English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For December 21/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.december21.21.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 08/12-20: “‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’Then the Pharisees said to him, ‘You are testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid.’Jesus answered, ‘Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid because I know where I have come from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgement is valid; for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. In your law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is valid. I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me testifies on my behalf.’Then they said to him, ‘Where is your Father?’ Jesus answered, ‘You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.’He spoke these words while he was teaching in the treasury of the temple, but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 20-21/2021
Ministry of Health: 806 new Corona infections, 14 deaths
President Aoun addresses general situation and security measures during the holidays with Minister Sleem, meets Chairman of Association of Banks
Derian to Guterres: Dar-al-Fatwa confirms Lebanon keenness on international resolutions’ implementation
Guterres Lays Wreath at Beirut Port, Urges Leaders to Take Action
U.N. Chief Pays Tribute to Victims of Beirut Port Explosion
Lebanon Religious Leaders Stress Need for Dialogue in Joint Call with U.N. Chief
Aoun's Camp Says 'No Bargain' as Report Says Major Deal Reached
Report: Political Parties Agree Comprehensive Bargain
Conflicting Reports on Miqati Resignation after Stormy Meeting with Berri
Miqati Says Continuing His Missions, Tells Berri He Rejects Interference in Judiciary
Miqati Fears Ministers Resignation, Favors Special Court for Ministers’ Trial
Berri Tells Guterres Israel Doesn't Want U.N. in Sea Border Talks
Fate of Appeal against Electoral Law’s Amendments to be Settled Tomorrow
US Donates 613,340 COVID-19 Vaccines to Lebanon
Army Commander meets French Army Chief
Gloomy holidays/Your weekly roundup from NOW./Ana Maria Luca/Now Lebanon/December 20/2021

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 20-21/2021
Iran Pledges 'Crushing' Response Against Any Israeli Attack
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Holds Military Drill amid Tension
Unknown Faction Claims Attacks Targeting US Embassy in Baghdad
New Bill Sends Damascus' Captagon Trade to Congress
Egypt Sentences Top Muslim Brotherhood Leader to life in Prison
Morocco Arrests 25 Terrorism Suspects Linked to ISIS
Hundreds of Thousands March to Sudan Presidential Palace in Protest against Coup
Gunmen Kill 47 in Latest Attacks in Nigeria’s Troubled North
Turkey's Crisis Rattles the Faithful in Erdogan's Heartland
Leftist Millennial Wins Election as Chile's Next President
More Than 200 Dead after Typhoon Slams Philippines

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 20-21/2021
Biden's Appeasement of Moscow Threatens NATO/Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute./December 20/2021
Vladimir the Great and the Ukraine Arena/Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/December, 20/2021
Israeli Defense Officials Cast Doubt on Threat to Attack Iran/Ronen Bergman and Patrick Kingsley/The New York Times/December,20/ 2021
The Gulf’s Security Pragmatism in the Balance of Major Powers and Regional Conflicts/Raghida Dergham/The National/December 20/2021
Loose Sanctions Enforcement Is Letting Iran Off the Hook/Saeed Ghasseminejad/The National Interest/December 20/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 20-21/2021
Ministry of Health: 806 new Corona infections, 14 deaths
NNA/Monday, 20 December, 2021
The Ministry of Public Health on Monday announced 806 new coronavirus infection cases, which raises the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 701749.14 deaths have been recorded over the past 24 hours.

President Aoun addresses general situation and security measures during the holidays with Minister Sleem, meets Chairman of Association of Banks
NNA/Monday, 20 December, 2021
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, received National Defense Minister, Maurice Sleem, today at Baabda Palace.
The meeting tackled the general situation and measures taken to maintain security during the holidays.
The visit of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Lebanon, especially in the aspect related to cooperation between the Lebanese army and the international forces operating in the south, "UNIFIL" were also deliberated, in addition to the current government situation.
Minister Hajjar:
The President met Social Affairs Minister, Hector Hajjar, and discussed with him ministerial affairs, the stages of implementing the financing card, and the percentage recorded so far in the registration via the card's platform.
Minister Hajjar also briefed President Aoun on his participation in the meeting to be held in Riyadh for the Conference of Ministers of Development and Social Affairs, the Arab Ministerial Councils Concerned with the Social Sectors, and the Forum for the Management of Social Transformations MOST for Arab Ministers of Social Affairs. The conference will also discuss the different effects of "Covid 19", with the aim of charting recovery paths for the Arab region and supporting vulnerable and fragile segments in epidemics and crises.
Chairman of the Association of Banks:
The President met the Chairman of the Association of Banks in Lebanon, Dr. Salim Sfeir, and a delegation from the Association. The delegation included Vice President Nadim Kassar, Secretary, Walid Raphael, Treasurer, Abdel Razzaq Ashour and member of the Board of Directors, Saad Azhari.
During the meeting, the banking situation in Lebanon and a number of related topics were discussed, in addition to the work of the banks and the laws that support it.
Family of the late Qabalan Al-Ashqar:
President Aoun received the family of the late Dean of Mayors in Lebanon, Qabalan Al-Ashkar, the mayor of Dbayeh, Zouk El Kharab and Haret El Ballana. The delegation thanked the President for his sympathy and for granting the National Order of Merit in appreciation of Al-Ashqar’s national, municipal and development contributions. The delegation included the widow of the deceased, Mrs. Samira Shalala Al-Ashqar, his son Walid, his wife Rania Al-Sharouk Al-Ashqar, and daughters of the deceased, Jocelyn and Corinne Al-Ashqar.
Christmas Greetings:
President Aoun received two Christmas congratulatory cards from Jordan's King Abdullah II bin Al Hussein and British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. -- Presidency Press Office

Derian to Guterres: Dar-al-Fatwa confirms Lebanon keenness on international resolutions’ implementation
NNA/Monday, 20 December, 2021
Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdellatif Derian told United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres during a meeting with eminent religious leaders on Monday that Dar-al-Fatwa is committed to the international legitimacy and that it confirms Lebanon's keenness on implementing the international resolutions, especially those issued by the UN Security Council. However, Derian regretted that the UNSC did not assume its mission to oversee the implementation of its resolutions and that, as a result, the Palestinian people is still suffering while Israel continues to build settlements.
He added that a significant part of Lebanon's tragedies and collapse was due to the UN failure in playing an efficient role in reaching a solution to the Palestinian issue, besides the Lebanese state's failure to assume its responsibilities.
The meeting was attended by Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rahi, Sheikh Mahdi El-Yahfoufi representing Deputy Head of the Higher Islamic Shiite Council Sheikh Ali Al Khatib, Patriarch of Antioch for the Greek Orthodox Church Patriarch John X Yaziji, Druze Sheikh Aql Sheikh Sami Abil Mona, and Head of the Catholicosate of the House of Cilicia of the Armenian Orthodox Church Aram I Keshishian. A press release by the UN in Lebanon indicated that "participants confirmed their commitment to openness, tolerance and coexistence as the essence of Lebanon's identity and stability.""They stressed the importance of safeguarding these values, which are at the core of faith, especially at this difficult time of grave financial and socioeconomic crisis that is heavily impacting the population. Participants expressed their determination to focus on what unites Lebanon and brings its people together, and they encouraged their communities to do the same and to adopt dialogue as a means of resolving differences in a spirit of consensus and togetherness," the press release said. "Participants emphasized a shared desire across all religions and confessions to see Lebanon recover and prosper, and they committed to doing all they can to restore hope to its people," it added. "The meeting reconfirmed the support of the United Nations to Lebanon in order to halt the crisis and spare the people from further suffering," it concluded.

Guterres Lays Wreath at Beirut Port, Urges Leaders to Take Action
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 20 December, 2021 - 10:00
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres Monday laid a wreath at a memorial for the August 2020 Beirut port blast on the second day of a visit aiming to rally international support for crisis-hit Lebanon. Guterres, who arrived on Sunday, has called on Lebanese leaders to work together to address the economic meltdown that has left four in five Lebanese poor. "Seeing the suffering of the people of Lebanon, Lebanese political leaders do not have the right to be divided and paralyze the country," the UN Secretary-General said on Sunday evening after a meeting with Lebanese President Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace.
Prime Minister Najib Mikati's government has not met for more than two months amid a push by parties close to powerful politicians charged in connection with the blast to remove the judge leading the probe. Guterres said in a video message ahead of his visit that he supports the demands of Lebanese for "truth and justice" over the blast, caused by the explosion of chemicals stored at the port for nearly seven years. Many Lebanese blame the blast on the corruption and dysfunction normalized by the country's political elite, who have been in power since the end of the 1975-90 civil war. Guterres also said on Sunday that the international community has not done enough to support Lebanon. He said a 12-month UN emergency response plan launched in August -- which is asking for $383 million to support 1.1 million people -- is only 11% funded so far, urging more support. Lebanon's population of 6 million includes over 1 million Syrian refugees. "If there is a word to characterize my visit, that word is solidarity," he said.

U.N. Chief Pays Tribute to Victims of Beirut Port Explosion
Associated Press/Monday, 20 December, 2021
The U.N. chief paid tribute Monday to the victims of last year's massive explosion in Beirut's port explosion, expressing solidarity with the families' quest for justice. The Aug. 4, 2020 blast has been described as one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in the world. It devastated parts of the Lebanese capital, killing at least 216 people and injuring thousands. Standing under the rain, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is visiting Lebanon, laid a wreath at a memorial bearing the names of the victims at the Beirut Port site of the explosion. The blast was caused by the detonation of hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse at the port for years, apparently with the knowledge of senior politicians and security officials who did nothing about it. More than 16 months after the government launched a judicial investigation, nearly everything else remains unknown -- from who ordered the shipment to why officials ignored repeated warnings of the danger. Families of the victims have been pressing for answers, accusing political parties of obstructing the national investigation. "I know the suffering and I know the will of the people to know the truth and the will of the people to have proper accountability," Guterres said in a press statement after meeting with Lebanon's parliament speaker, Nabih Berri. "I want to express my very deep solidarity to all the victims of that tragedy."The local probe, lead by Judge Tarek Bitar, has been facing numerous challenges, including criticism by powerful politicians and lawsuits from defendants who have questioned its fairness. Disagreements over the judge's work have paralyzed the government, which has not met since Oct. 12. Lebanon's powerful Hizbullah and two allied groups have demanded that Bitar be replaced. Guterres called on Lebanese political leaders to come together to overcome the country's multiple crises, particularly the economic meltdown that has sank the once middle-income nation into poverty. Guterres arrived in Lebanon on Sunday for a three-day visit. He said he is here to express solidarity with the Lebanese people and urged the international community to offer more financial assistance to the country in need of humanitarian assistance.

Lebanon Religious Leaders Stress Need for Dialogue in Joint Call with U.N. Chief
Naharnet/Monday, 20 December, 2021
Lebanon's religious leaders met Monday with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during his visit to Lebanon. A joint communique was issued after the talks in which the conferees confirmed their "commitment to openness, tolerance and coexistence as the essence of Lebanon’s identity and stability.""They stressed the importance of safeguarding these values, which are at the core of faith, especially at this difficult time of grave financial and socioeconomic crisis that is heavily impacting the population," the statement said. "Participants expressed their determination to focus on what unites Lebanon and brings its people together, and they encouraged their communities to do the same and to adopt dialogue as a means of resolving differences in a spirit of consensus and togetherness," it added. The participants also emphasized "a shared desire across all religions and confessions to see Lebanon recover and prosper," adding that they are "committed to doing all they can to restore hope to its people."The meeting also reconfirmed the support of the United Nations to Lebanon in order to "halt the crisis and spare the people from further suffering."

Aoun's Camp Says 'No Bargain' as Report Says Major Deal Reached
Naharnet/Monday, 20 December, 2021
There will be no deal at the expense of the judicial investigation that Judge Tarek Bitar is conducting, sources informed on President Michel Aoun's stances said on Monday. "President Aoun will not exchange the port probe with the reactivation of any constitutional authority," the sources told MTV, dismissing an earlier report by the same TV network. MTV had earlier reported that Hizbullah has mediated a deal between Aoun's camp and Speaker Nabih Berri that would entail high-level judicial appointments leading to preventing Bitar from interrogating ex-ministers. Aoun's camp would in return secure the approval of its Constitutional Coucil appeal against the electoral law's amendments, MTV had reported. The TV network later said that Berri is "still refusing that Financial Prosecutor Judge Ali Ibrahim be part of the new appointments included in the proposed 'deal.'"Ex-minister Ghassan Atallah of the Free Patriotic Movement for his part said "there will be no settlement in the judicial file." He also denied the presence of a "Hizbullah mediation" between Berri and the FPM, noting that he does not have any information about such an endeavor. Sources close to FPM chief Jebran Bassil also told al-Jadeed that reports of "any bargain or settlement to topple the port probe or the investigative judge are baseless," adding that Bassil will have a speech in which he will explain his movement's stance.

Report: Political Parties Agree Comprehensive Bargain
Naharnet/Monday, 20 December, 2021
A deal that will “bring back” the Cabinet, stop Judge Tarek Bitar from interrogating MPs and repeal the electoral law’s amendments has been concluded between Hizbullah, President Michel Aoun’s camp and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, MTV reported on Monday.The settlement, mediated by Hizbullah, entails the Constitutional Council’s approval of the appeal against the electoral law’s amendments, the TV channel said, which would limit expat voting to only six newly-introduced seats instead of voting for all Parliament members. “Prime Minister Najib Miqati will then call for a Cabinet session that will discuss assigning a new president to the Higher Judicial Council, a new public prosecutor, a new financial prosecutor and a new judicial inspection chief.” “Parliament will be responsible for the lawmakers’ interrogation, instead of Bitar,” MTV said. The TV network however noted that the deal might lead to the full cancellation of expat voting or the postponement of the elections seeing as the remaining time is not sufficient for issuing executive decrees.

Conflicting Reports on Miqati Resignation after Stormy Meeting with Berri
Naharnet/Monday, 20 December, 2021
Conflicting reports emerged Monday evening on whether or not Prime Minister Najib Miqati intends to resign. After reporting that Miqati had rejected a proposed "settlement" and that he intends to "resign tonight after heading to the Baabda Palace," al-Jadeed TV swiftly quoted unnamed sources as saying that its report is baseless. Miqati had earlier in the day appeared to be angry as he was leaving from a meeting with Speaker Nabih Berri in Ain el-Tineh. Asked about the reports about the proposed settlement, Miqati said his government is "not concerned" with the matter. Media reports meanwhile said that the Berri-Miqati meeting did not lead to positive results and that it has "further complicated the matters." "Miqati came to Ain el-Tineh armed with the stances that were launched by U.N. chief Antonio Guterres as to calling on the Lebanese to find domestic solutions for their crises... He then told Berri of his intention to call for a Cabinet session, which sparked a heated debate," the reports said. "Berri ended the debate by saying that resignations are ready should there be a call for a Cabinet session," the reports added.

Miqati Says Continuing His Missions, Tells Berri He Rejects Interference in Judiciary
Naharnet/Monday, 20 December, 2021
Prime Minister Najib Miqati announced Monday evening that he will continue his "missions and efforts," after media reports suggested that he might resign. The premier is "continuing his missions and efforts to resolve the issue of resuming Cabinet sessions, and any later stance that he might take will only be relates to his national and personal convictions and his evaluation of the course of things," his office said. As for the PM's stormy meeting earlier in the day with Speaker Nabih Berri, the office said Miqati reiterated his rejection of "any form of interference in the work of the judiciary."He also stressed the need that the solutions proposed for the issue of the Higher Council for Trial of Presidents and Ministers be based solely on the constitution's articles, the office added. "PM Miqati informed this stance to President Michel Aoun and Speaker Nabih Berri, and it is not an ambiguous stance at all," the office said.

Miqati Fears Ministers Resignation, Favors Special Court for Ministers’ Trial
Naharnet/Monday, 20 December, 2021
Prime Minister Najib Miqati told MTV that he’d rather “wait than confront,” as he does not want to call for a session “without consensus among ministers.” “I will not go towards a scenario that might cause the resignation (of some ministers) from the government,” Miqati reportedly said, before meeting United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday. “These things happen,” he said. “There are always political obstacles.”On another note, Miqati reiterated the government’s stance on the Beirut port probe. “We do not interfere with the judiciary,” he affirmed, adding that “the judiciary, for its part, must respect the constitutional frameworks.”The prime minister went on to say that he favors that a special court, the Higher Council for the Trial of Presidents and Ministers, summon the (former) ministers -- accused of negligence and homicide with probable intent over the Beirut port blast. “Lebanon has not been abandoned, and that’s a positive thing,” Miqati added, about Guterres’ visit. During his meeting with Guterres at the Grand Serail, Miqati asked the United Nations to compel Israel to fully implement Resolution 1701 and to stop its repeated violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty.
He also affirmed Lebanon’s commitment to proceed with the ongoing negotiations over the Lebanese-Israeli border demarcation “in a way that preserves Lebanon's full rights.”

Berri Tells Guterres Israel Doesn't Want U.N. in Sea Border Talks
Naharnet/Monday, 20 December, 2021
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Monday told visiting U.N. chief Antonio Guterres that Israel does not want a role for the U.N. in the sea border demarcation talks. "I thank the U.N. for supporting the army and there are daily Israeli violations of Lebanon's airspace," Berri said after the meeting in Ain el-Tineh."The Israelis do not want a role for the United Nations, especially as to the demarcation of the maritime border, and we discussed this issue with Guterres and stressed that the negotiations should be under the U.N.'s sponsorship and with the participation of the Americans," the Speaker added.
Guterres for his part said his talks with Berri were "very constructive" as to "how to best address the complex and difficult situation in which Lebanon is today.""I do believe that only Lebanese can solve Lebanese problems, but I also do believe that the international community needs to strengthen its support to Lebanon to overcome the present very difficult circumstances," he added. "And the United Nations wants to express its strong solidarity with the Lebanese people in this moment and we’ll do everything to mobilize the international community to strengthen its support to Lebanon, humanitarian support, development support and support to the restructuring of the different aspects of the economy and of the financial situation of the country," the U.N. chief went on to say. He added: "We had the opportunity to discuss the presence of UNIFIL in southern Lebanon, the need to end all violations, of the ceasefire and in particular the Speaker has drawn my attention to the violations of the airspace of Lebanon, and also the need for total implementation of the resolutions of the Security Council." Guterres also said that the U.N. will do all it can to "facilitate the negotiations that hopefully will lead to a rapid solution for the delimitation of the maritime border allowing Lebanon to take full profit of the natural resources that lay there." This "would of course constitute an important contribution to address the economic and social problems of the country," he added. "This is the moment for Lebanese political leaders to come together to overcome divisions, and this is the moment for the international community to strengthen their support to the people of Lebanon," Guterres urged. He added: "The combination of these two factors, the determination and the unity of Lebanese leaders and the solidarity of the international community, I hope will allow in the near future the people of Lebanon having again the life and the prosperity that was characteristic of the past and that corresponds to one of the oldest civilizations in the world."

Fate of Appeal against Electoral Law’s Amendments to be Settled Tomorrow
Naharnet/Monday, 20 December, 2021
The Constitutional Council’s decision on how the parliamentary majority should be calculated will determine the fate of the appeal that had been filed against the electoral law’s amendments, informed sources said. The sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper, in remarks published Monday, that the Constitutional Council’s evaluation of the appeal is determined by the Council’s decision regarding how the parliamentary majority should have been calculated in the session in which the amendments to the electoral law were approved. The Constitutional Council’s final decision is expected to be issued tomorrow. The Strong Lebanon parliamentary bloc had filed last week before the Constitutional Council an appeal against an amendment to the electoral law that brought the parliamentary elections forward from May 8 to March 27. The bloc’s MP Alain Aoun said that his bloc had presented to the Constitutional Council the reasons that necessitate repealing the electoral law’s amendments. Free Patriotic Movement head Jebran Bassil said that his bloc is keen on holding the elections on time and that the appeal is “against the amendments” and not against the entire electoral law. Meanwhile Asharq al-Awsat newspaper learned from informed political sources that the Constitutional Council was equally divided in its meetings between those who support the appeal and those who are against it.

US Donates 613,340 COVID-19 Vaccines to Lebanon
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 20 December, 2021
The US has delivered Lebanon a donation of 336,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine against the coronavirus through the COVAX program, the US embassy announced on Sunday. The donation aims to support the continued fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, it said. As a single dose vaccine, this J&J donation can fully inoculate 336,000 Lebanese against the disease. “The J&J donation is the first of two donations from the United States; a second donation of 277,340 doses of the Moderna vaccine will arrive later this week, bringing the total US contribution to 613,340 vaccine doses,” said the embassy in a statement. The vaccines will support the government’s vaccination strategy against the coronavirus, saving lives, and ensuring Lebanon’s path to economic recovery and long-term stability in its health system, it said.Since the outbreak of the pandemic in Lebanon, the US government has allocated over $55 million to COVID-related assistance to mitigate the spread of this virus, focusing in particular on vulnerable Lebanese, said the statement. “This COVID-related assistance is part of more than $372 million in humanitarian assistance to Lebanon in Fiscal Year 2021, bringing total US humanitarian assistance to Lebanon $2.9 billion since 2012,” it added.

Army Commander meets French Army Chief
NNA/Monday, 20 December, 2021
Lebanese Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, on Monday welcomed at his Yarzeh office French Army Chief (CEMAT), General Pierre Schill, who affirmed his country’s continued support for the Lebanese military institution.

Gloomy holidays/Your weekly roundup from NOW.
Ana Maria Luca/Now Lebanon/December 20/2021
Christmas greeting billboard in the Martyrs' Square in the centre of Lebanon's capital Beirut, near the Mosque of Mohammed al-Amin and the Maronite Cathedral of Saint George (background). Photo: Joseph Eid, AFP.
I was Santa this year. Thousands of us carrying suitcases at the Rafik Hariri International airport are this year’s Santas. We also haul them up the stairs in the middle of the night, in the dark, when the generator takes a break to save fuel. The dawleh is sometimes on and sometimes off. It was off in my case.
I happened to be abroad for the past month. As I returned to Lebanon for the holidays with my family, I filled two suitcases with instant coffee, toys, and clothes, socks and winter shoes for the kids, books, sanitary pads, and over-the-counter ibuprofen-based meds, anti-inflammatory creams, and vitamins. My other relatives who arrived from Dubai have also brought several suitcases filled with provisions for the winter. Everyone has done the same.
Christmas doesn’t feel like Christmas this year, no matter how much we try to put on the Christmas market show and give our children the impression that there is room left to dream.
Has your house been damaged? Was anyone hurt? Have you rebuilt? It’s how we say hello in Beirut this Christmas, as we wear the masks at the small Christmas market in Mar Mikhael, almost seventeen months after death swept the city. Last year we didn’t have the chance to talk, we were still afraid of the virus and self-isolated. The young are still partying in the streets. But inside the homes, holiday conversations more often than not revolve around emigration – who has left, who wants to leave, and who “is crazy enough to stay”.
At least we’re alive, many whisper instead of goodbye.
Beirut has lost its holiday glow, as more and more “for rent” and “for sale” signs have appeared in places once booming with life and businesses. It’s Santa closed, as AFP’s Jean-Marc Mojon has put it in his piece describing Christmas preparations in Lebanon last week.
It’s not just the lack of electricity. Gloom is also a state of mind, when a population has been victimized, abused, and murdered under the political pretense that “it’s okay, they’re martyrs”.
Guterres in Lebanon
I am not sure why Lebanese dignitaries insist on taking every foreign official that visits Beirut to see the destroyed silo in the Beirut port. It feels like a scam: selling the story of the grief to convince the international community to release the aid sooner. It’s unsettling, just like the plans to build a mausoleum in the destroyed port. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has also visited on Monday the marker of death (as Ronnie Chatah calls the silo). But his visit was to a graveyard, not to a disaster zone. He is probably the first international figure to pay his respects to the people who perished, rather than admire the destruction.
Messages: “I have come with a simple message: the UN stands in solidarity with the people of Lebanon,” Guterres told a press conference with Lebanese President Michel Aoun. “Seeing the suffering of the people of Lebanon, Lebanese political leaders do not have the right to be divided and paralyze the country,” he added. He said the objective of his meetings would be “to discuss how we can best support the Lebanese people to overcome the current economic and financial crisis and to promote peace, stability and sustainable development”. Guterres said some nice words. But the truth is that it will be a while before the people of Lebanon will see anything concrete happening. Possibly a generation or two. The biggest obstacles to the implementation of any solution for the Lebanese crisis have hit the wall of impunity. Not just impunity for the August 4 blast, but for many murders and assassinations as well as for official graft. Noone will strike a deal any longer with any government in Lebanon, as long as the country hosts and protects an armed group like Hezbollah.
Weapons held outside the state will always be a threat to any type of stability and development, everyone knows it, the entire world agrees with it, and no matter what one calls an armed group and how they justify its existence, the result is the same: no real progress.
What if: Yes, it’s difficult to solve the problem of Hezbollah. But, if one looks outside the region, there may be lessons to be learned from other places where the state has negotiated the disarmament of an armed group – the most recent case being Colombia. Yes, there are differences between the two countries, and it was not an easy negotiation process (especially because of the transitional justice matter, given that Colombia has signed the International Criminal Court Treaty and there was no way of getting amnesty). It took political will at the regional level, and it took Cuba agreeing to host the talks. Peace with the FARC is still not fully normalized, the society is still polarized, and other factions are still fighting. But there are lessons to learn from the peace negotiations process, and others before it – South Africa, El Salvador and Northern Ireland.
IMF assessing: Amid ongoing talks on a new aid program, the IMF is examining data from Lebanon’s government on the scope of financial sector losses, IMF spokesperson Gerry Rice told journalists last Thursday.
“I’d say there’s been considerable progress in identifying financial sector losses,” he said. Disagreements between Lebanon’s government, central bank and banking sector over the size of the losses contributed to the collapse of negotiations with the fund over a new loan program last year, a step seen as essential to the country’s efforts to emerge from a severe economic slump.
Deputy Prime Minister Saade Chami told AFP that officials have agreed that financial sector losses amount to “around $69 billion,” though he described that as an estimate that could change. Rice said the Washington-based crisis lender is “now assessing the government’s announced figures, and we’ll continue our discussions with the authorities in the context of the engagement.”
An IMF team will travel to Beirut early next year to continue the discussions, he said.
A generation at risk
Lebanon’s spiraling economic crisis is causing abuse against children to soar and is putting one child out of two at risk of violence, the United Nations said on Friday. “One in two children in Lebanon is at serious risk of physical, emotional, or sexual violence, as families struggle to cope in the country’s deepening crisis,” UNICEF said. Read the full report here. A new report released by UNICEF showed that the number of cases of child abuse and exploitation handled by the agency and its partners shot up by 44 percent over the past year. Children as young as six are working on farms and families seeking dowries are marrying off young girls.
Bella ciao
Collapse begets violence, NOW’s Sally Abou al Joud wrote a few months ago. Crime has been on the rise for months in Lebanon, with people taking justice into their own hands as trust in state institutions collapsed. Tribal laws are many times prioritized over state law, and family vendettas are carried out on a daily basis. So often that they are no longer making headlines, because, although many times they end with injury or murdered, they are not politically motivated.
But the case of the bank robbery in Zalka, a suburb north of Beirut, reminds one of 1920s Chicago. Or – a more recent reference – The Money Heist.
The Beirut heist: The robbery last Tuesday targeted a branch of Byblos Bank and left one employee injured, the NNA reported at the time.
The number of robberies in Lebanon has more than doubled in the first 10 months of 2021 compared with last year, according to the Internal Security Forces, quoted by AFP.
The retaliation: Two suspected bank robbers jumped to their deaths Thursday during a Lebanese army raid on their apartment in Al-Amrousiya neighborhood, Choueifat. The raid in Beirut’s southern suburbs targeted a three-man “armed robbery gang”. “The army patrol was hit by live fire, and two members of the gang tried to escape, so they deliberately jumped of the balcony of their fifth-floor apartment which led to their immediate deaths,” the NNA said.
The third suspect was arrested. During the operation, the army seized narcotics, weapons and ammunition. Troops also confiscated motorbikes, masks, gloves and outfits that the suspects allegedly used to carry out the bank heist, the NNA said.
The Omicron wave
No travel for the unvaccinated: Germany on Friday designated several countries, including Lebanon, as high-risk zones for the transmission of coronavirus and will impose quarantine on unvaccinated travelers. The requirement started. Unvaccinated travelers have the possibility of testing on day five.
Connected databases:
The Gulf file
Lebanon expels Bahraini opposition: Lebanon on Wednesday ordered the expulsion of Bahraini opposition figures after they held a press conference that irked the Gulf kingdom, where the group is banned.
Al-Wefaq, Bahrain’s leading opposition party until it was dissolved by the judiciary in 2016,, has close links with Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah
In Beirut last week, the group denounced what it said were human rights violations in the kingdom, local media reported.
In response, Bahrain’s government denounced “the promotion of malicious allegations and causing harm to the Kingdom of Bahrain”. Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi on Wednesday directed security officials “to take the measures necessary to expel from Lebanon the non-Lebanese members” of Al-Wefaq, it added.
In 2011, a mainly Shiite protest movement took to the streets of Bahrain to demand an elected government, briefly threatening the Sunni monarchy’s grip on power before a deadly crackdown.
Al-Wefaq was later dissolved over allegations including “harboring terrorism”.
Back to Hezbollah: A GCC summit last week ended with a declaration calling for an end to Hezbollah assistance for Iran-backed armed militias throughout the region.
The booster shot: Michael Haddad, a Lebanese athlete with motor paralysis, spoke in Rome about his mission to walk 100 km on crutches in the Arctic, in Norway, carrying a book from the Pope to the world’s largest seed reserve to raise awareness about global warming.
Lebanese paralyzed endurance athlete and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Goodwill Ambassador for Climate Action, Michael Haddad holds a version blessed by Pope Francis of the book "Why Are You Afraid, Have You No Faith?" on December 17, 2021 during a press conference at the Embassy of Italy to the Holy See in Rome, to present his project of carrying a book by Pope Francis on a 100 km journey in the Arctic, dubbed the "awake walk", crossing the North Pole using a high-tech exoskeleton to stabilise his chest and legs. - At age six, Haddad survived an accident that left him paralyzed, with 75 per cent of his motor function lost. Haddad's work with UNDP-RBAS (Regional Bureau for Arab States) focuses on advancing and accelerating climate action across the Arab region and around the world.
Podcasts: Sarde after Dinner hosted activist and comedian Amani Danhach a.k.a @ammounz, known for her videos on social media criticizing politicians. She was sued last week for a video criticizing president Michel Aoun. Watch the episode here.
Ronnie Chatah spoke with political activist Asma Andraos for last week’s episode of The Beirut Banyan. Watch them here. Asma Andraos is known among 2005 Cedar Revolution activists. After the murder of former PM Rafik Hariri she gathered a group of friends and attended the funeral with posters reading “It’s Obvious, No?”. She was also part of an initiative that launched a petition at Hariri’s gravesite calling for the withdrawal of the Syrian army.
Agenda: The Constitutional Council is set to rule on Tuesday on an appeal filed by Strong Lebanon bloc MPs against the amendment to the electoral law that moved the elections from May to March 27. President Aoun has refused to sign the decree and, unless he signs it by December 27 (which is rather impossible), elections will be pushed until May.
Until next week when we look at the year in review and prospects for 2022, stay safe. Follow NOW Lebanon on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 20-21/2021
Iran Pledges 'Crushing' Response Against Any Israeli Attack
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 20 December, 2021
Iran will retaliate with a "crushing" response against any Israeli attack, a commander said according to an Iranian news agency linked to the country's top security body. "If Israel carries out attacks against Iran, our armed forces will immediately attack all centers, bases, routes, and spaces used to carry out the aggression," Gholamali Rashid said during a military maneuver which started on Sunday, nournews added. Earlier, an official told Iran's semi-official Fars news agency that the sounds of anti-aircraft fire heard on Monday from around Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant was the result of an air defense exercise to increase the defense system's abilities. "This exercise took place at 5 a.m. local time (130 GMT) with full preparation and coordination with the armed forces," the official, Mohammadtaqi Irani, said. Indirect talks between Iran and the United States have resumed to revive Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with major powers, which the United States abandoned three years ago, reimposing harsh sanctions on Iran. Israel has warned it will adopt other measures should diplomacy fail to curb Iran's fast-advancing nuclear program.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Holds Military Drill amid Tension
Associated Press/Monday, 20 December, 2021
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard staged a major military exercise across the country's south on Monday amid heightened tensions over Tehran's nuclear program, state TV reported. The Guard's aerospace division, ground troops and naval forces joined in the five-day drill, the report said, with maritime forces set to maneuver in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the narrow gateway for 20% of the world's traded oil. The exercise comes days after talks to revive Tehran's tattered nuclear deal with world powers broke up in Vienna. Iran has accelerated its nuclear advances as negotiations to return to the accord struggle to make headway, alarming Israel and other regional rivals. Israel has repeatedly threatened unilateral action against Iran's nuclear program. Gen. Gholamali Rashid, a top Guard commander, vowed a harsh response to any Israeli military action against Iran. Iranian forces will launch "a crushing attack on all bases, centers, paths and space used to carry out the aggression without delay," the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted him as saying. "Any threat to Iran's nuclear and military bases by the Zionist regime is not possible without the green light support of the United States," he said. Earlier on Monday, residents in Bushehr, some 700 kilometers (440 miles) south of Iran's capital, Tehran, reported seeing a light in the sky and hearing a loud explosion near the Bushehr nuclear power plant. It was the second time this month that sudden anti-aircraft firing erupted the middle of the night near an Iranian nuclear facility, which Iranian forces hours later described as drill for its surface-to-air missile defense system.

Unknown Faction Claims Attacks Targeting US Embassy in Baghdad
Baghdad - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 20 December, 2021
An unknown faction has claimed responsibility for two attacks targeting the United States embassy in Baghdad on Saturday evening. This faction, which calls itself “Fateh Khabir Brigade,” is added to dozens others that had claimed responsibility for operations against the international coalition forces operating in Iraq, as part of the efforts to combat ISIS.
It issued a statement on social media stressing that the “US enemy does not understand the language of dialogue and peace.”“The deadline given to the American forces is about to expire, and they haven’t yet implemented the agreement to leave the country,” the statement read. It added that it decided to confront these forces with strikes, describing the measure as “painful, disturbing and destabilizing.”Two Katyusha rockets hit Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone that houses the US embassy late Saturday. “The Green Zone in Baghdad was the target of two Katyusha rockets. The first was shot down in the air by C-RAM defense batteries, the second fell near the zone’s festivals arena, damaging two vehicles,” Iraq’s security forces said in a statement. A security source in the embassy said that the shot down rocket fell near the US embassy, while the second came down roughly 500 meters away. No American casualties were reported. In similar news, a roadside bomb explosion targeted Sunday a convoy of the US-led coalition forces delivering military equipment to the Iraqi forces in Anbar province, north of Iraq. A security source said in a statement that the bomb attack did not result in any casualties or serious material damage, but that it temporarily stopped the convoy. It came hours after the Security Media Cell said that the Iraqi forces had thwarted a similar attack targeting a convoy of the coalition forces in Babil province, south of Iraq.

New Bill Sends Damascus' Captagon Trade to Congress
Washington - Muath Alamri/ Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 20 December, 2021
The case of captagon drug trade in Syria has once again been brought up in the United States after the issue was "dropped" from the Defense Department's 2022 budget. The Biden administration is keen on fighting this phenomenon through a draft bill that was submitted by two Congressmen last week.
Republican Congressman French Hill and Democrat Brendan Boyle submitted a new bill to Congress demanding that the federal government "develop an interagency strategy to disrupt and dismantle narcotics production and trafficking and affiliated networks linked to the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria."
The captagon issue came to a head in Washington this month when, after the House released new compromise language for the defense bill, it came to light that an amendment dealing with the captagon issue had been mysteriously removed. In the end, Congress only expressed its support for cracking down on captagon exports in a non-binding statement
Although the Biden administration isn’t standing in the way of crafting such a strategy, observers note that it also has yet to prioritize the issue by crafting a government-wide and multilateral approach to push back against Assad’s narcotic trade. What’s strange about the situation is that the captagon provision received support from Republican and Democratic leaders of multiple committees in both houses that needed to sign off on its inclusion in the compromise text. Senator Bob Menendez, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, speaking to a group of Syrian Americans last week said the amendment was removed due to an administrative error and pledged to get it back into the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). His efforts, however, failed. Captagon is an addictive amphetamine that’s made massive inroads across the Middle East. Forces controlled by Assad produced billions of dollars worth of the substance in 2020 — a kleptocratic enterprise that props up the Syrian government and lines Hezbollah coffers. The New York Times quoted a Jordanian official as observing a threefold increase in the amount of crystal meth — which shares some chemical similarities with captagon and can be made in converted captagon labs — leaving Syria since the start of the year. In a joint statement, Hill and Boyle said: "Since 2018, narcotic production and trafficking in Syria has turned Syria into a narco-state to fund its crimes against humanity. It is important we stop this trafficking and source of illicit finance."
"The US government must do all it can to disrupt the industrial level of drug production currently taking place in Syria," they urged. Failing to do so would allow the Assad regime to "continue to drive the ongoing conflict, provide a lifeline to extremist groups, and permit American adversaries such as China, Russia, and Iran to strengthen their engagement there — posing an ever-larger threat to Israel and other partners in the region.""It is imperative that the US takes a leading role in thwarting narcotics production in Syria so we can continue to pursue a political settlement and permanent resolution to the conflict, as outlined in UNSCR 2254."Caroline Rose of the Newlines Institute in Washington said the draft bill is a step in the right direction. She told Asharq Al-Awsat that as more focus is shifted towards the illicit drug trade in Syria, then the new bill has the chance to succeed. She added that she believes it is in the administration's benefit to approve the bill because it will provide it with the opportunity to exert pressure on the regime and confront the drug trade that has harmed people's security in the region.

Egypt Sentences Top Muslim Brotherhood Leader to life in Prison
Cairo - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 20 December, 2021
An Egyptian court on Thursday sentenced Mahomud Ezzat, the 76-year-old top leader of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, along with other co-defendants to life in prison. The Cairo Criminal Court on Sunday sentenced Ezzat, the acting supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, to life for espionage with several foreign organizations and parties, including the Palestinian Hamas movement, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and Lebanese Hezbollah and disclosure of national security information. According to the prosecution’s investigation on the case that dates back to 2013, Ezzat and other Brotherhood members are charged with committing acts that undermine Egypt’s independence, unity and territorial integrity. A life sentence in Egypt is 25 years in jail. The official charges leveled against the defendants are communicating with foreign organizations to commit terrorist acts inside the country and finance terrorism. Many of Egypt's senior Brotherhood leaders, including the late president Mohamed Morsi, have had the same charges of espionage for a foreign agent leveled against them in recent years. Ezzat was arrested in August 2020 in Cairo, after being on the run for several years. He was found guilty of “incitement to murder” and of having “supplied weapons” during clashes between demonstrators outside the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013. In 2015, Ezzat was handed a death sentence in absentia, as well as given life imprisonment, after having been found guilty for having supervised the assassination of soldiers and government officials. He was accused of involvement in the murder of the state prosecutor Hisham Barakat, who died in hospital after a car bomb tore through his convoy in Cairo in 2015. The Brotherhood was blacklisted in Egypt in 2013 and deemed a terrorist group, months after Morsi's ouster.

Morocco Arrests 25 Terrorism Suspects Linked to ISIS
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 20 December, 2021
Moroccan security forces arrested 25 people this month on suspicion of supporting ISIS and planning “terrorist” attacks in the kingdom, a security source has told AFP. The arrests took place in several cities on December 8 as part of “ongoing efforts to fight terrorist dangers,” the source said on condition of anonymity. Some of the suspects have already been referred to the judiciary, the source added. Moroccan news outlets had reported a nationwide counter-terror operation on December 8 — the largest of its kind in recent years — but official sources had not confirmed the crackdown. Reports on Saturday said that during the operations, authorities seized weapons including firearms and ammunition, as well as documents on bomb-making and material “glorifying ISIS.” They said investigations revealed the suspects were planning to carry out “specific” terrorist attacks inside Morocco. Counter-terrorism police said Friday that they had thwarted a suspected ISIS bomb plot and arrested an alleged supporter of the group, in cooperation with US intelligence services. The security source told AFP the operation had “no connection” to the arrests earlier this month.

Hundreds of Thousands March to Sudan Presidential Palace in Protest against Coup
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 20 December, 2021
Hundreds of thousands of people marched to the presidential palace in Sudan's capital Khartoum on Sunday in protest at the Oct. 25 military coup, drawing volleys of tear gas and stun grenades from security forces, Reuters witnesses said. Medics said scores of people were injured.
Some protesters managed to reach the gates of the palace and the protest's organizers called on more to join a planned sit-in there after sundown, but live video footage showed those who remained being tear gassed heavily. The outpouring of protest, the ninth major demonstration since the coup and one of the largest, marked the 2018 burning of a ruling party building which touched off a popular uprising that led to the overthrow of long-ruling President Omar al-Bashir. Protests against the coup have continued even after the reinstatement of the prime minister last month, with demonstrators demanding no more military involvement at all in government in a transition towards free elections. Demonstrators marched down a main road leading to the palace, chanting "the people are stronger and retreat is impossible", with some darting into side streets to dodge volleys of tear gas. Some 123 people were injured, according to the Sudanese health ministry, in Khartoum, its twin cities of Bahri and Omdurman, and the eastern city of Kassala. Medics affiliated with the protest movement accused security forces in a statement of using live bullets and heavy tear gas to disperse the sit-in, assaulting protesters and stealing their personal property. They also accused them of encircling hospitals and firing tear gas at the entrances. There was no immediate statement from police. Despite security forces blocking bridges over the Nile river into the capital early on Sunday, protesters were able to cross a bridge connecting the city of Omdurman to central Khartoum but were met with heavy tear gas, Reuters witnesses said. Reuters witnesses also watched protesters crossing a bridge from Bahri, north of Khartoum, to the capital. Images shared on social media showed protests taking place in several other cities including Port Sudan, El-Deain, Madani and Kassala.
Flags and masks
Early on Sunday joint army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces sealed off major roads leading to the airport and the army headquarters and they were heavily deployed around the presidential palace.
Protesters also blocked roads leading to the main route of the march. Some were carrying Sudanese flags and photos of protesters who were killed in demonstrations in the past few months. Others were handing out masks against COVID-19 and carrying stretchers in anticipation of people being wounded.
The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors says 45 people have been killed in crackdowns on protesters since the Oct. 25 coup. It was the ninth in a series of demonstrations against the coup, which have continued even after the military signed a deal on Nov. 21 with Hamdok, who had been under house arrest, and released him and other high-profile political detainees. On Saturday night, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok warned in a statement that Sudan's revolution faced a major setback and that political intransigence from all sides threatened the country's unity and stability.
The military and civilian political parties known as the Forces of Freedom and Change Coalition (FFC) had shared power since Bashir's removal. But the agreement reinstating Hamdok angered protesters, who previously had seen him as a symbol of resistance to military rule and denounced his deal with the military as a betrayal. Civilian parties, and neighborhood resistance committees that have organized several mass protests, demand full civilian rule under the slogan "no negotiation, no partnership, no legitimacy." In a statement, the FFC supported the resistance committees' calls for sit-ins, strikes, and further protests, which are scheduled for Dec. 25 and Dec. 30. "We call on the people to continue escalating their resistance to the coup until power is handed over to the people," they said, accusing security forces of excessive force. On Saturday night and early Sunday morning, people arrived in bus convoys from other states, including North Kordofan and Gezira, to join the protests in Khartoum, witnesses said.

Gunmen Kill 47 in Latest Attacks in Nigeria’s Troubled North
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 20 December, 2021
Nigerian security forces are searching for armed gangs who killed 47 people in attacks in recent days in rural areas of the country's northwest, the latest killings in the troubled region. The attacks took place in the northwest Kaduna state which neighbors Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja, Kaduna commissioner for security Samuel Aruwan confirmed. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks but they are suspected to be by the gangs of bandits who have killed at least 2,500 people in the northwest and central states so far in 2021, according to statistics collated by the US Council on Foreign Relations. The attacks have escalated in the past three months so the death toll for the entire year is expected to increase. The armed groups mostly consist of young men from the Fulani ethnic group who had traditionally worked as nomadic cattle herders and have become caught up in a decades-long conflict with Hausa farming communities over access to water and grazing land. Security forces deployed after the attacks are patrolling the affected areas, but no arrests have been announced and details are still emerging. Local residents reported that the assailants rampaged for hours in some of the villages.
Nine people were killed across three villages on Friday, according to Kaduna commissioner Aruwan, a reminder of how the armed groups are able to carry out prolonged assaults in remote locations where help is often delayed as a result of inadequate security presence.
Another 38 people were killed on Sunday by assailants in another part of Kaduna, Aruwan confirmed. Houses, trucks, and cars were burned, along with agricultural produce at some farms, he said. The ongoing violence in Nigeria’s troubled northwestern region has defied measures introduced by authorities including the deployment of thousands of security forces to restore peace in violent hotspots and the recent designation of the armed groups as terrorist organizations. Part of the problem is that Nigeria's military is already overstretched in a decade-long war against extremist rebels in the northeast region. The rebels of Boko Haram and its offshoot, the ISIS in West Africa Province are reported to have infiltrated the armed bandits of the northwest as they seek to expand their influence and control, according to local authorities.

Turkey's Crisis Rattles the Faithful in Erdogan's Heartland
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 20 December, 2021
Turkish laborer Hasan Sarikaya says he has no job, no money and no hope for a better future while President Tayyip Erdogan - the leader he supported for years - remains in power. Like many people in the industrial city of Konya in Turkey's conservative heartlands, which enjoyed an economic boom in the early years of the Erdogan era, Sarikaya has been hit by the crash in the lira spiraling inflation, and a business slump, Reuters said. Their misfortunes may spell trouble for Erdogan as economic pain erodes support for Turkey's most successful modern politician and transforms the next elections, due in mid-2023, into the toughest test of his two decades in power. "I'm looking for work, I can't pay my debts... there is no solution. People are fed up now," said Sarikaya, 31, speaking on a busy Konya street. "I voted (for Erdogan) for years... Watch now, he won't be able to save himself."
Erdogan's enduring appeal through more than a dozen national and local election triumphs was based on a record of economic growth and pious conservative values which enthused millions of Muslim Turks who had long felt ignored by a secular elite. Konya, home of the revered 13th-century Sufi mystic poet Rumi, has been a bastion for his AK Party (AKP), turning under his rule from an agricultural center into an industrial powerhouse. Erdogan won 75% of Konya's vote in the 2018 presidential election and AKP support was higher than in all but one of Turkey's 81 provinces. That dominance is now threatened by an unprecedented set of challenges. Other Konya residents who spoke to Reuters, including industrial workers, farmers and students, echoed Sarikaya's lament over rising prices and fewer jobs. Although many said they would stick with Erdogan's party at the next elections, national surveys over the last year suggest Sarikaya's disillusion is part of a wider trend, with opposition parties pulling ahead of the AKP and its parliamentary ally, the nationalist MHP. "Never have we seen such low support for the AKP in the past," said Sinan Ulgen, director at the Istanbul-based Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies.
"There is an increased perception that in 2023 there will be political change."
WINNER TAKES ALL
Erdogan has ruled Turkey, first as prime minister and later as president, since 2003. Three years ago he assumed wider powers under a new executive presidency that critics say created a hyper-centralized system ill-equipped to tackle Turkey's economic, political and security challenges.
Power drained from institutions and ministries to the sprawling presidential palace in Ankara. Erdogan has dismissed three central bank governors since 2019, and sacked three bank policy makers in October. Erdogan says the central bank remains independent, but it bowed to his call to slash interest rates well below inflation, triggering a 56% fall in the lira this year and driving up the cost of living for ordinary Turks. The presidency did not respond to a request for comment on the impact of government policy on the economy and on support for Erdogan. His opponents, energized by a groundswell of support, are on the offensive, accusing him of driving Turkey into poverty. Erdogan's problems are compounded by the very presidential system he championed, which requires an absolute majority of votes at the ballot box, denying candidates the option of building alliances to reach the threshold. Polls suggest three potential rivals - the mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, both from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), and the leader of the nationalist IYI Party - would all beat him in a straight race.
"It's a 'winner takes all' system - that raises the risk at a time when his political popularity is sinking," Ulgen said.
"A SULTAN IN AUTUMN"
For the first time in an election Erdogan will also face two breakaway parties established by founding members of his AKP. One is the Gelecek (Future) Party, led by ex-prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the other is run by Erdogan's former ally Ali Babacan. Both offer disenchanted AKP voters a chance to reject Erdogan without abandoning his conservative values. "If voters have to make a choice and are right-oriented, they will find another right-wing party closer to them," said Hasan Ekici, local Gelecek Party chairman in Konya. While national support for the new parties remains in low single digits, even marginal swings to them could harm Erdogan enough to turn the tables. "Developments since 2018 when Turkey had its first economic crisis under Erdogan... all point to the fact that Erdogan is a sultan in the autumn of his career," said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Concern over the 67-year-old leader's health, rebuffed by the presidential palace, has also swirled. Known as a fiery orator, Erdogan has sometimes appeared tired and pale in the past year, walking awkwardly and dozing off on camera. In a country where half the population is 31 or younger, many have known no other leader. Erdogan says young Turks should appreciate their country's progress under him, but he has struggled to win over most young people. Nevertheless, Erdogan's party still enjoys more support than any other and can rely on near blanket support from media owned predominantly by his supporters. His rule witnessed a construction boom and improved health services, and religious Turks welcomed his ending of restrictions on wearing headscarves. The loose alliance of his opponents lacks an agreed policy platform and has yet to select a presidential candidate. But the gathering uncertainty over Erdogan's prospects is rippling out to the wider world, where he has been making tentative efforts to repair strained relations with some of Turkey's allies and rivals.Unal Cevikoz, a retired ambassador, said countries such as Egypt and Israel, long at odds with Erdogan, were in no rush to make up with him.
"People sense that the wind of change is now blowing and everybody is waiting for a change in the government," he said.

Leftist Millennial Wins Election as Chile's Next President
Associated Press./December 20/2021
A leftist millennial who rose to prominence during anti-government protests was elected Chile's next president Sunday after a bruising campaign against a free-market firebrand likened to Donald Trump. With 56% of the votes, Gabriel Boric handily defeated by more than 10 points lawmaker José Antonio Kast, who tried unsuccessfully to scare voters that his inexperienced opponent would become a puppet of his allies in Chile's Communist Party and upend the country's vaunted record as Latin America's most stable, advanced economy.
In a model of democratic civility that broke from the polarizing rhetoric of the campaign, Kast immediately conceded defeat, tweeting a photo of himself on the phone congratulating his opponent on his "grand triumph." He then later traveled personally to Boric's campaign headquarters to meet with his rival.
Meanwhile, outgoing President Sebastian Pinera — a conservative billionaire — held a video conference with Boric to offer his government's full support during the three month transition. Amid a crush of supporters, Boric vaulted atop a metal barricade to reach the stage where he initiated in the indigenous Mapuche language a rousing victory speech to thousands of mostly young supporters. The bearded, bespectacled president-elect highlighted the progressive positions that launched his improbable campaign, including a promise to fight climate change by blocking a proposed mining project in what is the world's largest copper producing nation. He also promised to end Chile's private pension system — the hallmark of the neoliberal economic model imposed by the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
"We are a generation that emerged in public life demanding our rights be respected as rights and not treated like consumer goods or a business," Boric said. "We know there continues to be justice for the rich, and justice for the poor, and we no longer will permit that the poor keep paying the price of Chile's inequality."He also gave an extended shout out to Chilean women, a key voting bloc who feared that a Kast victory would roll back years of steady gains, promising they will be "protagonists" in a government that will seek to "leave behind once and for all the patriarchal inheritance of our society."
In Santiago's subway, where a fare hike in 2019 triggered a wave of nationwide protests that exposed the shortcomings of Chile's free market model, young supporters of Boric, some of them waving flags emblazoned with the candidate's name, jumped and shouted in unison as they headed downtown to join thousands who gathered for the president-elect's victory speech.
"This is a historic day," said Boris Soto, a teacher. "We've defeated not only fascism, and the right wing, but also fear."At 35, Boric will become Chile's youngest modern president when he takes office in March and only the second millennial to lead in Latin America, after El Salvador's Nayib Bukele. Only one other head of state, Giacomo Simoncini of the city-state San Marino in Europe, is younger. His government is likely to be closely watched throughout Latin America, where Chile has long been a harbinger of regional trends.
It was the first country in Latin America to break with the U.S. dominance during the Cold War and pursue socialism with the election of Salvador Allende in 1970. It then reversed course a few years later when Pinochet's coup ushered in a period of right-wing military rule that quickly launched a free market experiment throughout the region. Boric's ambitious goal is to introduce a European-style social democracy that would expand economic and political rights to attack nagging inequality without veering toward the authoritarianism embraced by so much of the left in Latin America, from Cuba to Venezuela.
It's a task made more challenging by deepening ideological divisions unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic, which sped up the reversal of a decade of economic gains.
Kast, who has a history of defending Chile's past military dictatorship, finished ahead of Boric by two points in the first round of voting last month but failed to secure a majority of votes. That set up a head-to-head runoff against Boric.
Boric was able to reverse the difference by a larger margin than pre-election opinion polls forecast by expanding beyond his base in the capital, Santiago, and attracting voters in rural areas who don't side with political extremes. For example, in the northern region of Antofagasta, where he finished third in the first round of voting, he trounced Kast by almost 20 points.
An additional 1.2 million Chileans cast ballots Sunday compared to the first round, raising turnout to nearly 56%, the highest since voting stopped being mandatory in 2012. "It's impossible not to be impressed by the historic turnout, the willingness of Kast to concede and congratulate his opponent even before final results were in, and the generous words of President Pinera," said Cynthia Arnson, head of the Latin America program at the Wilson Center in Washington. "Chilean democracy won today, for sure."Kast, 55, a devout Roman Catholic and father of nine, emerged from the far right fringe after having won less than 8% of the vote in 2017. An admirer of Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, he rose steadily in the polls this time with a divisive discourse emphasizing conservative family values and playing on Chileans' fears that a surge in migration — from Haiti and Venezuela — is driving crime.
As a lawmaker he has a record of attacking Chile's LGBTQ community and advocating more restrictive abortion laws. He also accused Pinera, a fellow conservative, of betraying the economic Pinochet. Kast's brother, Miguel, was one of the dictator's top advisers. In recent days, both candidates had tried to veer toward the center. "I'm not an extremist. ... I don't feel far right," Kast proclaimed in the final stretch even as he was dogged by revelations that his German-born father had been a card-carrying member of Adolf Hitler's Nazi party. Boric's victory likely to be tempered by a divided congress.
In addition, the political rules could soon change because a newly elected convention is rewriting the country's Pinochet-era constitution. The convention — the nation's most powerful elected institution — could in theory call for new presidential elections when it concludes its work next year and if the new charter is ratified in a plebiscite.

More Than 200 Dead after Typhoon Slams Philippines
Associated Press/December 20/2021
The death toll following the strongest typhoon to batter the Philippines this year has risen to more than 200, with 52 other people still missing and several central towns and provinces grappling with downed communications and power outages and pleading for food and water, officials said Monday.
At its strongest, the typhoon packed sustained winds of 195 kilometers (121 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 270 kph (168 mph) before it blew out Friday into the South China Sea. At least 208 people were killed, 52 remained missing and 239 were injured, according to the national police. The toll was expected to increase because several towns and villages remained out of reach due to downed communications and power outages although massive clean-up and repair efforts were underway. Many died due to falling trees and collapsing walls, flash flood and landslides. A 57-year-old man was found dead hanging from a tree branch and a woman was blown away by the wind and died in Negros Occidental province, police said. Governor Arlene Bag-ao of Dinagat Islands, among the southeastern provinces first hit by the typhoon, said Rai's ferocity on her island province of more than 130,000 was worse than that of Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful and deadliest typhoons on record and which devastated the central Philippines in November 2013 but did not inflict any casualties in Dinagat. "If it was like being in a washing machine before, this time there was like a huge monster that smashed itself everywhere, grabbed anything like trees and tin roofs and then hurled them everywhere," Bag-ao told The Associated Press by telephone. "The wind was swirling north to south to east and west repeatedly for six hours. Some tin roof sheets were blown away then were tossed back."
At least 14 villagers died and more than 100 others were injured by flying tin roofs, debris and glass shards and were treated in makeshift surgery rooms in damaged hospitals in Dinagat, Bag-ao said. Many more would have died if thousands of residents had not been evacuated from high-risk villages.
Like several other typhoon-hit provinces, Dinagat remained without electricity and communications and many residents in the province, where the roofs of most houses and buildings were ripped off, needed construction materials, food and water. Bag-ao and other provincial officials traveled to nearby regions that had cellphone signals to seek aid and coordinate recovery efforts with the national government. More than 700,000 people were lashed by the typhoon in central island provinces, including more than 400,000 who had to be moved to emergency shelters. Thousands of residents were rescued from flooded villages, including in Loboc town in hard-hit Bohol province, where residents were trapped on roofs and trees to escape from rising floodwaters. Coast guard ships ferried 29 American, British, Canadian, Swiss, Russian, Chinese and other tourists who were stranded on Siargao Island, a popular surfing destination that was devastated by the typhoon, officials said. Emergency crews were scrambling to restore electricity in 227 cities and towns, officials said. Power has been restored in only 21 areas so far. Cellphone connections in more than 130 cities and towns were cut by the typhoon but at least 106 had been reconnected by Monday, officials said. Two local airports remained closed except for emergency flights, but most others have reopened, the civil aviation agency said. Bag-ao and other officials were concerned that their provinces may run out of fuel, which was in high demand due to the use of temporary power generators, including those used for refrigerated warehouses with large amounts of coronavirus vaccine stocks. Officials delivered vaccine shipments to many provinces for an intensified immunization campaign, which was postponed last week due to the typhoon. At the Vatican, Pope Francis expressed his closeness Sunday to the people of the Philippines, referencing the typhoon "that destroyed many homes."About 20 storms and typhoons annually batter the Philippines, which lies between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea. The Southeast Asian archipelago also lies along the seismically active Pacific "Ring of Fire" region, making it one of the world's most disaster-prone countries.

The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 20-21/2021
Biden's Appeasement of Moscow Threatens NATO
Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute./December 20/2021
Western efforts to curb Mr Putin's threatening behavior... are being undermined by the Biden administration's reluctance to confront Mr Putin.
In seeking to appease Moscow, Mr Biden appears to be overlooking Washington's commitment to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which commits the US, as well as other allies such as the UK and France, to safeguard Ukraine's territorial integrity in return for dismantling its Soviet-era nuclear weapons arsenal. Any failure by the Biden administration to honor this solemn undertaking would further erode Washington's already tarnished credibility on the world stage.
The suggestion that Mr Biden is preparing to sell out Ukraine has enraged Washington's NATO allies in eastern Europe who are currently bearing the brunt of Russian aggression and believe, with some justification, that Mr Biden is preparing to make unacceptable concessions to Moscow, such as providing political guarantees that will curb NATO's freedom of movement and its ability to operate effectively against Russian aggression.
Indeed, it could be argued that the Biden administration's inherent weakness has been a determining factor in encouraging Mr Putin to adopt a more confrontational attitude towards the West on issues like Ukraine.
Mr Biden's evident unwillingness to defend America's interests has even prompted the Kremlin to threaten deploying intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe to threaten NATO.
The American president's deep-seated aversion to military confrontation also explains China's recent adoption of a more confrontational attitude on the issue of Taiwan, with Taiwanese leaders warning that Beijing could be ready to mount a full-scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025.
Nor is Beijing likely to de-escalate tensions with Taipei when all the indications suggest that Mr Biden is preparing to appease the Kremlin with regard to Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden's willingness to appease Russia over its aggressive conduct towards Ukraine is threatening to create deep divisions within the NATO alliance -- a result that would doubtless delight Russian President Vladimir Putin. Pictured: Biden and Putin share a laugh in Geneva, Switzerland, on on June 16, 2021.
US President Joe Biden's willingness to appease Russia over its aggressive conduct towards Ukraine is threatening to create deep divisions within the NATO alliance -- a result that would doubtless delight Russian President Vladimir Putin. NATO was created specifically as a collective defense against potential Russian aggression.
With an estimated 100,000 Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border, Western leaders have sought to present a united front to dissuade Russian President Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine.
There is mounting concern among Western intelligence services, which is also shared by the Ukrainian government, that the presence of a well-armed Russian battlegroup close to the Ukrainian border indicates that Moscow could launch a full-scale invasion as soon as next month.
CIA Director William Burns is on record as saying he believes Mr Putin "is putting the Russian military, the Russian security services in a place where they could act in a pretty sweeping way", while Ukraine's defence minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, is predicting that "the most likely time to reach readiness for escalation will be the end of January."
To prevent such a disastrous outcome, Western leaders are keen to adopt a unified position against Mr Putin's latest act of unprovoked aggression against a neighbouring country.
At the recent meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Liverpool hosted by Liz Truss, Britain's recently-appointed Foreign Secretary, Russia was warned it would pay a severe cost if it went ahead with the invasion, with Western leaders warning of crippling economic sanctions being imposed against Moscow.
"We have been clear that any incursion by Russia into Ukraine would have massive consequences for which there would be a severe cost," Ms Truss said, adding that the countries "need to make the positive case for individual humanity and dignity which lies at the heart of our democratic free societies".
In the joint statement, the countries said that Russia must "de-escalate, pursue diplomatic channels, and abide by its international commitments on transparency of military activities".
Western efforts to curb Mr Putin's threatening behavior, though, are being undermined by the Biden administration's reluctance to confront Mr Putin.
Mr Biden's disinclination to act was clearly evident following his two-hour video conference with the Russian leader earlier this month when the US leader made it clear that no military options were being considered on Ukraine. "The idea that the United States is going to unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not in the cards right now," he said.
Coming after the Biden administration's disastrous handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan earlier this year, the fact that the White House has no interest in protecting Ukraine's sovereign integrity will come as no surprise to the Kremlin.
Indeed, it could be argued that the Biden administration's inherent weakness has been a determining factor in encouraging Mr Putin to adopt a more confrontational attitude towards the West on issues like Ukraine.
Mr Biden's evident unwillingness to defend America's interests has even prompted the Kremlin to threaten deploying intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe to threaten NATO.
The American president's deep-seated aversion to military confrontation also explains China's recent adoption of a more confrontational attitude on the issue of Taiwan, with Taiwanese leaders warning that Beijing could be ready to mount a full-scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025.
Nor is Beijing likely to de-escalate tensions with Taipei when all the indications suggest that Mr Biden is preparing to appease the Kremlin with regard to Ukraine.
Russia's military build-up on the Ukrainian border is widely seen as a blatant attempt to bully the Western powers into giving a commitment that Kiev will not be allowed to become a member of the NATO alliance.
Ukraine currently enjoys partner status with NATO, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed interest in becoming a full NATO member, a move which would commit the alliance to protecting Ukraine's sovereign integrity.
Yet, while Ukraine is well within its rights to apply for NATO membership, Mr Putin, who regards Ukraine as historically falling within Moscow's sphere of influence, is bitterly opposed to the move, and is seeking to pressure the West into making a binding commitment not to grant Ukraine membership.
Moreover, in a clear sign that Mr Biden is more-than-willing to appease Moscow on the issue of Ukraine's NATO membership, the American president is reported to have offered to convene a joint meeting of NATO and Russian leaders to resolve the Ukraine crisis.
In seeking to appease Moscow, Mr Biden appears to be overlooking Washington's commitment to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which commits the US, as well as other allies such as the UK and France, to safeguard Ukraine's territorial integrity in return for dismantling its Soviet-era nuclear weapons arsenal. Any failure by the Biden administration to honor this solemn undertaking would further erode Washington's already tarnished credibility on the world stage.
The suggestion that Mr Biden is preparing to sell out Ukraine has enraged Washington's NATO allies in eastern Europe, who are currently bearing the brunt of Russian aggression and believe, with some justification, that Mr Biden is preparing to make unacceptable concessions to Moscow, such as providing political guarantees that will curb NATO's freedom of movement and its ability to operate effectively against Russian aggression.
Certainly, after the Biden administration's wanton capitulation in Afghanistan, European leaders are right to express concern that the US leader is willing to inflict similar damage on the credibility of the NATO alliance.
Such a blatant act of appeasement towards the Kremlin would simply serve to encourage adversaries such as China and Russia that they can carry on with their bully-boy antics against the likes of Taiwan and Ukraine.
*Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 2021 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.

Vladimir the Great and the Ukraine Arena
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/December, 20/2021
The issue is not just about Ukraine. It is beyond and more dangerous than that. Russia must settle its scores at the appropriate time. The appropriate time means the presence of an extraordinary leader who is fit to drive the dangerous turns.
The issue is not just about Ukraine. It is also about the old European dream of taming Russia and taking it down a few pegs. A western dream to force snowy Russia to open up and embrace western recipes that claim victory. It is a duel of civilizations and culture, with weapons of fear and interests thrown in.
Ukraine is victim of a curse called geography. Some of its people dream of joining Europe and leaving behind Russia to its people. Some have resigned themselves to the joint fate of the two countries, as if they are "one people in two countries." Geography is a constant injustice. Ukraine knows this all too well, as do several other countries in the world.
The issue is not just about Ukraine. It is an opportunity to shake the image of Biden's America after it was shaken by the withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is an opportunity to place the United States, which is preoccupied with the "Chinese threat", before a test that cannot be won. Washington will not take the risk of sparking a world war for the sake of Ukraine.
All western threats have spoken of "dire consequences" should Russia invade Ukraine. These consequences mean economic and diplomatic sanctions. The czar is not afraid. Ukraine is likely to collapse from the inside and he doesn't even need to invade it.
He tests the resolve of western leaders and NATO generals. He moves his forces towards the border and awakens fears. He then sets difficult conditions. It is as if he wants to deprive the members of NATO of the gains they achieved after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He also demanded that they return their weapons to where they were, based on the assumption that Russia was no longer a threat.
The game is no longer as enticing. The string of victories ruins the anticipation of celebrations. The lack of danger kills off any excitement. There is no intimidating rival or alarming partner in this vast map. It is as if you play a match by yourself and return with the trophy. You are still met with official applause and smiles of protocol.
The game is under control and the door has been bolted shut against surprises. No one dares to challenge the constitution. All heads bow down without hesitation. Ministers, lawmakers, governors, generals with their medals, and business moguls in their offices. The reports say that no one has lifted a finger in challenge or protest. The weeds have been rooted out early before they can spread. The media follow the orders they have been given. Nothing can be said about him on social media. The opposition has been declawed and given some media exposure to appease the West and human rights groups. When the ruler becomes the uncontested leader, the constitution is reduced to his office manager.
A deep and boring calm. No one dares to commit the dream of residing in the Kremlin. The stay of the current tenant is open-ended. Constitutional dates are transformed into mere formalities. There is only one rival who cannot be tamed or slowed down. Age. The 70s are just around the corner. Age is the only citizen who does not bend to the will of the czar.
The final ten days of the year have a bitter taste, not just because of aging, but because memories sweep in uninvited.
This time 30 years ago Mikhail Gorbachev left the spotlight and the Soviet Union left with him. The collapse also carried the signature of Boris Yeltsin and the leaders of the republics. The "greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th Century" had taken place and Russia was dealt a historic defeat under the banner of the Soviet Union. It is not easy to wake up an orphan, even if you were 39 years old. Your country has been lost. This is the same country that defeated Napoleon and his army and still keeps his cannons on display in the Kremlin yard. The country that broke the insane European call Adolf Hitler, forced him to retreat to his lair before chasing him down and then changed the shape of Europe.
He sometimes struggles with difficult thoughts. He thinks of summoning the elderly Gorbachev to apologize publicly to the citizens of the Soviet Union for the great collapse. He thinks of then sending him to Siberia so that he can spend his days in a frozen cell. He laughs. The hands of time cannot go back. He has an odd thought: What will Gorbachev say to Joseph Stalin if they meet in the other world? He smiles. The 70s help draw up odd scenarios.
A healthy body cannot hide the wounds of the spirit. And the wounds are many. Vladimir Putin was close to the Berlin wall when it collapsed. Before that, he believed that the KGB, which he was a part of, does not sleep and cannot be taken by surprise. He was under the illusion that the Soviet Union was born to remain and to be also victorious. The comrades in Eastern Europe betrayed the years of friendship, They also betrayed the Warsaw Pact. They abandoned the Soviet train for the western dream. Successive tragedies soon followed. The Soviet republics were also treasonous. They seized the first opportunity to abandon the train. The comrades washed their hands clean of Lenin's party and they said that their relationship with the security agencies was a permanent shame. Those who used to applaud the party and its leader have now limited their dreams to appeasing the American ambassador. The ambassador, in his impeccable suit, soon came to have the final say and transformed into a guide on how to come out from under the rubble.
Many wounds in the spirit of a single man. West Germany sends aid in return for Moscow's conceding of East of Germany. It is a humiliating image, like a parent forced to sell their child. Industrial countries are willing to help Russia, but they demand reforms in return. The ruble bows down whenever the country does. The officers of the Red Army sell their uniforms and medals for a handful of dollars. The most painful event was the breaking up of the Slavic bloc that included Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
Putin had previously punished Ukraine and Georgia by severing parts of their bodies. Russia's annexation of Crimea has not been forgotten. The current game means extracting the West's recognition of the Russia's influence. It is a message to Ukraine, other neighbors and the West.
The czar has expanded the arena. Ukraine, Syria, and several Africa arenas. The Russian army or experts or the Wagner Group. Thirty years after the great collapse, the man seeking revenge counts his successes. He is not worried about the present. He is worried about his position in history. Will he take his place alongside Peter the Great and Catherine the Great? And what will he tell Stalin if they meet in the other world?

Israeli Defense Officials Cast Doubt on Threat to Attack Iran
Ronen Bergman and Patrick Kingsley/The New York Times/December,20/ 2021
With diplomatic efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear program teetering, Israel’s defense minister has ordered his forces to prepare a military option, warning the world that Israel would take matters into its own hands if a new nuclear agreement did not sufficiently constrain Iran.
But several current and former senior Israeli military officials and experts say that Israel lacks the ability to pull off an assault that could destroy, or even significantly delay, Iran’s nuclear program, at least not anytime soon. One current high-ranking security official said it would take at least two years to prepare an attack that could cause significant damage to Iran’s nuclear project.
A smaller-scale strike, damaging parts of the program without ending it entirely, would be feasible sooner, experts and officials say. But a wider effort to destroy the dozens of nuclear sites in distant parts of Iran — the kind of attack Israeli officials have threatened — would be beyond the current resources of the Israeli armed forces.
“It’s very difficult — I would say even impossible — to launch a campaign that would take care of all these sites,” said Relik Shafir, a retired Israeli Air Force general who was a pilot in a 1981 strike on an Iraqi nuclear facility.
“In the world we live in, the only air force that can maintain a campaign is the US Air Force,” he said.
The recent discussion of a military attack on Iran is part of an Israeli pressure campaign to make sure that the countries negotiating with Iran in Vienna do not agree to what Israeli officials consider “a bad deal,” one that in their view would not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
At the moment, there appears to be little chance of that as the talks, aimed at resurrecting the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, have only regressed since Iran’s new hard-line government rejoined them last month.
Until now, Israel has tried to curb Iran’s nuclear program, which it considers an existential threat, through a combination of aggressive diplomacy and clandestine attacks. Israeli officials considered it a coup when they were able to persuade President Donald J. Trump to withdraw from the 2015 agreement, which President Biden now wants to salvage.
Israel has also waged a shadow war through espionage, targeted assassinations, sabotage and cyberattacks — smaller-scale operations that it has never formally claimed. Israel secretly considered mounting full-scale airstrikes in 2012 before abandoning the plan.
But as Iran’s nuclear enrichment program approaches weapons-grade levels, Israeli politicians have warned in increasingly open fashion what the world has long assumed: that Israel could turn to open warfare if Iran was allowed to make progress toward developing a nuclear weapon, a goal Iran denies.
In September, the head of the Israeli armed forces, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, said large parts of a military budget increase had been allocated to preparing a strike on Iran. Early this month, the Mossad chief, David Barnea, said Israel would do “whatever it takes” to stop Iran from making a nuclear bomb.
This month, during a visit to the United States, Defense Minister Benny Gantz publicly announced that he had ordered the Israeli Army to prepare for a possible military strike on Iran.
But Israeli experts and military officials say that Israel currently lacks the ability to deal Iran’s nuclear program a knockout blow by air.
Iran has dozens of nuclear sites, some deep underground that would be hard for Israeli bombs to quickly penetrate and destroy, Mr. Shafir said. The Israeli Air Force does not have warplanes large enough to carry the latest bunker-busting bombs, so the more protected sites would have to be struck repeatedly with less effective missiles, a process that might take days or even weeks, Mr. Shafir added.
One current senior security official said Israel did not currently have the ability to inflict any significant damage to the underground facilities at Natanz and Fordow.
Such an effort would be complicated by a shortage of refueling planes. The ability to refuel is crucial for a bomber that may have to travel more than 2,000 miles round trip, crossing over Arab countries that would not want to be a refueling stop for an Israeli strike.
Israel has ordered eight new KC-46 tankers from Boeing at a cost of $2.4 billion but the aircraft are back-ordered and Israel is unlikely to receive even one before late 2024.
Aside from the ability to hit the targets, Israel would have to simultaneously fend off Iranian fighter jets and air-defense systems.
Any attack on Iran would also likely set off retaliatory attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, allies of Iran that would try to force Israel to fight a war on several fronts simultaneously.
Iran’s defense capabilities are also much stronger than in 2012, when Israel last seriously considered attacking. Its nuclear sites are better fortified, and it has more surface-to-surface missiles that can be launched swiftly from tunnels.
“It is very possible that when the Israeli planes try to land back in Israel, they will find that the Iranian missiles destroyed their runways,” said Tal Inbar, an aviation expert and former head of the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, an aviation-focused research group.
Other military experts, however, say that Israel could still take out the most important elements of the Iranian nuclear apparatus, even without newer aircraft and equipment.
“It’s always good to replace a car from 1960 with a brand-new car from 2022,” said Amos Yadlin, a former air force general who also participated in the 1981 strike. “But we have refueling capabilities. We have bunker busters. We have one of the best air forces in the world. We have very good intelligence on Iran. We can do it.
“Can the American Air Force can do it better? Definitely. They have a much more capable air force. But they don’t have the will.”
He cautioned that he would only support a strike as a last resort.
Israeli officials refuse to discuss the red lines Iran must cross to warrant a military strike. However, a senior defense official said that if Iran were to begin enriching uranium to 90 percent purity, weapons-grade fuel, Israel would be obliged to intensify its actions. American officials have said Iran is currently enriching uranium up to 60 percent purity.
The fact that it could take years to ramp up a program to carry out a massive air campaign against Iran should come as no surprise to Israeli military officials. When Israel considered such an attack in 2012, the preparations for it had taken more than three years, Israeli officials said.
But the distance between the current government’s threats and its ability to carry them out has provoked criticism of the former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who led Israel’s government until last June and was a dogged advocate for a harsher approach to Iran.
Since 2015, training for a strike on Iran had slowed, a senior Israeli military official said, as the defense establishment focused on confrontations with militias in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.
In 2017, the Israeli Air Force determined it needed to replace its refueling planes, but Mr. Netanyahu’s government did not order them until last March.
And another senior military official said the army had asked Mr. Netanyahu since 2019 for extra funds to improve Israel’s ability to attack Iran, but was rebuffed.
In a statement, Mr. Netanyahu’s office said the opposite was true, that it was Mr. Netanyahu who pushed for more resources and energy on a strike on Iran while the military chiefs insisted on spending most of their budget on other issues and slowed down preparations to strike Iran.
“Were it not for the political, operational and budgetary actions led by Prime Minister Netanyahu over the past decade, Iran would have long had an arsenal of nuclear weapons,” the statement added.
Whether or not Mr. Netanyahu restricted the funding, experts have said that the money under discussion would not have significantly changed the army’s ability to attack Iran.
“You can always improve — buying more refueling airplanes, newer ones, bigger loads of fuel,” Mr. Shafir said. But even with these improvements and a superior air force, he said, Israeli airstrikes would not end Iran’s nuclear program.
They would likely, however, set the region on fire.

The Gulf’s Security Pragmatism in the Balance of Major Powers and Regional Conflicts
Raghida Dergham/The National/December 20/2021
We still do not know how the Vienna nuclear talks between the P5+1 countries – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany – and Iran will evolve, as they seek to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear accord. Today, a deal appears to be impeded, contrary to the aspirations of those who have wanted it to be concluded before the year ends. The European powers – Germany, France, and Britain – have moved from the position of a confident driver trusted by the two main parties, Iran, and the US, to the position of being accused of losing direction, especially by Iran and Russia. China seems less engaged in the talks, instead preoccupied with trying to make inroads into the Gulf region and the Middle East, strengthening its multi-layered relations with the Arab Gulf states without wanting to lose its Iranian ally to which it is bound by a 25-year economic and security pact. The Biden administration is embarrassed, anxious, and scattershot, between its insistence on striking a deal with the Iranian government and its predicament engineered by Iran through impossible conditions, led by insistence on lifting all sanctions in one go and refusing additional controls on its nuclear program. In the meantime, the Arab Gulf states are acting to protect their back by weaving stronger economic, security, and strategic relations among themselves. Their broad headlines include diversifying their international partnerships, strengthening their security agreements, confronting Iran peacefully but together, and pursuing pragmatic positions on regional crises led by those of Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
On the Yemeni issue, there has been a shift in Gulf positions intersecting with UN, US, and international efforts. Most importantly, the Gulf states are willing to accept the Houthis as a party to the peace settlement in Yemen and to a Yemeni government produced as an outcome of negotiations. Iran and Hezbollah are resisting this shift because it would deny them the ability to shape Yemen’s fate by leveraging the Houthis. However, the Houthis are starting to think of the benefits of an international solution that allows them to participate in government, and turn the humanitarian tragedy in Yemen into a project for salvation, recovery, and reconstruction. The shift is still in its infancy but has begun in earnest, with the participation of the major powers, amid a major transformation in the Gulf positions, especially in Saudi Arabia.
The polarizing and emotional US position on Yemen – especially in relation to Saudi Arabia – has contributed to the bitter confusion in Yemen, giving misleading signs to the Houthis, Iran, and Hezbollah – successive US administrations have even withheld from the Saudi-led coalition intelligence that could have helped reduce casualties and military errors. To date, internal US polarization is hindering a rational US policy vis-à-vis Yemen, shackling the Biden administration which already has prevaricated in its policies on the Arab Gulf states. The Biden administration’s hasty decision to remove sanctions on Houthis has emboldened the Yemeni rebels, giving them a boost of impunity and self-confidence, along with military supplies from Iran and Hezbollah. As a result, the Houthis seized large swaths of Yemen.
The Biden administration must instead empower its envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking, and stop holding him back because of concerns for the nuclear talks or even fears from Iran. Early next year, the UN envoy to Yemen, in coordination with the US envoy, is slated to present a new roadmap to end the political and humanitarian crisis in Yemen. At the same time, Oman and other Arab Gulf states including Saudi Arabia and the UAE are discussing a working plan with Yemeni parties, seeking to rally them behind a new proposal.
The basis of this new proposal is the development in Gulf positions, which sees that there can be no peaceful settlement without the Houthis. Therefore, the equation seeking full defeat for any of the parties is no longer on the table – neither for the Gulf states or the Houthis. The international community has agreed on a ceasefire as a launching point. The Arab Gulf states have accepted Houthi participation in a new regime in Yemen through elections. Not long ago, the Gulf position insisted on defeating the Houthis and supporting the so-called legitimate government in Yemen exclusively. Today, the talk is all about power sharing.
The new thinking outside the box could thwart Iran and Hezbollah in Yemen, by moving Yemen towards power-sharing and a political settlement to end the war. A question here is this: Will the Houthis cut loose Hezbollah and Iran in view of the international and Gulf commitment to a plan that stops the destruction and bloodletting, and puts forward a roadmap for Yemen’s recovery? Or will they choose Iran and Hezbollah over Yemen? Another question is: Will there be a ‘carrot’ for stopping the war through participating in government and injecting funds into Yemen? Will there be a ‘stick’ through imposing sanctions on the Houthis in the event of failure, while letting Hezbollah and Iran understand that the Biden administration has adopted a clear policy and is ready for decisive accountability beyond the blackmail of the Vienna talks?
The Arab Gulf states are moving towards a strategy to exit the war in Yemen with international partnership. At the same time, they are adopting pragmatic measures to put the Gulf house back in order, following the dangerous rift that had opened between them. This much was clear during the GCC summit in Saudi Arabia this week and the final communique issued by it, following important joint statements issued following the visits by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman shortly before the six-nation summit.
Among the most important points of the communique is proclaiming that an attack against any GCC member states is an attack on all GCC states. In the past, individual sovereignty trumped collective action, but today, there is willingness for a flexible definition of sovereignty, to achieve collective security action requiring some compromise yet not surrender of sovereignty. The GCC six member states understand that the shift in US positions on the Gulf and Iran requires them to safeguard their security collectively, in case of both a US-Iranian agreement or a non-agreement. In recent years, Iran adopted the tactic of seeking bilateral talks with Gulf states, in a bid to disrupt their joint action against it. Now, there is Gulf awareness of the need for solidarity and unified positions against Iran, following increased distrust of Tehran on account of its regional policies that undermine Gulf security, from Yemen to Lebanon.
The GCC summit saw Gulf leaders mark their new priorities, that stem from the adoption of young leaders a language of modernization and technological adaptation. These leaders enjoy strong economic ties and personal harmony between them that the Middle East sometimes does not understand well and is quick to misinterpret as rivalry. But in truth, the competition – not rivalry – between the young Gulf leaders focusses on technology, developments, and bringing prosperity to their cities and states. This is a healthy, logical, and modern way of thinking. Meanwhile, the concept of strategic security requires integration, with a shift away from exclusive reliance on the United States, whether it’s the Carter Doctrine or the policies of President Joe Biden, which have nudged the Gulf states towards collective self-reliance, and diversification of friendships and partnerships, to include China, India, Europe, and others.
Interestingly, the UAE this week decided to suspend a US deal for drones and F-35 fighter jets worth $23 billion, before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington wanted to complete the deal. One reason behind the crisis has to do with the restrictions that Blinken explained by saying: “We've wanted to make sure, for example, that our commitment to Israel's qualitative military edge is assured, so we wanted to make sure that we could do a thorough review of any technologies that are sold or transferred to other partners in the region, including the UAE….But I think we continue to be prepared to move forward if the UAE continues to want to pursue both of these”. Another may be related to US pressure on the UAE to cut ties with Chinese tech giant Huawei, which Washington sees as a “security risk” to US weapons systems. However, Emirati officials insist there is no Chinese security breaches in the UAE after Abu Dhabi stopped construction in Chinese facilities on its soil based on US requests claiming those facilities were being used for military purposes.
For the first time, US officials such as the president’s diplomatic advisor Anwar Gargash, are expressing discomfort over being caught in the sharp rivalry between the United States and China and their emerging cold war, affirming at the same time that the United States remains the UAE’s top strategic ally even as China is its top trading partner. In other words, the language of addressing the United States has qualitatively changed. The UAE threat to cancel t he F-35 deal comes on the heels of a deal with France to purchase 80 Rafale fighter jets and follows a visit by a high-level Emirati military delegation to the Pentagon plus a visit by a US delegation to the UAE to discuss dealings between Emirati companies and Iran. The US is obviously increasingly concerned by Chinese influence in the Gulf and the relative Gulf independence from the traditional security relationship with Washington. But it is a new language for a new era, in which US interest and military involvement in the Middle East and the Gulf is retreating.
Last but not least, in the context of the new Gulf determination, Lebanon received a share of attention from the Gulf, summarized by GCC Secretary General Nayef Falah Mubarak Al Hajraf, during a press conference following the GCC summit. Al Hajraf said that the Gulf states urge Lebanon to undertake all measures to guarantee comprehensive reforms, fight corruption, uphold its sovereignty, and prevent “terrorist” Hezbollah from practicing its activities and supporting terrorist groups and militias that undermine the security and stability of the Arab countries to further regional and international agendas. The GCC final communique also stressed the importance of strengthening the role of the Lebanese army and restrict all arms to the state’s legitimate institutions, and stressed the need to control borders and take all measures to stop the trafficking of narcotics through Lebanese exports to Saudi Arabia and GCC states.
This is a roadmap and not flowery rhetoric, reflecting the new approach of the GCC states to crises, especially those related to Iran. The GCC summit in Jeddah demanded Iran to stop fuelling sectarian conflicts, and stop supporting, funding, and arming sectarian militias and terrorist groups. The GCC states have drawn for themselves the scope of their involvement in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, making it clear that their priorities are in the Gulf, first and foremost.

Loose Sanctions Enforcement Is Letting Iran Off the Hook
Saeed Ghasseminejad/The National Interest/December 20/2021
Any improvement in Tehran’s economic situation reduces Washington’s leverage over Tehran and encourages its leadership to demand more and give up less.
Earlier this month in Vienna, the diplomatic talks between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the P5+1 reached an impasse as Tehran adopted a maximalist stance. The regime’s self-confidence is partly the result of its improving financial situation. The latest data on Iran’s non-oil exports show a 47 percent increase in the first seven months of the Persian year of 1400 (April 2021-November 2021) compared to the same period last year.
Iran’s economy is still suffering from massive inflation, a huge budget deficit, lack of investment, declining labor participation rate, and lackluster growth. Yet one fact cannot be ignored: The economy is doing better, even with all the continuing troubles.
Any improvement in Tehran’s economic situation reduces Washington’s leverage over the clerical regime and encourages Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Ebrahim Raisi, and chief nuclear negotiator Ali Baqeri Kani to demand more and give up less.
A steady improvement in Iran’s economy without both a revival of the nuclear deal and the full lifting of sanctions may convince Khamenei to take the final step and go nuclear, with the hope that the economy has become resilient enough to resist a new wave of sanctions until the world decides it should normalize relations with the nuclear Islamic Republic.
The Biden administration should work to change that calculation by initiating a new maximum pressure campaign using all elements of America’s national power. One pillar of this maximum pressure campaign should be the reintroduction of real sanctions pressure on the regime.
What is behind Iran’s improving economic indicators, and how can the Biden administration stymie them? Let us look at the non-oil exports.
Non-oil exports, as defined by Tehran, include everything except crude oil. Iran is secretive about its oil exports and does not even declare its total value. While the regime does not provide regular detailed reports on its non-oil exports, it still publishes some details that shed light on its trade.
Iran exported $27 billion of non-oil goods between April 2021 and November 2021, almost $9 billion more than what it had exported in the same period in 2020. This year so far, 56 percent, or $14.7 billion, of the country’s non-oil exports came from petrochemical products and gas condensates.
The data provided by the Trade Development Organization show that the quantity of exports in this category has increased only 16 percent while the revenue has increased 50 percent. Another 24 percent of the total non-oil exports is from the export of mineral products, whose quantity grew 15 percent while their value grew 110 percent.
Together, these sanctioned industries provide almost 80 percent of Iran’s non-oil revenue. Here, the lack of enforcement of sanctions is a problem. The Islamic Republic’s top export destinations, accounting for 70 percent of the country’s exports, are Iraq, China, United Arab Emirates, and Turkey. The last three are the top exporters to Iran, accounting for 64 percent of Iran’s total imports.
In other words, Iran’s sanctioned exports to these countries are recycled through their financial systems and Tehran uses the proceeds to import what it needs. Most of the increase in the Islamic Republic’s non-oil exports revenue comes from higher global prices that have no significant relation to Washington’s Iran policy.
Nevertheless, Biden’s Iran policy could have an effect on the discount Tehran offers to its customers. Sanctions have forced Tehran to offer significant discounts to customers due to the increased risk of doing business. Biden’s conciliatory approach to Tehran might have reduced this risk and enabled the regime to give smaller discounts to its customers.
The modest increase in the quantity of Iran’s non-oil exports in petrochemical, gas condensates, and minerals can be the result of the end of the global Covid-19 recession and increased demands for these products. Also, looser sanctions enforcement plays a role, allowing Tehran to sell more.
In a counterfactual world, where the Biden administration had adopted the maximum pressure strategy, doubled down on its sanctions campaign, and found innovative ways to isolate the regime, one could expect the quantity of Iran’s exports to go down—even if insufficiently to neutralize the massive price hikes. Furthermore, by tightening the financial siege of Tehran, Washington could further limit the clerical regime’s access to its revenue and currency reserves.
That is what the Biden administration should do. Global price movements are working against Washington, so the White House should revive and amplify the maximum-pressure campaign to regain the leverage it lost in 2021 through loose sanctions enforcement and changes in the global economy.
If there is a way for the United States to resolve the Islamic Republic’s nuclear crisis through negotiations, something rational people can have reasonable doubts about, it can happen only through pressure not appeasement.
*Dr. Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior Iran and financial economics advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) specializing in Iran’s economy and financial markets, sanctions, and illicit finance. Follow Saeed on Twitter @SGhasseminejad. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, non-partisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/loose-sanctions-enforcement-letting-iran-hook-198103