English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For December 21/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.december21.22.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am He
“Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 08/21-24: “Again he said to them, ‘I am going away, and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.’Then the Jews said, ‘Is he going to kill himself? Is that what he means by saying, “Where I am going, you cannot come”?’He said to them, ‘You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 20-21/2022/
Paris urges 'speedy election' of Lebanese president and new govt.
Bukhari meets al-Rahi, urges new president and cooperative govt.
Israel brings down suspected Hezbollah drone
Mouawad denies 'fabrications' about 'communication with Hezbollah'
3 'Hezbollah-linked' militants killed in Israeli airstrike in Syria
Mikati says presidency solution being prepared abroad
Aoun says people being robbed, urges president who can 'absorb shock'
Sheikh Akl Abi Al-Muna broaches bilateral ties with Sultanate of Oman’s ambassador, meets former minister Wadih El-Khazen
Mikati discusses cancer patients’ issues with Abiad, follows up on preparations for declaration of "Beirut Capital of Arab Media 2023" with Makary
WB: US$8.86 million Grant to Support Solid Waste Management, Reduce Public Health and Environmental Impacts in Lebanon

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 20-21/2022/
Macron decries foreign intervention in Iraq at Jordanian conference
US forces detain 6 Islamic State group militants in Syria
8 killed in attack by gunmen on an Iraqi village
Iran Says Willing to Improve Ties with Neighboring Countries
Report: Iran’s Government Accesses Social Media Accounts of Detainees
Culture war: Iran’s actors and directors take stand against protest crackdown
US and Iran clash over Russia using Iran drones in Ukraine
Cannes Film Festival calls for release of Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti
U.S. sees 'conflicting' views in Russia on fresh Ukraine offensive
Analysis-Russia's grim battle for Bakhmut may yield pyrrhic victory at best
‘We’re Just Meat’: Russian Military Keeps Killing Its Own Troops
Russia shelled energy facilities in eastern Ukraine - Naftogaz
Three dead as blast shuts part of Russia-Ukraine gas export pipeline
Officials say Pakistan raid kills all Taliban hostage-takers

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 20-21/2022/
It’s not just the EU that needs to scrutinize Qatar’s influence campaigns/Jonathan Schanzer and Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Politico EU/December 20/2022
Will Turkey Pay a Price for Helping Iran Break Sanctions?/Sinan Ciddi and Behnam Ben Taleblu/| The National Interest/December 20/2022
China's Deal with Saudi Arabia is a Disaster for Biden/Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/December 20/2022
The Question Is No Longer Whether Iranians Will Topple Khamenei/Karim Sadjadpour/The New York Times/December, 20/2022
The West’s Grievance on Iran Mirrors Our Own/Nadim Koteich/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 20/2022
Christmas Time: When the West Appeases and Islam Slaughters/Raymond Ibrahim/December 20/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 20-21/2022/
Paris urges 'speedy election' of Lebanese president and new govt.
Agence France Presse/December 20/12/2022
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Tuesday urged the "speedy election" of a president in Lebanon and the formation of a new government to "carry out badly needed reforms."
Lebanon's cabinet is acting in a caretaker capacity, and the country has been without a head of state for more than a month.
Colonna voiced her remarks at the "Baghdad II" meeting in Jordan, where leaders from the Middle East and Europe gathered to discuss bolstering security and stability in Iraq in addition to finding ways to resolve the region’s crises.

Bukhari meets al-Rahi, urges new president and cooperative govt.
Naharnet/December 20/12/2022
Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid Bukhari on Tuesday held talks in Bkirki with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, the state-run National News Agency said. “Bukhari stressed the need to hold the presidential election as soon as possible and to form a government that would be in harmony with the president in order to revive the country,” Bkirki sources told LBCI television. “The kingdom will not hesitate to carry out any effort that might be requested to help in the issue of the election,” the sources quoted Bukhari as telling al-Rahi. The Saudi ambassador also noted that his country’s coordination with the French side is still ongoing.

Israel brings down suspected Hezbollah drone
Naharnet/December 20/12/2022
The Israeli army on Tuesday said it downed a small suspected Hezbollah drone as it crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel. “Troops identified and downed a drone crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory a short while ago,” the Israeli army said on its English-language Twitter account, adding that the drone “most likely” belongs to Hezbollah. “We will continue to prevent any attempts to violate Israeli sovereignty,” the Israeli army added. The development comes a few hours after the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an Israeli airstrike targeted a warehouse in the Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab, killing three "non-Syrian nationals" allegedly affiliated with Hezbollah.

Mouawad denies 'fabrications' about 'communication with Hezbollah'
Naharnet/December 20/12/2022
Opposition presidential candidate MP Michel Mouawad on Tuesday denied that he is “communicating with Hezbollah.”“Some known and tendentious parties are trying to fabricate reports about communication that I’m carrying out with Hezbollah, claiming that I’m keen to keep my meetings confidential,” Mouawad tweeted. “I would like to confirm that these fabrications are baseless and ridiculous like those launching them,” the MP added. “My stances are firm, my relations are public and I’m extending my hand to everyone under the ceiling of the state, institutions, the Taif Agreement and Arab and international legitimacies,” Mouawad emphasized.

3 'Hezbollah-linked' militants killed in Israeli airstrike in Syria
Associated Press/December 20/12/2022
Syria's military said two soldiers were wounded in Israeli airstrikes that hit near Damascus early on Tuesday, the first such attack in more than a month. A military statement said there were also some "material losses" in the strikes and that Syrian air defenses intercepted and shot down a number of the missiles. It did not elaborate. There was no comment from Israel. A Britain-based opposition war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the Israeli airstrikes targeted a warehouse in the Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab, killing three "non-Syrian nationals" who were affiliated with Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah. The last reported Israeli attack in Syria was on Nov. 13. It killed two Syrian soldiers and wounded three at an airbase in the province of Homs. Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses specific operations. Israeli leaders have in the past acknowledged striking targets in Syria and elsewhere in what they say is a campaign to thwart Iranian attempts to smuggle weapons to allies such as Lebanon's Hezbollah or to destroy weapons caches. Last week, Israel's military chief of staff strongly suggested that Israel was behind a Nov. 8 strike on a truck convoy in Syria.

Mikati says presidency solution being prepared abroad
Naharnet/December 20/12/2022
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati revealed Monday that foreign countries are “preparing” a solution for the Lebanese presidential crisis. “Yes, according to foreign information, there is something that is being prepared to resolve the crisis, but things need time,” Mikati said in response to a question, during a meeting with a delegation from the Press Editors Syndicate. As for the possibility of holding new caretaker cabinet sessions following the controversy over the December 5 meeting, Mikati said: “When necessary and urgent, I will call on Cabinet to convene, according to the constitutional powers vested in me, but at the moment there is nothing urgent that requires holding a session.”Mikati also rejected the so-called “roaming decrees” formula that has been proposed by the Free Patriotic Movement, noting that it would be unconstitutional. Asked about the deadly attack on UNIFIL in the South, Mikati warned against exaggerating the incident as well as against taking it lightly. It was not “an ordinary or an occasional incident. It must be taken seriously and full investigations and accountability must take place. I’m following up on this file with the Army Command, which is conducting the necessary investigations, and we hope to reach an outcome soon,” the caretaker PM added. Responding to a question, Mikati said: “Seeing as the incident took place outside UNIFIL’s area of operations, it is likely that it was not premeditated.”As for the incidents in the southern border town of Rmeish between residents and elements affiliated with Hezbollah, Mikati revealed that he has requested a “full report” on the issue from the Army Command. “Cooperation is ongoing between the army and UNIFIL in this file and the posts belonging to the Green Without Borders NGO are being inspected and surveilled,” Mikati added. Commenting on the reports that alleged that Iranian arms are being brought into the country through Beirut’s airport, Mikati said: “I met last week with the army chief and the security chiefs, and they all emphasized that the investigations that took place had confirmed that the reports were baseless and that no arms were entering through the airport.”“When the reports on the airport file surfaced and after the UNIFIL incident I intended to call on the Higher Defense Council to convene in my capacity as its deputy head, but I refrained from the move so that I don’t get accused of provoking anyone,” the caretaker PM added. Mikati also said that his latest meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was “excellent.”“We talked about matters related to the country and he expressed his love for Lebanon, especially for the Lebanese who live in KSA,” Mikati added.

Aoun says people being robbed, urges president who can 'absorb shock'
Naharnet/December 20/12/2022
Former president Michel Aoun on Tuesday presided over the weekly meeting of the Free Patriotic Movement-led Strong Lebanon bloc for the first time since leaving office. “The entire state needs rebuilding and I regret that the Lebanese people are silent while being robbed of their money,” Aoun said after the meeting. “We need a president who can absorb the shock and continue the path,” he added. Warning that “there cannot be a country unless the current ruling class changes,” Aoun lamented that “80% of the Lebanese people have become poor.”“We have three to four years ahead until we start breathing, as we wait for the quantities of gas present in the (offshore) blocks, and we must preserve our political path and seek accountability,” the ex-president added.

Sheikh Akl Abi Al-Muna broaches bilateral ties with Sultanate of Oman’s ambassador, meets former minister Wadih El-Khazen
NNA/December 20/12/2022
Sheikh Akl of the Unitarian Druze Community, Dr. Sami Abi Al-Muna, on Tuesday welcomed at the Druze Community House in Beirut, the Ambassador of the Sultanate of Oman to Lebanon, Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Saidi. Discussions reportedly touched on the bilateral relations between the two countries, the current Lebanese situation and aspects of cooperation. On the other hand, Sheikh Akl Abi Al-Muna also received former minister Wadih El-Khazen, and his son Elie, with discussions reportedly touching on general national issues.

Mikati discusses cancer patients’ issues with Abiad, follows up on preparations for declaration of "Beirut Capital of Arab Media 2023" with Makary
NNA/December 20/12/2022
Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, on Tuesday welcomed at the Grand Serail Caretaker Minister of Health, Dr. Firas Al-Abiad, with whom he discussed cancer patients’ medical insurance and medicines. American University of Beirut President, Dr. Fadlo Khoury, partook in the meeting alongside an AUH delegation.
“After taking stock of the challenges that hospitals face in securing care and medicines for patients, the need to provide support to cancer patients, and the institutions in which they are treated, has been confirmed by the government and the Ministry of Health,” Abiad said. "Despite the scarce resources currently available, we believe that through the systems established by the Ministry of Health — to track medicines from source to patient — we’re being able to provide a large number of patients with the medicines they need,” Abiad added, noting that this tracking program will be expanded it to include other medicines.
Mikati separately chaired a meeting devoted to discussing the proposed administrative steps, activities, and regulations for declaring "Beirut the Capital of Arab Media 2023". In the wake of the meeting, Information Minister, Ziad Makary, said, “The ministerial committee has met under the chairmanship of Premier Mikati to prepare for the activities leading to the declaration of Beirut the capital of Arab media in 2023. Lebanon is full of media, cultural, and tourism events, and all of these events will be part of Beirut the Capital of Arab Media.”Makary went on to explain that the bulk of the funding for this event will be extended in the form of donations and sponsorships from parties interested in supporting this celebration. “We have launched a competition for the best slogan for the occasion among Lebanese universities, and today it is shown on all local TV channels. We are trying to involve the largest possible segment of Lebanese young women and men to make a success out of this event, which is initially scheduled for mid-February,” Makary added, noting that the opening ceremony will take place in Beirut in the presence of Arab information ministers and accompanying delegations. “The Ministry of Information will form a committee to follow up and keep pace with this event, which is in partnership with the League of Arab States,” Makary concluded.  The Prime Minister then met with a delegation representing the "Used Car Dealers" Association, headed by "Car Showroom Owners" Syndicate Head, Walid Francis, who briefed the Prime Minister on the problems that the sector faces nowadays. Mikati also had an audience with a delegation representing the "Lebanese Armed Forces Veterans Association", which thanked Mikati for approving the social assistance decree with salary supplements for retired and active service soldiers.

WB: US$8.86 million Grant to Support Solid Waste Management, Reduce Public Health and Environmental Impacts in Lebanon
NNA/December 20/12/2022
A new US$8.86 million grant will help Lebanon reduce harmful emissions from open burning of solid waste, improve solid waste management including recycling and composting at the municipal level, and reduce the exposure of residents of the North and South of the country to hazardous substances.
The Reduction of Unintentional Persistent Organic Pollutants through Waste Management in a Circular Economy project, signed today by H.E. Lebanese Minister of Environment Nasser Yassine and World Bank Mashreq Country Director, Jean-Christophe Carret, is financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the world’s largest funder of biodiversity protection, nature restoration, pollution reduction, and climate change response in developing countries. Well before the current economic and financial crisis, Lebanon was already facing severe environmental challenges. In 2018, the annual cost of environmental degradation reached 4.4% of GDP -equivalent to US$2.39 billion, Since then, conditions have worsened, with severely impeded delivery of basic public services, increased pollution levels and further depleted natural resources. The disruption of the solid waste sector is reflected in a massive drop in service levels: less than 8% of collected household waste is being treated, over 40% of this waste ends up in open dumps, and there is limited adherence to the solid waste hierarchy which prioritizes waste reduction, re-use, recycling and conversion over disposal.  “Despite mounting challenges, Lebanon has made progress in developing a solid legal basis for integrated solid waste management and a draft National Strategy based on the principles of circular economy,” said Jean-Christophe Carret, World Bank Mashreq Director. “Going forward, Lebanon needs to enforce environmental governance with the implementation of sector reforms to achieve resource recovery opportunities and to ensure the financial sustainability of strongly needed infrastructure investments which can create green jobs.”Over the past years, open dumping and open burning of solid waste have consistently increased in Lebanon. Open burning of solid waste releases highly toxic Unintentional Persistent Organic Pollutants (UPOPs) into the air, in addition to residues seeping into water and land resources.The project aims to address critical barriers for reducing UPOPs emitted from the waste disposal and open burning processes and minimizing impacts to public health and environmental risks stemming from UPOPs emissions. The reduction of UPOPs project aims to strengthn the policy framework, build capacity and enhance long-term planning for applying circular economy approaches in waste management. It will also safely divert municipal solid waste from uncontrolled open dumps vulnerable to repetitive open burning in selected areas in the North and South of Lebanon. The project will directly benefit people living in the areas surrounding open waste dumps, which are exposed to the risk of contamination via air, water, and food chain. “The project will prevent open dumping of solid waste in the selected areas in the North and South of the country through the development of an integrated solid waste management system in these waste service zones. It will also coduct in-depth assessments of these areas and of the disposal sites to confirm the technical, financial, and institutional feasibility of interventions, based on the Ministry of Environment’s strategy for an integrated management of the sector.” said HE Nasser Yassine, Lebanese Minister of Environment. “We look forward to initiate this project which will also complement our collaboration with the World Bank in solid waste management operations underway in other service zones including Beirut, Matn and the Upper Litani Basin.”—WB

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 20-21/2022/
Macron decries foreign intervention in Iraq at Jordanian conference
Hamza Hendawi | Amr Mostafa/The National/December 20/12/2022
Baghdad Conference for Co-operation and Partnership focuses on Iraq's stability and security
France's President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said Iraq is used as a battleground for its neighbours and their foes.
Addressing the opening session in Jordan of the Baghdad Conference for Co-operation and Partnership II, Mr Macron also pledged Paris's firm support for Iraq and other Middle East allies. The one-day summit at a Dead Sea resort brought together leaders and senior officials from countries including the UAE — represented by Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, ruler of Ras Al Khaimah — France, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman. They were primarily gathered to help Iraq in its efforts to stabilise and rebuild. Security in the regionw was also reviewed. Iraq has been badly shaken for decades, first by its ruinous 1980-1988 war with Iran, then by more than a decade of UN sanctions following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and its subsequent defeat by an international coalition. The 2003 US-led invasion led to years of violence and sectarian strife, including the creation of extremist groups such as ISIS, and the growing power of Iranian-backed political factions and militias. More recently, the country has suffered political gridlock, with the main dividing line running between Iran's allies and opponents. “Iraq today is the scene of [foreign] influences, incursions, destabilisation that are linked to the entire region,” Mr Macron told the conference, which he co-chaired with Jordan's King Abdullah II. France, he added, was keen on the stability of the region, which he said was struggling with “deadlocks, divisions, foreign meddling and security issues.” France's interest, he explained, was to promote peace and security in the broader Mediterranean basin. “Iraq probably is, given the past decades, one of the main victims of regional destabilization,” Macron said. “We need to be able to ... overcome the divisions of the moment.” “I believe that what has been happening since last February 24 lends growing significance to the security and stability agenda that we first adopted in August last year,” he said, referring to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. “We were by your side a year ago, today and next year,” he said. The Jordanian monarch said the meeting “takes place at a time when the region is facing security and political crises,” along with threats to food, water, health and energy security and the impact of climate change. Significantly, conference participants included the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Iran, regional rivals who severed ties in 2016. There was no word on whether Hossein Amirabdollahian and Prince Faisal bin Farhan met on the sidelines. Mr Amirabdollahian said Iran’s "policy is to avoid war and work to restore security and stability." He also asserted Iran’s willingness to return to an international agreement on its nuclear programme “provided that red lines are not crossed.”
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan said the kingdom “affirms its total rejection of any aggression on the territory of Iraq,” an apparent swipe at Iran, which has recently launched airstrikes against Kurdish Iranian dissident groups in northern Iraq. Iraq has hosted five meetings between Saudi Arabian and Iranian officials since last year, the last of which was in April, but these contacts have not yielded any breakthrough in relations.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said Cairo rejected “foreign intervention” in Iraq's domestic affairs, a likely reference to Iran and Turkey, which have launched military operations within Iraq despite Baghdad's protests. For Mohammed Shia Al Sudani, the Iraqi Prime Minister, attending Tuesday's conference was his first participation in a major international meeting. He is widely considered to be closer to Iran than his predecessor, Mustafa Al Kadhimi. This is the second time the conference has been held, with the first in Baghdad in August last year. The gathering was originally designed to exclusively support Iraq's sovereignty and stability but has evolved to include more stakeholders and expand its brief to include regional security.
Good opportunity
Mr Amirabdollahian and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell met before the start of the Jordan conference. They were joined by Iran's senior nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, and his EU counterpart, Enrique Mora, Iran's official news agency Irna said. Talks to restore Iran's 2015 nuclear accord have been at a stalemate since September. Western powers accuse Iran of raising unreasonable demands after all sides appeared to be nearing a deal. Comments made after the meeting laid bare the tense nature of relations between Tehran and the EU. Mr Borrell said he had told the Iranian minister that Tehran should immediately halt military support for Russia and internal repression. However, he said the meeting was necessary “amid deteriorating Iran-EU relations”. The EU would continue to work with Iran although there was currently no sign of a return to talks, he said. Mr Amirabdollahian also voiced his condemnation of what he called the West's support of protests in Iran and the “illegal” sanctions against his country. Mr Borrell, who has been mediating talks aimed at reviving Iran's nuclear deal with world powers, also held a meeting with Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Monday. “We discussed ways to work together to support Iraq's sovereignty, security and stability,” he said on Twitter. “We also touched upon a variety of other regional issues, focusing on the Middle East Peace Process, as well as upon EU-Jordan relations and the continuing Jordanian reform process.” Also on Monday, Mr Amirabdollahian said the summit would provide a “good opportunity” for negotiations aimed at restoring the nuclear accord. On-off talks to revive the deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, started in April between Iran on one side and Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, and indirectly with the US, on the other. But the indirect talks between Washington and Tehran, mediated by the EU, stalled, with Iran awash with protests over the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin, on September 16. “Jordan is a good opportunity for us to complete these discussions,” Mr Amirabdollahian told reporters in Tehran. “I hope that … we will see a change of approach and the American side will behave realistically. “I say clearly to the Americans; that they must choose between hypocrisy, and the request to reach an agreement and the United States' return to the JCPOA.”

US forces detain 6 Islamic State group militants in Syria
Associated Press/December 20/12/2022
American forces conducted three raids in eastern Syria and arrested six Islamic State group militants, U.S. Central Command said Tuesday. In their statement, U.S. Central Command said the raids were conducted over the preceding 48 hours, and identified one of the detained militants as "al-Zubaydi," a "Syria Province Senior Official" of the group who they say was involved in planning and facilitating attacks in Syria. Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two of the three raids took place in the Deir el-Zour and Hassakeh regions, adding that Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces were also involved. They identified four of the detained as Turkmen weapons dealers affiliated with the militant group. Two SDF fighters were wounded in one raid. "The capture of these ISIS operatives will disrupt the terrorist organization's ability to further plot and carry out destabilizing attacks," U.S. Army Gen. Michael "Erik" Kurilla said in the statement. There are some 900 U.S. troops in Syria supporting Kurdish-led forces in the fight against the militant group. They have frequently targeted IS militants mostly in parts of northeastern Syria under Kurdish control. The SDF on Monday said they had detained a IS militant who managed cells in eastern Syria. Syria has been mired in a bloody civil war since 2011 that has drawn in regional and global powers. Syrian President Bashar Assad has mostly regained control of the country, but parts of its north remain under the control of rebels, as well as Turkish and Syrian Kurdish forces.

8 killed in attack by gunmen on an Iraqi village
Associated Press/December 20/12/2022
Eight people were killed and three injured Monday in an attack by gunmen on an Iraqi village previously held by the Islamic State extremist group, officials said. The attack took place in the village of Albu Bali northwest of Fallujah in Iraq. Uday al-Khadran, commissioner of the al-Khalis district where the attack occurred said "a group of terrorists riding motorcycles" had attacked the village at around 8:30 p.m. and that dozens of residents, some of them unarmed, had rushed to confront the attackers, the official Iraqi News Agency reported. Security forces are searching for those responsible, he said. The violence came a day after an explosive device went off in northern Iraq, killing at least nine members of the Iraqi federal police force who were on patrol. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in the village of Ali al-Sultan in the Riyadh district of the province of Kirkuk. On Wednesday, three Iraqi soldiers were killed when a bomb exploded during a security operation in the Tarmiyah district, north of Baghdad. Among the dead was the commander of the 59th Infantry Brigade. No one claimed responsibility for that attack either, but remnants of the militant Islamic State group are active in the area and have claimed similar attacks in Iraq in the past.

Iran Says Willing to Improve Ties with Neighboring Countries
Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 20 December, 2022
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran is willing to improve relations with neighboring countries, Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported on Monday. In a speech during the third Tehran Dialogue Forum 2022, Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran welcomes rebuilding trust and constructive cooperation with its neighbors, especially the Gulf countries. He expressed Iran’s readiness to hold a meeting at the level of defense and foreign ministers of neighboring countries and countries bordering the Arabian Gulf to establish regional security in cooperation with these countries and enjoy a world where peace prevails. The FM congratulated Qatar’s deputy foreign minister on the success of organizing the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and Doha’s cooperation with the Iranian football team. In remarks about Ukraine, Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran’s fundamental policy is against the use of force and supports resolving the conflict through political means. “Europe is paying the price for the policies of the United States towards Ukraine,” the FM stated. He deemed as “baseless” the accusations against Tehran of providing drones to Russia and stressed that the West seeks to justify its support for the war through these accusations. The forum kicked off its activities on Monday, with the participation of political officials, directors of think tanks and research institutes, intellectuals and researchers. The event was held under the title: “The Neighborhood Policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran... An Approach to Friendship and Trust-Building,” Germany’s news agency DPA reported. Amir-Abdollahian said the summit Jordan will host this week could help move forward the talks on reviving the nuclear deal with world powers that have been stalled for months. Jordan will host the second session of the Baghdad Conference for Cooperation and Partnership on Tuesday. The event will bring together Iraq and its neighboring countries, as well as France. The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and his assistant, Enrique Mora, the nuclear talks coordinator, will also attend. Amir-Abdollahian said the event represents a good opportunity for Tehran to complete these talks. The minister, who will represent his country at the summit, reiterated Iran's position, which holds the other party, especially the United States, responsible for not completing the talks that would revive the 2015 nuclear agreement. He expressed hope to see “a change in the US approach” and for the US side to act in a realistic manner. He urged Americans to choose between hypocrisy and the return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Report: Iran’s Government Accesses Social Media Accounts of Detainees
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 20 December, 2022
As protests spread in Iran, some worry the government is using technology to access mobile applications to surveil and suppress dissent, CNN reported. “They told me ‘Do you think you can get out of here alive? We will execute you. Your sentence is death penalty. We have evidence, we are aware of everything,’” said Negin, whose name CNN changed at her request, for her safety. Negin, who says she has been accused by Iranian authorities of running an anti-regime activist group on Telegram (an allegation she denies), said she has “some friends” who were political prisoners. “They put in front of me transcribed printouts of my phone conversations with those friends,” she said, and “questioned me on what my relationship with those people were.” Negin thinks Iranian agents hacked into her Telegram account on July 12, when she realized another IP address had accessed it. While Negin was in prison, she said, Iranian authorities reactivated her Telegram account to see who tried to contact her and reveal the network of activists with whom she was in touch. Negin was one of hundreds of protesters detained at Iran’s notoriously brutal Evin prison in northern Tehran in the first few weeks of demonstrations following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini. Amini, a 22-year-old woman, had been apprehended by Iran’s morality police for apparently not wearing her hijab properly. Human rights activists inside and outside of Iran have been warning for years about the Iranian regime’s ability to remotely access and manipulate protesters’ cell phones. And tech companies may not be well equipped to handle such incidents, experts say. Amir Rashidi, Director of Digital Rights and Security at the human rights organization Miaan Group, said the methods described by Negin match the Iranian regime’s playbook.
“I myself documented many of these cases,” he said. “They have access to anything beyond your imagination.”The Iranian government may have used similar hacking tactics to surveil the Telegram and Instagram accounts of Nika Shahkarami, the 16-year-old protester who died after a demonstration in Tehran on September 20. The Iranian authorities have always denied any involvement in her death, but a previous CNN investigation found evidence suggesting she was detained at the protests shortly before she went missing. Iranian authorities still have not responded to CNN’s repeated inquiries about Nika’s death. At least one tech company, Meta, has now opened an internal inquiry into activity on Nika’s Instagram account after her disappearance, CNN has learned. After Nika went missing, her aunt and other protesters told CNN that her popular Instagram and Telegram accounts had been disabled. A week later, her family learned that she was dead. But the mystery over who had deactivated her social media accounts remained. On October 12, two of Nika’s friends noticed her Telegram account briefly back online, they told CNN. Nika’s Instagram account was also briefly restored on October 28, more than a month after her disappearance and death, according to a screengrab obtained and verified by CNN. As with Negin’s case, the reactivation of Nika’s accounts raises questions about whether Iranian authorities were responsible for accessing her social media profiles, allegedly to phish other protesters or compromise her after her death. “Telegram is everything in Iran,” explained Rashidi. “It was more than just a messaging app before being blocked and still they managed to maintain their presence in Iran by just simply adding a proxy option in the app.”“If users don’t have access to anything because of censorship, they still have access to Telegram,” he continued. “As results there are a lot of users’ data in Telegram and that’s why the Iranian government is interested in hacking Telegram.”There are different ways the government could gain access to a person’s accounts or their network of contacts, according to experts. Negin, for example, said authorities “kept creating Telegram accounts using my SIM card, in order to see who I am in contact with.” In other cases, authorities could attempt to co-opt the two-factor authentication process, which is designed to provide greater security by texting or emailing a login code. “Usually what happens is, they do the target phone number, then they send a login request to Telegram,” Rashidi told CNN. “If you don’t have 2-step verification, then they will intercept your text message, read the login code and easily get into your account.”That’s why some Iranian activists cheered when Google introduced Google Authenticator in the country in 2016. It’s a two-step verification process that adds a layer of security for mobile phone users. Crucially, however, the Iranian regime doesn’t even need telecommunication companies to work with them, according to Rashidi. “The Iranian government is running the entire telecommunication infrastructure in Iran,” he said.

Culture war: Iran’s actors and directors take stand against protest crackdown
Borzou Daragahi/The Independent/December 20, 2022
Mohammad Khazaee, director of Iran’s official cinema organisation, was indignant about the impact of the three-month anti-regime uprising, a widespread social and political movement that has drawn the support of some of the top stars of the country’s film industry.
“Until the day I am there, we will not lose the hijab in the cinema and film will not be screened without the hijab,” the 46-year-old director and producer said in a 16 December gathering of film industry types. We have not come all this way only to return to the 1960s 1970s! This is the cinema of the Islamic Republic of Iran! And we have given our blood for it!”
Khazaee, appointed to his post shortly after hardline President Ebrahim Raisi took office in 2021, complained that the unrest was costing the film industry jobs and prospects, and suggested that the actors, directors and producers who supported the protests would pay.
A day later, Taraneh Alidoosti, one of the country’s top actors, the female lead of Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning 2016 firm, The Salesman, was arrested at her home, her personal belongings rummaged through. Then she was locked her up inside Tehran’s fortress-like Evin Prison, where she remains.
Observers knowledgeable of Iran’s cultural world likened the arrest of Alidoosti to the FBI detaining Angelina Jolie or Scotland Yard arresting Olivia Colman for speaking out against their governments.
“Imagine if Scarlett Johansson or Meryl Streep were thrown in prison, risking death for simply speaking out against the execution of an innocent protester.,” Sepideh Moafi, an Iranian-American television star, told The Independent. “If celebrities like Taraneh are being thrown into prison so casually, then the average citizen can only assume that they will be dealt with even more ruthlessly.”
Sanam Vakil, an Iran and Middle East expert at Chatham House in London, said: “The Iranian regime wants to show that no one is above the law, and that they will stop at no one to enforce their crackdown.”
Since the start of the nationwide uprising sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the morality police, hundreds of Iranians have been killed in protests and more thousands have been arrested. At least two protesters have been put to death by the regime after trials decried as even below the Islamic Republic’s dismal track record.
Despite the dangers, fresh calls emerged for three days of protests and strikes beginning Monday.
Artists, athletes and other celebrities have spoken out, some under pressure by their own fans. Female actors have made public shows of defiance, including by appearing without their Islamic headscarves and in public social media posts. Their male colleagues have come out in support.
In November, Alidoosti posted a photo of herself on Instagram without her hijab and holding up a sign proclaiming “women, life, freedom,” the Kurdish-inspired slogan of the protest movement sparked by Amini’s death. But Alidoosti was apparently detained for speaking out against the execution of a young Iranian protester after a quick, secret trial on charges of acting against God.
“Your silence is tantamount to support of the oppressor and oppression,” the actress wrote on her Instagram page after the 8 December hanging of Mohsen Shekari, a 23-year-old charged with injuring a pro-regime gunman during a protest.
"Every international organisation who is watching this bloodshed and not taking action is a disgrace to humanity,” she added in English.
The 38-year-old actor has been reportedly charged with “spreading falsehoods’’ on social media. Alidoosti’s arrest was reported triumphantly by pro-regime outlets.
Alidoosti is a giant in Iranian cinema, the winner of many national and international awards. She first came to national and international prominence as a 17-year-old in the lead role of I’m Taraneh, 15, a 2002 film about a teenaged divorcee who decides to raise a child on her own. “There’s absolutely no equivalent of Taraneh in the west. There are feminist actresses like Emma Watson or activists like Angelina Jolie, and I admire them for what they do, but they don’t really face a big danger in their activism,” said Ahmad Kiarostami, an Iranian-American filmmaker and philanthropist who is the son of one of Iran’s most famous directors, the late Abbas Kiarostami. “Worst case, they may get a backlash from part of their audience and get less projects. In Taraneh’s case, it’s a lot more than just losing some work. When she removed her hijab she would not get permit to act, and there potentially be much more serious consequences, such as jail and potentially a lot more.”
An open letter demanding the release of Alidoosti has been signed by celebrities including Emma Thompson, Mark Rylance, Mark Ruffalo, Ian McKellen, David Hare, and Moafi.
“The Iranian authorities have strategically chosen to arrest Taraneh before Christmas to ensure her international peers would be distracted,” the letter says. “But we are not distracted. We are outraged. Taraneh Alidoosti, like all citizens of Iran, has a right to freedom of expression, freedom of association, and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention. We hereby stand in solidarity with her and demand her immediate release and safe return to her family”.
On Sunday, regime officials also arrested Amir Maqareh, lead singer of the band Makan, for posting support for the nationwide uprising on his Instagram page. Last month, football star Voria Ghafouri was briefly arrested for publicly showing solidarity with protesters by visiting the families of those who had been killed in the protests.
Film occupies a singular space in Iran’s cultural landscape. For decades Iranian cinema has made a name for itself globally with edgy depictions of daily life laced with subtle critiques of oppression and injustice. Even before the uprising, the regime appeared particularly sensitive to shows of defiance by leaders in the arts field, especially cinema. Over the summer, celebrated filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof, Mostafa Al-Ahmad and Jafar Panahi, who has been in and out of jail since the protests of 2009. were detained. Others, like Mohammad Makhmalbaf, have had to flee into exile. Before Alidoosti’s arrest, actors Hengameh Qaziani and Katayoun Riah were detained and released on bail.
“Celebrities have influence,” said Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East studies specialising in Iran at the University of Denver. “When they speak out politically they can mobilise citizens in collective action.”Hashemi added the outspokenness by such celebrities could draw those opposed to the regime but keeping quiet for now. “The level of anger and discontent is very wide and deep and this has not manifested itself on the streets yet,” he said. “Many people are still sitting on the fence. This is what the Islamic Repblublic fears when celebrities speak out—increasing the number of protesters from thousands to millions of people. Thus, the attempt to silence Alidoosti and other popular influencers.”
If arrests are meant to silence Iran’s celebrities, it may also have the opposite effect. A day after Alidoosti’s arrest, a group of Iranian film industry leaders gathered in front of Evin Prison to show their support. Among them was the celebrated Rakhshan Bani-Etmad.
On the same day, Niki Karimi, arguably post-revolutionary Iran’s most famous actor as well as a well-regarded director posted a scathing note on social media. The 51-year-old revealed in the lengthy note that she had been receiving anonymous phone calls demanding she stay silent, but that she could no longer keep quiet. “I have cancelled all my jobs, I have cancelled my contracts, whether for acting or producing,” she wrote. “In these few months of suffocation and intimidation, my throat is full of suppressed screams, my dreams are full of hatred, tears, and confusion from this.” Moafi, a star in the ensemble series The ‘L’ Word said having people like Alidoosti or Karimi speak out “also helps shine an international spotlight on the atrocities committed by this regime that up until this point were consciously or subconsciously normalised by our global community. “

US and Iran clash over Russia using Iran drones in Ukraine
EDITH M. LEDERER/UNITED NATIONS (AP)/December 20, 2022
The United States and its allies clashed with Iran and its ally Russia over Western claims that Tehran is supplying Moscow with drones that have been attacking Ukraine — and the U.S. accused the U.N. secretary-general of “yielding to Russian threats” and failing to launch an investigation. At a contentious Security Council meeting Monday on the resolution endorsing the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers, the United States and Iran also accused each other of responsibility for stalled negotiations on the Biden administration rejoining the agreement that former President Donald Trump pulled out of in 2018.Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani insisted Iran’s negotiating team exercised “maximum flexibility” in trying to reach agreement and even introduced an “innovative solution to the remaining issues to break the impasse.” But he claimed the “unrealistic and rigid approach” of the United States led to the current stalled talks on the 2015 agreement, known as the JCPOA. “Let’s make it clear: pressure, intimidation and confrontation are not solutions and will get nowhere,” Iravani said.
Iran is ready to resume talks and arrange a ministerial meeting “as soon as possible to declare the JCPOA restoration," Iravani said. “This is achievable if the U.S. demonstrates genuine political will … The U.S. now has the ball in its court.”
Speaking before Iravani, U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood said “the door to negotiations remains open” for a mutual U.S.-Iranian return to full implementation of the JCPOA. But he said, “Iran’s own actions and stances have been responsible for preventing that outcome.”
In September, a deal that all other parties had agreed to was “within reach” and “even Iran prepared to say yes," Wood said, “until at the last minute, Iran made new demands that were extraneous to the JCPOA and that it knew could not be met.”
He said Iran's conduct since September — notably its failure to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, and the expansion of its nuclear program “for no legitimate civilian purpose" — has reinforced U.S. skepticism “about Iran’s willingness and capability of reaching a deal, and explains why there have been no active negotiations since then.”At the end of the council meeting, Wood asked for the floor to refute Iravani, saying it's “a fact" that Iran’s extraneous demands and rejection of all compromise proposals are the reason why there has not been a return to mutual compliance with the JCPOA.“So let me just simply say, The ball is not in the U.S. court," Wood said. “On the contrary, the ball is in Iran’s court.”Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward, whose country remains a party to the JCPOA, told the council Iran’s nuclear escalation is making “progress on a nuclear deal much more difficult.”“Today, Iran’s total enriched uranium stockpile exceeds JCPOA limits by at least 18 times, and it continues to produce highly enriched uranium, which is unprecedented for a state without a nuclear weapons program,” she said.
In addition, Woodward said, “Iranian nuclear breakout time has reduced to a matter of weeks, and the time required for Iran to produce the fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons is decreasing.” She said Iran is also testing technology that could enable intermediate and intercontinental range ballistic missiles to carry a nuclear payload. U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the council “the space for diplomacy appears to be rapidly shrinking.”She pointed to an IAEA report that Iran intends to install new centrifuges at its Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant and to produce more uranium enriched up to 60% at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant — a level close to that needed for a nuclear weapon. Iran also removed all IAEA equipment monitoring JCPOA-related activities. DiCarlo called on Iran to reverse all steps outside JCPOA limits, and on the United States to lift sanctions on Iran outlined in the nuclear deal, and extend waivers on Iranian oil trading. Iran’s Iravani emphasized that all of Iran’s nuclear activities “are peaceful” and said Iran is ready to engage the IAEA to resolve outstanding issues on nuclear safeguards. As for what he called the “unfounded allegation” that Iran transferred drones to Russia in violation of the 2015 resolution, Iravani stressed that all restrictions on transferring arms to and from Iran were terminated in October 2020. So he said Western claims that Tehran needed prior approval “has no legal merit.”Iravani also insisted that drones were not transferred to Russia for use in Ukraine, saying “the misinformation campaign and baseless allegations … serve no purpose other than to divert attention from Western states’ transfer of massive amounts of advanced, sophisticated weaponry to Ukraine in order to prolong the conflict.”Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia called allegations of Iranian drone deliveries to his country for use in Ukraine “patently concocted and false.” Russia is well aware that Ukrainian representatives “have been unable to provide Tehran bilaterally any documentation to corroborate the use by Russian military personnel of Iranian-origin drones," he said. Wood, the U.S. envoy, told the council that Ukraine’s report of Iranian-origin drones being used by Russia to attack civilian infrastructure has been supported “by ample evidence from multiple public sources” including a statement by Iran’s foreign minister on Nov. 5. He insisted that Iran is barred from transferring these types of drones without prior Security Council approval under an annex to the 2015 resolution. For seven years, Wood said, the U.N. has had a mandate to investigate reported violations of the resolution, and he expressed disappointment that the U.N. Secretariat, headed by secretary-general Guterres, has not launched an investigation, “apparently yielding to Russian threats.”Russia’s Nebenzia reiterated Moscow’s contention that investigations are “an egregious violation” of the resolution and the U.N. Charter “and the U.N. Secretariat should not bow to pressure from Western countries.”Guterres told a news conference earlier Monday, when asked about criticism that the U.N. hasn’t launched an investigation of Iranian-made drones in Ukraine, that “We are looking into all the aspects of that question and in the broader picture of everything we are doing in the context of the war to determine if and when we should” conduct an investigation.

Cannes Film Festival calls for release of Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti
RFI/December 20, 2022
The Cannes Film Festival has condemned the arrest and demanded the immediate release of the award-winning Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti, who was among the most prominent people to be arrested during Iran's months-long protests. The 38-year-old actress was arrested on Saturday after post a string of messages on social media supporting the protest movement – including removing her headscarf and condemning the execution of protesters. The unrest was sparked by the death in September of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, who was in custody, accused accused by the country's so-called morality police of violating the Islamic Republic's strict dress code for women. Alidoosti's most recent social media post was on 8 December, the same day Mohsen Shekari, 23, became the first person executed by authorities over the protests. "Your silence means the support of the oppression and the oppressor", read a post on her Instagram account, which was no longer accessible on Sunday. France's Macron calls for fresh sanctions against Iran over protest repression. Iran deploys mounted police in latest bid to supress Mahsa Amini protests
International condemnation. The festival tweeted its "full support" to Alidoosti, "in solidarity with the peaceful struggle she is carrying out for freedom and women's rights".(with wires)

U.S. sees 'conflicting' views in Russia on fresh Ukraine offensive
WASHINGTON (Reuters)/Humeyra Pamuk/December 20, 2022
There are conflicting views in Russia on whether or not to launch a renewed offensive in Ukraine, a senior U.S. State Department official said on Tuesday, reiterating Washington would keep backing Kyiv regardless of which scenario plays out. The 10-month-old conflict prompted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine has spiraled into the largest in Europe since World War Two, and has killed tens of thousands of people, driven millions from their homes and reduced cities to ruins. But Russia's invasion has faltered badly since the summer with a string of losses to a Ukrainian counter-offensive that retook swathes of occupied territory and forced Moscow into a partial mobilisation of 300,000 more troops. "Certainly there are some (within Russia) who I think would want to pursue (new) offensives in Ukraine. There are others who have real questions about the capacity for Russia to actually do that," the State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told reporters in Washington. Russia is suffering "significant" shortages of ammunition posing a serious problem along the war's front lines, the official said, and those that Moscow has called up to join its combat forces were often not "cohesive" units.
"There are all sorts of things that the Russians are dealing with in terms of having the necessary equipment, having the necessary ammunition that put some constraints on what they may want to do," the official said. "At the same time, it's a very large machine." Ukraine's top general, Valery Zaluzhniy, told The Economist last week Russia was preparing 200,000 fresh troops for a major offensive that could come from the east, south or even Belarus to the north as early as January, but more likely in spring. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Belarus on Monday, his first visit to the country since 2019, raising fears in Kyiv that he intends to pressure Moscow's fellow ex-Soviet ally to join a open a new invasion front against Ukraine.

Analysis-Russia's grim battle for Bakhmut may yield pyrrhic victory at best
Andrew Osborn and Felix Light/Reuters/December 20, 2022
The nearly five-month battle for the small city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine has ground on for so long and wrought so much death and destruction that, even if Russia does prevail, it will be a pyrrhic victory, military experts say. Wrecked apartment blocks, badly wounded soldiers, mud-filled trenches and civilians cowering in cellars under incessant bombardment have become familiar scenes in and around Bakhmut since the fighting began. Gaining control of the city, with a pre-war population of 70-80,000 that has shrunk to close to 10,000, could give Russia a stepping stone to advance on two bigger cities - Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. It would also deprive Ukraine of a useful road and rail supply line intersection. But with fierce fighting there since Aug. 1, and Russian shelling since May, much of Bakhmut lies in ruins, while Ukrainian forces to the west have had ample time to build defensive lines nearby to fall back to.
"If Bakhmut had been captured when they started their attack in August then it would have been significant. But it's all about momentum," said Konrad Muzyka, a Polish military analyst. He said Bakhmut's strategic value had been reduced by Ukraine's fortification of the surrounding area in the months that followed, making it hard for Russia to convert the city's capture, if it happens, into a broader breakthrough. Still, the clash has taken on outsized significance on both sides because it is the main theatre of fighting as winter bites, major resources have been deployed and it is the first battle in months Russia appears to have a chance of winning. Described as a "meat grinder" by commanders on both sides, some Russian, Ukrainian and Western experts liken the struggle to World War One, where Germany and Britain suffered huge losses in trench warfare for often scant territorial gain.
Igor Girkin, a Russian nationalist and former Federal Security Service officer who helped launch the original Donbas war in 2014 and is under U.S. sanctions, said this week he thought his own side's strategy in Bakhmut was "idiotic". "What will happen next (after the potential Russian capture of Bakhmut)?" Girkin mused in a video, adding the Ukrainians would merely fall back to a second defensive line while continuing to build other defensive lines behind that one. "It's chewing through the enemy's defences according to the World War One model," said Girkin, arguing that Moscow needed to change battlefield strategy and deploy its forces differently. Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military at the U.S.-based CNA think-tank, said Moscow appeared committed to the battle because of resources it had already spent rather than because of "sound strategy". "The fighting for Bakhmut is not senseless, but strategically unsound (for Russia) given weak offensive potential and no prospect of breakthrough even if the city is captured," said Kofman.
'CONVICT TROOPS'
Neither side discloses the full extent of fatalities in Ukraine.
But Kyiv says Russia has been taking heavy losses and that many of those killed were convicts recruited by Moscow's Wagner private mercenary company. Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner's founder, who is sanctioned in the West, has confirmed his men are fighting there.
The deal he offered convicts was to fight and be pardoned in six months or, if they joined up and deserted, face execution. In November, independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reported that publicly available data from Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service showed the overall prison population shrank by over 23,000 people in September and October, the biggest drop of its kind in more than a decade. That suggested convicts had taken up Prigozhin's offer. Reuters could not independently verify the data. Prigozhin has cautioned against expecting rapid breakthroughs, and, in a Dec. 12 comment, said Wagner's task in fighting for Bakhmut was to "kill as many enemy soldiers as possible, and bleed the Ukrainian army dry". Battlefield footage suggests intense fighting for relatively modest stretches of ground, with the frontline edging back and forth. Russia, in its own battlefield updates, has spoken of Ukraine suffering heavy losses in men and hardware. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Bakhmut was the "hottest spot" on a 1,300-km (800-mile)frontline. His office said on Tuesday that Zelenskiy had visited the city to meet military representatives and hand out awards to soldiers.
WAR OF ATTRITION
For Russia, Bakhmut, which it calls Artyomovsk, the city's Soviet-era name, has long held political value. Lying on the frontline that bisects Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, taking Bakhmut would move Russia a step closer to full control of the Donbas, parts of which have been controlled by Russian proxies since 2014.After Russian troops withdrew from Ukraine's north in April in a humiliating retreat, Moscow publicly reframed its core war aim as the "liberation" of the largely Russian-speaking Donbas, of which Donetsk region makes up roughly half. Muzyka, the Polish military analyst, said Bakhmut had become a battle of attrition. "The Ukrainians are just wearing the Russians down and it's quite effective in terms of manpower and equipment," he said. "They are increasing the costs to the Russians."For Moscow, says British military intelligence, there is "a realistic possibility that Bakhmut's capture has become primarily a symbolic, political objective". A win there would help lift morale and General Sergei Surovikin, overall commander of Russia's forces in Ukraine since Oct. 8, could show he was right to redeploy his forces elsewhere after withdrawing from the southern city of Kherson.
It could also boost Prigozhin's political capital in Moscow if he can take some credit for such a victory. For Ukraine, say experts, the calculus in holding Bakhmut is partly about sustaining support from Western countries on whose arms supplies Ukraine's war effort is dependent. With Ukraine having scored a string of battlefield successes, even a relatively insignificant defeat risks creating the perception of stalemate, which could make Western countries less willing to extend support for Kyiv amid their own mounting economic problems stemming from the war. "At this stage, Ukraine is the victim of its own recent success, and suffers from heightened expectations of sustained momentum," said Kofman.

‘We’re Just Meat’: Russian Military Keeps Killing Its Own Troops
Allison Quinn/The Daily Beast./December 20, 2022
Russian soldiers sent next door to kill Ukrainians are increasingly getting killed by their own military instead. That’s according to the independent outlet iStories, which on Tuesday released a new report detailing Russia’s deadly mishaps on the battlefield, with drunk soldiers, negligent commanders, and the clumsy use of weapons blamed for the trend. Russian troops have also been caught venting openly to relatives about the dangers they face from their own men in Ukraine. In audio released by Ukrainian intelligence on Tuesday and said to capture a Russian soldier's phone conversation, a man identified only as Aleksei tells his mother the military just sent reinforcements. He explains that the reinforcements came because “20 people are gone.”“Our tank hit hard: It fired twice and 20 guys, fuck. I’m telling you, what the fuck kind of command is this, scumbags. They’re fucking killing their own,” Aleksei, who described himself as a commander, said. “I’m telling you, there are more losses from our own [guys],” than the Ukrainians, he said. Another purported soldier, heard complaining to a friend back home in audio released Monday, said it was clear the military leadership gives “zero fucks” if their soldiers come back alive. “It’s not a war, it’s a shit show. It’s complete bullshit,” he said. “That’s it, the entire response from leadership: There are 300,000 of you, basically, we don’t give a fuck.”“Don’t you dare come here, and know that it’s complete shit,” he told his friend. “Only on [state-run] Channel One are there fucking tanks, here there’s fucking nothing, brother. Here there’s nothing, you have no food, you drink from puddles.”
Russia Can Finally See That Putin’s ‘Days Are Numbered’
The dispatches from the battlefield have finally begun to filter through to ordinary Russians back home, many of whom have been bombarded in recent days with propaganda videos urging them to sign up for the war to earn some extra cash. Perhaps in a sign of low morale, the videos were so cringey that many pro-Kremlin bloggers began pushing the claim they were actually made by Ukraine’s intelligence services to discredit the war. The reality on the ground is that Russia is knowingly killing its own troops even as it wages war against Ukraine, according to Russian troops interviewed by Mediazona. Dmitry Panov, a 30-year-old Muscovite, told the independent outlet he’d volunteered to join the war in the summer but refused to fight any further after commanders mistakenly killed their own men in Novoselivka in the Donetsk region. “We are just meat. They don’t want to know us, they present us as some kind of animals that are being led to the slaughter," Panov said. After commanders didn’t even bother to notify his unit that their location in the Kharkiv region had already been surrendered to Ukraine, he said, “many guys' eyes stopped burning brightly and dimmed from the realization that we were not soldiers or defenders here, we were something else. Then we realized that we were disposable.” That realization has begun to seep in more and more for troops slated to keep the war going in Ukraine. An entire battalion in Crimea has now refused to fight because they don’t want to “die in vain,” according to a report from Astra out Tuesday.
Relatives interviewed by the channel said the entire 127th Separate Reconnaissance Brigade opted out due to “heavy losses.”iStories reports that some Russians killed during the war never even made it to the front line—even though Russian media claimed they had died heroically on the battlefield.
Roman Moiseyev, 25, was mourned by people in Russia’s Vladimir region after supposedly dying in Ukraine in March. The reality, however, is that he was shot dead by a fellow soldier in Belgorod, iStories reports. While “friendly fire” incidents are typical in any war, experts told iStories the rate of Russians killing Russians has shot up in recent months and surpasses that of anything seen before. “At the very beginning of the full-scale invasion, there were fewer victims of friendly fire in the Russian army than there are now,” Ukrainian military expert Alexander Kovalenko was quoted saying.
Such incidents are reported every day, he said.

Russia shelled energy facilities in eastern Ukraine - Naftogaz
KYIV (Reuters) /December 20, 2022
Russia attacked Ukrainian oil and gas facilities in eastern Ukraine overnight, causing a fire but no casualties, Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz said on Tuesday. "Enemy missiles hit one of the facilities in the Kharkiv region. A large-scale fire broke out at the site, its elimination is currently underway. There are no casualties," the company said in a statement. Oleksiy Chernyshov, chief executive of state-run Naftogaz, said the damage would be assessed after emergency services finished their work and that everything that had been damaged would be restored. Chernyshov said earlier this month that Russian attacks on Ukraine had damaged 350 natural gas facilities in the country though production should be largely restored by the end of the year. He said at the time that the loss of gas production capacity amounted to a value of around $700 million. Chernyshov said on Tuesday the latest damage would be assessed after emergency services finished their work and that everything that had been damaged would be restored. Production of gas that is critical for heating gas is mainly concentrated in eastern Ukraine, scene of some of the heaviest fighting since Russia invaded in February.

Three dead as blast shuts part of Russia-Ukraine gas export pipeline
MOSCOW (Reuters)/December 20, 2022
A blast ripped through a gas pipeline in central Russia, killing three people and disrupting some of the limited amount of Russian gas that is still reaching Europe, local officials said on Tuesday. The flow of gas through a section of the Urengoi-Pomary-Uzhhorod pipeline that takes gas from Russia's Arctic to Europe via Ukraine had been halted as of 1:50 p.m. (1050 GMT), the local officials said on the Telegram messaging app. Oleg Nikolayev, governor of the Republic of Chuvashia, told state TV that three people, who were carrying out servicing work, has died in the accident, while another, a driver, "was in a state of shock". He said it was unclear when gas supplies via the pipeline could resume, and authorities were trying to work that out. The Chuvashia regional Emergencies Ministry said an explosion had ripped through the pipeline during planned maintenance work near the village of Kalinino, about 150 km (90 miles) west of the Volga city of Kazan. It said the resulting gas flare had been extinguished. The pipeline, built in the 1980s, enters Ukraine via the Sudzha metering point, currently the main route for Russian gas to reach Europe. Europe's gas prices have surged this year after Russia cut exports through its main gas pipeline route into Germany, leaving only pipelines via Ukraine to ship Russian gas to European consumers. The head office of the state-owned gas producer Gazprom and its local branch did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Gazprom said earlier on Tuesday it expected to pump 43 million cubic metres of gas to Europe via Ukraine through Sudzha in the next 24 hours, a volume in line with recent days. Forward prices on the Dutch TTF hub rose following the news. The benchmark TTF front-month contract was up 1.10 euros at 108.10 euro per megawatt hour by 1347 GMT. It had traded around 105 euros/MWh earlier in the day.

Officials say Pakistan raid kills all Taliban hostage-takers
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP)/Tue, December 20, 2022
Pakistan's special forces raided a police center in a remote northwestern district on Tuesday, killing all of the 33 Pakistani Taliban militants who earlier this week overpowered guards at the facility, seized arms and taken hostages, officials said. The militants had killed two hostages before the rescue operation, according to the country's defense minister. The swift operation was successful, according to security and intelligence officials, but it was not immediately clear how many officers had been held by the hostage-takers at the center in Bannu, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, since the brazen takeover on Sunday. The officials declined to elaborate or provide details on the operation, which was launched after more than 40 hours of negotiations with the Pakistani Taliban failed. On Monday, officials had said that one officer was killed when the Taliban detainees, held for years at the Bannu counter-terrorism center, seized the facility. Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif told the parliament that two hostages were killed by the militants and the rest had been freed. Asif said 15 security forces were wounded in Tuesday's operation. He said there were 33 hostage-takers and all of them were killed by the security forces in the operation. Earlier, the Taliban had claimed they were holding at least eight security personnel. Earlier, officials said there were about 30 Taliban fighters involved and that they had demanded a safe passage to former strongholds of the militant group.
Three military and police officials said seven members of the special forces who took part in the operation were wounded. Mohammad Ali Saif, a government spokesman in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said the Taliban hostage-takers were given a chance to surrender before the raid but refused. Thick black smoke billowed into the sky from inside the compound after two explosions were heard as the raid got underway Tuesday. Intermittent gunshots continued reverberating across the area for two hours, officials said. All the officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing situation. No military or government spokesmen were immediately available for comment. Sunday's brazen takeover of the police center reflected the Pakistani government’s lingering inability to exercise control over the remote region along the border with Afghanistan. The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, are separate but allied with the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in neighboring Afghanistan last year as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final weeks of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war. On Monday, Mohammad Khurasani, a TTP spokesman, had demanded safe passage for the hostage-takers to North or South Waziristan, areas that were a Taliban stronghold until a wave of military offensives over the past years drove out many of the insurgents. Since then, top TTP leaders and fighters have been hiding in Afghanistan, though the militants still have relatively free reign in patches of the province. Emboldened by their takeover of Afghanistan by their allies, the Afghan Taliban, the TTP fighters have stepped up attacks on Pakistani security forces and last month ended a monthslong cease-fire with the government. The violence has strained relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers, who had brokered the cease-fire in May. The TTP has waged an insurgency in Pakistan over the past 15 years, fighting for stricter enforcement of Islamic laws in the country, the release of their members who are in government custody and a reduction of Pakistani military presence in the country’s former tribal regions.
*Munir reported from Islamabad.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 20-21/2022/
It’s not just the EU that needs to scrutinize Qatar’s influence campaigns
Jonathan Schanzer and Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Politico EU/December 20/2022
There’s nothing wrong with deploying capital for economic growth — but Doha seeks to gain sway too.
Last weekend, Belgian police arrested European Parliament Vice President Eva Kaili. They are now investigating at least 10 other European Union employees and officials, and authorities have further confiscated up to €750,000 in cash, which EU officials reportedly accepted as bribes.
All this reportedly stems from efforts by the tiny Gulf emirate of Qatar to buy influence in Brussels. But this EU scandal is hardly the only indication of Qatar’s efforts to do so worldwide.
As events surrounding the Parliament continue to unfold, Qatar currently denies all wrongdoing — as does Kaili. Nevertheless, an investigation is underway, and of particular interest is a statement made by Kaili, describing Qatar as a “frontrunner in labor rights.”
The statement rang hollow amidst incontrovertible reports of gross abuse against the foreign workers who built the football stadiums for the World Cup. According to the Guardian, as many as 6,500 migrant workers from the countries of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have died in Qatar since it won the bid to host the tournament in 2010. Even a Qatari official recently admitted that 400 to 500 workers had died.
How Qatar came to win the World Cup bid may have foreshadowed the Kaili affair. Qatar beat other much bigger — and more qualified — competitors, such as the United States, to host the tournament. And serious allegations have since pointed to a high likelihood that the country bought the tournament with bribes.
Perhaps the most serious of these charges came from investigative journalists Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert, who allege that Qatari football official Mohammed Bin Hammam conducted a massive corruption campaign to secure the bid. A recent Netflix series echoes these allegations, with witnesses alleging that Doha spent some $5 million to buy the votes of FIFA’s executive committee members.
It stands to reason that Qatar has been on its back foot from the moment the games began, with the accusations of bribery and human rights violations reaching a crescendo. And if the facts support the Belgian prosecutor’s case, this could be why Kaili and other EU officials were recruited.
However, Doha’s efforts to secure sway extend well beyond Europe and FIFA.
Since 2016, Qatar — a nation of only 300,000 citizens — has spent a whopping $198 million to buy influence inside Washington, ranking fourth behind the much bigger China, Japan and South Korea. It has sponsored the annual Congressional baseball game, and it even kept the metro running when the Washington Capitals hockey team made a successful push for the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup in 2018.
The country’s influence campaign extends into education as well. Between 2002 and 2021, Qatar spent $4.9 billion on American universities, six of which maintain campuses at Education City in Doha — where France’s HEC Paris also has a branch. Interestingly, when it faced global pressure for hosting the World Cup despite its abysmal human and labor rights record, a professor at Georgetown Qatar wrote in the New York Times that “the World Cup belongs in the Middle East.”
Meanwhile, Qatari money isn’t hard to find in Europe either. This year, the country’s sovereign wealth fund announced it plans to invest $5 billion in projects in Spain; the Qataris hold an estimated £10 billion in British real estate; and other European investment targets include Germany, France, Greece and Switzerland.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with deploying capital for economic growth — but Doha seeks to gain influence too.
Alarmingly, some of Qatar’s most effective influence derives from its support for extremist groups in the Middle East. By now the country is widely known to have provided financial or material support to extremist groups like the Taliban, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and even Al-Qaeda. But rather than punish Qatar for this, the West consistently looks to Doha to act as an interlocutor, essentially asking the country to help solve regional problems it contributed to.
And this is to say nothing of Qatar’s massive media operation — Al Jazeera.
Originally founded as a tool to aggravate Qatar’s Gulf neighbors, over the years the news outlet has grown into a global empire. Today, it maintains operations in the U.S. And in 2020, the Department of Justice ordered AJ+ — the network’s somewhat newer social media operation, which disseminates messages in English, French, Arabic and Spanish — to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. However, the platform refused, arguing that Al Jazeera is a private organization, thus its affiliates couldn’t possibly be agents of a foreign government. Of course, the network avoids covering oppressive domestic politics, let alone the controversies surrounding Qatari influence worldwide.
Some of Qatar’s activity was well known before the World Cup — some of it wasn’t. And though originally intended to help Qatar transcend criticism, the games have now paradoxically awakened the world to Doha’s massive operation to ensure global influence.
With its massive energy wealth and tiny population, Qatar has no apparent reason to spend the colossal amounts of money it does. Nor does it have the right to violate laws and norms across the world. The EU is now grappling with this. And with the country squarely in focus in the wake of the alleged bribery scandal, the bloc’s officials are now vowing to curb its influence.
Hopefully, this is just the beginning.
*Jonathan Schanzer is senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow. Follow Jon and Hussain on Twitter @JSchanzer and @hahussain. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Will Turkey Pay a Price for Helping Iran Break Sanctions?
Sinan Ciddi and Behnam Ben Taleblu/| The National Interest/December 20/2022
So long as Turkey continues to enable adversaries like Iran to evade American sanctions, it will be an ally in name only.
Yet again, Turkey has been implicated in another brazen scheme circumventing U.S. sanctions on Iran. Following an exclusive report earlier this December by Politico, Sitki Ayan, a Turkish businessman and acquaintance of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for facilitating “the sale of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of oil for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF).”
The sustained permissiveness of Ankara as a sanctions-busting jurisdiction for Tehran will disappoint those who saw Turkey’s support for Ukraine and more recent mending of political fences with Israel as an indication of its renewed strategic relationship and identification with the West. More poignantly, it deals a body blow to the theory that Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey can serve as a permanent check against the Islamic Republic of Iran. As the Biden administration now reluctantly looks to embrace the sanctions tool against Iran due to the clerical regime’s repression of protestors, deepening of military ties with and export of drones to Russia, and escalating atomic program, it must contend with the bitter reality that illicit oil sales obscured by Ayan’s business networks in a NATO member state have helped to keep Tehran’s terror operations afloat.
Reportedly, in March 2021 Ayan led a Turkish business delegation in a meeting with sanctioned Iranian officials in Beirut wherein both sides aimed to further smuggling operations of “Iranian oil to buyers in China and Russia to raise funds for Tehran’s terror proxies.” Western assessments first reported in Politico contend that Tehran, with the help of ASB Group which has global operations that Ayan chairs, was able to underwrite its terror apparatus to the tune of an estimated $1 billion in less than two years. Specifically, Western diplomats believe this money benefitted the IRGC-QF, which is the sanctioned brain trust behind Tehran’s constellation of proxies known as the “axis of resistance,” of which Lebanese Hezbollah, another sanctioned terror proxy, is a member. Both the IRGC-QF and Lebanese Hezbollah have global reach, ranging from kidnapping and assassination attempts to narcotrafficking to material support for other terror groups.
Ayan is no ordinary Turkish businessman who suddenly found himself in league with sanctioned IRGC-QF smugglers. Leaked documents reveal previous business ventures with Ayan’s companies and Iran trying to bring gas to Europe. In Turkey, however, Ayan’s ties go to the top. Politico reports that Ayan and Erdogan attended the same religious school (Imam Hatip) as teenagers in Istanbul, and later would later enmesh personal and professional ties. For example, Ayan was reportedly critical to the concealment of Erdogan’s ownership of a $25 million dollar tanker he received in 2008. Ayan’s name also crops up in secret telephone conversations between Erdogan and his son Bilal Erdogan in 2014, wherein the latter two were implicated in an unprosecuted graft probe.
To be clear, Erdogan’s knowledge, involvement, or potential for profiteering from Ayan’s operations with Iran remains unknown, but the continuity of illicit financial activity through a broad network of fronts in Turkey benefitting Iran brings to mind another Turkey-Iran sanctions-busting scheme that reached Erdogan himself.
Just three years ago, U.S. attorneys for the Southern District of New York charged Halkbank, a major Turkish state-linked financial institution, with fraud, money laundering, and other sanctions violations related to the bank’s alleged participation in a scheme that yielded Tehran an estimated $20 billion of prohibited funds. Now known as the “gas for gold” scheme, these funds helped Tehran circumvent the height of pre-nuclear deal U.S. sanctions (2011-2012) through gold purchases that allegedly were made on behalf of the government of Iran using revenues earned by Iranian energy sales held in Turkish accounts. Worse, starting in mid-2013 when the U.S. Congress caught wind of the exchange and the loopholes enabling it, the trade was masked using humanitarian exemptions in U.S. sanctions law for food and medicine which were later revealed as never having been delivered.
It was during the Halkbank trial and the ensuing disclosures that Erdogan was implicated to have authorized the evolving evasion scheme. Since the verdict, which has been tied up in a drawn-out appeal process, Erdogan has rewarded select sanctions busters while the Turkish government has tried to get the case to go away due to both the embarrassment the issue caused for Ankara-Washington relations as well as the vast fines that could be levied on the bank which in turn would have ripple effects throughout the Turkish economy.
While prudence dictates that Turkish firms would have shunned illicit deals with Iran after that experience, the activities of the Ayan network prove otherwise. So why then would Turkey continue to purposefully engage in similar actions?
Mercantilism presents one potential answer. On paper, Turkey was weaning itself off Iranian energy during the latter half of the Trump administration (2018-2020) to avoid sanctions exposure. But just because Ankara’s energy imports diversified did not mean that its off-the-books activities ceased. In fact, as sanctions pressure on Iran mounted and formal trade declined, risk-tolerant Turkish firms—such as those in the Ayan network—may have sensed a greater opportunity to make a buck by helping their neighbor bust sanctions.
At the strategic level and into the present, such firms would be buoyed by the perception that the West needs Turkey more than ever and will be more likely to turn a blind eye to any corrupt ventures. Turkey has already played an outsized role in supplying combat drones to Ukrainian forces to resist and degrade Russian assaults. It has also become (and is fast positioning itself) as a go-between for Russia and Ukraine. Already, Turkey has helped facilitate shipments of Ukrainian grain, thereby preventing a worldwide food and economic crisis. The utility of these actions may have emboldened Erdogan to play hardball with the West in other areas, and at no cost. For example, Turkey is now the only country in NATO holding up the accession of Finland and Sweden to the alliance.
The same may be said of recent changes in Turkey’s foreign policy relating to Iran and the region. Restoring diplomatic relations with Israel and repairing relations with Saudi Arabia (after first bashing the Abraham Accords), and thwarting Iranian intelligence and terror operations on Turkish soil (after first making Turkey a permissive jurisdiction for these forces) might give the appearance of Turkey’s importance to regional stability and order. But lest we forget, these moves can easily be reversed by Erdogan himself, who has mastered the U-turn in Turkish politics. To that effect, the moves are better explained by domestic politics than geopolitics. Erdogan appears keen on racking up a series of foreign policy “wins” by cooling select regional crises in the run-up to his 2023 re-election bid at home, which coincides with the centennial of the Turkish Republic.
The impact of Ayan’s sanctions busting enters the picture. No story of Turko-Iranian relations is complete without reference to the fluid and compartmentalized collaboration and competition between Turkey and Iran over the past four decades. But the net result of Turkey becoming a hub for Iran sanctions evasion and terror underwriting means that the paradigm of “frenemy” to describe the bilateral relationship might soon find itself out of date. Put differently, Iranian decision-makers need not fret that Turkish forces have bombed Hezbollah in Syria if Turkey is still helping Iran illicitly accrue revenue to back its most successful proxy.
This is why traditional foreign policy measures used to assess the status of the Iran-Turkey relationship—such as their historical and ethno-sectarian enmities, domains of strategic competition (the Levant, Mesopotamia, or the Caucuses), regional alliances, or even changing trade patterns—are today insufficient to make sense of Ankara-Tehran ties.
Accordingly, policymakers must pay more attention to how Turkey and Iran could continue to try and subvert the formal financial system through dubious business practices rather than focusing on goals for their above-board trade. For example, while both countries desire to have a formal trade balance of $30 billion annually, given the history of sanctions busting, any assessment of Turkey-Iran economic ties must take into account the political connectivity of which Turkish banks, businesses, and even persons are engaging with Iran, as well as the growth of Iranian owned businesses in Turkey, Iranian acquisitions of Turkish real-estate, and Turkish citizenship sales programs.
Despite implementing some of the toughest sanctions in history against an adversary, the United States is undermining its own support for the rules-based order as well as the strength of the dollar as a national security tool every time it lets its sanctions atrophy or not follow up on sanctions violations. That’s why the designation of Ayan and his network should beget a much larger investigation by the Treasury Department into Iranian sanctions evasion schemes through Turkey, as well as the degree to which the Turkish state may have permitted or enabled such activity. Conversely, inaction by the U.S. government could be perceived as a sign of weakness by other powers—be they friend or foe—and exploited.
The Biden administration should further authorize the Treasury Department and any relevant authorities to investigate to the fullest extent possible the money flows enabled by the Ayan network and the specific terrorist organizations they funded so as to impede ongoing and deter future smuggling operations.
There’s no doubt that the United States has bent over backward to be seen as keeping Turkey on its side given the issues raised by the Ukraine conflict. But it’s high time policymakers realized that so long as Turkey continues to enable adversaries like Iran to evade American sanctions, it will be an ally in name only.
*Sinan Ciddi is a non-resident senior fellow covering Turkish domestic and foreign policy at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington, DC, where Behnam Ben Taleblu is a senior fellow covering Iranian security and political issues. They both contribute to FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP). Follow Sinan on Twitter @SinanCiddi. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.

China's Deal with Saudi Arabia is a Disaster for Biden
Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/December 20/2022
Nothing better illustrates the utter ineptitude of the Biden administration's dealings with the Middle East than Saudi Arabia's decision to forge a strategic alliance with China.
Biden set the tone for his strained relationship with the Saudi royal family during the 2020 presidential election contest when he denounced the kingdom as a "pariah" state over its involvement in the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018, although there has never any audible distress from the Biden administration over Iran's 2007 abduction and presumed death of ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson.
By any standard, the deepening military cooperation between Russia and Iran should serve as a wake-up call to the Biden administration to redouble its efforts to reaffirm its commitment to key allies in the region such as the Saudis, who are committed to resisting any attempt by Tehran to expand its malign influence in the region.
That Riyadh is now moving away from its traditional alliance with the US and strengthening its ties with Beijing is a strategic disaster of epic proportions, and serves as a damning indictment of the Biden administration's careless treatment of the Saudis, for which the president is personally to blame.
That Saudi Arabia is now moving away from its traditional alliance with the US and strengthening its ties with China is a strategic disaster of epic proportions, and serves as a damning indictment of the Biden administration's careless treatment of the Saudis. Pictured: The Chinese and the Saudi flags fly in Riyadh, on December 7, 2022, ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the Saudi capital. (Photo by Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images)
Nothing better illustrates the utter ineptitude of the Biden administration's dealings with the Middle East than Saudi Arabia's decision to forge a strategic alliance with China.
This is a time when Washington should be working overtime to strengthen its ties with long-standing allies like the Saudis to combat the mounting threat Iran poses to the region's security.
Apart from the deeply alarming progress the ayatollahs are said to be making with their efforts to produce nuclear weapons,
The new "axis of evil" that has been formed between Moscow and Tehran in recent months means Iran will soon be taking delivery of state-of-the-art Russian warplanes to add to its military arsenal.
In what both the White House and Downing Street described as "sordid deals" between the two countries, Iran is due to take delivery of Russian Su-35 fighter jets next year as well as other advanced military equipment and components, including helicopters and air defence systems. In return Iran is providing Russia with hundreds of its Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 so-called kamikaze drones, which self-destruct on hitting their target.
As US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby explained at a briefing in Washington, Moscow has "offered Iran an unprecedented level of military and technical support", which "transforms their relationship into a full defense partnership".
Biden administration officials added that Iranian pilots were already being trained in Russia on how to fly the Su-35 fighter.
By any standard, the deepening military cooperation between Russia and Iran should serve as a wake-up call to the Biden administration to redouble its efforts to reaffirm its commitment to key allies in the region such as the Saudis, who are committed to resisting any attempt by Tehran to expand its malign influence in the region.
Riyadh's determination to resist Iran's aggressive conduct was reflected in recent comments made by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud who warned that "all bets are off" if Iran succeeds in its goal of acquiring an operational nuclear weapon.
"We are in a very dangerous space in the region... you can expect that regional states will certainly look towards how they can ensure their own security," he said.
Riyadh's robust approach to Iran's bellicose conduct is exactly the sort of response Washington needs to see from its allies as it faces up to the Iranian threat. Yet, thanks to the Biden administration's wilful neglect of its relations with the Saudis, Riyadh is instead looking to build a partnership with Beijing, as was evident from the lavish reception given to Chinese President Xi Jinping during his state visit to the kingdom this month.
Rarely has a visiting leader been the recipient of such lavish state pageantry as Xi after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spared no effort to afford the Chinese leader a warm welcome, which included a jet escort on his arrival.
During his three-day visit, Xi held extensive talks with the Crown Prince, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, as well as other senior Saudi officials and signed a strategic partnership agreement that will deepen ties between Riyadh and Beijing on a range of issues, from defence to technology.
One particularly eye-catching aspect of the agreement was a deal with the Chinese tech giant Huawei to supply the Saudis with cloud computing services and allow "high-tech" complexes to be built in Saudi cities, according to Saudi officials.
Huawei has been designated a potential security threat by the US, with intelligence officials claiming that the company has close links to China's ruling Communist Party and could be used to conduct spying operations.
That Riyadh is now moving away from its traditional alliance with the US and strengthening its ties with Beijing is a strategic disaster of epic proportions, and serves as a damning indictment of the Biden administration's careless treatment of the Saudis, for which the president is personally to blame.
Biden set the tone for his strained relationship with the Saudi royal family during the 2020 presidential election contest when he denounced the kingdom as a "pariah" state over its involvement in the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018, although there has never any audible distress from the Biden administration over Iran's 2007 abduction and presumed death of ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, though, forced Biden to rethink his attitude towards the Saudis when it suddenly dawned on him that he needed the Saudis to increase oil supplies to ease the pressure on global prices.
His efforts achieved little: the Saudis were apparently unimpressed with Biden greeting the Crown Prince with a fist-bump when he visited the kingdom in the summer, and he came away empty-handed, with the Saudis and other Gulf states ignoring his plea to increase oil production.
Apart from being dismayed about Biden's obsession with reviving the controversial nuclear deal with Tehran, which they regard as a flawed agreement -- it allows the Iranian regime soon to build as many nuclear weapons as it likes as well, as the ballistic missiles to deliver them -- the Saudis and other Gulf leaders are unhappy with the lack of support they have received from Washington over the constant threat they face from Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, whom Secretary of State Antony Blinken removed from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations just a few weeks into Biden's term, and who since then regularly fired Iranian-made missiles and drones into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Now, thanks to Biden's incompetent management of the US-Saudi relationship, Riyadh is looking to China to protect its interests, a move that confirms the alarming decline in US influence in the region that has taken place under the vacuum in Biden's leadership.
*Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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The Question Is No Longer Whether Iranians Will Topple Khamenei
Karim Sadjadpour/The New York Times/December, 20/2022
The protests in Iran, now in their third month, are a historic battle pitting two powerful and irreconcilable forces: a predominantly young and modern population, proud of its 2,500-year-old civilization and desperate for change, versus an aging and isolated theocratic regime, committed to preserving its power and steeped in 43 years of brutality.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, the only ruler many protesters have known, seems to be facing a version of the dictator’s dilemma: If he doesn’t offer his people the prospect of change, the protests will continue, but if he does, he risks appearing weak and emboldening protesters.
The protests were set off by the Sept. 16 death of a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, after she was detained by the morality police for allegedly wearing improper hijab. Although Iranian opposition to the regime is unarmed, unorganized and leaderless, the protests continue despite a violent crackdown by the regime. More than 18,000 protesters have been arrested, more than 475 have been killed, and 11 people have been sentenced to death so far. On Thursday, a 23-year-old man, Mohsen Shekari, who was arrested during the protests, was hanged.
However the protests are resolved, they seem to have already changed the relationship between Iranian state and society. Defying the hijab law is still a criminal offense, but women throughout Iran, especially in Tehran, increasingly refuse to cover their hair. Videos of young Iranians flipping turbans off the heads of unsuspecting Shiite clerics are popular on social media. Symbols of the government are routinely defaced and set on fire, including, according to social media reports, the ancestral home of the revolution’s father, Ruhollah Khomeini. Laborers, bazaar merchants and petrochemical workers have gone on intermittent strikes, reminiscent of the tactics that helped topple Iran’s monarchy in 1979.
The ideological principles of Khamenei and his followers are “Death to America,” “Death to Israel” and insistence on hijab. Khamenei’s ruling philosophy has been shaped and reinforced by three notable authoritarian collapses: The 1979 fall of Iran’s monarchy, the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Arab uprisings of 2011. His takeaway from each of these events has been to never compromise under pressure and never compromise on principles. Whenever Khamenei has faced a fork in the road between reform and repression, he has always doubled down on repression.
The rigidity of Iran’s hard-liners is driven not only by ideological conviction but also by a keen understanding of the interplay between the rulers and the ruled. As Alexis de Tocqueville put it, “The most perilous moment for a bad government is one when it seeks to mend its ways.”
Khamenei understands that rescinding compulsory hijab will be a gateway to freedom and will be interpreted by many Iranians as an act of vulnerability, not magnanimity. That Iranians will not be placated merely with the freedom of dress but will be emboldened to demand all the freedoms denied to them in a theocracy..There are signs of disarray within the ruling elite. While some officials have suggested the notorious morality police will be abolished, others have suggested this is merely a temporary tactic to restore order. “The collapse of the hijab is the collapse of the flag of the Iranian Republic,” said Hossein Jalali, a clerical ally of Mr. Khamenei and a member of the Cultural Commission of the Iranian Parliament. “Head scarves will return to women’s heads in two weeks,” he declared, and women who refuse to comply could have their bank accounts frozen.
The Iranian regime’s repressive capacity — at least on paper — remains formidable. Khamenei is commander in chief of 190,000 armed members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, who oversee tens of thousands of Basij militants tasked with instilling public fear and morality. Iran’s nonideological conscription army, whose active forces are an estimated 350,000, is unlikely to take part in mass repression, but hopes from protesters that they will join the opposition have so far been in vain.
Until now, the political and financial interests of Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards have been intertwined. But persistent protests and chants of “Death to Khamenei” might change that. Would the Iranian security forces want to continue killing Iranians to preserve the rule of an unpopular, ailing octogenarian cleric who is reportedly hoping to bequeath power to Mojtaba Khamenei, his equally unpopular son?
The internal deliberations of Iran’s security services remain a black box. But it is likely that, like the Tunisian and Egyptian militaries in 2011, some of them have begun to contemplate whether cutting loose the dictator might preserve their own interests.
The sociologist Charles Kurzman wrote in his seminal book, “The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran,” that the paradox of revolutionary movements is that they are not viable until they attract a critical mass of supporters but that to attract a critical mass of supporters, they must be perceived as viable.
The protest movement has not yet reached that tipping point, but there are ample signs that a critical mass of Iranian society has doubts about the regime’s continued viability. “What the people want is regime change and no return to the past,” said Nasrin Sotoudeh, a renowned human rights attorney and political prisoner who had long called for reform instead of revolution. “And what we can see from the current protests and strikes that are now being initiated is a very real possibility of regime change.”
Like many autocratic regimes, the Iranian Republic has long ruled through fear, but there are growing signs that fear is dissipating. Female athletes and actors have begun to compete and perform without the hijab — a criminal offense that has earned other women double-digit prison sentences — inspiring others to do the same. Political prisoners like Hossein Ronaghi have remained defiant despite imprisonment and torture. Rather than deter protesters, their killings often lead to mourning ceremonies­­­­­ that perpetuate the protests.
Four decades of the Iranian Republic’s hard power will ultimately be defeated by two millenniums of Iranian cultural soft power. The question is no longer about whether this will happen but when. History has taught us that there is an inverse relationship between the courage of an opposition and the resolve of a regime, and authoritarian collapse often goes from inconceivable to inevitable in days.

The West’s Grievance on Iran Mirrors Our Own
Nadim Koteich/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 20/2022
Has the West woken up to the fact that Iran is a global problem rather than a regional problem limited to the Middle East?
The international community’s misguided view of the Iranian project has led to this project being framed within the context of confessional competition between Sunnis and Shiites or national competition between Arabs and Persians. This has left the gravity of the revolutionary Velayet e-Faqih regime consistently underestimated. As a result, the international approach, largely shaped by American political elites, for addressing this project has focused exclusively on Iran’s nuclear program. Fears surrounding this program have marginalized the most destabilizing aspects of the Iranian project, which is centered around sectarian militias armed with drones and missiles, as well as assassination squads constantly working to undermine the social fabric of their countries and deepen sectarian and ethnic divisions. The excessive emphasis on Iran’s nuclear program has also been an obstacle to understanding Iran’s intentions. The latter does not seek, through its attempts to dominate neighboring countries or undermine the legitimacy of their political seeks, hegemony for its own sake. Rather, Iran’s aim is to break down the foundation of regional alliances with the West.
The bothersome actions of Iran in the region do not only aim to undermine Saudi Arabia as a country but to undermine the Kingdom’s political system. Iran sees this political system as a pillar of the strategic architecture of American influence, which Iran seeks to destroy and change. The same is true for all of Washington’s other allies in the Middle East.
This unsound conception of Iran’s project and its goals has created tensions between Washington and its allies, who have lost their voice talking about the missiles, drones, and militias, explaining that they are just as dangerous, if not more dangerous, as the nuclear program. Indeed, for a period, it seemed as though this program was the only lens through which the Americans saw the region and its problems. It seems that things will never be the same after the Russian- Ukrainian conflict, or we hope so, at least. We have all heard National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby warn that “Iran and Russia are trying to deepen their defense partnership,” which includes “the development of a joint production facility in Russia for Iranian drones.”Kirby also affirmed that cooperation between Russia and Iran is not just about the production of drones, “which of course the Russians will use to propagate more violence on the Ukrainian people… It’s about this deepening relationship, which is not only not good for the people of Ukraine, it’s not good for the people of the Middle East.”
In similar statements, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has said aid in the relationship between Tehran and Moscow was “having an impact on the battlefield in Ukraine.” “I think it can have an even more dangerous impact on the Middle East as well if it continues. So, it’s something that we take very, very seriously,” he added. Last October, the "New York Times" quoted current and former US officials with access to classified intelligence who stressed that Iran had sent IRGC military advisers to Crimea to help the Russians operate Iranian drones.
The US is not the only Western power worried about the evolution of the military alliance between Russia and Ukraine. The United Kingdom’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Barbara Woodward, has spoken about Russian plans to acquire more Iranian weapons, including hundreds of ballistic missiles.
These are the same missiles and drones that Iran’s militias in Yemen and Iraq have used to attack Gulf cities and facilities. Nonetheless, the leaders of the countries targeted were told to exercise restraint after every attack, as the priority was getting the nuclear deal between the P5+1 and Iran over the line!
These are the same advisors who manage Iran’s interests in the Lebanese, Iraqi, Syrian, and Yemeni “arenas.” They also lead local militias that the West has always labeled “members of the local community,” and its military activities were framed as “communal infighting.”
If the growing level of cooperation between Russia and Iran in Ukraine presents an opportunity, it is to redefine the conflicts raging in the Middle East and redefine the place Iranian proxies occupy within these conflicts. Indeed, neither is the Yemeni crisis a humanitarian crisis as some in the West claim nor are Iran’s militias in Lebanon and Iraq members of the local communities that should be dealt with within the framework of political cooperation in pluralistic societies.
In Yemen, Iran has created a regional proxy war against Washington itself, not Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, by intervening in the same manner that is intervening in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Iran is behaving similarly in Lebanon and Syria, where it is exploiting communal divisions, in the same way, that it took advantage of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. All of these actions are intended to change the international order and the framework for international relations set up by Washington, though Iran does not have the capacity to achieve this haughty ambition.
The West’s grievances regarding Iran’s role in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine apply to our grievances before anything else. This is a political, diplomatic, and journalistic opportunity for us in the Middle East to develop a narrative that links our apprehensions with those of the West, thereby showing them the truth about our problem with Iran and disputing the version of this problem in West’s political, academic, and journalistic imagination.
Iran does not target the powers it has been attacking because they are Arab or Sunni. At the very least, this is not the only reason. Its hostile actions are primarily founded on an ideology and strategic ambition to destroy the West’s network of alliances in the Middle East. Indeed, the leaders of the targeted countries are now asking: where is Washington? They are not demanding that anyone fight on their behalf but ask for an ally to join them in the battle they are supposedly fighting together, especially since these countries are being targeted because of their alliance first and foremost.

Christmas Time: When the West Appeases and Islam Slaughters
Raymond Ibrahim/December 20/2022
One of the most odious aspects of the so-called War on Christmas is Western appeasement of Muslim sensibilities.
Consider recent events in Sweden, where St. Lucia’s Day has been celebrated for centuries. According to Britannica:
St. Lucia’s Day [is a] festival of lights celebrated in Sweden, Norway, and the Swedish-speaking areas of Finland on December 13 in honour of St. Lucia (St. Lucy). …The festival begins with a procession led by the St. Lucia designee, who is followed by young girls dressed in white and wearing lighted wreaths on their heads and boys dressed in white pajama-like costume singing traditional songs. The festival marks the beginning of the Christmas season in Scandinavia, and it is meant to bring hope and light during the darkest time of the year.
Not anymore. At least one school in Sweden has compromised the celebration in order to appease its Muslim students. According to a Dec. 10, 2022 Swedish report (English translation here),
Do you expect Santas, caroler and gingerbread men in the Lucia parade? Not at St Mary’s School (Mariehemsskolan) in Umeå. There it has been decided that the 40 or so children aged 7 to 10 who will take part in the Lucia procession will do so without the traditional elements of a Lucia celebration. The reason for this is Muslim children who dropped out of last year’s celebration because their parents were uncomfortable with the connection between the celebration and Christmas…. The children will also not sing the traditional Lucia songs. The choir director says that many children have been excluded over the years because Swedish schools focused so much on the Lucia festival and it was “so incredibly traditionally Christian.”
Note how the choir director makes it seem that Muslim children were “excluded,” when in fact they, or rather their parents, were the ones who chose exclusion.
Now rid of any distinctly Christmas/Christian trappings, St. Mary’s school posted a picture of one of its recent and highly “watered-down” Lucia rehearsals—boasting a very young Muslim girl dressed in full black hijab.
Such is Islam’s ongoing “contribution” to Sweden. Since that Scandinavian nation opened its door to multiculturalism and migration—the overwhelming majority of which has been Muslim—violent crimes have increased by 300% and rapes by 1,472%. (These figures are based on a 2015 report; as Muslim migration has continued to soar over the last nearly eight years, these stats have likely gotten worse.)
Aside from bringing an exponential rise in mayhem, the growing Muslim population is, as this recent development attests, also slowly but surely erasing—“canceling”—Sweden’s indigenous culture and former Christian heritage. In this case, however, their success is entirely predicated on Sweden’s willing cooperation.
Sweden, of course, is symbolic of the West in general. Expressions of Christmas, particularly the Nativity scene, are being suppressed all throughout the West to appease Muslims. A few examples come from the UK (here and here), Italy (here and here), Germany (here and here), and Belgium (here and here).
In New York City, beginning as far back as 2002, public schools were allowed to display the religious symbols of all religions—including the star and crescent of Islam—except for Christianity, with a particular emphasis on banning the Nativity scene.
It’s also worth noting that not a few of those Western people engaged in such self-suppression are self-identified “Christians”—including the pope himself.
What makes all this appeasement especially loathsome is that, of all non-Christians, it is precisely Muslims who, far from reciprocating such “sensitivity,” do the exact opposite. If anything, the Christmas season often heralds nothing but a rise in the persecution of Christian minorities throughout the Muslim world.
During Christmas of 2015, for example, I made it a point to closely follow and collate instances of persecution for an article. A few examples follow:
USA: Muslim terrorists attacked a Christmas party in San Bernardino, killing 14 people, including a Christian woman from Iran who thought she had successfully fled persecution by coming to America.
Nigeria: Muslim terrorists of Boko Haram slaughtered 16 Christians, including children, on Christmas Day. In other years, the jihadist group has bombed or burned several packed churches on Christmas Day. One of the deadliest occurred in 2011, when the jihadists bombed a Catholic church during Christmas mass, killing 39 and wounding hundreds.
Philippines: Muslim terrorists slaughtered ten Christians on Christmas Eve, in order to “make a statement.”
Iraq: On Christmas Eve, Islamic terrorists bombed ten homes and a convent in a Christian village.
Bethlehem: In the birthplace of Christmas, and scene of the Nativity, Muslims stoned a Christian leader and, elsewhere, torched a public Christmas tree.
Belgium: “Allah akbar” yelling Muslims torched a large, public Christmas tree in Brussels.
Bangladesh: Christmas midnight mass was canceled due to severe threats of terrorism.
Indonesia: Christmas mass was not canceled, though heavy security—150,000 personnel—was posted all around churches due to threats of terrorism.
Some might argue that most of these examples were the work of terrorists or other “extremists”—that true Muslims are welcoming of Christmas.
Au contraire. During that same Christmas, the authorities of several Muslim nations “cracked down” on Christmas celebrations.
In Iran, 10 Christians quietly celebrating the Nativity in a house were arrested, shackled, and hauled off on Christmas Day. Moreover, the governments of three other Muslim nations—Brunei, Tajikistan, and Somalia—formally banned Christmas on pain of lengthy prison sentences. Bans included celebrating the Nativity story to putting up trees, dressing like Santa Claus, and/or giving gifts. The Islamic clerics of Brunei summarized the general rationale: “Using religious symbols like crosses, lighting candles, putting up Christmas trees, singing religious songs, sending Christmas greetings … are against Islamic faith.”
Although the above examples come from just one year, 2015, every Christmas season, before and after, sees the same sort of persecution by Muslims. For example, whenever America’s great “friend and ally,” Saudi Arabia, suspects Christian laborers of, as one Saudi official once complained, “plotting to celebrate Christmas,” they are arrested and punished.
Christmas 2022 hasn’t even arrived and Islamic hostility is already brewing. A few days ago in France a Muslim man sawed down a Christmas tree that had been erected in and by the officials of Lormont; a few days before that in Italy, another Muslim man “terrorized everyone” in the town of Sora as they participated in a Christmas tree lighting celebration. Lest the “religious,” that is, Islamic, motivation be missed, both Muslim men hollered Islam’s ancient war cry—“Allahu Akbar!”
If this is how some Muslim minorities react to the overt symbols of Christmas in Western nations, where they are “guests,” how might they react where they feel “at home,” that is, in the Muslim world itself? Well, in Tajikistan, a supposedly “secularized” Muslim nation that is seldom associated with “radicalism,” a Muslim man screaming “infidel!” stabbed another young man to death—simply because he was dressed as Santa Clause. In Jordan, police arrested a man for dressing as Santa Clause.
Such is the lamentable—if not downright disgusting—state of affairs. In the West, where Muslims are granted all sorts of concessions—beginning with the gift of migrating from the Third to the First World— Christmas is increasingly being stifled, lest it offends them. Meanwhile, in the Muslim world, the Christmas season sees only an uptick of the persecution of Christian “infidels.”
Although both are bad, the distinction (more fully discussed here) should not be missed: Christmas is under attack in the West, not because of Muslims, but because of homegrown Western elements who despise the Christian holiday and everything it represents. Rather than be honest, however, they use Muslims as pawns and pretexts.
That, by the way, is the case with everything Western people are told they must suppress—beginning with their religion—in the name of “inclusivity.” In the end, this exercise in self-suppression is not about accommodating minority groups but rather sabotaging Western civilization from within.