August 22/2022
Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab held a lengthy phone call this afternoon with U.S.
mediator Amos Hochstein, during which they demonstrated the course of the
negotiations between Lebanon and Israel over the demarcation of their sea
border, Bou Saab’s press office said. “Hochstein briefed Bou Saab on the outcome
of the latest contacts that he has held with Israeli officials, the last of
which took place a few days ago, stressing to him that he will continue his
communication with the Israeli officials in the coming days,” the press office
said in a statement. Hochstein will also contact Bou Saab anew “within a week to
seek the clarification of some points to pave the way for devising a written
vision of what he discussed in Lebanon during his latest visit,” the statement
added. The statement also said that Bou Saab and Hochstein dismissed all the
latest negative and positive reports about the course of the negotiations as
“speculation that is not based on any information or official stances.”Bou Saab
for his part reiterated Lebanon’s stance, stressing “the need to work within the
acceptable deadlines for the sake of the negotiations.”“We must not exaggerate
positivity nor negativity, seeing as his (Hochstein’s) talks have not ended yet,
especially that Lebanon is negotiating from a position of strength that is
immunized by the unity of the official stance,” the statement said. It also
revealed that Bou Saab has put President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri and
caretaker PM Najib Mikati in the picture of the phone call with Hochstein.
Govt. deadlock continues as Mikati, Bassil exchange blame
Naharnet/August 22/2022
Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati will not replace Energy Minister Walid
Fayyad in a new cabinet line-up reshuffle, Asharq al-Awsat newspaper said. A
political source told the daily, in remarks published Monday, that Mikati would
only replace the economy minister and the minister of the displaced, and would
study President Michel Aoun's suggestion to add six "acceptable" state ministers
to the line-up. Aoun, for his part, accepted the two ministers reshuffle only if
he can name the two new ministers, the daily said. Mikati refused the
suggestion. Mikati and FPM chief Jebran Bassil had been exchanging blame for the
obstruction of the government formation. On Sunday, Mikati had said that the
government will only be formed in accordance with the constitutional principles
between the PM and the President only, in response to two statements issued by
Bassil, both on Sunday, in which he accused the PM of obstructing the government
formation and of dishonesty and corruption. Mikati replied in two separate
statements, holding Bassil accountable for the obstruction of the government
formation in the first, and saying he will no longer reply to Bassil's
accusations in the second.
Bassil slams 'intentional power cuts' as 'crime against the
people'
Naharnet/August 22/2022
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Monday accused rival political
parties of subjecting the people to “intentional power cuts” with the aim of
“spiting” the FPM. “Intentional power cuts are a crime that is being committed
by the state against its people,” Bassil said in a video posted on social media.
“This crime passed through several stages, such as subsidizing electricity by
the 1994 Hariri government, rejecting a tariff hike by several parties, blocking
the electricity plan, specifically by not paying the Deir Amar plant contractor,
parliament’s failure to approve the coastal gas pipeline and the failure to
appoint a regulatory commission,” Bassil added. “They have stopped purchasing
fuel since October 17 (2019) and they have refused to end subsidization and hike
the tariff… This would have spared people the hefty power bills” that are being
paid to neighborhood generator providers, the FPM chief lamented.
“All of this is aimed at spiting us,” he decried. He added: “They don’t have
money to purchase fuel for power plants but they have money to buy fuel for
power generators.”“A crime is being committed against an entire people only to
spite us… How can such officials build a state?” Bassil went on to say.
FPM MP says Mikati to meet Aoun amid 'positive' indications
Naharnet/August 22/2022
Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati will meet with President Michel Aoun this
week to continue discussions over the government formation issue, MP Ghassan
Atallah of the Free Patriotic Movement said on Monday. “Some parties and foreign
interferences have convinced him to cooperate with President Michel Aoun for
formation and there are positive indications,” Atallah said in an interview on
al-Jadeed TV.
Submarine mission off Tripoli postponed due to high waves
Naharnet/August 22/2022
A submarine arrived Monday at Tripoli's port to retrieve a boat that had
capsized last April near the port and dozens of bodies still missing at sea. The
Lebanese Army later announced that high sea waves have forced the postponement
of the submarine's mission until further notice. The high waves could "threaten
the safety of the submarine and its crew," the army said in a statement. The
boat carrying more than 80 migrants had capsized on April 23 off the coast of
Tripoli. Seven bodies were recovered, with 47 people rescued and the others
still missing. Survivors blamed the Lebanese navy of causing the accident by
ramming into the boat. The army denied the accusations and said it was the
migrant boat's captain who carried out dangerous maneuvers leading to the crash
of his vessel into the navy's one. Lebanon requested international assistance to
retrieve the boat. On Wednesday, an exploratory submarine, the Pisces VI,
arrived from Spain to Beirut. It was then transported to Tripoli where it was
assembled to start its mission on Monday morning. The mission aims to
investigate the incident, by extracting evidence. Chief of the Lebanese navy
Haitham Danawi said that the mission might take several days.
Sayyed Nasrallah: We are Convinced in Our Syria War
Involvement, Will Take Part in Any Future One
Batoul Wehbe/Al-Manar English Website/August 23/2022
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah refrained on Monday from
saying anything new regarding the dispute with the Israeli enemy over offshore
gas, saying Hezbollah was holding back and watching them babbling.
“I will not speak of anything new. We have said everything that we should say.
Now we are all waiting. And whoever waited for more than 10 years can wait for a
few more days. No problem. Threats are worthless, and our decision and approach
are clear,” Sayyed Nasrallah said in a televised address as part of a festival,
a holographic panorama, dubbed “The Alphabet of Victory”.
manar-048922800166120235410 (1)“Let’s wait and stay calm. We’re always hearing
threats and the last of which was from (Israeli Defense Minister Benny) Gantz,”
he added.
To us, Sayyed Nasrallah denoted, all of these threats are of no value. “Our
decision, rhetoric and orientation are clear and we are awaiting the coming days
to act accordingly,” he indicated.
Hezbollah’s leader began his speech by hailing the artistic panorama, dubbed
“Alphabet of Victory”, that was performed prior to his speech, narrating the
story of the forty years of the Islamic resistance’s ongoing journey.
“When we speak about the resistance’s 40 years, it must be made clear that we do
not cut the connection with the time before 1982; there is a deep and
fundamental connection to all the efforts, struggles, actions and frameworks
that existed before 1982,” Sayyed Nasrallah said.
“We highly appreciate the efforts of our great scholars in our Islamic arena who
spread awareness and promoted moral virtue,” he said, recounting the scholars
who rallied with the resistance since its emergence, namely Sayyed Mohamad Baqer
Sadr, Sayyed Moussa Sadr, Imam Khomeini, and Sayyed Ali Khameni.
“The victory in 2000 put an end to ‘Greater Israel project’ and shattered the
so-called ‘invincible army’,” the Hezbollah leader pointed.
Sayyed Nasrallah stated that Hezbollah will not give in to any threats regarding
the demarcation of Lebanon’s maritime borders, describing such threats as
worthless. “The latest steadfastness achievement of July War is Hezbollah’s
involvement in the issue of Lebanon’s restoration of its oil and gas rights,”
Hezbollah’s S.G. pointed out.
“We are en route to developing the military infrastructure and capabilities to
keep pace with current developments at the level of weapons and technology,” he
added. Turning to Lebanese issues, Sayyed Nasrallah said the
Army-People-Resistance formula is firm whether it was included in the
ministerial statement or not. He pointed that liberating the remaining occupied
Lebanese territories was a national responsibility.
manar-03213080016611975831“Part of our responsibility in the coming stage is to
establish deterrence equations to protect Lebanon’s land, people and wealth,” he
indicated. “Any effort to liberate Lebanon’s occupied lands is a national
responsibility. Therefore, Israel’s threats about demarcation of Lebanon’s
maritime borders are worthless.”
Sayyed Nasrallah lauded the relations with Amal, saying: Since its
establishment, Hezbollah’s resistance operations against the Israeli invasion
were in cooperation with Amal movement. “One of the achievements is the turnover
of our relation with Amal movement from a negative to a positive, integral one,”
he said.
Regarding the Palestinian cause, Sayyed Nasrallah said it is part of our
nation’s religion, culture, honor and dignity, warning that there is no place
for abandonment or retreat whatsoever. He also specified that Hezbollah has been
maintaining close ties with all resistance groups in Palestine and will continue
to do so. “We have also supported the Palestinian refugees and emphasized their
right to dignified return to Palestine,” he also said.
Sayyed Nasrallah mentioned in his speech the Lebanese chess champion, Nadia
Fawaz, who withdrew from the 4th round of the 28th Abu Dhabi International Chess
Festival to avoid competing with an Israeli contender, following the steps of
Charbel Abou Daher who also withdrew from the 2022 Youth MMA World Championships
to avoid playing against an Israeli opponent for the same reason.
“Our bets are placed on youths like Charbel Abou Daher and Nadia Fawaz who
refused to face Israeli contenders,” Sayyed Nasrallah said, hailing their
courage amid some Arab’s bowing to ‘Israel’. “We had no problem in developing
Lebanon’s relations, especially with Arab states, but some sides want to turn
Lebanon into an inferior, we reject this,” he implied.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Sayyed Nasrallah accused the United States of trying
to fan the flames of civil war in Lebanon by pitting the resistance movement
against the Lebanese army. “There are sides who strive to push the resistance
into a clash with the Lebanese army and security forces, this is a permanent and
publicized American scheme.” However, he made it clear that Hezbollah won’t be
dragged into civil war or sectarian strife.
“Some issues need to be addressed, like the Tayyouneh case due to its deep
connection to civil peace,” he said referring to Tayyouneh clashes last October
where protesters were attacked by Lebanese Forces gunmen.
Sayyed Nasrallah promised that in the coming stage Hezbollah will be keen on
developing and consolidating the understanding with the Free Patriotic Movement.
“Our prime issue during the next stage is cooperating with various political
powers in order to build a just and capable state,” he also said. “We look
forward towards a state that does not yield to the American embassy’s pressure
and to any other embassy or foreign dominance.”
Syria took good part in His eminence’s speech. He praised it as the basis for
the Resistance Axis and the steadfastness front, and a partner in the refusal to
surrender to Israeli conditions. He further said that the support for Syria is
permanent and will never waiver. “Syria is the cornerstone of the resistance
front and our partner in refusing to surrender to Israeli conditions,” he said.
Day after day we grow more convinced in our choice and decision to get involved
in Syria’s War, he said, warning that “If Syria is exposed to any similar
attack, we will not hesitate in getting involved in that confrontation.”
Sayyed Nasrallah voiced optimism in the resistance capabilities, saying: We are
optimistic in regards to the balances of strengths and weaknesses which are in
favor of the resistance axis. “We will remain part of the resistance axis, we
bet on it as an ultimate power capable of facing hegemony schemes and securing
sanctities. We have always stood by the oppressed people of the region,
including in Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan and will also do this in the future,”
he ended up saying.
MoPH: 980 new Coronavirus infections, four deaths
NNA/August 22/2022
Lebanon has recorded 980 new coronavirus cases and four deaths in the last 24
hours, as reported by the Ministry of Public Health on Monday.
ISF’s Osman talks cooperation with US embassy delegation
NNA/August 22/2022
Internal Security Forces General Director, Major General Imad Osman, on Monday
welcomed US Embassy’s Chargé d'Affairs in Lebanon, Mr. Richard Michaels,
accompanied by Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement Office Director at the US
Embassy, Mr. David Atkinson. The meeting had been an occasion to discuss the
best means to strengthen cooperation between both sides.
Mawlawi meets Sovereign Front for Lebanon delegation,
several lawmakers, tackles latest developments with UN’s Wronecka
NNA/August 22/2022
Caretaker Minister of Interior and Municipalities, Judge Bassam Mawlawi, on
Monday welcomed in his office at the Ministry, a delegation from the Sovereign
Front for Lebanon. Caretaker Minister Mawlawi also met with the UN Special
Coordinator for Lebanon, Joanna Wronecka, over the latest developments in
Lebanon and the region. Mawlawi also received MPs Mark Daou and Najat Aoun, with
whom he discussed the current general situation, in addition to an array of
developmental and environmental affairs. Separately, Mawlawi met with MP Hasan
Murad, with discussions reportedly touching on issues related to west Beqa
region.The Caretaker Minister also met with MP Razi Al-Hajj, with whom he
discussed the municipalities' implementation of the Public Procurement Law..
Judges to meet in general assembly at Beirut Justice Palace
on Tuesday
NNA/August 22/2022
Judges will convene in a general assembly at the Beirut Justice Palace at 11:00
am tomorrow, at the behest of the Higher Judicial Council, to discuss the work
stoppage announced by a large number of judges, our correspondent reported on
Monday.
IDF on alert for Hezbollah provocation as Israel, Lebanon said nearing
maritime deal
Ash Obel/The Times Of Israel/August 22/2022
Lebanese terror group may attempt to sabotage negotiations over disputed
offshore gas fields, as Lebanon official reportedly says an agreement is ‘very
close’
Israel’s security forces are on high alert near the northern border amid fears
the Hezbollah terror group may attempt to carry out an attack in order to
sabotage talks between Israel and Lebanon on a maritime border dispute, with the
sides said to be nearing an agreement.
Israel and Lebanon have been engaged for over a year in rare US-brokered talks
aimed at resolving a dispute over rights to offshore fields thought to hold
riches of natural gas. Both countries claim some 860 square kilometers (330
square miles) of the Mediterranean Sea. Lebanon also claims that the Karish gas
field is in disputed territory under ongoing maritime border negotiations, while
Israel says it lies within its internationally recognized economic waters.
Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based Shiite terror group backed by Iran, has vociferously
opposed any concessions in the talks with Israel. Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah,
has consistently threatened to target Israeli offshore installations. In July,
the IDF said it downed three Hezbollah drones launched at a gas rig in one of
the disputed fields. Israeli defense officials fear Nasrallah may be seeking to
provoke Israel one more time in hopes of getting credit for any Israeli
concessions before a deal is signed, Channel 12 news reported, without citing a
source. The report said the two sides are close to signing an agreement. Amos
Yadlin, the former head of Israel’s intelligence, warned Sunday that Hezbollah
was becoming overconfident in its provocations.
The terror group was at risk of overplaying its hand and sparking a conflict
with Israel, similar to the buildup ahead of the last war between Israel and
Hezbollah in 2006, he said. An unnamed Lebanese official was quoted by Russia’s
Sputnik news outlet on Sunday saying Beirut was still waiting for Israel’s
answer to its last proffer, but was optimistic there would be a deal next month.
“We are very close to reaching an agreement on the demarcation of the maritime
border with Israel,” the unnamed Lebanese official was quoted by the
semi-official Russian outlet as saying. “The border demarcation issue will be
concluded in September,” the source said. US envoy to the deal Amos Hochstein
said earlier this month that he was “optimistic” about the deal, and Lebanon’s
foreign minister late last month said he was more bullish than ever about
negotiations. The dispute over the maritime border is more than a decade old. In
2012, Lebanon rejected an American proposal to receive 550 square kilometers
(212 square miles), or almost two-thirds of the area, while Israel would have
received the remaining third. The disputed area covers the Karish gas field and
the Qana field. Lebanon and Israel last fought a war in 2006, have no diplomatic
relations and are separated by a UN-patrolled ceasefire line. They resumed
negotiations over their maritime frontier in 2020 but the process was stalled by
Beirut’s claim that the map used by the UN in the talks needed modifying.
Lebanon badly needs an agreement over the maritime border in the Mediterranean
as it hopes to exploit offshore gas reserves to try and alleviate what has
become the worst economic crisis in its modern history. Israel maintains
sovereignty over the Karish gas field and has been seeking to develop the field
as it tries to position itself as a natural gas supplier to Europe.
In June, Israel, Egypt, and the European Union signed a memorandum of
understanding in Cairo that will see Israel export its natural gas to the bloc
for the first time.
*Agencies and TOI staff contributed to this report.
The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on August 22-23/2022
Euro hits 20-year low of $0.9951
Agence France Presse/Monday, 22 August,
2022
The euro pushed further below parity with the dollar on Monday, hitting its
lowest level since 2002, the year it came into physical circulation, as
recession fears mounted. The euro was down 0.84 percent to $0.9951 at 1525 GMT .
Borrell: Answer from Iran to EU Proposal on Nuclear Deal was
‘Reasonable’
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 22 August, 2022
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday that a response
from Iran to the EU's latest proposal on a nuclear deal with the US was "reasonable"."There
was a proposal from me as coordinator of the negotiations... and a response from
Iran that I considered reasonable. It was transmitted to the United States which
has not yet responded formally," he told a university event in the northern
Spanish city of Santander. Borrell was referring to a response sent last week by
Iran to the latest proposal of the European Union for updating a 2015 nuclear
deal with Tehran after 16 months of indirect US-Iranian talks. Iran responded to
the EU's text with "additional views and considerations", while calling on
Washington to show flexibility to resolve three remaining issues. The United
States last week said it was studying Iran’s response. "The Americans are
procrastinating and there is inaction from the European sides...America and
Europe need an agreement more than Iran," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson
Nasser Kanaani told a news conference.
Tehran Insists on Expanding its Nuclear Program
London - Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 22 August, 2022
The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Mohammad Eslami, has
voiced Tehran’s ambitions for continuing to expand its nuclear program at a time
when the cleric-led country’s parliament is demanding lifting sanctions imposed
on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. For his part, US President Joe Biden has
affirmed the need to curb Iran’s regional activity. His remarks found European
support. Eslami said that major powers “began the nuclear agreement by
sabotaging and questioning the infrastructure of the nuclear program.” He also
noted that the West has asked Iran to destroy all its nuclear energies. “We face
illogical and arrogant views of this kind,” said Eslami. Iran’s nuclear chief
said Iran wields less than 2% of the global nuclear capacity but is subject to
25% of all inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to
government news agency ISNA.
Speaking at an Education Ministry conference, the AEOI chief added that nuclear
energy has nothing to do with an A-bomb and enables key scientific achievements.
He said a case in point is Iran’s ongoing work on molecular research on heavy
water, which led to production of newborn screening drops in the recent months.
He also talked about the unveiling of the strategic development document of the
AEOI back in March. Eslami said the document calls for training of at least
20,000 experts in the nuclear field in the next 20 years and how nuclear
technology can affect different dimensions of people’s ordinary life. Eslami’s
remarks were directed at the possible steps that Western parties might demand of
Iran if talks reached a deal to revive the nuclear agreement. His statements
also come three weeks after he said that “Iran has the technical ability to
produce an atomic bomb, but it does not intend to do so.”
Iran Says Prisoner Swap is Unrelated to Nuclear Talks
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 22 August, 2022
Iran accused the United States on Monday of "procrastinating" in indirect talks
aimed at reinstating Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal, and said a prisoner swap with
Washington was not linked to the negotiations. After 16 months of fitful,
indirect US-Iranian talks, with European Union officials shuttling between the
sides, a senior EU official said on Aug. 8 it had laid down a "final" offer and
expected a response within a "very, very few weeks." Iran last week responded to
the EU's text with "additional views and considerations", while calling on
Washington to show flexibility to resolve three remaining issues. The United
States last week said it was studying Iran’s response. "The Americans are
procrastinating and there is inaction from the European sides...America and
Europe need an agreement more than Iran," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson
Nasser Kanaani told a news conference.
Reuters quoted Kanaani as saying that Tehran wanted a sustainable deal that
would preserve Tehran's legitimate rights". "Until we agree on all issues, we
cannot say that we have reached a complete agreement," he said. Meanwhile, the
United States has repeatedly called on Tehran to release several
Iranian-Americans held in Iran on security charges. Iran has demanded several
Iranians detained on charges linked to US sanctions to be freed."We emphasize
that the exchange of prisoners with Washington is a separate issue and it has
nothing to do with the process of negotiations to revive the 2015 pact," Kanaani
said, adding that Tehran was ready to swap prisoners. In 2018, then-President
Donald Trump reneged on the deal reached before he took office, calling it too
soft on Iran, and reimposed harsh US sanctions, prompting Tehran to begin
breaching the pact's nuclear curbs. "We seek a good agreement which would
guarantee Iran's national interests and would be long-lasting...We won't be
bitten twice," Kanaani said. The 2015 agreement appeared on the verge of revival
in March after 11 months of indirect talks between Tehran and US President Joe
Biden's administration in Vienna. But talks broke down over obstacles such as
Tehran's demand that Washington provide guarantees that no US president would
abandon the deal as Trump did. However, President Joe Biden cannot provide such
ironclad assurances because the deal is a political understanding rather than a
legally binding treaty.
Zelensky Warns Russia Against Putting Ukraine Soldiers
on Trial
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 22 August, 2022
Russia might take the provocative step of putting Ukrainian soldiers on trial as
Kyiv marks 31 years of independence for the war-ravaged country next week,
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Sunday. Zelensky cited media
reports that Russia was preparing to put Ukrainian fighters captured during the
siege of Mariupol on a public trial to coincide with the independence
anniversary Wednesday. Ukraine's Independence Day, August 24, will also mark six
months since Russia invaded the former Soviet republic, in a devastating war
that has cost thousands of lives. "If this despicable court takes place, if our
people are brought into these settings in violation of all agreements, all
international rules, there will be abuse," Zelensky warned in an evening
address. "This will be the line beyond which no negotiations are possible." The
capital Kyiv has already announced a ban on public gatherings. Kharkiv too,
declared a curfew around the holiday. Zelensky was returning to a subject he had
already raised in the previous night's remarks. "Russia could try to do
something particularly disgusting, particularly cruel," he warned late Saturday.
"One of the key objectives of the enemy is to humiliate us," and "to sow
despondency, fear and conflict". But he added: "We have to be strong enough to
resist all provocation" and "make the occupiers pay for their terror". Zelenskiy
said Sunday he had discussed "all the threats" with French President Emmanuel
Macron and word had also been sent to other leaders including Turkish President
Tayyip Erdogan and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. "All of Ukraine's
partners have been informed about what the terrorist state can prepare for this
week," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address, referring to Russia.
Taliban Appoints Former Guantanamo Bay Detainee to Lead
Fight in Panjshir
Bill Roggio /FDD's Long War Journal/August 22/2022
The Taliban named Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir as its military commander in the
restive central Afghan province of Panjshir. Zakir, who was held at the
Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility for six years, is considered to be one of the
Taliban’s most effective and dangerous military commanders.
Zakir’s appointment to lead the fight against the National Resistance Front (NRF)
in Panjshir and the district of Andarab in the neighboring province of Baghlan
was announced on Aug. 21 by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.
The Taliban’s naming of Zakir to combat the National Resistance Front, which is
led by Ahmad Massoud, is a clear indication that the NRF is challenging the
Taliban’s primacy in central and northern Afghanistan. FDD’s Long War Journal
has compiled information on the fighting, and assesses seven districts as
contested (four in Panjshir, two in Baghlan, and one in Takhar) and 14 more as
having significant guerrilla activity. Zakir, who is
also known as Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, was captured in Afghanistan in December of
2001 and transferred to Afghanistan six years later in December of 2007. He
quickly rejoined the Taliban and was appointed to senior positions in the
Taliban’s military structure in the south. After he
was released by the Afghan government in 2008, Zakir served as the head of the
Taliban’s Gerdi Jangal Regional Military Shura, a military command that oversaw
operations in Helmand and Nimroz provinces. In this capacity, he worked closely
with Al Qaeda.Zakir led the fight against the U.S. surge in the south, and in
2010 was appointed as the head of the Taliban’s military commission. He resigned
in 2014 but remained on the Taliban’s Quetta Shura and led military forces in
the south. Zakir played a key role in organizing the Taliban’s military and
directing its strategy of contesting and seizing rural districts in the south in
preparation for the Taliban’s push to take control of the population centers in
the summer of 2021.
In 2020, Zakir was appointed to serve as a deputy to military commission chief
Mullah Yacoub, the son of Mullah Omar who also serves as one of the Taliban’s
two deputy emirs along with Sirajuddin Haqqani. After the Taliban takeover of
Afghanistan on Aug. 15, 2021, Zakir was appointed as the Taliban’s deputy
minister of defense. For more information on Mullah
Zakir, see LWJ reports, The Taliban’s surge commander was Gitmo detainee and The
Taliban’s surge commander was Gitmo detainee.
*Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and
the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
Palestinians Fly to Cyprus in Israeli Airport Pilot Program
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 22 August, 2022
Several dozen Palestinians flew to Cyprus on Monday from an airport in southern
Israel as part of a pilot program to allow Palestinians from the occupied West
Bank to fly abroad. The move was part of a series of gestures Israel said it is
making to improve living conditions of Palestinians in both the occupied West
Bank and the Gaza Strip. Critics said the measures do not address the daily
humiliations of the decades-long occupation or pave the road for Palestinian
statehood. Forty-three residents of the West Bank cities of Bethlehem, Jericho,
Ramallah and Nablus took off from Ramon Airport heading to Larnaca, Cyprus, said
Amir Assi, a strategic consultant who coordinated the flights, The Associated
Press reported. COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for governing civil
affairs in the West Bank, confirmed that Palestinians boarded an international
flight from Ramon Airport for the first time and that “staff work is still under
way” to facilitate regular flights for Palestinians. The recently opened Ramon
Airport is located near Israel’s resort city of Eilat, about 230 kilometers (140
miles) south of Jerusalem. It is smaller than Israel’s Ben-Gurion International
Airport outside Tel Aviv, has fewer flights and destinations and is less busy.
Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip do not have their own airport and
must apply for a hard-to-obtain airport permit to use the Ben Gurion airport.
Such permits are only approved, if at all, shortly before takeoff. Those in the
West Bank wishing to fly abroad must travel to Jordan’s capital of Amman through
a crowded Israeli border crossing. The crossing isn’t open 24 hours a day,
forcing many travelers to pay to stay in a hotel nearby ahead of their flight.
There are also travel costs and crossing fees that make the journey an added
financial burden. The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli blockade since the
militant Hamas group seized power in 2007, and all movement in and out of the
territory is heavily restricted. The airport authority said earlier this month
that there would be twice weekly flights for Palestinians from Ramon to Antalya,
Turkey, later in August and that flights to Istanbul would begin in September.
Israel captured both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war,
and the Palestinians seek them for a future state. There have not been
substantive peace talks in over a decade.
Israel Court Rejects Call to Free Palestinian Hunger Striker
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 22 August, 2022
Israel's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal to release a Palestinian detainee
who has been on a hunger strike for several months to protest his detention
without charge. Khalil Awawdeh, 40, is protesting being jailed without charge or
trial under what Israel refers to as administrative detention. His family says
he has been on a hunger strike for 170 days, subsisting only on water. A photo
of Awawdeh taken by his lawyer on Saturday shows him appearing frail and lying
in a hospital bed, The Associated Press reported. The court on Sunday rejected
an appeal by the lawyer, Ahlam Haddad, calling for Awawdeh’s immediate release
due to his failing medical condition. The Israeli military arrested Awawdeh in
December 2021, claiming he was an operative for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad
militant group — an allegation that his lawyer has dismissed. Awawdeh is one of
several Palestinian prisoners who have gone on prolonged hunger strikes over the
past years to protest Israel's policy of administrative detention. Israel is
currently holding some 4,400 Palestinian prisoners, including militants who have
carried out deadly attacks, as well as people arrested at protests or for
throwing stones. Around 670 Palestinians are currently being held in
administrative detention, a number that jumped in March as Israel began
near-nightly arrest raids in the occupied West Bank following a spate of deadly
attacks against Israelis. Awawdeh’s family says he has not eaten food since
March, when he began his hunger strike. Last week, Haddad said her client's
condition was deteriorating and filed the petition to the country's Supreme
Court after an Israeli military court rejected a request for his release. In
light of Awawdeh's condition, the Israeli military has suspended his
administrative detention while he is hospitalized, allowing family to visit him.
The court said in its ruling on Sunday that after examining the classified
security information about Awawdeh, there was “solid and strong justification
for the decision of administrative detention" and said it hoped that the
suspension of the detention would “motivate him to accept the decision to end
the hunger strike.”
More Bodies Pulled from Iraq Shrine after Landslide
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 22 August, 2022
Two bodies were recovered on Monday from a shrine in Iraq's Karbala province
after a landslide caused it to partially collapse, bringing the overall toll to
seven dead, rescue services said. "Unfortunately, we found this morning two
bodies, a man and a woman", under the rubble of Qattarat al-Imam Ali, Jawdat
Abdelrahman, director of the civil defense media department, told AFP. So far,
the bodies retrieved from the site were a child, four women and two men, while
three children had been rescued and rushed to hospital. "We are continuing the
search for other victims," Abdelrahman said, adding that eyewitnesses said that
the body of another woman was still under the rubble. Civil defense spokesman
Nawas Sabah Shaker had said on Sunday that between six and eight pilgrims had
been reported trapped under the debris of the shrine, near the Shiite holy city
of Karbala. Rescue workers had searched for two days after the shrine, which
sits at the base of high, bare rock walls, was partially buried when earthen
embankments collapsed due to saturation from humidity, according to the civil
defense.
Five-Way Summit Anticipated in Egypt
Cairo - Mohammed Nabil Helmi/Monday, 22 August, 2022
Arab and regional observers have turned their eyes towards Egypt’s northwestern
coastal city of New Alamein, where the North African state is expected to hold a
five-way summit that will see the participation of leaders from Egypt, the UAE,
Jordan, Bahrain, and Iraq.Meanwhile, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al
Nahyan held a summit in New Alamein with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi
on Sunday to discuss bilateral cooperation as well as a host of regional and
international issues. The two leaders also agreed during the summit on the
importance of bolstering Arab joint efforts to confront common challenges facing
the Arab World, Egypt's presidential spokesman Bassam Rady said in a statement.
They called for coordinated efforts to find long-term solutions to regional
crises to bring about security, stability and peace for the region and its
peoples, it added. They also vowed to strengthen the strategic partnership
between the two countries, especially on the economy and development, to support
their aspirations towards achieving sustainable development, progress and
prosperity, according to the statement. Local Egyptian media, including the
semi-official channel Extra News, quoted a source it described as “informed”
that “the leaders of Egypt, the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain and Iraq will hold an
upcoming summit in the city of New Alamein.” However, the source did not specify
the date. Extra News reported that the quint summit will be held upon the
invitation of Sisi and under the framework of coordination among nations. The
summit chiefly aims to serve common Arab work and promote Arab-Arab relations in
the face of international and regional challenges. In the past few months,
meetings of several Arab leaders were held in different locations. In June,
Egypt, Bahrain, and Jordan agreed in a summit held in Sharm El-Sheikh on the
importance of strengthening ties between the three nations to “the highest
levels”, especially amid the international and regional challenges. During the
summit, Sisi said Egypt aspires to further cooperation with Bahrain and Jordan
to achieve the common interests of the peoples of the three nations as well as
boost joint Arab action, particularly amid great challenges of multiple regional
and international developments. The Bahraini and Jordanian kings praised "the
inextricable" ties binding the three countries, stressing their keenness to
elevate cooperation with Egypt to the level of strategic partnership.
Rival Iranian Kurdish parties reunite after 16-year
split
Agence France Presse/Monday, 22 August, 2022
Two rival Iranian Kurdish opposition parties based in northern Iraq have
announced in a joint statement their reunification 16 years after they split
over internal disputes. Negotiations between the Kurdish Democratic Party of
Iran (KDPI) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iran -- both banned in the
Islamic republic -- "led to the party's reunification", said the statement
issued late Sunday. Formed in 1945, the KDPI is the oldest Iranian Kurdish
party, but most of its members are based in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan
region. The party had led an insurgency against the Iranian authorities since
the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and it continues to oppose them from exile.
Assassinations have targeted several leaders of the party, which Tehran
considers a "terrorist" organisation. In 2006, internal disputes led to a
faction of the KDPI splitting off and forming the Kurdistan Democratic
Party-Iran.
Their reunification "is a new stage in the struggle against the regime of the
Islamic Republic of Iran and the mentality that denies Iran's ethnic pluralism
and the rights of different peoples", the statement said. In July, Iran's
Revolutionary Guards said they had arrested suspected "terrorists" in the
country's northwest, saying they belonged to Kurdish separatist groups based in
northern Iran. Tehran has previously accused "counter-revolutionary" groups in
northern Iraq of staging attacks on its territory. In September 2018, Tehran
struck the KDPI's headquarters in northern Iraq, near the border with Iran,
killing 15 people.
Houthis Step Up UN Truce Violations, Oppressive Campaigns
Aden - Ali Rabih/Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 22 August, 2022
Houthi militias insist on stepping up violations of the UN-sponsored military
and humanitarian truce. Their attacks on different fronts coincided with the
Iran-backed group waging an aggravated campaign of oppression in Sanaa and other
areas under its control, local and human rights sources reported.
“Houthi militias committed 230 violations of the UN armistice between 19-20
August on the fronts of the governorates of Hodeidah, Taiz, Al-Dhalea, Hajjah,
Saada, Al-Jawf and Marib,” Yemeni army media reported on Sunday. In total, at
least 72 violations were reported in Hodeidah, 77 in Taiz, 40 in Hajjah, 26 in
Marib, 10 in al-Jawf, three in Al-Dhale and two in Saada. Military media
confirmed that army forces, during the past hours, had succeeded in repelling an
infiltration attempt by armed groups affiliated with the terrorist Houthi
militia at military sites east of Al-Hazm city in Al-Jawf Governorate. The rest
of the Houthi violations varied between shooting at army positions with
artillery, deploying snipers and launching explosive drones. Houthi assaults
resulted in the death of one soldier and the injury of 11 others. Yemeni
military media also accused Houthi militias of continuing to create sites, dig
trenches, construct secondary roads, and deploy reconnaissance drones on various
battlefronts. The Yemeni government blames the deaths and injuries of more than
a thousand people on Houthi truce violations. It is noteworthy that the truce
went into effect on the second of last April. Moreover, Houthi militias have
been accused last week of committing 467 violations to the UN-brokered truce
over the span of five days. This included 122 violations in Hodeida’s Hais, 94
in south, west and north-west of Marib, 85 in Taiz, 82 in Barh, 51 in west
Hajjah, 21 in Jawf warfronts, eight in Dhale and four violations in Saadah,
according to Yemen’s state news agency SABA. Militia members have been accused
of trying to infiltrate military positions in Marib and the western coast,
opening fire and shelling army positions in all warfronts. Reports suggest
bomb-laden drones were also directed at army positions killing 13 military
personnel and injuring 27 others.
The Latest LCCC English analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on August 22-23/2022
The high-stake chess match between the US and Iran continues
Omri Nahmaias/FDD/August 22/2022
WASHINGTON AFFAIRS: Despite the hardships of forming a new Nuclear Deal, nobody
wants to walk away.
It’s the deal that nobody is willing to walk away from because keeping the
specter of its survival alive serves the interests of all involved. Ever since
then-president Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran,
it’s been on life support. And nobody seems willing to finally pull the plug.
The European Union and United States said on Tuesday they were studying Iran’s
response to what the EU has called its “final” proposal to save the agreement,
after Tehran called on Washington to show flexibility.
Ned Price, the US State Department spokesman, said the US was sharing its views
on Iran’s response with the EU after receiving Tehran’s comments from the bloc.
“We are engaged in consultations with the EU as well as with our European allies
on the way ahead,” he said at a press briefing on Wednesday. “We ultimately
agree with the bottom-line proposition of High Representative Borrell. The
reason he put forward this proposal in the first place was out of recognition
that what could be negotiated has been negotiated. The high representative, and
the way in which he has handled this process, has certainly narrowed the scope
of that conversation. It has crystallized the decision for Iran.”
He went on to say that the US is confident that a mutual return to compliance
with the JCPOA “remains the best and really the most effective means by which to
once again verifiably and permanently constrain Iran’s nuclear program.”
After 16 months of fitful, indirect US-Iranian talks, with the EU shuttling
between the parties, a senior EU official said on August 8 the bloc had laid
down a “final” offer and expected a response within a “very, very few weeks.”
Iran responded to the proposal late on Monday, but none of the parties provided
any details. Earlier on Monday, Iran’s foreign minister called on the US to show
flexibility to resolve three remaining issues, suggesting Tehran’s response
would not be a final acceptance or rejection.
Iran has made demands the United States and other Western powers view as outside
the scope of reviving the deal, such as insisting the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) drop its claims Iran has failed to fully explain uranium
traces at several undeclared sites.
Diplomats and officials have told Reuters that whether or not Tehran and
Washington accept the EU’s “final” offer, neither is likely to declare the pact
dead, because keeping it alive serves both sides’ interests.
The question is whether the Iranians are truly seeking to rejoin the 2015
agreement, or it is merely a tactic to buy more time.
Is a deal still possible?
AFTER MORE than a year of negotiations, Washington experts remain skeptical.
Dov Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies. Zakheim, former undersecretary of defense during the George W. Bush
administration, and former deputy undersecretary of defense for planning and
resources during the Reagan administration, said that Iran is playing what it
thinks is a win-win game.
“If the US agrees to compensate Iran in the event that a future president walks
from the deal, Iran wins,” he said. “If the IAEA investigation into the Iranian
nuclear program is stopped, Iran wins. If the Revolutionary Guard Corps is taken
off the terrorist list, Iran wins. And if the deal collapses and Iran proceeds
with its nuclear weapons program, Iran wins that one, too.”
The West should make its current offer “take it or leave it,” Zakheim said.
“Iran will proceed with its clandestine nuclear weapons program whether there is
or is not a deal.”
Dennis Ross, a distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, said that the Iranians “are always about tactics.
“They believe that pressure works on us and the Europeans,” he said. “Their
advancing nuclear program is a pressure tactic that has already made them a
threshold nuclear power state. They continue to want to see what more they can
get—[for example], get the IAEA investigations of the three sites where traces
of uranium were found dropped, and be able to keep their excess enriched uranium
in-country – as opposed to having to ship it outside – as a hedge against the US
again withdrawing from the deal.
“So they can be using pressure as a tactic and still want to have a deal,” said
Ross.
“Our response should be twofold: build pressure ourselves, by making it clear
that if the Iranians don’t agree by a certain designated time, we will up the
pressure on them – [for example,] tighten enforcement of sanctions by closing
loopholes, withdraw our recognition that they have the right to enrich uranium.”
Dennis Ross
Elliott Abrams, senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, said that he
believes that the Iranians are willing to make a deal if they get what they want
out of it, and it looks as if that may now happen.
“They are tough negotiators, and right now they are trying to see if they can
squeeze some more out of the United States,” he said.
“My greatest concern is that the United States appears ready to abandon the
insistence on disclosures about the previous military work by Iran,” said
Abrams. “Iran has stonewalled the IAEA, and if we sign an agreement without
insisting on answers, Iran will have won this negotiation and we will have
abandoned the IAEA. The method of doing this will be to say that that whole
question of previous military work by Iran is between Iran and the IAEA and
should not hold up a deal among the governments in question. It would be a great
mistake, and it would be shameful and quite dangerous.”
Last week, the US Department of Justice charged a member of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps with attempting to hire hit men to murder former
national security advisor John Bolton in an apparent retaliation attempt for the
January 2020 assassination of IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani.
Shahram Poursafi, also known as Mehdi Rezayi, a resident of Tehran, attempted to
pay individuals in the US $300,000 to murder Bolton in Washington, DC, or
Maryland on behalf of the Quds Force, according to court documents.
In a separate incident last week, acclaimed author Salman Rushdie suffered
serious wounds when he was repeatedly stabbed at a public appearance in New York
state.
The accused attacker, 24-year-old Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, said he
respected Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini but would not say if he was inspired by a
fatwa issued by the former Iranian leader, according to a New York Post
interview published on Wednesday.
Matar also told the New York Post he had only “read a couple of pages” of
Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.
Rushdie, 75, was set to deliver a lecture on artistic freedom at the western New
York venue when police say 24-year-old Matar rushed the stage and stabbed the
Indian-born writer on Friday last week.
“I respect the ayatollah. I think he’s a great person. That’s as far as I will
say about that,” the tabloid cited Matar as saying in a video interview from the
Chautauqua County Jail.
Some experts suggest that the US should take these incidents into account when
considering the final stages of the deal. “We do not yet know if the attack on
Salman Rushdie was an official act by Iran, but we know if they have been trying
to kill former high officials,” said Abrams. “I would have suspended the
negotiations until it was very clear that they had desisted from those efforts.
By going forward as if those threats did not exist, we send a message to Iran
that this conduct is acceptable.”
Richard Goldberg, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in
Washington, said that the US and its European partners should cut off talks “and
take decisive action in retaliation for ongoing terror plots against the US
homeland.”
“The Security Council should complete its snapback of sanctions to take away the
JCPOA sunsets once and for all, and the IAEA Board of Governors should find Iran
in noncompliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,” said Goldberg.
“It’s appalling that the White House appears to be limiting the information flow
on the Rushdie attacker,” he continued. “Why do we not have any information yet
on the attacker’s contacts with the IRGC? Following the Bolton plot, if the
attack on Rushdie links back to Tehran, we need to be honest that the Iranians
are committing acts of war against the United States. You don’t respond to
terrorism and acts of war by offering money.”
He went on to say that the Iranians are trying to keep the door open to a deal
on their terms.
“If the Americans cave, they’ll say yes. If the Americans hold out, they’re
positioning themselves to say we tried but the US side balked,” he said.
*Reuters contributed to this report.
إيال زيسر/إسرائيل اليوم: إيران مسلحة نووياً بالفعل،
فلماذا نحتاج إلى عقد صفقة معها؟
Iran Is Already Nuclearized, So Why Do We Need a Deal?
Eyal Zisser/Israel Today/August 22/2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/111403/eyal-zisser-israel-today-iran-is-already-nuclearized-so-why-do-we-need-a-deal-%d8%a5%d9%8a%d8%a7%d9%84-%d8%b2%d9%8a%d8%b3%d8%b1-%d8%a5%d8%b3%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%a6%d9%8a%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%8a%d9%88/
It’s no longer a question of keeping the ayatollahs from developing a nuclear
bomb, but of buying time to prepare for a nuclear Iran.
(JNS) The international community under the leadership of the US appears to be
closing in on signing a new nuclear deal with Iran. On both sides of the
negotiating table, there are those who are taking care to create a thick
smokescreen to “confuse the enemy.” Sadly, the enemy, in their eyes, isn’t
Tehran, but those who oppose a deal with it—primarily Israel.
But the fog of battle eventually clears. Over the past few days, it’s become
clear that, despite reports that both sides of the talks were digging in their
heels to the point of an impasse and even a crisis, they are in fact nearing a
decision.
From the first moment of Joe Biden’s presidency, his administration has openly
stated that it is determined to reach a deal at almost any price, one that will
allow the US to close the “Iran file” and detach itself from the problems of the
Middle East.
The Iranians, for their part, want a deal that will bring them sanctions relief.
But they are less enthusiastic about a deal than the Americans, which is why
they are making exorbitant demands with which the Americans will apparently
comply.
There are some officials in Iran, particularly in the radical wing of its
leadership, who see Iran’s isolation from the world and the atmosphere of siege
the West has imposed on it as a blessing. There’s nothing like the sense of the
entire world being against Iran to ensure the survival of the ayatollah regime
and garner popular support for it.
In any case, the West is repeating the mistakes it made with the Taliban, Saddam
Hussein’s Iraq and Russia in assuming that economic sanctions have the power to
bring down a regime or force it to change its policies.
In effect, the Iranians are dragging their feet, not only a negotiating tactic,
but also because of their supreme leader’s dilemma—does Iran need a deal at all?
It’s a good question. Why, in fact, does there have to be a deal? No one
disputes that the Iranians have made major progress toward nuclear weapons in
recent years. Attempts to stop it have slowed Iran’s progress and bought
precious time to prepare for what may be inevitable—a nuclear Iran.
It’s clear that the Iranians need more time to develop a bomb, and even more
time to develop the capability to deliver it. But this process cannot be
reversed, and in any case, Iranian announcements of nuclear capabilities, even
without “proof,” are enough to send the region into a panic.
The new proposal asks Iran to sit quietly and not “tell the world” that it has
nuclear capabilities. For the Iranians, this is neither a plus nor a minus. A
deal will allow them to retain everything they have achieved thus far. They’ll
make it to a nuclear bomb in any case, although we can assume that, in the
meantime, they’ll prefer to maintain ambiguity and avoid any provocative step
that is not necessary to their battle with Israel for regional hegemony.
But experience teaches us that a radical, aggressive power such as Iran cannot
be stopped by smiles, bribes or deals that give us quiet for a time but do not
lead to any true change of direction. After all, the forces of evil always
aspire to achieve power and show it off, and when it comes to the nuclear
question, Iran’s reasoning is that only power will ensure its survival and
future. The Iranian bomb hasn’t been neutralized, and even if the countdown
slows, things will one day come to a head.
*Eyal Zisser is a lecturer in the Middle East History Department at Tel Aviv
University.
*This article was originally published by Israel Hayom.
Tehran’s $1 Trillion Deal: An Updated Forecast of Iran’s
Financial Windfall From a New Nuclear Agreement
Saeed Ghasseminejad/FDD/August 22/2022
سعيد قاسمينجاد/مؤسسة الدفاع عن الديموقراطية: صفقة طهران النووية ستزود نظام
الملالي الإرهابي بتريليون دولار… توقعات محدثة للمكاسب المالية الإيرانية المفاجئة
من الأتفاقية النووية الجديدة
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/111399/111399/
European and American diplomats say negotiations over the fate of the nuclear
deal with Iran have reached their final stage. As a series of previous FDD
publications have shown, the new nuclear deal would allow Tehran to access up to
$275 billion in financial benefits during its first year in effect and $1
trillion by 2030. This essay revisits those forecasts and updates them.
Because of Tehran’s refusal to sign a deal and the emergence of new data over
the past few months, some assumptions underlying the previous forecast have
changed slightly. However, the calculations show that the deal’s total value
remains very close to the previous estimate. The new deal would give the Islamic
Republic access to $274 billion in its first year and at least $1 trillion by
2030. Tehran’s revenue in the first year includes full access to $141 billion in
currently inaccessible foreign assets, $66.4 billion in oil export revenue, $55
billion in non-oil export revenue, and $12 billion in savings from the lower
cost of imports.
The initial forecast assumed the nuclear deal would go into effect in the second
half of 2022. Now, though, Iran and world powers most likely will not be able to
fully implement a new deal before 2023. As a result of this shift in the
implementation date and new developments in the oil market, the projected price
of oil in the FDD forecast has slightly dropped. Furthermore, new data published
by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) show that the bank’s gross foreign assets have
grown over time.
The latest data published by CBI show that the bank’s gross foreign assets
reached $172 billion in July. Separate data from the International Monetary
Fund, published in the statistical appendix of its April regional economic
outlook for the Middle East and Central Asia, suggest Iran currently has full
access to $31 billion of its foreign reserves. The deal would likely release the
remaining $141 billion of gross reserves currently not fully available to the
bank, $10 billion more than previously estimated by FDD.
In the revised FDD forecast, the price of Iranian oil will be $91 per barrel
during the first year of the deal. This is in line with the latest forecast by
the Energy Information Agency of $95 per barrel for Brent oil in 2023; Iran’s
oil basket is usually a few dollars below the Brent price. The forecast expects
the Islamic Republic would be able to sell 2 million barrels per day in the
first year of the deal. This estimate is based on Iran’s production capacity,
stored oil, and record of increasing its oil exports following the 2015 nuclear
deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
If it exports 2 million barrels per day, Iran would likely generate $66 billion
in oil export revenue during the first year of the deal, which will be fully
accessible to the regime. The Islamic Republic currently exports its oil at a
discount through middlemen, with shipments mainly going to China. Accordingly,
Iran’s access to its revenue is limited. Moreover, these middlemen sometimes do
not return the money to Iran, even years later. The new deal would allow the
Islamic Republic to sell more oil at better prices and would grant Tehran full
access to the income.
Likewise, under a new agreement, Iran would generate $55 billion in non-oil
exports and save $12 billion thanks to the lower cost of imports. According to
Iranian officials, the country currently imports goods at a 20 percent higher
cost due to sanctions.
Revised assumptions regarding both the price of oil and Iran’s foreign assets
also have minimal impact on the long-term value of a new nuclear deal. The
previous forecast that the deal will grant Iran access to at least $1 trillion
by 2030 remains unchanged.
The cumulative value of Iran’s oil exports from 2023 until the end of 2029 will
depend on the price of oil. The lower-bound estimate, which assumes oil prices
will decrease over time, is $494 billion. In the upper-bound case, which assumes
the oil price will rise, the Islamic Republic will earn $760 billion.
The lower bound for the cumulative value of Iran’s non-oil exports by 2030 is
$357 billion, while the upper bound is $415 billion. Key items in Iran’s non-oil
exports, such as petrochemical products, are oil-based, so their prices
correlate with the price of oil. Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic will save
between $72 billion and $92 billion from 2023 to 2029 thanks to the lower cost
of imports.
If one combines the lower-bound values of Iran’s projected oil export revenue,
non-oil export revenue, import savings, and accessible foreign assets, the deal
would grant Iran full access to at least $1 trillion by 2030 — or, to be more
precise, $1.065 trillion. And that is the outcome least favorable to Tehran.
If oil prices rise over time and Tehran manages to modestly increase its non-oil
exports and imports, the deal can offer Tehran up to $1.4 trillion. The
upper-bound forecast does not assume that Iran will make a radical shift in its
foreign policy or implement social and economic reforms that initiate
significant economic growth. Such a shift would be unlikely.
*Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior advisor on Iran and financial economics at the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he contributes to FDD’s Iran
Program and Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP). For more analysis
from Saeed, the Iran Program, and CEFP, please subscribe HERE. Follow Saeed on
Twitter @SGhasseminejad. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_Iran and @FDD_CEFP.
FDD is a Washington, DC-based, non-partisan research institute focusing on
national security and foreign policy.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2022/08/19/tehrans-1-trillion-deal/
What Republicans Should Do if They Win Big This Fall
Oren Cass and Chris Griswold/The New York Times/August 22/2022
Nearly everyone expects that Republicans will, if they win November’s midterm
elections, use newfound majorities in the House and possibly the Senate for
intense oversight of the Biden administration and to press Democrats on
hot-button issues like critical race theory, gender identity and the Covid-19
response. But what else could they do?
While periods of divided government can yield gridlock, they also offer
opportunities for progress. A party in control of the White House and Congress
often finds itself at war with its own most uncompromising elements. By
contrast, a party limited to power in one or both legislative chambers has an
incentive to advance moderate ideas that force difficult choices on the other
side of the aisle, and one holding only the presidency knows that compromise is
its only path to governing.
In 1986, a 72-seat Democratic majority in the House of Representatives approved
President Ronald Reagan’s tax reform, with 176 Democrats and 116 Republicans
voting in favor. A decade later, half of House Democrats joined their colleagues
in the Republican majority to pass welfare reform, which President Bill Clinton
signed into law.
Our organization, American Compass, has been developing a conservative agenda
that supplants blind faith in free markets with policies focused on workers and
their families. That way of thinking is making inroads in the Republican Party,
creating avenues for legislative progress. Across three categories of
policymaking, the party appears poised to make good use of any control it has in
the next Congress.
First, genuine bipartisan agreement could emerge where the parties have similar
views on an issue to which Republicans will give priority. Industrial policy to
compete with China is the most likely candidate. Last month’s bipartisan
breakthrough on the CHIPS and Science Act, which directs more than $50 billion
to the domestic semiconductor industry, underscored the broad-based appeal of
supporting innovation and domestic production in critical technologies. The bill
also sparked debate that highlights the work still to be done.
Many on the right, including some congressional Republicans, were harshly
critical — but they didn’t just express the typical concerns about “big
government” or “picking winners and losers.” Rather, their complaint was that
the bill did not interfere with the market enough, and left companies too much
latitude to continue investing in China. For instance, the Republican Study
Committee (R.S.C.), the largest conservative caucus in the House of
Representatives, argued that the bill was too weak because a company receiving
CHIPS funds to build an American factory might still be “allowed” to make new
Chinese investments as well.
A Republican majority will return to this issue, and groups like the R.S.C. are
already formulating tough restrictions on financial flows to and from China.
House Democrats have aggressive proposals of their own. And with such provisions
in place, other critical industries like electric vehicle batteries and the rare
earth minerals they need are ripe for CHIPS-like support. Democratic leadership
may not have prioritized investment restriction, but when Republicans do, it
will gain momentum quickly on both sides of the aisle.
A second category of action under split control of government will be Republican
legislation that has broad popular appeal but threatens a core Democratic
principle or constituency. Here, education policy offers an ideal opportunity.
Parents’ rights and critical race theory in K-12 schools have drawn the most
attention, but a broader battle is also brewing over options after high school.
Both political parties routinely pay rhetorical homage to apprenticeships and
other noncollege pathways, but Democrats have spent their political capital on
college attendees and aspirants, with proposals for student loan forgiveness and
free college that neglect the majority of Americans who do not earn degrees.
Republicans have the opportunity to offer a sharp contrast by excoriating the
failures of the nation’s college-or-bust education system and proposing to
reallocate federal education funds away from tax breaks and loan subsidies for
college students and toward alternatives like on-the-job training. This should
appeal to the large majority of Americans that, according to a survey led by our
organization, prefers options like apprenticeships to free college for
themselves and their children, and to all who are tired of a culture that
confers respect mainly on the college bound.
For many on the right, an added attraction will be reducing funding to
universities they see as culturally toxic. And conservatives will be willing to
consider targeted student debt relief, perhaps through bankruptcy — though they
will also want genuine reform that leaves the universities themselves on the
financial hook for the success of students. That will not be popular with the
higher-education lobby and its allies on the left, but voters may be another
matter.
The third place to look for economic policy developments is within the
Republican caucus’s internal debates. As Democrats have learned over the past
two years, a narrow congressional majority prompts tough intraparty battles that
are more easily suppressed when in the opposition. In the wake of the Supreme
Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, some conservatives are taking up
sides on a range of policy proposals to enhance support for expectant and new
parents. In a Republican Congress, the family policy debate will be front and
center.
The recent Family Security Act 2.0 proposal from Senators Mitt Romney, Richard
Burr and Steve Daines would convert the current child tax credit into a
significantly more generous cash benefit paid monthly to working families with
children. While Republicans have traditionally panned direct cash payments to
families as “welfare,” the F.S.A. has garnered a notably broad range of
right-of-center support — for instance, from scholars at both the conservative
Ethics and Public Policy Center and the business-friendly American Enterprise
Institute, as well as from leading anti-abortion groups.
Notwithstanding the anti-tax activist Grover Norquist’s recent remark that such
policies reappear from time to time “like herpes or shingles,” the traditional
opponents of government spending have mostly held their fire.
If Republicans coalesce around this sort of proposal, it could shoot immediately
to the top of the national political agenda, where it would have significant
bipartisan potential but would also pose a vexing quandary for the Democratic
coalition. On one hand, the F.S.A. would be a larger and more widely accessible
expansion of family support than anything the Democratic presidential nominees
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden ran on — it’s tailor-made for support
across the political spectrum. On the other hand, its limitation to working
families would fall short of the unconditional universal payments that Democrats
included for one year in 2021’s American Rescue Plan and fought to make
permanent in Build Back Better, but that have since expired.
A Republican bill along these lines could be generous, popular and anathema to
the Democrats’ progressive base. Emergence of a widely backed program for
supporting families will depend on how the internal Republican debate resolves
and whether Democrats are ready to strike a deal.
The common force pushing forward these various policy opportunities is the
evolution in conservative thinking toward greater focus on the interests of the
working class and a greater role for government in addressing the free market’s
shortcomings. Attitudes within the Republican Party’s shifting coalition of
voters have moved clearly in this direction, and at least some of its leaders
have as well. If American voters elect a new Republican Congress this fall, it
could provide the G.O.P. with an early test of whether the party is ready to
make good on that promise.
Biden...Summertime Santa Claus?
Sam Menassa/Asharq Al Awsat/August 22/2022
US State Department Spokesman Ned Price spoke bluntly about the potential to
conclude a nuclear deal despite the demands Iran has added. “We don’t approach
this through the lens of a pessimistic view or with an optimistic view, in part
because of the stakes of this. We have to be clear-eyed precisely because of the
stakes of this. This is a central challenge. There would be no greater challenge
to our foreign policy, to our national security, to the collective security of
the international community should Iran acquire a nuclear weapon. When it comes
to Foreign Terrorist Organizations, the President similarly has been clear on
that. The FTO designations and other sanctions on the IRGC are beyond the scope
of the JCPOA. We have made that point repeatedly.”
Although the arguments against reviving the deal in its 2015 form are too many
to count, and the collateral damage from doing so would be immense, refuting the
administration’s policy or view regarding the importance of returning to the
agreement is not easy.
At the time of writing, it is difficult to discern whether we should be
optimistic or pessimistic on this matter because of the ambiguity surrounding
it. The apprehensions of those opposed to the agreement have not dissipated
despite the justifications put forward by the Biden administration, first and
foremost among which is Washington’s determination to prevent Iran from
acquiring a nuclear weapon and the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the
region that would ensue if it were to do so.
Added to this is that Biden had pledged to reverse Donald Trump’s decision to
withdraw from the agreement on the campaign trail. This pledge is especially
significant in light of the Midterms, as all foreign policy in Washington
eventually turns into domestic policy. Of course, the significance of campaign
pledges pales in comparison to that of the massive changes propelled by the
Ukrainian conflict, and some of the ensuing developments have been favorable to
Iran, among them the fact that Russia has spiked oil prices to pressure
Washington’s European allies and undermine their unity. The economic and social
implications this has on Europe incentivize it to push for an agreement that
gives more weight to European interests over pure US interests.
Another issue is Russia, China, and Iran becoming closer allies. The US
administration believes that a deal with Tehran would contain Tehran and
Beijing’s gravitation towards it. Although the administration is not absolutely
sure of this outcome, it prefers to take the less harmful option of appeasing
Iran and ending Russia’s blackmail through the manipulation of energy prices
over letting Moscow and Beijing do as they please in several places around the
world.
Regarding the Middle East, Washington believes that a return to the agreement
would help the path of normalization between Israel and Arab states along the
way, especially those states that are rightly deeply concerned by Iran’s actions
and its interference in the affairs of several countries in the region, as these
actions will likely get worse once sanctions are lifted.
Moreover, while the Republicans insist on their opposition to a return to the
agreement, they have not put an alternative course of action besides the maximum
pressure sanctions that Iran has managed to accommodate and live with thanks to
the support of Moscow, Beijing, and other countries that have not refrained from
buying Iranian oil, like India. The last thing to say about the US perspective
is that Iran is not at the top of the agenda, especially given the challenges
posed by Russia, China, the economy, and other issues.
On the other hand, there is nothing unusual about Washington not seeing Iran
through an Arab or Israeli lens and pursuing the policies it deems to be in the
American interest. As a result, the concerns of Washington’s allies in the
region are justified, as are their questions about why Washington is rushing to
revive the agreement at this particular juncture, although it is aware that Iran
has continued to take hostile actions and Washington recognizes that it has
negged on incorporating Iran’s actions in the agreement, from its destabilizing
actions through its support for regional allies, ballistic missiles, and others.
It is also worth noting that Tehran has exploited the fact that the Democrats
will probably lose in the Midterms, which would hinder the US President’s
ability to get things done during the remaining two years of his term.
Furthermore, the agreement expires in less than a decade. After that, Iran will
become free of the deal’s restrictions and be able to enrich Uranium whenever it
wants and develop military nuclear capabilities.
It is not just a question of Iran’s actions in the region. Even as the
negotiations were ongoing, the US Justice Department accused Shahram Poursafi,
an Iranian citizen residing in Tehran, of planning to kill former National
Security Advisor John Bolton and one million dollars being offered for another
conspiracy targeting former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The FBI has
identified Poursafi as a “member of the IRGC.”
According to a Washington Institute for Near East Policy study written by
Matthew Levitt, Iran has a track record of carrying out assassinations,
kidnappings, and surveillance targeting American and other Western interests
across the globe- 105 operations over the 43 years since the 1979 Iranian
revolution. In the last decade alone, Iran has carried out 62 of these attacks,
eighteen of them on US soil. Twenty-three of them targeted Iranian dissidents,
twenty-eight targeted Jews or Israelis, twenty targeted diplomats, fourteen
against specifically Western targets, and 6 targeted the interests of the Arab
Gulf states. According to the same source, a high-ranking US counterterrorism
official stated, in 1997, that the US government had “credible information”
confirming its assessment that Iran had been responsible for about 50
assassinations targeting political opponents and others abroad since 1990.
Like the Bolton conspiracy, the agents behind these acts were in contact with
the IRGC, which affirms that they had not been lone-wolf attacks but
conspiracies orchestrated by Iranian officials. These attacks continued even as
the negotiations on reviving the deal were being held, and it would not be
far-fetched to claim that the attempted murder of Salman Rushdie in New York
came within the context of these attacks. In fact, the same thing happened
during and after the original negotiations under Barack Obama.
One does not know whether to laugh or to cry upon seeing that Washington refuses
Tehran’s demand that the IRGC be removed from the terror list and considering
this refusal to be a victory while it knows that this same IRGC has more
influence on Iran’s decision-making than any other institution or body.
Why does Iran undertake such destructive actions even during negotiations? In
all likelihood, it is because Iranian officials believe no significant
consequences will ensue from such acts of aggression in terms of accountability
and punishment. It should be noted that the recent assassination attempts are
nothing more than the result of how Iran reads US and Western reactions in
general towards Vladimir Putin’s military operations in Georgia, Crimea, and
Syria, all of which went unsanctioned until he went as far as invading Ukraine.
That meek response explains the thoughts and actions of Tehran’s rulers.
With all of this in mind, it becomes very difficult to defend the
administration’s position on the Iranian regime, even before adding the
arguments that many American and Arab thinkers and politicians have repeated
tirelessly. Among them is Karim Sadjadpour, who, in a recent article for this
newspaper, argued that “Under Khamenei’s leadership, anti-Americanism has become
central to Iran’s revolutionary identity…the more committed the United States
has been to diplomacy, the lesser Iran’s sense of urgency to compromise. Even if
the nuclear deal is revived, Tehran’s worldview will endure.”
In short, neither diplomacy nor sanctions are effective, and war is ruled out of
the question given the complex and difficult circumstances. Some of Washington’s
allies are floundering, adopting ambivalent positions and policies. Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and others are returning to Syria in compliance
with Russia’s request. Israel is anxious about the outcome of the Vienna
negotiations and their implication, and it has not ended its strong efforts to
restrict the US push.
Two things are unfortunate. The first is that the Iranian ploy got the better of
Washington and the West in general, achieving all its goals through its nuclear
threats. The second is the state of turmoil in the region, where anxiety and
instability will continue to prevail with or without a return to Obama’s fateful
agreement, as isolation and crises are the oxygen the Tehran mullahs’ regime
breathes.
Will Biden do it and become a Santa Claus who arrives in the heat of August and
gifts Iran this deal?
Dugin’s Blood and Putin’s Wounds
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/August 22/2022
Russian Thinker Alexander Dugin has the right to mourn the murder of his
daughter. The killing of children is the most terrible punishment that can be
inflicted on parents. The death of one’s child is a wound that not even time can
heal. Bitterness amplifies when a son or a daughter is killed due to their
parents’ ideas and policies… when the father understands that he was the real
target, and that fate saved him from death, but not from torments.
It is obvious that the killer wanted to use Dugin’s blood to send a painful
message to the father of the new Russia coming from the womb of the Russian war
in Ukraine. The message is very dangerous. We can imagine the extent of the
anger that swept Vladimir Putin’s face when he was informed of the crime, which
took place in the heart of Moscow. The assassination means that a party decided
to cross all the red lines and transfer the confrontation to an even more
terrible stage.
The incident raised a series of difficult questions. Who is behind it? Did a
party from the internal opposition decide to launch a life-or-death challenge in
the face of the man holding the decision and all the threads? Did an external
intelligence service play a role in inflicting a blow to the country’s master?
Which apparatus would dare to move the confrontation to this level with the
leader who came from the ranks of the KGB? Who can withstand a response the size
of this slap or more? Which parties can penetrate the tight security belt around
the vast country, its capital, and the surrounding areas? Who guarantees that
the architect of Dugin’s assassination would not plan to target a high-ranking
official in the country?
Conspiracy theorists will not miss the topic. They will argue that the incident,
despite its seriousness, may be designed by an internal body that wants to make
the Russians aware that their country is in real danger, and that they must
rally around the authorities who sent the army to Ukraine to thwart a plot and
deter the threats.
However, if Moscow accused Kyiv of being behind the assassination, this would
mean that severe punishment is coming and that President Volodymyr Zelensky
should count his days; especially after reports that the Ukrainian security
services had so far thwarted more than one plan to remove him from the equation.
Targeting Alexander Dugin is a dangerous matter, due to his weight in the
country. I will not join those who call him, “Putin’s mind”, but the man has
certainly left his mark on public opinion and perhaps on the president’s policy
itself, especially in terms of hostility to the West and its liberalism, the
Eurasian destiny of Russia, and his refusal to recognize maps, in particular
those that were born from the ashes of the Soviet Union.
What is more dangerous than the assassination is the growing feeling that the
fate of the world depends on one man’s mind. The repeated talk about the
conditions for resorting to nuclear weapons, and the production of new
generations of unprecedented missiles, constitute a convincing reason for
concern.
Putin is a man of many wounds. He sustained the first injury when he was asked
to destroy his papers and leave East Germany, as the Berlin Wall was collapsing.
It was not simple. What collapsed were the borders of the empire and the fence
that protected it from the temptations of the Western model, which both Dugin
and Putin despised.
The secon wound came with the suicide of the Soviet Union when Putin saw
republics racing to jump off the Soviet train, washing their hands of its
history. The officer, who returned to the intelligence headquarters in Moscow,
saw these escapes as acts of treason.
Putin was wounded for the third time when Yeltsin’s Russia looked poor,
hesitant, and fragile, and the US ambassador in it deserved the title of “strong
man” in a weak country.
Those wounds overwhelmed Putin’s soul. He felt bitter whenever a “traitorous
country” joined the NATO alliance, which was approaching the borders of “holy
Russia”. The scenes of Soviet tanks burning in Iraq and Libya with US or
Atlantic fire also tormented him, while the former allies of Moscow were
behaving like orphans at the table of Western victory.
Wounds accumulated in the soul of the Soviet warrior. Many in the military and
security establishment, in the church, and university circles feared for Russia
itself. Dugin was among those who panicked, looking forward to the great
vengeance. The war in Ukraine was an opportunity to celebrate the massive coup.
He hastened to call for the annexation of all of Ukraine, but the war lasted
more than expected and many believe that it is causing more wounds.
The aura of the Russian army, whose soul and capabilities were restored by Putin,
led many to believe that the war would be a blitzkrieg. Some speak in this
context of a terrible intelligence failure. It is said that Russian services
expected the Ukrainian regime to collapse quickly and Zelensky to bow and hide…
For Kyiv to fall into the hands of the Russian army, or to swiftly pass into the
custody of a man loyal to Moscow, who guarantees its submission and buys its
safety.
Six months after its outbreak, the war seems costly and long. The recent strikes
that reconnected Crimea to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict certainly added a new
wound, preceded by the sinking of the Russian battleship, Moskva. The resistance
operations in the areas controlled by the Russian army give the confrontation
another dimension. Western weapons doubled the resilience of the Ukrainian army
and helped it target places that were far from its line.
There is another wound caused by Western experts’ words that the Russian army
was incapable of crushing the Ukrainian forces and could not engage in a direct
confrontation with NATO. They add that Putin, who is trying to escape American
hegemony, has made his country dependent on the Chinese giant.
Is Putin betting on the harsh European winter to force the world to accept a
settlement that would allow him to talk about victory? Will he insist on
completing the great coup, or will he accept a decent exit?
Putin’s sense of victory is dangerous. But his sense of defeat would be even
more perilous. The fate of the world is tied to what is going on in the head of
one man, and the world will certainly pay the price for Dugin’s blood and
Putin’s wounds.
خالد أبو طعمة/معهد جيتستون: بايدن يسقط المزيد من المطالب الحاسمة للحصول على صفقة
مع إيران
Biden Drops More Crucial Demands to Get Iran Deal
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/August 22/2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/111409/khaled-abu-toameh-gatestone-institute-biden-drops-more-crucial-demands-to-get-iran-deal%d8%ae%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%af-%d8%a3%d8%a8%d9%88-%d8%b7%d8%b9%d9%85%d8%a9-%d9%85%d9%86-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%87%d8%af/
"First, Biden decided to waive the demand to include the role of Iran's
terrorists in the region in the talks [in Vienna]... Biden decided not to
address this issue at all, nor the role of terrorist militias affiliated with
Iran in the Arab countries." — Sayed Zahra, deputy editor of the Gulf's Akhbar
Al-Khaleej, August 20, 2022.
The second demand Biden gave up, according to Zahra, includes the issue of
Iran's ballistic missile program and the threat it poses to the security and
stability of the region, the US itself and its interests.
"The issue is not whether the agreement is signed or not.... [T]here is
something more dangerous than this: Biden has completely abandoned the Arabs,
allies and non-allies alike." — Sayed Zahra, August 20, 2022.
The Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen, [Kheirallah] added, is continuing to
recruit hundreds of fighters.
"What will the Houthis do with these fighters? Are they preparing for new rounds
of fighting, or is their goal limited to threatening neighboring countries,
primarily the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?" — Kheirallah Kheirallah, veteran
Lebanese journalist, Alraimedia, August 17, 2022.
The Iranian regime, [Kheirallah] wrote, cannot survive without its expansionist
project. "The collapse of this project means the collapse of the regime, similar
to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Lebanon, Iran is flexing its muscles
through Hezbollah, which asserts daily that it is the ruling party. In Iraq,
Iran refuses to admit that it is rejected by the majority of the Iraqi
people.... Unfortunately, there is no American administration capable of
understanding the meaning and repercussions of the presence of an Iranian entity
in the Arabian Peninsula. Iran escalates everywhere it considers itself present
through its militias. There is a question that will arise soon: Will the US
administration facilitate this escalation through a deal it concludes with the
Islamic Republic that provides it with large financial resources? To put it more
clearly, does America consider itself concerned with the security of its allies
in the region, or should these people manage their own affairs in the way they
see fit?" — Kheirallah Kheirallah, Annahar, August 17, 2022.
"Iran still considers interference in the affairs of other countries in the
region as one of its top priorities.... for the sake of regional hegemony." —
Hamid Al-Kaifaey, Iraqi author, Sky News Arabia, August 14, 2022.
"The most striking thing about the ongoing international negotiations with the
Iranian regime regarding its suspicious nuclear program is that the
international community has become confident and certain that this regime is
lying and engaged in all forms of deception to achieve its goals without meeting
international demands.... Anyone who relies on the Iranian regime is engaged in
self-deception. Western countries have completed more than three decades of
practicing the policy of appeasement and alignment with the Iranian regime and
provided it with many privileges without getting anything in return." — Alladdin
Touran, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of
Resistance of Iran, Elaph, August 15, 2022.
US President Joe Biden, it seems, has effectively decided to sacrifice America's
Arab allies and their interests in order to appease Iran. It is obvious that
America's Arab allies have lost confidence in the Biden administration and its
policy of appeasing the mullahs.
US President Joe Biden, it seems, has effectively decided to sacrifice the
Arabs, their interests, demands and fears in order to appease Iran.
This view, expressed by Sayed Zahra, deputy editor of the Gulf's Akhbar Al-Khaleej
newspaper, is shared by many prominent Arab political analysts who say they are
extremely worried about the possibility that the US and other Western powers may
sign a new nuclear agreement with Iran's mullahs.
Referring to reports that progress has been achieved towards striking a new deal
with the mullahs, Zahra said that the alleged breakthrough appears to have
occurred after Biden decided to waive two pre-conditions. Zahra accused Biden of
being in collusion with Iran.
"First, Biden decided to waive the demand to include Iran's terrorist role in
the region in the talks [in Vienna]," Zahra wrote. "Biden decided not to address
this issue at all, nor the role of terrorist militias affiliated with Iran in
the Arab countries."
The second demand Biden gave up, according to Zahra, includes the issue of
Iran's ballistic missile program and the threat it poses to the security and
stability of the region and the US itself and its interests.
By dropping the two demands, "Biden has practically decided to acquiesce to Iran
and its entire terrorist expansion project in the Arab region," the influential
newspaper editor argued.
"This is a dangerous development. The issue is not whether the agreement is
signed or not. This is no longer important. The issue is that the Biden
administration made its choice between Iran and the Arab countries in this way.
The matter is not limited to these concessions made by Biden; there is something
more dangerous than this: Biden has completely abandoned the Arabs, allies and
non-allies alike."
Veteran Lebanese journalist Kheirallah Kheirallah expressed frustration with the
Biden administration for ignoring the mullahs' expansionist project and its
tools and proxies, especially the Iranian missile and drone program.
"The program poses a threat to every country in the region," Kheirallah wrote.
"This was evident when Iran recently started firing long-range missiles and
drones from Yemen towards Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. There is an
American and Iranian tendency to conclude a deal that would provide Iran with
much-needed funds.
Kheirallah wrote that Iran has been working to escalate tensions in the Arab
countries it occupies: Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.
The Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen, he added, is continuing to recruit
hundreds of fighters.
"What will the Houthis do with these fighters?" Kheirallah asked.
"Are they preparing for new rounds of fighting, or is their goal limited to
threatening neighboring countries, primarily the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? The US
has failed to reassure its [Arab] allies in the region. When viewing the
chronology events in the region since Biden entered the White House, it becomes
clear that we are facing a confused administration that could not take any
initiative. In light of the lack of confidence [in the Biden administration], a
US-Iranian deal will raise all kinds of fears in the absence of any answer to an
obvious question: What is the US position on Iran's behavior outside its borders
and its missile program and drones?"
In another article, Kheirallah wrote that the Biden administration does not
appear to be worried about the security of its Arab allies. This, he said, is
the reason why Iran is continuing to flex its muscles to show that its
expansionist project has not stopped faltered and that it is determined to take
it to the end, regardless of whether or not the mullahs reach a new deal with
"the American Big Satan."
The Iranian regime, he wrote, cannot survive without its expansionist project.
"The collapse of this project means the collapse of the regime, similar to the
collapse of the Soviet Union," Kheirallah said.
"In Lebanon, Iran is flexing its muscles through Hezbollah, which asserts daily
that it is the ruling party. In Iraq, Iran refuses to admit that it is rejected
by the majority of the Iraqi people, who expressed this in the last legislative
elections. Iran refuses to acknowledge the defeat of its supporters in these
elections. We see it currently seeking to overturn the results of those
elections, starting with disrupting the formation of a new government and
political life in the entire country. In Syria, Iran, in light of Russia's
preoccupation with the Ukrainian war, has become the number one player in that
country. This includes southern Syria, where it is expanding daily and
increasing its smuggling activity to Jordan and across it to the Arab Gulf
states. But the place where Iran is most active than anywhere else is Yemen. It
took advantage of the truce announced last April in order to recruit more
fighters. The Houthis, and behind them Iran, are encouraged by the American
fluidity in dealing with them. Unfortunately, there is no American
administration capable of understanding the meaning and repercussions of the
presence of an Iranian entity in the Arabian Peninsula. Iran escalates
everywhere it considers itself present through its militias. There is a question
that will arise soon: Will the US administration facilitate this escalation
through a deal it concludes with the Islamic Republic that provides it with
large financial resources? To put it more clearly, does America consider itself
concerned with the security of its allies in the region, or should these people
manage their own affairs in the way they see fit?"
Iraqi author Hamid Al-Kaifaey pointed out that since Joe Biden came to power,
his administration has embarked on "vigorous measures" to return to the nuclear
agreement with Iran.
"The Democratic administration, whether under former president Barack Obama, or
the current president, Joe Biden, adopts the method of diplomatic dealing with
Iran and engaging in negotiations with it in order to stop its attempts to build
a nuclear bomb, instead of the policy of maximum pressure adopted by the
previous Republican administration... Just as the policy of maximum pressure has
failed to dissuade Iran from its relentless pursuit of developing its nuclear
program, so as to enable it to manufacture a nuclear bomb, the policy of
negotiation and diplomacy pursued by the Biden administration has also failed so
far to bring Iran back to the nuclear agreement."
The Iraqi writer said that he has no doubt that Iran is determined to build an
atomic bomb, just as it is determined to develop its other offensive war
industries, such as drones and long-range ballistic missiles.
"A return to the nuclear deal will enhance Iran's capabilities because it allows
it to interact with the outside world, export oil and gas, and develop sectors
of the Iranian economy instead of being under severe and comprehensive
punishments," Al-Kifaey warned.
"The Iranian economic situation is constantly getting worse, due to the US
sanctions imposed by the administration of former President Trump, which
President Biden has maintained, and despite that, Iran still considers
interference in the affairs of other countries in the region as one of its top
priorities. Iranian interference in the affairs of neighboring countries greatly
increased after 2015, the year of the nuclear agreement. While the countries of
the world are trying to solve their economic problems, reduce the rate of
inflation and unemployment and find alternative sources of energy, Iran is
ignoring the suffering of its people and their difficult economic conditions,
and is trying to exploit the current international conditions to develop its
military capabilities, nuclear and conventional, and its ballistic missiles, for
the sake of regional hegemony."
Alladdin Touran, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council
of Resistance of Iran, an international opposition organization based in France,
warned the Biden administration and the Western powers that it would be a "big
mistake" to trust the Iranian regime.
"The most striking thing about the ongoing international negotiations with the
Iranian regime regarding its suspicious nuclear program is that the
international community has become confident and certain that this regime is
lying and engaged in all forms of deception to achieve its goals without meeting
international demands... The Iranian regime has engaged in a lot of rhetoric and
various childish actions in the ways and methods that it used in the nuclear
talks, especially by putting forward demands unrelated to the talks in return
for its efforts to remove its terrorist Revolutionary Guard Corps from the list
of terrorist organizations. Anyone who relies on the Iranian regime is engaged
in self-deception. Western countries have completed more than three decades of
practicing the policy of appeasement and alignment with the Iranian regime and
provided it with many privileges without getting anything in return. The
international community should know that this regime can never abide by any
agreement, especially if it is not in its interest and affects its own plans.
With or without a nuclear agreement, Iran will not give up its efforts to
produce and manufacture the atomic bomb. Confidence in the Iranian regime is a
big mistake that must be avoided."
Judging from the reactions of many Arabs to a possible revival of the Iran
nuclear deal, it is obvious that America's Arab allies have lost confidence in
the Biden administration and its policy of appeasing the mullahs. The Arabs'
biggest fear is that this policy will embolden Iran's mullahs and encourage them
to proceed with their scheme to expand their control of the Arab countries -- an
existential threat to their national security.
*Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.
© 2022 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
دانيال جرينفيلد/ معهد جيتستون: إيران تبني داعش الخاصة بها في أميركا على الإنترنت
Iran Builds Its Own Online ISIS in America
Daniel Greenfield/ Gatestone Institute/August 22/ 2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/111412/daniel-greenfield-gatestone-institute-iran-builds-its-own-online-isis-in-america-%d8%af%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%a7%d9%84-%d8%ac%d8%b1%d9%8a%d9%86%d9%81%d9%8a%d9%84%d8%af-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%87%d8%af-%d8%ac/
The recent indictment of a member of the Iranian regime's IRGC terror network
for soliciting the assassination of former US National Security Advisor John
Bolton provided a window into how Iran has targeted former Trump administration
members.
The IRGC operative struck up a relationship with an Iranian-American on social
media by initially offering $10,000 for photos of Bolton. This is a familiar
form of espionage tradecraft in which a foreign spy solicits an American to
perform a seemingly harmless and legal act, often involving photography, such as
taking photos of individuals or cars, that is then revealed to be espionage
committed at the behest of a foreign power. The patsy is then told that he has a
choice between committing more serious crimes or being turned in to the FBI as a
spy.
[I]t now appears that Iran has picked up the same trick.
Online crowdsourcing frees Iran from the need to risk the more profitable terror
networks. There is evidence that the Islamic terror state is soliciting Iranians
and Shiite Muslims in the United States over social media to do its dirty work
while offering them sizable sums of money. It's unknown whether the Rushdie
attack came off this way, but the perpetrator's social media was filled with
Iranian Jihadist propaganda. That would have made him a likely recruitment
target.
If Iran is working to duplicate its own version of the Al Qaeda and ISIS online
training and recruitment system, the threat to Americans could be much more
serious than the stabbing of one dissident writer in New York or a man catfished
on a date in Nevada. The Islamic regime's ideal scenario for nuclear weapons
would be to detonate them with plausible deniability
For now, Tehran would prefer to carry out attacks by cultivating disposable
foreign assets. And once such a capability exists and has been sufficiently
tested, it could be used for mass casualty terrorist attacks.
Even nuclear ones.
The Biden administration is rushing to cut a deal with Iran that will legitimize
its nuclear weapons program even as the IRGC continues to plot terror attacks in
the United States. Obama's "breakthrough" proposal to detach a nuclear deal from
terrorism left us negotiating in bad faith with a regime that made no secret of
its determination to kill Americans.
Crowdsourcing Jihad creates further distance between the state sponsors and
funders of terrorism, the perpetrators and their victims. The Pulse gay
nightclub massacre and the Boston Marathon bombings were traceable to
individuals, and then only distantly to the Islamic terror groups providing
information and training, and hardly at all to the governments behind them.
Iran would like to replicate this model knowing that... if there is enough
plausible deniability, we will do nothing about even the worst kinds of attacks
like September 11. Just ask Qatar and the Saudis.
The recent indictment of a member of the Iranian regime's IRGC terror network
for soliciting the assassination of former US National Security Advisor John
Bolton provided a window into how Iran has targeted former Trump administration
members. Pictured: Bolton speaks at a panel hosted by the National Council of
Resistance of Iran – U.S. Representative Office on August 17, 2022 in
Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The stabbing of author Salman Rushdie by a Lebanese Shiite Muslim from New
Jersey may be the culmination of efforts by Iran to imitate Al Qaeda and ISIS by
building its own online terror network to carry out attacks inside the United
States of America. The latest reports indicate that Hadi Matar, Rushdie's
attacker, had been in touch with members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps (IRGC).
The recent indictment of a member of the Iranian regime's IRGC terror network
for soliciting the assassination of former US National Security Advisor John
Bolton provided a window into how Iran has targeted former Trump administration
members.
The IRGC operative struck up a relationship with an Iranian-American on social
media by initially offering $10,000 for photos of Bolton. This is a familiar
form of espionage tradecraft in which a foreign spy solicits an American to
perform a seemingly harmless and legal act, often involving photography, such as
taking photos of individuals or cars, that is then revealed to be espionage
committed at the behest of a foreign power. The patsy is then told that he has a
choice between committing more serious crimes or being turned in to the FBI as a
spy.
The Russians and the Chinese routinely operated this way (which also helps
account for the large number of Chinese spies in America, as their citizens
coming to this country are compelled to sign papers agreeing to cooperate with
their intelligence services that becomes a source of leverage and blackmail),
and it now appears that Iran has picked up the same trick.
The IRGC operative promised that Iran would pay $250,000 for hitting Bolton with
a car. Indicating that the Iranians had already had their own surveillance
operation that they did not want to compromise, the IRGC claimed that Bolton
often took walks alone in the park.
The indictment and the Rushdie stabbing cast light on some mysterious incidents
including an Iranian woman from Berkeley who catfished an American on a dating
site, met up with him at a Henderson, Nevada hotel room, and then stabbed him in
the neck as, "revenge against U.S. troops for the killing of Qasem Soleimani".
The death of the IRGC terror leader has been the pretext for assorted terror
plots against military personnel and Trump administration members.
The media dismissed the March stabbing as oddball behavior. Media accounts
suggested that the stabber was mentally ill. But Henderson is close to Nellis
Air Force Base which hosts the MQ-9 Reaper: the same model that was used to take
out Soleimani. The attack appeared to be a systematic effort to target a U.S.
Air Force drone pilot, lure him to a hotel room, blindfold him, and then kill
him. It was a terror plan that only looks ridiculous because it failed.
This is certainly not the first time that Iran has tried to pay for
assassinations in the United States. A decade ago, IRGC operatives planned to
kill the Saudi ambassador with a bomb at Cafe Milano, a prestigious D.C.
restaurant patronized by Senators, by employing an Iranian used car salesman
from Texas in a plot that was arranged through meetings in Mexico.
A decade later, the internet eliminates any need for international travel.
Iran's terror operatives can solicit Shiite Muslims in this country to commit
terror attacks for them with no risk.
At least to the IRGC.
The failure of Al Qaeda terror plots after 9/11 amid the invasion of Afghanistan
led the terror group to abandon its founding premise of serving as "The Base"
and to crowdsource terrorism through the internet. MySpace was created a few
months before the invasion of Iraq. A year later, Facebook emerged. Terror 2.0
took longer to arrive than Web 2.0, but it was close.
The vast majority of Al Qaeda and ISIS terror attacks no longer required the
expensive and dangerous travel and training arrangements that had undone so many
previous operations. Most of the crowdsourced terror attacks failed when
Jihadists contacted ISIS and Al Qaeda only to connect with the FBI, but a few,
in Boston, San Bernardino, New York and Orlando succeeded spectacularly. The
same crowdsourcing momentum that had made Uber and Airbnb into billion-dollar
companies also made Jihad risk-free and cheap for terrorist organizations. The
perpetrators were dubbed "lone wolves", but are really the Uber drivers of the
Jihad.
Iran has been slow to get into the game. Shiite Muslims are a minority and the
IRGC has relied on subsidiary terror groups like Hezbollah, the PMU's in Iraq,
or for that matter Sunni Islamists like Al Qaeda and Hamas, to do its dirty
work. America, unlike Europe, still doesn't have extensive terror networks
beyond those of Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood. And Hezbollah utilizes its
networks as a money train for smuggling drugs and cigarettes. The Lebanese
Shiite Jihadist network may be conducting some of the surveillance, but it
doesn't want to threaten its cash flow from America that also buys it some
independence from Iran.
Online crowdsourcing frees Iran from the need to risk the more profitable terror
networks. There is evidence that the Islamic terror state is soliciting Iranians
and Shiite Muslims in the United States over social media to do its dirty work
while offering them sizable sums of money. It's unknown whether the Rushdie
attack came off this way, but the perpetrator's social media was filled with
Iranian Jihadist propaganda. That would have made him a likely recruitment
target.
If Iran is working to duplicate its own version of the Al Qaeda and ISIS online
training and recruitment system, the threat to Americans could be much more
serious than the stabbing of one dissident writer in New York or a man catfished
on a date in Nevada. The Islamic regime's ideal scenario for nuclear weapons
would be to detonate them with plausible deniability.
Iranian operatives have carried out direct assassinations of political
dissidents in Europe, but have been cautious about putting boots on the ground
inside the United States. Despite our weakness and their bluster, Iran still
fears and respects us more than Europe. As America gets weaker and our society
becomes more fractured, that may not last. For now, Tehran would prefer to carry
out attacks by cultivating disposable foreign assets. And once such a capability
exists and has been sufficiently tested, it could be used for mass casualty
terrorist attacks.
Even nuclear ones.
The Biden administration is rushing to cut a deal with Iran that will legitimize
its nuclear weapons program even as the IRGC continues to plot terror attacks in
the United States. Obama's "breakthrough" proposal to detach a nuclear deal from
terrorism left us negotiating in bad faith with a regime that made no secret of
its determination to kill Americans.
Crowdsourcing Jihad creates further distance between the state sponsors and
funders of terrorism, the perpetrators and their victims. The Pulse gay
nightclub massacre and the Boston Marathon bombings were traceable to
individuals, and then only distantly to the Islamic terror groups providing
information and training, and hardly at all to the governments behind them.
Iran would like to replicate this model, knowing that America's morale is much
weaker than its military and intel capabilities, and that if there is enough
plausible deniability, we will do nothing about even the worst kinds of attacks
like September 11. Just ask Qatar and the Saudis.
The gradual uptick in Iran-linked domestic terrorism is a warning that Iran's
efforts to create its own cadre of Shiite "lone wolves" over the internet may be
working. And that worse may come.
*Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom
Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine and
has been reprinted here with the kind permission of the David Horowitz Freedom
Center
© 2022 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.