English LCCC Newsbulletin For Le

English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For February 08/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

Bible Quotations For today
Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 18/01-05:”At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 07-08/2022
President discusses army affairs, maritime borders demarcation with Minister Sleem
Berri calls Parliament bureau to convene upcoming Thursday, meets Hijazi
Mikati during consultative gathering to rescue educational sector: We do not carry magic wand, yet we have will and determination to address...
Will Miqati Run in Parliamentary Elections?
Reports: March 8 Forces Intend to Postpone Elections for One Year
Reports: U.S. Explores Hizbullah Stance on Lebanon-Israel Border Demarcation
Qassem Says Hizbullah Not Worried of Elections
Asmar Says Minimum Wage Might Reach LBP 7 Million
Iraqi National Security Says Lebanon Informed Them about IS Group
Families of port blast victims block road at Adlieh roundabout against delay in investigations
Army Commander meets Russia’s Frolkin, British Security Cooperation Program advisor
Jumblatt: Where is the Jordanian, Egyptian gas?
Bou Habib receives German ambassador, diplomats' credentials
Lebanon Returns 337 Artifacts of Different Eras to Iraq
Former Lebanese Interior Minister Ahmad Fatfat: Hizbullah Only Uses Its Weapons Against The Lebanese People, To Impose Its Political Conditions And Prevent Beirut Port Inquest
Hezbollah claims Gulf is abandoning 'Arabs' through Israel ties
Gantz signs seizure order against Lebanese companies helping Hezbollah
LIC Reaction to UN Security Council

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 07-08/2022
Morocco to bury 'little Rayan' who died trapped in well
Iran Nuclear Talks to Resume in Vienna on Tuesday
US Envoy Says Returning to Vienna in Hope of Reviving Iran Nuclear Pact
Tehran Demands 'Balance of Commitments’ at Vienna talks
IGAD to Hold Summit to Address Sudan Crisis
NATO Considers Bolstering Allies if Russian Troops Stay In Belarus
Ukraine Crisis Talks Move to Moscow and Washington
Iraq Turmoil Deepens as Presidential Vote Postponed Indefinitely
Israel PM Vows Action as Police Pegasus Spying Scandal Widens
UK Rebukes China for Supporting Argentina's Falklands Claim
Macron's government launches new body to oversee Islam in France
US offers millions of dollars for information on ISIS-K leader, Kabul airport bombing

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 07-08/2022
FDD/Audio discussion focusing on Russia and Ukraine who are on the Brink of War
Pete Hoekstra/ Gatestone Institute./February 07/2022
Biden Must Learn From the JCPOA's Mistakes/Jacob Nagel and Mark Dubowitz/Newsweek./February 07/2022
What Will Stop the Islamic Republic of Iran/Reuel Marc Gerecht/SAPIR/February 07/2022
Saudi Writer: The West Is Ignoring Iran's Evil And Seeking An Agreement With It, Just As It Did With Nazi Germany/MEMRI/February 07/2022
Are We Looking at a New World Order?/Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al-Awsat/February, 07/2022
Rayan’s Letters…and the Ukrainian Well/Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/February, 07/2022
Europe Thinks Putin Is Planning Something Even Worse Than War/Ivan Krastev/The New York Times/February 07/2022
Celestial Sexism in Jannah?/Raymond Ibrahim/February 07/2022
Syria’s emerging drug empire is not going away soon/Haid Haid/The Arab Weekly/February 07/2022
Abduction ordeal of 6-year-old Fawaz Qetaifan prompts pushback against cruelty and lawlessness in war-torn Syria/Nadia Al-Faour/Arab News/February 08, 2022
Abp. Viganò endorses Canadian truck drivers, calls for prayers to defeat ‘infernal’ Great Reset
‘Your protest, dear Canadian truck driver friends, joins a worldwide chorus that wants to oppose the establishment of the New World Order on the rubble of nation states.’

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 07-08/2022
President discusses army affairs, maritime borders demarcation with Minister Sleem
NNA/February, 07/2022
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, met Energy Minister, Walid Fayyad, today at Baabda Palace.
The electricity plan and methods to complete it in light of the discussions which took place in the Cabinet were discussed in the meeting. The Energy Minister indicated that he briefed President Aoun on the results of the on-going contacts with the World Bank to finance electricity and gas import from Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Minister Fayyad also stated his remarks on the draft budget. President Aoun received National Defense Minister, Maurice Sleem, and deliberated with him Army rights in terms of social contributions. The demarcation of southern maritime borders, in light of the coming visit of the US envoy, Amos Hochstein, in the next two days, was also addressed. The Defense Minister clarified that he also discussed administrative issues related to the needs of the Army, especially contracts and logistical needs. The President received Head of the Maronite League, former MP Nehmatullah Abi Nasr, and addressed with him general affairs. Abi Nasr said that he briefed the President on the lawsuit filed by the League before the State Shura Council to invalidate the decision issued by the Labor Ministry in decision No.96/1 (Dated 25/11/2021) regarding the professions which should be restricted to Lebanese citizens only.
In addition, Abi Nasr said that he wished the President to work on issuing implementing decrees to implement Law No. 50/17 issued on 7/9/2017 and published in the Official Gazette on 9/14/2017 with its compelling reasons and to establish the Kesrouan Al-Fotouh Jbeil Governorate.
Abi Nasr pointed out that the reasons for the law stated: that balanced development can only be achieved by applying administrative decentralization to activate the role of citizens in managing their local affairs, including the expanded administrative exclusivity that facilitates citizens’ access to administrative services. Accordingly, a new governorate must be established in Mount Lebanon, centred in Jounieh and including the districts of Kesrouan Al Fotouh and Jbeil, and it includes all the official administrative, judicial, educational, health, security and financial departments and institutions, and others that make up the rest of the governorates, similar to the governorate of Nabatiyeh in the south, Baalbek-Hermel governorate in the Bekaa and Akkar governorate in the north.
Moreover, Abi Nasr stressed that there is no reason not to issue implementing and executive decrees for the governorate of Kesrouan Al-Fotouh, Jbeil, and mentioned that he had previously submitted the relevant draft law in May 2003, and it took 14 years for its approval, while five years have passed since the law was issued without decrees being issued. Finally, Abi Nasr wished that what would be required for implementation would be monitored in the budget if necessary, pointing out that President Aoun promised to follow up on this issue. ----Presidency Press Office

Berri calls Parliament bureau to convene upcoming Thursday, meets Hijazi
NNA/February, 07/2022
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, called for a meeting of the Parliament bureau body upcoming Thursday, February 10, at 2.00 p.m., at the Second Presidency in Ain El-Tineh. On the other hand, Speaker Berri received in Ain El-Tineh the Regional Secretary of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in Lebanon, Ali Hijazi, with discussions reportedly touching on the current general situation and the latest political developments. On emerging, Hijazi indicated that the Speaker stressed the importance of holding the parliamentary elections on schedule without any delay, as well as the necessity of inviting Syria to the meeting of the Arab Inter-parliamentary Union.

Mikati during consultative gathering to rescue educational sector: We do not carry magic wand, yet we have will and determination to address...
NNA/February, 07/2022
Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, on Monday stressed, "We do not have a magic wand to tackle educational problems all at once, but we certainly have the will and determination to try, and we look forward to the educational body’s -including professors and administrators- understanding of the government's situation and the limited capabilities, and to their patience and that of the students' families, especially that the stifling economic crisis we are currently enduring has been accompanied by the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic, which further deepened the crisis in the educational sector.”
He said, "Professors and teachers are required to cooperate with us to surpass this difficult stage with minimal damage and not to throw demands at one time in the face of the government, students and families, especially since the situation of the public treasury cannot tolerate any spending other than the most pressing issues." Mikati added, "On the matter of private education, cooperation is necessary among school administrations, teachers and parents to find solutions acceptable to all and not to leave students ‘hostage to differences’ that leave serious repercussions on the educational sector as a whole."Premier Mikati was speaking at the opening of the "National Consultative Gathering to Rescue and Recover the Education and Higher Education Sector in Lebanon", which was organized by the Ministry of Education today at the Grand Serail. The meeting was attended by Minister of Education and Higher Education, Acting Minister of Information Judge Abbas El-Halabi, Chair of the Education Parliamentary Committee MP Bahia Hariri, Minister of Tourism, Walid Nassar, Minister of Youth and Sports, Dr. George Kallas, French Ambassador to Lebanon, Anne Grillo, Norwegian Ambassador to Lebanon Martin Yttervik, Ambassador of the Netherlands to Lebanon Hans Peter van der Woude, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Lebanon Najat Rushdie, UNHCR Representative in Lebanon, Ayaki Ito, Representative of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) office in Lebanon. Abdallah Alwardat, World Health Organization Representative in Lebanon, Iman Al-Shanqiti, Director of UNESCO Beirut Costanza Farina, Head of the Doctors' Syndicate, Professor Sharaf Abu Sharaf, and scores of concerned educational dignitaries and officials.

Will Miqati Run in Parliamentary Elections?
Naharnet/February, 07/2022
Prime Minister Najib Miqati will take his decision regarding participation in the parliamentary elections independently from any other factor, including ex-PM Saad Hariri’s decision to withdraw from political life, sources close to the PM said. “Miqati insisted when the Grand Mufti visited him to stress, from the Grand Serail, that there is no Sunni decision to boycott the elections, and from his position as premier he emphasized that the elections will take place on time,” the sources told Nidaa al-Watan newspaper in remarks published Monday. The sources added that, based on this, it would not be logical for Miqati to declare his boycott of the elections.“Although it is likely that he will not run for parliament, this does not mean that he will not take part through backing other candidates,” the sources went on to say.

Reports: March 8 Forces Intend to Postpone Elections for One Year
Naharnet/February, 07/2022
Some of the March 8 leaders are intending to discuss postponing the elections with foreign sides, sources said. Well-informed sources told Nidaa al-Watan newspaper, in remarks published Monday, that March 8 leaders are trying to postpone the parliamentary elections for one year under various legal, logistic and security pretexts. The sources added that those who are promoting the elections' postponement are avoiding to announce their intentions publicly "because the idea is unacceptable neither internally nor externally."The sources explained that March 8 leaders started with "doubting" that the elections will take place before moving to downplaying the role of the elections in making a radical change.

Reports: U.S. Explores Hizbullah Stance on Lebanon-Israel Border Demarcation
Naharnet/February, 07/2022
The U.S. has started to explore Hizbullah's position on the demarcation file between Lebanon and Israel, al-Akhbar newspaper said. The newspaper said it has learned that the Americans are examining Hizbullah's stance on the maritime borders demarcation, specifically regarding the common fields between Lebanon and Israel. U.S. Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs Amos Hochstein will return to Lebanon mid-week carrying a new proposal. Al-Joumhouria newspaper had reported Hochstein will suggest “stopping discussions over the above-the-water lines and focusing on splitting the resources based on the basins that are under the water.”“The shares of the two states can be split based on the sizes of these resources, away from the approach of direct lines,” the daily added. “This would be easy should it turn out that the basins of each of the two sides are closed, which would preserve their rights to their underwater resources,” the newspaper said.

Qassem Says Hizbullah Not Worried of Elections
Naharnet/February, 07/2022
Hizbullah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem on Monday said that his party is not “worried” over the results of the upcoming parliamentary elections. “We are awaiting the date of the upcoming parliamentary elections so that people decide what they want and we’re not worried of these elections,” Hizbullah number two said in an interview with Iran’s FARS news agency. Moreover, Qassem lashed out at the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, accusing it of “sponsoring civil society organizations and building them on the basis of stirring chaos and troubles, sabotaging the country’s situation, blocking roads and spoiling the generations with perverse ideas and beliefs.”“This embassy is endorsing the course of the Lebanese Forces, the party that committed massacres against the Lebanese throughout its entire history,” Qassem added.

Asmar Says Minimum Wage Might Reach LBP 7 Million
Naharnet/February, 07/2022
The new minimum wage is expected to reach seven million Lebanese Pounds, according to head of the General Confederation of Lebanese Workers Beshara al-Asmar. Asmar told al-Jadeed TV that the minimum wage is being discussed on an exchange rate of LBP 19,000 to 1 USD.
He said that any solution without a fixed exchange rate "will not lead to any effective result."The Lebanese pound was trading Monday at about 21,000 to the dollar on the black market and had previously reached 34,000 while the official rate remains as it was before the crisis at 1,507.
The minimum monthly wage in Lebanon remains 675,000 pounds, placing Lebanese employees amongst the lowest minimum wage earners worldwide.

Iraqi National Security Says Lebanon Informed Them about IS Group
Associated Press/February, 07/2022
Iraq's national security adviser Qassem Al Araji said that Lebanese authorities had informed Iraq about an Islamic State group heading to the country, two weeks ago. Iraq launched three airstrikes on the group in Diyala and killed nine militants, including four Lebanese.IS gunmen had earlier attacked Iraqi army barracks, killed a guard and shot dead 11 soldiers as they slept in the mountainous al-Azim district. A security official told The Associated Press that four among the killed in Diyala were Lebanese, natives of the northern town of Tripoli. Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city and the country’s most impoverished, has been prone to violence and militants who, inspired by the Islamic State group, launched attacks against Lebanon’s army in 2014 in the most serious bout of violence in the city. As Lebanon faces an unprecedented convergence of crises, including a swift descent into poverty, many fear militants may seek to exploit discontent among the city’s majority Sunni residents.

Families of port blast victims block road at Adlieh roundabout against delay in investigations
NNA/February, 07/2022
The Lebanese Army Command on Monday said in a statement that army units have commenced the distribution process of compensations to citizens that were affected by Beirut Port blast on the 4th of August, 2020.
An amount of LBP 2.381,000,000 Lebanese pounds has been distributed, and the number of housing units that benefited from these compensations have reached 470 housing units in different regions, the Army statement said.
It is to note that the aid distribution will continue tomorrow.

Army Commander meets Russia’s Frolkin, British Security Cooperation Program advisor
NNA/February, 07/2022
Lebanese Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, on Monday welcomed in Yarzeh, Russia’s Deputy Director of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation and Chairman of the Russian-Lebanese Governmental Committee for Military-Technical Cooperation, Aleksey Frolkin, who visited him with an accompanying delegation. Aoun also welcomed the Strategic Advisor of the British Security Cooperation Program on Border Control, retired General Graeme Lamb.

Jumblatt: Where is the Jordanian, Egyptian gas?
NNA/February, 07/2022
Progressive Socialist Party leader, Walid Jumblatt, on Monday wondered via twitter whether the statements recently made by “a senior official in a major political party — of a regional dimension — questioning the feasibility of negotiating with international institutions aimed at completely disrupting the government, or were merely outbidding statements?”Moreover, Jumblatt couldn’t help but wonder why the electricity loans were outside the state budget. “Where is the Jordanian and Egyptian gas?” Jumblatt’s tweet added.

Bou Habib receives German ambassador, diplomats' credentials
NNA/February, 07/2022
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Abdallah Bou Habib, on Monday received German Ambassador to Lebanon, Andreas Kindl, who handed his host an invitation to participate in a conference on energy hosted in Berlin in March. The pair also discussed the outcome of Bou Habib's visit to Kuwait and the Lebanese response to the Gulf initiative, in addition to the Lebanese-German bilateral ties. Separately, Bou Habib received the credentials of new ambassadors of Cote d'Ivoire, Hungary, Lithuania, Mauritania, Ghana, and Kenya.

Lebanon Returns 337 Artifacts of Different Eras to Iraq
Associated Press/February, 07/2022
Lebanon's Ministry of Culture handed over to Iraq on Sunday 337 ancient artifacts that had been on display in a Lebanese museum for years. The items, which included clay tablets, were returned by Minister of Culture Mohammed Murtada to Iraq's ambassador to Lebanon during a ceremony held at the National Museum of Beirut. Murtada told Iraq's state-run news agency in a Saturday report that a Lebanese committee had been investigating the items since 2018. The artifacts had been stored most recently at the private Nabu Museum in northern Lebanon. The report gave no further details about the artifacts' provenance. "We are celebrating the handing over of 337 artifacts that are of different eras of civilizations in Mesopotamia," Iraq's ambassador to Lebanon Haidar Shyaa al-Barrak said at the ceremony. This will not be the last handover, he added, without elaborating. Many of Iraq's antiquities were looted during the country's decades of war and instability, mostly since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Iraq's government has been slowly recovering the plundered antiquities since then. Archaeological sites across the country however continue to be neglected due to lack of funds. At least half dozen shipments of antiquities and documents have been returned to Iraq's museum since 2016, according to Iraqi authorities.

Former Lebanese Interior Minister Ahmad Fatfat: Hizbullah Only Uses Its Weapons Against The Lebanese People, To Impose Its Political Conditions And Prevent Beirut Port Inquest
MEMRI/February 07/2022
Source: Al-Arabiya Network (Dubai/Saudi Arabia)
Former Lebanese Interior Minister Ahmad Fatfat said in a January 29, 2022 interview on Al-Arabiya Network (Saudi Arabia) that Hizbullah’s weapons are illegal and that they have been used against nobody except the Lebanese people since the 2006 war with Israel. He said that Hizbullah assassinates politicians, journalists, and opinion leaders, and he gave the examples of Rafic Hariri and Loqman Slim. Fatfat elaborated that Hizbullah uses its weapons to impose its political conditions on the Lebanese people, that it had shut down parliament in order to have Michel Aoun elected as president, and that it shut down the entire government in order to avoid investigation of the Beirut Port blast. For more about Ahmad Fatfat, see MEMRITV clips Nos. 8805, 8745 and 8134.
Ahmad Fatfat: "Hizbullah has used its weapons in Lebanon many times. Since 2006, not one shot has been fired toward Israel, while [Hizbullah] has fired at Lebanese people many times. Many Lebanese leaders have been murdered, from the attempted assassination of Marwan Hamadeh in 2004, to the assassination of the great martyr Rafic Hariri, and the most recent assassination, a year ago, of Loqman Slim, who was a great intellectual and a Shiite too – but they assassinated him because he opposed their policies.
"This was [supposed to deliver] an important message, because they say that their weapons are used [only] for the liberation of the land. They have liberated nothing. The only thing that liberated Lebanon is the national unity, which they oppose. On the contrary, they are fighting the democratic forces in the country. They murder journalists, politicians, and opinion leaders. "They force their conditions on the parliament. They shut down the parliament for two and a half years so they can impose the election of Michel Aoun – their lackey – as president. They completed shut down the government for three months, until two weeks ago, because they oppose the investigation of the Beirut Port blast."Over the past 15 years, their weapons have only been used inside Lebanon. In 2008, they invaded Beirut, and tormented the people of Beirut, killing more than 180 of them. These weapons are used in Lebanon against Lebanese people every day. They use these weapons to impose their political conditions, which they present as shared decisions, but in fact are forced upon the Lebanese. These weapons are illegal, and they cannot be accepted. The Lebanese people reject this and have to deal with this every day and every hour."

Hezbollah claims Gulf is abandoning 'Arabs' through Israel ties
Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post//February 07/2022
The Hezbollah official stated that “the participation of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain in this exercise, along with the Zionist regime, is a dagger on the back of the Palestinian people. A “Saudi-Zionist” plan is forming against Lebanon, and it is opposed to the true “Arabism” of the pro-Iranian resistance in Lebanon, according to Hezbollah’s Nabil Qaouk, a member of the group’s executive council. This is the usual Iranian and Hezbollah talking point, but it also reveals the obsession that Iran and its proxies have with the Gulf and the current ties that are growing between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE.
The latest screed in Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, quoting the Hezbollah member, is to claim that the Gulf countries are not “preserving” their “Arab identity” by working with Israel. This is a bit of an irony, considering that Hezbollah works for Iran, which is a non-Arab country.
“We call on Saudi Arabia to preserve its Arab identity and not to lose its Arabness in the alliance with the Israeli enemy,” Qaouk said. He accused Saudi Arabia of joining an upcoming US-led military drill that includes Israel. “The joint military exercise of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain with Israel has removed the mask of false Arabism,” he said. The attack on Saudi Arabia by the Hezbollah operative in his speech is one of the first prominent references in pro-Iran media to a large US-led naval exercise dubbed the International Maritime Exercise 2022 (IMX 22), which includes approximately 60 countries. While Israel is taking part, there will also be countries that do not have relations with Israel, such as Saudi Arabia and Oman, according to Al Jazeera. Defense Minister Benny Gantz was recently in Bahrain, and Israel, the UAE and Bahrain took part in a naval drill with the US last year. “The participation of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain in this exercise, along with the Zionist regime, is a dagger in the back of the Palestinian people and the heart of Jerusalem and a threat to Arab national security, and Lebanon is among the victims,” Qaouk said. How is Lebanon, which receives US support, a “victim”? The Hezbollah operative claimed it is because Lebanon is “in a position to confront the Zionist enemy.”Qaouk also slammed Gantz’s visit to Bahrain and the signing of an agreement there. It was a “betrayal of all Arabs,” he said. The “Americans, the Saudis and the Emirati people are directly and shamelessly interfering in the Lebanese elections, financing and managing campaigns and even entering the level of election slogans in Lebanon and pursuing only one goal,” he added. Last October, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain pulled their ambassadors from Lebanon after a Lebanese official appeared to support the Iranian-backed Houthis. The Houthis have attacked Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Saudi Arabia has historically played a role in Lebanon, helping end the civil war in the 1980s and backing key Sunni families in Lebanon, such as forming close ties with the Hariris. Hezbollah murdered former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri in 2005.The Hezbollah member bashed the Saudis for intervening in Lebanon and claimed that they and other Gulf states had tried to overthrow the Syrian regime. Regarding the Saudi war in Yemen, he said: “Their bets on political, economic and financial sanctions against Hezbollah have also failed, but they do not learn from these experiences.”Qaouk claimed Hezbollah is more popular this year than at any previous time. He accused foreign embassies of spending money against Hezbollah, an apparent reference to the US Embassy in Lebanon. There was also a reference in the article to Gantz sanctioning companies that support Hezbollah’s missile project.

Gantz signs seizure order against Lebanese companies helping Hezbollah
Tzvi Joffre/Jerusalem Post//February 07/2022
In October, a seizure order was issued against a Lebanese company helping Hezbollah's precision missile program.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz issued an administrative seizure order on Sunday against three Lebanese companies for allegedly providing raw materials to Hezbollah for its precision missile project. The companies against which the order was issued are Al-Tufayli, Al-Moubayed and Barakat. The companies trade in machines, oils and ventilation systems that are needed for Hezbollah's production line. The order will allow the companies to be blacklisted in global financial systems and make it difficult for them to continue operating. "Instead of helping and rehabilitating the citizens of Lebanon – Hezbollah continues to endanger the citizens of Lebanon and the entire country and sow chaos," said Gantz. "Hezbollah, with Iran's support, is undermining the ability to stabilize Lebanon. Israel will continue to reach out to the Lebanese people and offer humanitarian aid, while at the same time continuing to undermine attempts to introduce advanced weapons that will endanger its citizens, with an emphasis on promoting the Iranian precision project that works from the heart of Lebanon.”The IDF's Arabic-language spokesperson Avichai Adraee tweeted further details about the companies targeted by the order on Sunday.
The Al-Tufayli Company trades in equipment and machinery and is located in Beirut. According to Adraee, Hezbollah buys cranes from the company to build bases and other structures for the terrorist organization. The manager of the company is named Ehab and the company has suppliers in Turkey, Holland and Kuwait. The Al-Moubayed Company trades in oils for machinery and equipment and is also located in Beirut. The owner and manager of the company is Ali al-Moubayed, an engineer. The company has international ties, including with European companies.
The Barakat Company, located in Beirut, trades in heating and cooling systems that Hezbollah uses for its new locations. The owner was identified by Adraee as Nabil Ali Barakat. The company also has international ties.
Adraee warned Lebanese companies that Hezbollah often works covertly by purchasing materials from civilian Lebanese companies without disclosing the purpose of the purchase, stressing that Lebanese merchants must stay vigilant to avoid falling into the trap of the terrorist group.
The order is part of Gantz's directive to tighten economic pressure on the precision missile project and comes just months after Gantz signed a similar order against the Lebanese company Shreif Sanitary Co which was also providing equipment for Hezbollah's precision-guided missile project.
The seizure orders were signed following joint work of the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate and the National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing in the Defense Ministry.
During the virtual INSS conference sponsored by Tel Aviv University last week, Gantz revealed that Israel has offered assistance to the Lebanese Army four times over the past year through UNIFIL.

LIC Reaction to UN Security Council
Press Statement on Lebanon/February 07/ 2022
For Immediate Release
Contact: joanna@theresolute.group
WASHINGTON, D.C, - The Lebanese Information Center applauds the UN Security Council's February 4th statement on Lebanon, particularly the support expressed for the country's sovereignty and independence in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 1559, 1680, and 1701. We also stand with the Council's insistence that Lebanon adopt a policy of disassociation as outlined in the 2012 Baabda Declaration, and with its condemnation of the recent attacks on UNIFIL. The perpetrators of these attacks must be brought to justice by the Lebanese authorities. Finally, the LIC is encouraged by the UNSC's support for free, fair, transparent, and timely elections which are necessary for urgently needed reforms to proceed and along with an unhindered and independent investigation into the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
“The LIC believes these issues are of utmost importance to Lebanon's security and sovereignty, the welfare of its people, and the interests of international community,” said LIC President, Dr. Joseph Gebeily. “However, progress will not be possible if the current political elite -- corrupt, inept, and dominated by Hezbollah and President Michael Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement -- remains in power. To save Lebanon from the brink, a change in government is absolutely essential."

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 07-08/2022
Morocco to bury 'little Rayan' who died trapped in well
AFP/February, 07/2022
Morocco prepared Monday to bury "little Rayan", the five-year-old boy who died trapped in a well despite a days-long rescue operation that gripped the world. The child's fate drew global attention after he fell down a narrow, 32-metre (100-foot) dry well last Tuesday, and sparked an outpouring of sympathy online. His funeral is to be held in his home village of Ighrane, in the impoverished Rif mountains of northern Morocco where the tragedy took place, a local official and a relative told AFP. On Saturday night, crowds had cheered in joy when rescue workers reached Rayan after a round-the-clock digging operation, clearing away the final handfuls of dirt. But hope turned to grief as news spread that the rescue was too late, and Rayan was dead. "The silence is terrible this morning in the village," a relative said. The news was announced by the royal cabinet of the North African nation, after King Mohammed VI called the parents with his condolences. "We thank his majesty the king, the authorities and all those who have helped us," Rayan's father Khaled Aourram said on Saturday evening. "Praise God, have mercy on the dead." Rayan's body was taken to a military hospital in Rabat, according to a cousin, although no report has been given of any autopsy. The race to rescue Rayan was followed live across the world, and as soon as the tragic conclusion was announced, tributes poured in. Pope Francis, while mourning the boy's loss, praised the "beautiful" sight of "how all the people gathered together" to try to save a child.
Nation in shock
Aourram said he had been repairing the well when the boy fell in, close to the family home. The shaft, just 45 centimetres (18 inches) across, was too narrow for Rayan to be reached directly, and widening it was deemed too risky -- so earth movers dug a wide slope into the hill. Rescue crews, using bulldozers and front-end loaders, excavated the surrounding red earth down to the level where the boy was trapped, before drill teams created a horizontal tunnel to reach him from the side to avoid causing a landslide. Vast crowds came to offer their support, singing and praying to encourage the rescuers who worked around the clock. Moroccans were in shock after the news of the boy's death.Mourad Fazoui in the capital Rabat called it a disaster. "May his soul rest in peace and may God open the gates of heaven to him," the salesman said. Social media users from regional rival Algeria to France and the United States flooded the internet with messages of support and grief, along with praise for the rescue workers. "He has brought people together around him," a Twitter user said. But some saw the situation differently, with one internet user deploring a "dystopic world" where "Arab nations are moved by the rescue of a child in Morocco" while others die due to famine or conflict in Yemen and Syria. Julen Rosello's body was recovered after a search and rescue operation that lasted 13 days.

Iran Nuclear Talks to Resume in Vienna on Tuesday
Asharq Al-Awsat/February, 07/2022
Talks to revive Iran's tattered 2015 nuclear deal with world powers are resuming on Tuesday after breaking off for a bit over a week for diplomats to return home for consultations. The European Union, which chairs the talks in Vienna, announced the resumption on Monday. The United States pulled out of the Vienna accord in 2018 under then President Donald Trump and reimposed heavy sanctions on Iran. Tehran has responded by increasing the purity and amounts of uranium it enriches and stockpiles, in breach of the accord. US President Joe Biden has signaled that he wants to rejoin the deal. Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China are still parties to the accord with Iran and have been trying to salvage it. “Negotiations seem to be at the final stage which requires determination and energetic efforts from all participants to get to the destination point,” Russia’s delegate to the talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, said on Twitter.
Diplomats from the three European countries said when talks paused after a month on Jan. 28 that the negotiations were reaching the final stage, and that required political decisions. On Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed several sanctions waivers related to Iran’s civilian nuclear activities. The move reverses the Trump administration’s decision to rescind them. Iran’s foreign minister on Saturday welcomed the sanctions relief but called it insufficient.

US Envoy Says Returning to Vienna in Hope of Reviving Iran Nuclear Pact
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 7 February, 2022
US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley on Sunday said he would soon return to Vienna for the next round of talks on returning to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, insisting it could still be revived. The Biden administration has been trying to revive the deal, which lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear activities until former President Donald Trump pulled Washington out in 2018. Iran later breached many of the deal's nuclear restrictions and kept pushing well beyond them. "President (Joe) Biden still wants us to negotiate in Vienna," Malley told MSNBC in an interview on Sunday night.
"We'll come back next week. That's a symbol or a sign of our continued belief that it is not a dead corpse - that we need to revive it because it is in our interest." Malley appeared to be referring to the coming week. A State Department spokesperson was not available to clarify when the talks would resume. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a European official said top envoys to the Vienna talks - which are indirect because Iran has refused to sit down with US diplomats - were likely to meet on Tuesday in the Austrian capital. Diplomats and analysts say the longer Iran remains outside the deal, the more nuclear expertise it will gain, shortening the time it might need to race to build a bomb if it chose to, thereby undermining the accord's original purpose. Iran denies it has ever sought to develop nuclear arms. On Friday, the United States restored sanctions waivers allowing international nuclear cooperation with Iran on projects designed to make it harder for Iran's nuclear sites to be used to develop weapons, although a senior State Department official said that was not a signal Washington was on the verge of reaching an agreement.

Tehran Demands 'Balance of Commitments’ at Vienna talks
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 7 February, 2022
Iran’s Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said on Sunday that Tehran and Washington are still far from achieving the required “balance” in commitments at the Vienna talks aimed at reviving the Iran nuclear deal. “Despite limited progress in the Vienna talks, we are still far from achieving the necessary balance in the commitments of the parties,” tweeted the top security official. “Political decisions in Washington are requirements for the balance of commitments to reach a good agreement,” he added. For his part, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that Tehran has not seen “serious and considerable initiatives” from the US side. “We seek a good agreement, and we are not looking for a limited or temporary deal,” said the top diplomat according to IRNA. Abdollahian called for Washington taking “practical steps,” and stressed that the US must lift sanctions in a “tangible” fashion. “What happens on paper is good but not enough,” Abdollahian said on Saturday, adding that “we seek and demand guarantees in the political, legal and economic sectors.”The minister stressed that Iran had not received any preconditions from the US to revive the nuclear agreement, and said that the negotiations “are moving in a direction in which the issue of preconditions is not raised.” Iran and world powers that are still part of the agreement (France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China), with indirect US participation, are engaged in talks in Vienna with the aim of reviving the 2015 deal from which the US unilaterally withdrew in 2018 under former President Donald Trump. The talks broadly aim to get the US and Iran to return to mutual compliance regarding the deal. The US would lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for the latter’s return to respecting its nuclear commitments.

IGAD to Hold Summit to Address Sudan Crisis
Khartoum - Mohammed Amin Yassin/Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 07 February/2022
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) agreed Sunday to hold a summit at the level of heads of state and governments within the coming weeks to discuss the crisis in Sudan. During a meeting held on the sidelines of the African Union (AU) summit in Addis Ababa, African leaders were briefed on a report by IGAD’s Executive Secretary Workneh Gebeyehu, who visited the Sudanese capital last week where he held talks with the military and political leaders. Meanwhile, member of the Transitional Sovereignty Council Malik Agar briefed IGAD ambassadors on the latest developments related to the peace process and efforts by the transitional government to promote peace and stability in the country. Receiving the ambassadors at the Republican Palace on Sunday, Agar said Sudan is looking forward for IGAD’s effective role in accelerating the peace process. Kenyan Ambassador to Sudan, Nigwa Mokala said in a press statement that the ambassadors would convey the outcome of the meeting to their countries to prepare a roadmap for pushing forward peace in Sudan. During his three-day visit to Khartoum, Gebeyehu received pledges from head of the Sovereign Transitional Council General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan that he will continue dialogue with all parties to fulfill the political transition. The IGAD lent its efforts after the Transitional Council called on the AU to support the initiative adopted by the UN to facilitate dialogue between Sudanese partners. In June 2019, the African Union Peace and Security Council suspended the participation of Sudan in all AU activities until the effective establishment of a civilian-led transitional authority. It called on all parties and stakeholders to resolve their disputes peacefully, stressing that the AU would play a greater role in resolving the crisis. Meanwhile on Saturday, Volker Perthes, the UN Special Representative to Sudan and head of the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), said in an interview with Al Sudaniya 24 that facilitating dialogue between the Sudanese parties falls within the Mission’s mandate to support the transition process in the country. In recent weeks the UN has been holding consultations in an effort to help achieve a negotiated solution to the political crisis.

NATO Considers Bolstering Allies if Russian Troops Stay In Belarus
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 7 February, 2022
NATO is looking to increase its military presence in the Baltic states and Poland in case Russia keeps its troops in Belarus after a planned military exercise, the head of the alliance's military committee said on Monday. Russia has 30,000 troops in Ukraine's northern neighbor for joint military exercises this month, NATO said, bringing the total Russian military deployment at Ukraine's borders to more than 100,000. The United States sent 3,000 troops to Romania and Poland last week to reassure the allies, while Germany said it was considering a boost to its existing military deployment in Lithuania.
Further deployments from NATO allies were possible, said Rob Bauer, a Dutch admiral who heads NATO's top strategy body. "Where do we have troops in the alliance continuously, in the different nations - the debate about that is the result of things that are ongoing now. Yes, we are looking at it. There might be changes in the future as a result of these developments", Bauer told a news conference in Vilnius, Reuters reported. "It very much depends, of course, on whether the Russian troops in Belarus remain in Belarus," he added. Moscow has said it is not planning an invasion of Ukraine but could take unspecified military action if its security demands are not met, including a promise that NATO will never admit Kyiv, a demand the United States and the 30-nation Western security alliance have called unacceptable. "If you look at the buildup of the forces, Russia could be able to actually have sufficient forces for a serious invasion … by the end of this month," said Bauer. "Whether they do that, whether they have the true intention or not, we don't know." The most recent deployments at the Belarus border included field hospitals and other auxiliary units needed to support a military assault, Bauer said. "If you're really considering an invasion, you actually need more than the fighting forces. And that is something we also see more and more gathered along both the borders with Ukraine and Belarus with Ukraine. That in itself is very concerning", he said.

Ukraine Crisis Talks Move to Moscow and Washington
Associated Press/Monday, 07 February, 2022
International efforts to defuse the standoff over Ukraine intensified Monday, with French President Emmanuel Macron holding talks in Moscow and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Washington to coordinate policies as fears of a Russian invasion mounted. The buildup of an estimated 100,000 Russian troops near Ukraine has fueled Western worries of a possible offensive. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned Sunday that Russia could invade Ukraine "any day," triggering a conflict that would come at an "enormous human cost."Russia has denied any plans to attack its neighbor but demands that the U.S. and its allies bar Ukraine and other former Soviet nations from joining NATO, halt weapons deployments there and roll back NATO forces from Eastern Europe. Washington and NATO reject those demands. Macron, who is set to meet in the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir Putin before visiting Ukraine on Tuesday, spoke by phone Sunday with U.S. President Joe Biden to discuss "ongoing diplomatic and deterrence efforts," according to the White House. "The security and sovereignty of Ukraine or any other European state cannot be a subject for compromise, while it is also legitimate for Russia to pose the question of its own security," Macron said in an interview with French newspaper Journal du Dimanche, adding that he believes that "the geopolitical objective of Russia today is clearly not Ukraine, but to clarify the rules of cohabitation with NATO and the EU."
Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, described Macron's visit as "very important," but sought to temper expectations, saying "the situation is too complex to expect a decisive breakthrough after just one meeting."He noted that "the atmosphere has remained tense," adding that the U.S. and its allies have continued to ignore Moscow's security demands. Continuing the high-level diplomacy, Scholz is to meet with Biden later Monday in Washington. Scholz is set to travel to Kyiv and Moscow on Feb. 14-15. Sullivan, the national security adviser, reiterated Sunday that the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany "will not move forward" if Russia attacks Ukraine. Biden and Scholz are expected to address the pipeline during their their first face-to-face meeting since Scholz became the head of the German government nearly two months ago.
Ahead of the visit, the White House sought to play down Germany's refusal to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine, bolster its troops in Eastern Europe or spell out which sanctions it would support against Russia — a cautious stand that has drawn criticism abroad and inside Germany.
White House officials, who briefed reporters ahead of the meeting on the condition of anonymity, noted that Germany has been a top contributor of nonmilitary aid to Ukraine and has been supportive of the U.S. decision to bolster its troop presence in Poland and Romania to demonstrate its commitment to NATO. German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht raised the possibility Sunday that the country could send more troops to Lithuania to reinforce NATO's eastern flank. Biden has deployed additional U.S. troops to Poland, Romania and Germany, and a few dozen elite U.S troops and equipment landed Sunday in southeastern Poland near the border with Ukraine, with hundreds more infantry troops of the 82nd Airborne Division set to arrive.
In 2015, France and Germany helped broker a peace deal for eastern Ukraine in a bid to end the conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists that erupted the previous year following the Russian annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
The agreement signed in the Belarusian capital of Minsk helped stop large-scale fighting, but efforts at a political settlement have stalled and frequent skirmishes have continued along the tense line of contact in Ukraine's industrial heartland known as the Donbas.
The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany last met in Paris in 2019 in the so-called Normandy format summit, but they failed to resolve the main issues. Amid tensions over the Russian military buildup, presidential advisers from the four countries met in Paris on Jan. 26 but didn't make any visible progress and agreed to meet again in Berlin in two weeks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pushed for another four-way Normandy summit, but the Kremlin said such a meeting would only make sense if the parties agree on the next steps to give special status to the rebel east. Putin and his officials have urged France, Germany and other Western allies to encourage Ukraine to fulfill its obligations under the 2015 agreement, which envisaged a broad autonomy for the Donbas region and a sweeping amnesty for the separatists. The agreement stipulated that only after those conditions are met would Ukraine be able to restore control of its border with Russia in rebel regions. The Minsk deal was seen by many Ukrainians as a betrayal of national interests, and its implementation has stalled. During the latest tensions, Ukrainian authorities have warned the West against pressuring Ukraine to implement the agreement. Last week, Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, told The Associated Press that an attempt by Ukraine to fulfil the Minsk deal could trigger internal unrest that would play into Moscow's hand. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the country has received more than 1,000 metric tons of weapons and military supplies from its allies, noting that a series of visits by Western officials has helped deter Russia. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is set to hold talks in Kyiv and later head to the area near the line of contact in the east. The British government said Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will visit Moscow on Thursday and Defense Secretary Ben Wallace will follow meet Friday with his Russian counterparts.

Iraq Turmoil Deepens as Presidential Vote Postponed Indefinitely
Agence France Presse/Monday, 07 February, 2022
Iraq's parliament on Monday indefinitely postponed a scheduled vote for the republic's president after most major political blocs boycotted the session. The sweeping no-show deepens a political crisis in the war-scarred country which, almost four months after a general election, still hasn't chosen a new prime minister. The assembly vote had been set for noon for the head of state -- a post with a four-year mandate held by convention by a member of Iraq's Kurdish minority, and currently occupied by Barham Saleh. But a series of boycott calls had made it highly unlikely the 329-seat parliament in Baghdad's high-security Green Zone would be able to clinch the necessary two-thirds quorum. Then, on Monday afternoon, with only a few dozen MPs in the chamber, an official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed to AFP that "there will be no vote to elect the president". The turmoil comes after October polls were marred by record-low turnout, post-election threats and violence, and a delay of several months until final results were confirmed. Intense negotiations among political groups since then have failed to form a majority parliamentary coalition to name a new prime minister to succeed Mustafa al-Kadhemi. The largest parliamentary bloc to emerge from the vote, led by powerful Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr and holding 73 seats, was first to announce a boycott, on Saturday. It was followed on Sunday by the 51-member Sovereignty Coalition led by a Sadr ally, parliamentary Speaker Mohammed al-Halbussi. The 31-seat Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) then announced it would also stay away, in order to "continue consultations and dialogue between political blocs". Another key bloc, the Cooperation Framework grouping several Shiite parties, also said the session should not take place, citing the recent political turmoil.
Corruption claims
The process toward a presidential vote had been further thrown into disarray when Iraq's Supreme Court on Sunday suspended the candidacy of Saleh's key challenger, Hoshyar Zebari, 68. The court cited corruption charges against Zebari, a former foreign minister from the KDP -- allegations he denies. "I have not been convicted in any court," Zebari had said in a television interview on Friday as the charges resurfaced alongside forecasts he would unseat Saleh. Incumbent Saleh, the other frontrunner out of some 25 candidates, represents the KDP's main rival in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The Supreme Court said it was suspending Zebari after receiving a complaint from lawmakers that his candidacy was "unconstitutional" because of the graft claims. The complainants cited his 2016 dismissal from the post of finance minister by parliament "over charges linked to financial and administrative corruption". The complaint also cited at least two other judicial cases linked to him, including when he was Iraq's long-time foreign minister after the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein in the 2003 US-led invasion.
'Share the pie'
Monday's postponement exacerbates Iraq's political troubles because it is the task of the president, within 15 days of being elected, to formally name a prime minister from the largest bloc in parliament. The prime minister, a Shiite Muslim according to political tradition, then has a month to form his government. Sadr's bloc claims it controls enough seats for a "national majority government."However, the Coordination Framework has appealed to the Supreme Court to have their grouping recognized as the biggest. The country's apex court has rejected this demand, saying it could not decide now, as the size of parliamentary blocs could shift. In Iraqi politics, said analyst Hamzeh Hadad, "everyone knows how to share the pie" but "no one knows how to be in the opposition."

Israel PM Vows Action as Police Pegasus Spying Scandal Widens
Agence France Presse/Monday, 07 February, 2022
Israel's domestic spying scandal widened Monday with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett vowing government action following new reports that police illegally used the Pegasus malware to hack phones of dozens of prominent figures. The latest bombshell from business daily Calcalist alleged that Pegasus was used against a son of former premier Benjamin Netanyahu, activists, senior government officials, businessmen and others. Calcalist had previously alleged that the controversial malware, which can turn a phone into a pocket spying device, was used by police against leaders of an anti-Netanyahu protest movement. Hours after Monday's report emerged, Bennett promised that his government "won’t leave this without a response. "Things allegedly happened here that are very serious," he said in a statement that also credited Pegasus as "an important tool in the fight against terrorism and severe crime".
"But they were not intended to be used in phishing campaigns targeting the Israeli public or officials — which is why we need to understand exactly what happened." As Bennett pledged action, Minister for Public Security Omer Barlev said he would ask the justice ministry to authorize a government commission of inquiry. Barlev said that, if approved, the probe would be led by a retired judge who would question anyone necessary in the political, legal and security system to uncover "violations of civil rights and privacy."Pegasus is a malware product made by the Israeli firm NSO at the center of a months-long international scandal following revelations that it was used by governments worldwide to spy on activists, politicians, journalists and even heads of state. Israel had come under fire for allowing the export of the invasive technology to states with poor human rights records, but the Calcalist reports have unleashed a domestic outrage. President Isaac Herzog suggested the credibility of key Israeli institutions was at stake. "We must not lose our democracy. We must not lose our police. And we must certainly not lose public trust in them. This requires an in-depth and thorough investigation," Herzog said in response to the Calcalist report.
- 'Shocked' -
Calcalist said dozens of people were targeted who were not suspected of any criminal conduct, and without police receiving the necessary court approval.
They include senior leaders of the finance, justice and communication ministries, supermarket magnate Rami Levy, mayors, and Ethiopian-Israelis who led protests against alleged police misconduct. In another revelation set to rock Netanyahu's ongoing corruption trial, Calcalist also reported that key witness Ilan Yeshua, former chief executive of the Walla news site, was a target. Avner Netanyahu, one of the premier's sons, was also on the list. "I truly am shocked," he wrote on Facebook. Netanyahu is accused of seeking to trade regulatory favors with media moguls in exchange for favorable coverage, including on Walla. He denies the charges. His lawyers on Monday demanded the trial be halted until the latest revelations were probed. The trial also suffered a blow last week when multiple Israeli broadcasters reported that police may have used spyware on Shlomo Filber, a former Netanyahu ally turned state witness.
Those reports, which Netanyahu described as an "earthquake", did not mention Pegasus. Pegasus is a surveillance program that can switch on a phone's camera or microphone and harvest its data. NSO has consistently denied wrongdoing throughout the multi-stranded Pegasus scandal, stressing that it does not operate the system once sold to clients and has no access to any of the data collected.

UK Rebukes China for Supporting Argentina's Falklands Claim
Associated Press/Monday, 07 February, 2022
Britain on Monday firmly rejected a statement from China that affirmed Beijing's support for Argentina's claim to the Falkland Islands, as relations between London and Asia's leading power remain strained. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a tweet that the United Kingdom "completely" rejected "any questions over sovereignty of the Falklands.""The Falklands are part of the British family and we will defend their right to self determination. China must respect the Falklands' sovereignty," she wrote. Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Argentine counterpart Alberto Fernandez issued a joint statement on Sunday that said China "reaffirms its support for Argentina's demand for the full exercise of sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands," using the Argentine name for the territory. The two leaders met as Fernandez was in Beijing for the Winter Olympics. Argentina believes the Falklands were illegally taken from it in 1833 and invaded the British colony in 1982. The United Kingdom sent troops and Argentina lost the two-month war for the South Atlantic archipelago in a conflict that claimed the lives of 649 Argentines and 255 British soldiers. Argentina still claims the islands. London says the Falklands are a self-governing entity under its protection. Relations with China have already been strained on multiple fronts, including Britain's joining a U.S.-led diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics to protest China's human rights record. The joint statement also said Argentina "reaffirms its adherence to the one-China principle," a reference to China's claim to the self-governing island democracy of Taiwan. "China and Argentina agree to carry on with close communication and coordination in international affairs, and safeguard the overall interests of the two countries and other developing countries," the statement said. Xi and Fernandez also pledged closer economic cooperation and signed a memorandum of understanding on Argentina joining the "Belt and Road Initiative," Xi's signature project to build Chinese infrastructure worldwide. China has overtaken Brazil as Argentina's main commercial partner, and if talks with Beijing remain on track, Argentina would become the first of the four major Latin American economies to join the initiative. "Belt and Road Initiative integration won't be a paradigm shift but rather a continuation of broader trends of growing Argentina-China engagement," said Pepe Zhang, director and fellow at the Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

Macron's government launches new body to oversee Islam in France
AFP/Monday, 07 February, 2022
The French government has introduced a new body to oversee the practice of Islam in France, part of President Emmanuel Macron's efforts to prevent extremism but also to impress the electorate weeks before the presidential vote. The leadership of the Forum of Islam in France will be made up of imams and lay people to help guide the largest Muslim community in western Europe. All of its members will be hand-picked by the government and women will make up at least a quarter of them. With France bloodied by past Islamic extremist attacks and having hundreds of citizens who went to fight with extremists in Syria in past years, few disagree that radicalisation is a danger. But critics also see the efforts as a political ploy to lure right-wing voters to Macron's centrist party ahead of France's April 10 presidential election. Supporters say it will keep the country, and its 5 million Muslims, safe and ensure that Muslim practices in France adhere to the country’s cherished value of secularism in public life. Yet critics, including many Muslims who consider the religion a part of their French identity, say the government’s latest initiative is another step in institutionalised discrimination that holds the whole community responsible for violent attacks of a few and serves as another barrier in their public lives. It replaces the French Council of Muslim Faith, a group set up in 2003 by former President Nicolas Sarkozy, then interior minister. The Council served as an interlocutor between the government and religious leaders.
“We must turn the page," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said at the forum's inaugural meeting Saturday at The Economic, Social and Environmental Council in Paris. “We are restarting relations between the state and the faith ... (based on) a new form of dialogue that will be more open, more inclusive and more representative of Islam's diversity in France.”Islam is the second religion in France, with no single leader and multiple strains represented, from moderate to Salafist with a puritanical interpretation of the religion to outright radical upstarts. Macron's project includes measures like training imams in France instead of bringing them in from Turkey, Morocco or Algeria — a plan many in the Muslim community approve of. It also breaks the centralised leadership of imams. “A single representative of the Muslim faith, who is a master of all trades, no longer exists,” Darmanin said. Women and men “who draw their legitimacy from their work and expertise in a field” will engage in the dialogue with the state, he explained. Muslims are divided over the project. Some believers visiting the Grand Mosque of Paris for Friday prayers cautiously welcomed the idea, while others worry it's going too far in trying to control their faith, or say that the government has singled out Islamic institutions but would not dare suggest such changes to Christian ones.
Hamoud ben Bouzid, a 51-year-old Parisian, was optimistic about Macron’s plan and his effort to include different voices from the Muslim community to show to the wider society its diversity. Members of the leadership “don’t speak for every Muslim citizen” of France, he said.
“We live in a secular country, so why not expand the forum and give voice to many more Muslims in France?” Ben Bouzid said. “I would like Muslims to be heard as citizens in this country, not as Muslims. As full citizens.” Muslims in France have long complained of discrimination in daily life, from being singled out by police for ID checks to discrimination in job searches. Whenever extremist violence hits, by foreign-born attackers or by French-born youth, France’s own Muslims come under suspicion and pressure to denounce violence. Last year the French parliament approved a law to strengthen oversight of mosques, schools and sports clubs. The government says it was needed to safeguard France from radical Islamists and to promote respect for secularism and women’s rights. The law has been used to shut down multiple mosques and community groups.

US offers millions of dollars for information on ISIS-K leader, Kabul airport bombing
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English
The US is offering up to $10 million for any information on the whereabouts of ISIS-K leader Sanuallah Ghafari, the State Department announced on Monday. Ghafari is said to have been appointed by ISIS to lead its regional affiliate in June 2020. “Ghafari is responsible for approving all ISIS-K operations throughout Afghanistan and arranging funding to conduct operations,” the State Department said in a statement. He was designated by the US as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in November 2021. Meanwhile, the US also offered millions of dollars in rewards for any information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the August 2021 blast at Kabul airport, which killed 13 US service members and over 170 Afghans during the chaotic withdrawal ordered by President Joe Biden. Last August, the attack claimed by ISIS-K wounded another 150 people, including US service members. A Pentagon review released last week said that there was one individual and one blast.Also, last week, the top US military general for the Middle East voiced concerns over ISIS-K and the threat it poses to Afghanistan and the region. But following Biden’s decision to end the US military mission in Afghanistan, American forces have lost integral parts of their ability to combat terrorism emanating from Afghanistan and neighboring countries.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 07-08/2022
FDD/Audio discussion focusing on Russia and Ukraine who are on the Brink of War
February 4, 2022 | Foreign Podicy
Clifford D. May/Founder & President
Bradley Bowman/CMPP Senior Director
Dr. Brenda Shaffer/Senior Advisor for Energy
James Brooke/Journalist
https://www.fdd.org/podcasts/2022/02/04/russia-and-ukraine-on-the-brink-of-war/
About
Vladimir Putin is threatening to erase the sovereignty, independence, and self-determination of Ukraine.
What caused this crisis? What are the likely consequences not only for Russia and Ukraine but for the U.S., Europe, and NATO? How would a war between Russia and Ukraine turn out? What lessons are the rulers of China and Iran learning? How do Russian energy resources – and Europe’s need for them – factor in? What are Putin’s goals – short-, medium-, and long-term? What should be the goal of the U.S. and its allies?
James Brooke is a former New York Times foreign correspondent and Voice of America Moscow bureau chief who just days ago left Ukraine where he had lived for six years as editor-in-chief of Ukraine Business Journal.
Bradley Bowman is senior director of FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). He previously served as a Senate national security advisor, U.S. Army officer, and assistant professor at West Point.
Brenda Shaffer is FDD’s Senior Advisor for Energy.
They join Foreign Podicy host Cliff May

Do Not Open Nord Stream 2
Pete Hoekstra/ Gatestone Institute./February 07/2022
The Russian threat... was very clear -- that Russia would then be able to shut off its gas to Europe in the middle of winter [by means of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline], if it chose to, as a form of blackmail, at which point the US might then be expected to save Europe from its own deal....
The warnings to Europe went unheeded.
How should the U.S. respond? The U.S. needs to continue to speak clearly and firmly. NATO is the most important military alliance that the U.S. has. We need it to be strong and effective. The only path forward is for all of the members to recommit themselves to investing in NATO's future. Combined with a commitment to our shared political and economic values, NATO will remain a force for the good: to protect the Free World from predators. It is still not too late for the U.S. to reverse its catastrophic decision and stop the opening of the Nord Stream 2.
This project [Nord Stream 2] poses a direct threat to the security and stability of Ukraine. It removes any motivation for Russia to engage good faith negotiations in regards to Ukraine -- negotiations which would contribute to political stability in Ukraine and in the region. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Russia continues to threaten its neighbors and attempts to destabilize Western governments in multiple additional ways.
Nord Stream 2 would give Putin a new tool to continue these nefarious actions. Russia has already used energy as a lever to achieve its foreign policy objectives. In 2009, Russia cut off energy supplies to Europe. With Nord Stream 2 in place it would have an even more powerful "economic tool" to threaten European economies, and even their national security. Nord Stream is a commercial project with major geo-political overtones.
The Russian threat... was very clear -- that Russia would then be able to shut off its gas to Europe in the middle of winter [by means of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline], if it chose to, as a form of blackmail, at which point the US might then be expected to save Europe from its own deal.... Pictured: The Nord Stream 2 landfall facility in Lubmin, Germany, on September 7, 2020.
This week, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Foreign Minister Wobke Hoekstra (no relation) met with Ukrainian leaders in Kiev. The visit was intended to signal Dutch support to the government of Ukraine in the face of Russian build-up provocations on its border. As with other European national security moves, the meeting may be too little too late.
It was a positive step, strongly supported by the Biden Administration as a sign of NATO unity. The visit, however, recalled efforts -- such as the one below -- by U.S. and European ambassadors to stop Nord Stream 2, the pipeline from Russia to Germany that then connects to much of the rest of Europe. The Russian threat outlined by the Trump administration was very clear -- that Russia would then be able to shut off its gas to Europe in the middle of winter, if it chose to, as a form of blackmail, at which point the US might then be expected to save Europe from its own deal -- and the long-term policy and security consequences of completing the pipeline were communicated. Put very simply, building closer economic ties with Russia and Putin is an extremely bad and dangerous idea.
The warnings to Europe went unheeded. The Biden administration came in and gave a green light to the final phase of construction on the pipeline. Germany, with help from NATO allies, now has completed the project that only awaits the final paperwork to be signed before going operational.
The lessons learned were clear. NATO already was dysfunctional in 2018. The defense organization had been unable to develop and agree on an alliance strategy for how to deal economically with Russia. NATO's dysfunction also is evident in that most European allies, particularly the Germans who have the strongest economy in Europe, have been unwilling to invest 2% of their GDP in defense spending, to which they had committed as their part of military support for NATO.
The U.S. tried to persuade the Europeans to take caution in integrating their economies too closely with Russia and to invest in NATO military might. As is their prerogative, the Europeans headed in a different direction.
With Russia now at the doorstep of Ukraine, which is not a member of NATO, the U.S., as predicted, is expected to bail out the Europeans from a potential Russian invasion by sending more American troops to Europe. Why? Because of the Europeans' failure to invest in NATO, their militaries are hollowed-out shells. Not only are most nations below the 2% of GDP defense spending requirement agreed to by the alliance, they also lack needed manpower, equipment, and logistics capabilities.
How should the U.S. respond? The U.S. needs to continue to speak clearly and firmly. NATO is the most important military alliance that the U.S. has. We need it to be strong and effective. The only path forward is for all of the members to recommit themselves to investing in NATO's future. Combined with a commitment to our shared political and economic values, NATO will remain a force for the good: to protect the Free World from predators. It is still not too late for the U.S. to reverse its catastrophic decision and stop the opening of Nord Stream 2.
Anything less jeopardizes everything that NATO has accomplished in the last 50 years. It would open the doors to growing isolationism both in the U.S. and abroad. Wishing to avoid the hardships of preserving the Free World is, understandably, always tempting.
My wife would voice her opinion when these issues would come up during our time of service in the Netherlands. Her answer: "We helped you defeat the terror of Nazism and fascism in WWII. We appreciate how you remember those brave young Americans who sacrificed everything to liberate your country. But if you think I'm going to support sending my kids or grandkids to fight for Europe again, while you are unwilling to invest your dollars, or enlist your young people into the armed forces, think again." NATO is called an alliance for a reason.
That is the message our NATO allies should hear and heed. It is also a message President Biden should consider as he once again sends troops to a continent unwilling to defend itself. The U.S. can no longer commit to defending those that will not defend themselves.
Peter Hoekstra was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration. He served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the second district of Michigan and served as Chairman and Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. He is currently Chairman of the Center for Security Policy Board of Advisors.
Don't Give Russia Control Over Your Gas
Written in December 2018 by Ambassador Pete Hoekstra in The Telegraph
Last week the United States Congress passed a bipartisan resolution asking our European allies to take a very important action: reject the Nord Stream 2 project and support the imposition of sanctions against those building it. Additionally, 45 experts, foreign policy officials again in a bipartisan manner, signed a letter urging President Trump to prepare new and immediate sanctions on Nord Stream 2.
The rationale is clear. Russian actions against the West continue to escalate. Now is not the time to provide Russia with a powerful new capability to control, influence, and potentially undermine the West.
Russia's recent behavior reminds us why we must remain vigilant. Efforts to gather all the facts surrounding the tragedy and attempts to get them to take responsibility for what happened to MH-17 have been blocked. Russian agents recently attempted to hack into the OPCW. And that's just in the Netherlands.
Other Russian activities just strengthen the case against building Nord Stream. Russian hostile actions against Ukraine continue to dangerously escalate. It wages a disinformation campaign against Europe. The Netherlands and EU have become so concerned by these activities that they are implementing expensive programs to combat these actions.
This project poses a direct threat to the security and stability of Ukraine. It removes any motivation for Russia to engage good faith negotiations in regards to Ukraine - negotiations which would contribute to political stability in Ukraine and in the region. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Russia continues to threaten its neighbors and attempts to destabilize Western governments in multiple additional ways.
Nord Stream 2 would give Putin a new tool to continue these nefarious actions. Russia has already used energy as a lever to achieve its foreign policy objectives. In 2009, Russia cut off energy supplies to Europe. With Nord Stream 2 in place it would have an even more powerful "economic tool" to threaten European economies, and even their national security. Nord Stream is a commercial project with major geo-political overtones.
In turbulent times in Washington, Democrats and Republicans are uniting to oppose Nord Stream 2. The U.S. message is clear. We oppose Nord Stream 2 because it represents a geostrategic threat to our closest friends and allies. We are also clear in that we believe a collective response to Russian provocations comprised of strong countermeasures will be most effective. Russia must reconsider its current aggressive and unacceptable behavior against the West. The United States calls on our European friends to take decisive actions against Russia. An effective next step would be to take meaningful action to stop Nord Stream 2. From MH-17 to Ukraine, Russia must be held accountable for its actions.
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Biden Must Learn From the JCPOA's Mistakes | Opinion
Jacob Nagel and Mark Dubowitz/Newsweek./February 07/2022
The parties to the Vienna talks on Iran's nuclear program have returned to their capitals and are expected to reconvene soon for a final round. There are signs that the next round could see an announced return to an even more flawed version of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Congress is not sitting on its hands. On Tuesday, Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, took to the Senate floor to condemn the 2015 deal and the Biden administration's rush to return to it. He argued that the deal allows the clerical regime to continue building its nuclear capacity: "This is exactly why I was so concerned over the JCPOA framework of leaving the vast majority of Iran's nuclear program intact."
Chairman Menendez is correct. The 2015 JCPOA not only kept much of Iran's nuclear program intact; it permitted the program to expand. The deal offered Tehran a pathway to nuclear weapons as enrichment restrictions sunset, and allowed it to build industrial-size enrichment capabilities with near-zero nuclear breakout time and an easier clandestine sneak-out option. It gave Iran the immediate right to work on R&D for advanced centrifuges, which are more powerful and therefore easier to hide because fewer are needed to produce weapons-grade uranium. The Islamic Republic also had more latitude to develop ballistic missiles, as well as access to heavy weaponry, as the UN conventional arms and missiles embargoes were scheduled to lapse in five to eight years. All of this in return for the lifting of sanctions to allow tens of billions to flow into the coffers of the mullahs.
Now, six years later, the conventional arms embargo is already gone; the missile embargo will sunset next year; key restrictions on the installation of advanced centrifuges begin disappearing in 2024; and most enrichment restrictions, including the ban on weapons-grade uranium enrichment, will be gone by 2031. In the meantime, Tehran has massively expanded its nuclear capabilities. Much of that escalation occurred after the election of Joe Biden and the abandonment of his predecessor's maximum pressure campaign.
What's equally concerning is that the 2015 agreement has no mechanism to force the Iranians to renegotiate and reach the "longer and stronger" deal that the Biden administration now acknowledges must come before Tehran is a turn of the screw away from developing nuclear weapons. In 2025, the snapback mechanism that gives the U.S. or other parties to the deal the unilateral right to restore UN sanctions on Iran will expire. Gone will be any multilateral leverage, as China and Russia are unlikely to agree to reimpose sanctions.
Iran nuclear negotiator
Washington cannot be satisfied with an agreement based solely on "compliance for compliance." It must be made explicit, whether in the agreement or outside it, what will happen if Tehran does not agree to a new deal that permanently blocks all pathways to nuclear weapons ("longer"). U.S. negotiators have to addresses the deal's many flaws relating to inspections, military weaponization, missile development, support for terrorism and other malign Iranian activities ("stronger").
The U.S. team also cannot prematurely close the International Atomic Energy Agency's open investigations into undisclosed nuclear materials and activities. Iran has blocked the agency's weapons inspectors in at least four sites. The U.S. should be satisfied with nothing less than a full resolution of all outstanding questions related to the military dimensions of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. There can be no "unprecedented verification and monitoring regime," of the kind Obama administration promised back in 2015, without addressing this critical element of the Iranian program.
While American diplomats have been offering proposals in Vienna, the clerical regime has responded with increased attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and against U.S. allies. Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists—who the Biden administration removed from the U.S. foreign terrorist organization list in February to appease Tehran—have replied to this unilateral American concession by attacking the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia with missiles and drones. One attack on the UAE used long-range missiles traveling more than 1,000 km and carrying around 500 kilograms of conventional warheads. It was the first such attack in decades of this range and potency. And it's a clear violation of the Missile Technology Control Regime, an agreement between three dozen countries to control the proliferation of missiles. While Tehran is not a part of this agreement, its flagrant violation cannot go unanswered. Returning to the JCPOA without a clear way forward on how to constrain Iran's deadly missile program—the delivery vehicle for a nuclear weapon—would pose a direct threat to American allies and, when Iran finishes an intercontinental ballistic missile, to the American homeland.
Want 'Never Again' To Mean Something? Stop Iran's March to the Bomb
Iran Nuclear Talks in Vienna Won't Result in a Better Deal
Returning to an even worse version of the 2015 deal legitimizes all of Iran's nuclear advances, permits it to retain and expand its nuclear and missile capabilities and enables it to build a deadly conventional military. This "JCPOA minus" will leave Tehran less than six months from nuclear breakout with this time limit dropping sharply in a few years. The JCPOA, at least temporarily, kept breakout time to one year. Fueling all this will be tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief that will fortify Iran's economy, strengthen the regime and expand support for its terrorist proxies.
If the Biden administration does return to the 2015 agreement, it will need a "day after" package that imposes clear and painful costs on Tehran if it doesn't move quickly to negotiations on a longer and stronger deal. That package should address the imminently expiring UN snapback that is essential for negotiating leverage. There will also be no new deal of any length or strength without serious pressure and a credible threat of military force.
Playing for time is not a strategy when time benefits your enemy. And, as Chairman Menendez made clear in his remarks on the Senate floor, hope is not a strategy either.
*Brig. Gen. (res.) Professor Jacob Nagel is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a visiting professor at the Technion Aerospace faculty. He previously served as acting national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and as head of the National Security Council. Mark *Dubowitz is FDD's chief executive. An expert on Iran's nuclear program and sanctions, he was sanctioned by Iran in 2019.

What Will Stop the Islamic Republic of Iran
Reuel Marc Gerecht/SAPIR/February 07/2022
Can the Islamic Republic of Iran — the radical theocratic regime, that is, as opposed to the nation it tyrannizes — fall by the year 2030? That would be a moonshot for the Jewish people, though it would take a bold gambler to answer yes. Let’s think through the possibilities.
The supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is 82 and has battled cancer. It’s possible to imagine scenarios after his death where contending factions divide the ruling clergy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, leading to regime collapse. It’s also possible to imagine outside powers convulsing the theocracy — foreigners have often changed the course of Iranian history — leading to massive demonstrations and a successful insurrection. The two could even intertwine. Neither seems very likely, however, although the second scenario is more conceivable.
Khamenei may well be weakening the ruling elite by demanding too much personal loyalty from those who want to be in his inner circle. When diehard, accomplished revolutionaries such as former president Hassan Rouhani or former speaker of parliament Ali Larijani are treated shabbily and cast out, it becomes clear that Khamenei doesn’t practice what he preaches about a big revolutionary tent encompassing diverse opinions. His decision to select (not elect) the current president, Ibrahim Raisi — Khamenei’s “mini-me,” ruthless but without the supreme leader’s curiosity and intellectual depth — was surely dictated in part by Khamenei’s desire to close ranks in preparation for his passing. The senior political clerics once angry about the velayat-e faqih (rule of the jurisconsult), Ruhollah Khomeini’s innovation that allows one cleric to rule above others, probably don’t have much influence: Khamenei has been purging the clergy since succeeding Khomeini in 1989. Ditto the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. Those who wield real power today are the supreme leader’s men. They will most likely back the dispensation that Khamenei leaves them, including his selected successor.
A crucial point that optimistic outsiders need to appreciate: Future Western sanctions are unlikely to crack the regime. Donald Trump gave it his best shot. His unilateral measures, even more punishing than the Euro-American sanctions unleashed during the first term of Barack Obama’s presidency, damaged the Iranian economy, depleting the regime’s hard-currency reserve and further debasing the rial. The nationwide demonstrations that struck the country in 2019, in which protests sparked by a reduction in fuel subsidies accelerated into deadly clashes with security forces, were what many advocates of sanctions policy had longed to see: regime-threatening internal unrest. Even better, the protestors blamed the theocracy, not Trump and America, for their problems. But the regime hit back hard. Security forces remained loyal, killing their own countrymen with gusto. Hundreds died within days. Thousands were arrested and tortured.
And Khamenei became noticeably cockier and more dismissive of dissent. The supreme leader had been confused and hesitant, even a bit remorseful, after he crushed the pro-democracy Green Movement back in 2009. Protestors had hit the streets, millions strong, after an obviously rigged presidential election. This time, however, the Revolutionary Guards applied the lessons learned a decade ago: They and their underlings (the well-organized, decently paid, and reliably vicious street thugs in the Basij) killed quickly. The most intense nationwide protests against theocracy since the Islamic Revolution collapsed.
Regardless of what happens with Joe Biden’s efforts to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Barack Obama’s nuclear deal, the president isn’t likely to embrace sanctions the way his predecessor did. They are too provocative and require increasing intestinal fortitude as the Iranian regime draws ever closer to having sufficient highly enriched uranium for a bomb. Barring an incredibly stupid terrorist action (and Khamenei is capable of letting hubris get the better of him), it’s inconceivable that Biden, who has been more intense and probably more sincere in his “forever wars” rhetoric than Trump ever was, would commence another conflict to stop the clerical regime’s nuclear ambitions. Fear of the Iranian bomb is much more likely to cause the White House to fold and to promise significant sanctions relief in exchange for measures that don’t even meet the fading requirements of Obama’s accord.
Fear of the Iranian bomb is much more likely to cause the White House to fold and to promise significant sanctions relief in exchange for measures that don’t even meet the fading requirements of Obama’s accord.
A new, massive influx of cash to Tehran certainly won’t solve the myriad problems that gnaw at the theocracy’s base and legitimacy. It won’t lessen the corruption and étatisme that chew up money and crush initiative. It will give relief to some Iranians, but more important, a fillip of pride to Khamenei and his men. They believe they defeated Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign (they did), and that additional money from the United States will be proof they have pushed Trump’s successor into an extortionate arrangement in which Tehran gets billions in hard currency in exchange for the export of enriched uranium — which can be easily created by the ever-more-efficient centrifuges that the JCPOA allowed and that Biden won’t stop.
If we continue down this path, by 2030, the clerical regime’s position in the Middle East and at home will be only more secure. American retrenchment, which started under Obama and gained speed under Trump and Biden, won’t reverse in the next administration, barring some terrorist event or war that forces America back into the region.
If Republicans win the White House and Congress in 2024, it’s possible that new waves of sanctions could buffet the Islamic Republic. By then, however, the clerical regime will probably have had four years to recover its economic footing and intensify its ties, open and covert, to the outside world, especially with China. The theocracy may even have tested an atomic weapon. No Republican administration is going to get into a sanctions war with China over a nonnuclear — and definitely not a nuclear — Islamic Republic. China can keep Iran’s oil-based economy breathing by itself, if it chooses. And the clerical regime now has considerable experience living under sanctions. Tehran advanced the nuclear program significantly under Trump, even as the economy contracted and the country reeled from COVID-19.
The year 2030 will come quickly, probably too fast for economic hardship to generate sufficient societal pressure to once again push young Iranians onto the streets for another round with machine-gun-wielding security forces. There is no regime-change strategy that works — unless the security forces crack.
If we rule out the remote possibility of American preventive strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, we are left with only one thing that hasn’t been tried: Israeli military strikes against the atomic program.
But the primary venue for putting real, bloody pressure on the Guards has been out of bounds under both Republicans and Democrats. Washington has stubbornly refused to implement a containment policy, which would entail, at minimum, a much more muscular deployment of U.S. forces to the Middle East, especially in Iraq, Syria, and the Persian Gulf. Containment is regime change: the methodical, patient application of pressure until internal contradictions sap the enemy’s will and capacity. By its nature, it risks war by putting down redlines all over the map.
On the ground, Iran’s position in Iraq is by no means secure. But Iraqi nationalism and democracy, which have troubled the Islamic Republic’s attempt to gain predominance among the Shia, would surely block any American attempt to increase the deployment of U.S. soldiers and their use. (The White House and Congress would abort the idea even earlier.) In Syria, the United States is still blocking a strategically important highway from northern Iraq. That’s something, particularly for the Israelis, who would have much more trouble finding and destroying Iranian military equipment (especially medium-range missiles) and personnel if that road were wide open. But this action has no reverberations on Iran’s internal politics, since it doesn’t really challenge the axis that dominates the Levant: the clerical regime, the Assad Alawite mafia, and Vladimir Putin. Serious American containment would reactivate the Sunni rebellion against Assad. For many reasons, some of them sensible — it could flood Europe with more refugees — Washington, no matter the party in power, isn’t likely to go there.
In the Persian Gulf, the United States will hold for the time being, possibly setting the stage for confrontation between the United States and Iran before 2030. Washington may no longer guarantee the unharassed movement of energy supplies through the Gulf; after Trump’s failure to retaliate against Tehran for attacks in 2019 on shipping and Saudi oil facilities, which temporarily knocked off-line much of the country’s refining capacity, it’s no longer certain what America will do to protect shipping and Saudi oil. But Washington is unlikely in the next decade to abandon its air and naval bases in the region, which at least check any overt, conventional Iranian aggression, such as a military incursion in Bahrain. As with the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, as long as the United States is in the region complicating Tehran’s ambitions, Iran could lash out, possibly crossing an American redline.
For the clerical regime to collapse by 2030, something unexpected has to shock the Islamist system, something that might cause a chain reaction that the theocracy can’t handle. If we rule out the remote possibility of American preventive strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, we are left with only one thing that hasn’t been tried: Israeli military strikes against the atomic program.
Discussions about cyber warfare and possible CIA or Mossad covert action, as intriguing as they might be, don’t belong in this conversation. They just don’t have the capability: Langley would take years, probably after awful mistakes, to develop a competent, big-project, covert-action team. Regardless, such action wouldn’t have the required impact. Without Israeli military action, the status quo likely holds. Tehran wins.
The military option is, as it’s always been, a wild card. We have no idea whether an Israeli raid would succeed in destroying the clerical regime’s nuclear sites, especially the buried-beneath-a-mountain cascades at Fordow. The odds against success are likely steep, which may be one of many reasons why the Israelis, despite a lot of harsh, menacing rhetoric, haven’t yet chosen to raid. But such a military operation would unavoidably upset the region’s pomegranate cart, probably leading to Iranian reprisals, including another surge of Iranian-sponsored terrorism.
Escalation is key. If the Iranian regime just absorbed the hit, didn’t retaliate, cried foul at the United Nations, and tried to rally anti-Israeli Europeans, then this tactic would probably flop.
On the other hand, depending on the Iranian response, they could easily find themselves in a war with both Israel and the United States. The Revolutionary Guards could get badly mauled. If any attack were made against a U.S.-flagged vessel in the Gulf, the U.S. Navy might well obliterate Iranian naval bases on the Gulf and in the Indian Ocean. If Iran successfully activated the Lebanese Hezbollah and it let loose thousands of missiles, Israel would be obliged to commence a massive air campaign, possibly even another invasion. American sanctions would intensify. The Europeans might even be obliged to join, depending on how egregious Iranian reprisals were. (Europeans also might try to sanction Israel, though Continental unanimity on that issue is unlikely.) With the West, Japan, and South Korea on alert, the Iranians would have a vastly harder time importing dual-use items to rebuild what the Israelis had destroyed — unless the Chinese decided to aid Iranian ambitions.
Internally, after an Israeli attack, the theocracy would certainly try to rally around the flag. In the short term, that could work. In a year or two, however, the cost of the conflict would come home, especially if Israel were successful in destroying the nuclear sites and killing key personnel. The loss of face would become undeniable: Regime propaganda regularly depicts Israel as too small and weak to stop Iran’s advance. And — perhaps — distaste for the theocracy, which is widespread and deep throughout society, could explode and convulse the country. If Khamenei were to die during this stressful time, the succession might become much more complicated. Indecision at the top would feed anger below. Countrywide demonstrations of sufficient size could overwhelm the security forces, which aren’t numerous, given the size of the country and the population.
The beginning of the end might start with an Israeli air raid.
Barring that eventuality, with all of its uncertainties, it seems highly likely that the Islamic Republic will be with us in 2030. Since 1989, when a Tehran soccer riot went anti-regime and the Revolutionary Guards decided to create a mobile force to suppress urban malcontents, the theocracy has feared and prepared for the unexpected spark. Khamenei, who is the most accomplished Middle Eastern dictator since World War II, isn’t today easily surprised by his enemies. We can only hope that his equanimity and plans founder on the unexpected and unforgiving.
*Mr. Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow Reuel on Twitter @ReuelMGerecht. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, non-partisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Saudi Writer: The West Is Ignoring Iran's Evil And Seeking An Agreement With It, Just As It Did With Nazi Germany
MEMRI/February 07/2022
Iran, Saudi Arabia | Special Dispatch No. 9753
Against the backdrop of the current talks between Iran and the Western powers in Vienna, Saudi political analyst Faisal Ibrahim Al-Shammari, who specializes in American affairs and writes a column in the Makkah daily, compared Iran to Nazi Germany and the nuclear agreement with it to the Munich Agreement signed with Germany in 1938.[1] He argued that, just as the West ignored the evil of Nazi Germany on the eve of the Second World War and signed an agreement with it, Western states are now ignoring the evil of Iran and seeking to renew the nuclear agreement with it. Furthermore, just as the Munich Agreement only strengthened Nazi Germany and failed to prevent the war, a new agreement with Iran will boost its global status and will not keep it from developing nuclear weapons or prevent a war. On the contrary, the agreement is bound to increase Iran's expansionist ambitions and its support of terrorist organizations, he said. Al-Shammari warned that Iran is a police state that aspires to control its region while waging an ideological campaign against the Western democracies, and therefore an agreement with it is dangerous.
Faisal Ibrahim Al-Shammari (Source: twitter.com/Mr_Alshammeri)
The following are translated excerpts from his article.[2]
"It is said that evil exists in darkness. But I do not think that is true, because evil actually exists in the open and is very clear and blatant – so much so that people look away from it. Why? Because the minute people acknowledge the existence of evil, they realize that they must fight it, and most people prefer not to do this. That is what led to the outbreak of the Second World War and to the death of over 70 million people. Many in the West denied the evil and cruelty of the Nazis. They looked away when it was still possible to stop this evil, and later tolerated it because it had grown strong.
"In 1938 – the year the Western democracies proved to the evil dictatorial Nazi Germany that they would not do anything to stop its expansion – British prime minister Neville Chamberlain came to Munich to negotiate with Adolf Hitler. He believed Hitler's promises that there would be peace if Germany was allowed to annex large parts of Czechoslovakia, [and preferred] not to confront the Nazi evil. Upon his return to Britain, he held the agreement aloft, announced that it had been signed, and stated: 'The settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem, which has now been achieved is, in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace.'
"The agreement [signed] in 2015 between the U.S., Europe, Russia, China and Iran is very similar to the Munich Agreement of 1938. Nazi Germany was a police state, and so is Iran. The Nazis' initial broader goal was to take control of their geographical region, and the greater goal of Iran is to expand into the Arab countries. Nazi Germany was an ideological rival of the Western democracies, and sought to dominate Europe, and Iran seeks to take over the Middle East and the Islamic world. And just as Britain and France sought to appease Nazi Germany, these same two countries, along with the U.S., have chosen to try and appease Iran…
"[However], Hitler before 1938 did not declare his intention to eliminate the [democratic] regimes in Europe or exterminate the Jews and other minorities, whereas the Iranian regime has been supporting terror and fundamentalist movements around the world since [its founding in] 1979. In Germany there were no mass demonstrations [in which people chanted] 'death to America,' as happens on a regular basis in Iran. In 1938 Germany was not responsible for terror all over the world, as Iran is today, nor was it responsible for the death of over 1,000 Americans, whereas Iran [is responsible for this number of American deaths] in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, in addition to tens of thousands of Arab [deaths].
"Neville Chamberlain defended the Munich Agreement with two main arguments: The only alternative is war, and an agreement will bring Nazi Germany back into the fold of the international community. The proponents of the nuclear agreement [with Iran] are operating on the same rationale: that the agreement is an alternative to war and will keep Iran from obtaining a [nuclear] weapon, and that it will bring Iran into the fold of the international community. But the claim that, in the absence of a nuclear agreement, Iran will attain such a weapon is baseless, for three reasons. First, the alternative to an agreement is maintaining and tightening the sanctions that weaken the Iranian regime and considerably limit its ability to finance terror organizations worldwide. Second, by strengthening Iran, an agreement will increase the chances of war. When evil and expansionist regimes become richer, they do not spend their wealth on building new hospitals or improving the infrastructures of their countries, or on [benefiting] their people, but rather on expansion and attempts to influence the countries around them. Third, Iran has been in a state of war with the U.S. for decades.
"[As for the claim that] the agreement will bring Iran into the fold of the international community, whoever believes this does not understand the nature of the regime in Tehran. The Iranian regime is comprised of religious fanatics who are morally indistinguishable from ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and all other fundamentalist mass-murdering organizations. The Iranian regime has executed more people than any other country, except for China. Over 200,000 Iranians were executed by [Iran's] inquisition courts since the founding of the Khomeini regime just for believing in other ideas. Iranian women are not allowed to leave the country without the permission of their husbands.
"In practice, Iran is the world's greatest financer of terror militias. Think what it will do with all the funds [it will earn] if sanctions are lifted. Think what it will do once the present embargo on weapons and missiles is lifted. Think what it will do with its nuclear infrastructure. The agreement will strengthen it in all three [spheres]."
[1] The Munich Agreement, concluded ןמ September 1938 by Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, provided "cession to Germany of the Sudeten German territory" of Czechoslovakia, and has since become emblematic of appeasing policies towards dictatorial regimes.
[2] Makkah (Saudi Arabia), January 12, 2021.

Are We Looking at a New World Order?
Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al-Awsat/February, 07/2022
After Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meeting in Beijing last Friday, China and Russia declared that the two countries “oppose any future expansion of NATO.”
They also decried the influence of the US and the role that NATO and the AUKUS defense alliance have played in Europe and Asia, saying that they have played a destabilizing role, according to the AFP.
They decried the negative impact of the United States’ strategy in the Indian and Pacific Ocean regions on security and stability as well, and they expressed their “concern” about the establishment of a military alliance between the US, UK, and Australia in 2020.
The Chinese-Russian declaration demonstrates that both have officially taken the position that their countries’ stances should be aligned and that China backs its Russian ally against the West, specifically Washington, regarding the Ukrainian crisis. Remarkably, the Chinese newspaper Global Times said that “the close relationship between China and Russia represents the world order’s last line of defense.”
And so, the question here becomes: Are we looking at a new world order? I asked a diplomacy expert, especially since one of the scenarios that could play out during the Russian Ukrainian crisis is Russia’s attack on Ukraine coinciding with Chinese action against Taiwan. If it were to unfold, this scenario could put the international community in general and the United States in particular in a tough spot, leading the world to courses that could be hard to predict.
The diplomacy expert says: “Yes, we are looking at the contours of a new world order being formed... And yes, the possibility of Russia and China simultaneously taking action against Ukraine and Taiwan respectively is among the potential outcomes, though I think it is less likely because of the timing.”
The expert adds that the current world order is facing a genuine crisis because: “The current strategic alliances are born out of many changes, shifts, and intersecting interests, which could continue.”
He says that “this renders the options available mere tactical understandings on a particular topic, at a particular time.” We saw this with Obama, Trump, and now Biden, as their positions are not at all consistent, and there is no clear strategy.
Relying on the United States to be a permanent ally is difficult, not for the powers in the region but even for the Europeans, and the Germans have already said that relying on American foreign policy, which changes every four years, is untenable.
As far as Russia is concerned, there is no clear strategy. Instead, there is politicking, one man seizing opportunities. While the Russian president does seek to restore the Soviet Union, he lacks the tools required to make his goals sustainable, and he is now falling into China’s arms.
Beijing itself is a different story. The Chinese have a clear strategy and long strategic breath. According to the diplomatic expert, China has witnessed an “epic economic rise,” adding that “for the first time, two world poles or superpowers, the United States and China, are economically dependent, meaning the collapse of one power’s economy would lead to the collapse of the other’s economy,” which makes it difficult for the United States, for example, to impose the kind of sanctions it could impose on Russia on China.
And so, it is clear that we are looking at the contours of a new world order taking form, one whose emergence will undoubtedly come at a high cost.

Rayan’s Letters…and the Ukrainian Well
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/February, 07/2022
Moroccan Rayan took us to his timing. His story haunted our days. We stuck to our television screens and phones. He stole the spotlight from everything else. His fate seemed like a test of our humanity. From faraway places, people became involved in his father’s pain and his mother’s sorrows. Rarely has a single individual attracted so much sympathy and attention. Huge numbers of people were occupied with the image of the wellhead. The networks were unable to broadcast another topic, as Rayan’s fate turned out to be a test for them as well, to win the lead and attract viewers.
The intense coverage contributed to igniting hopes that the child would come out alive, despite the seriousness of the accident he was exposed to. But the disappointment was as big as the expectations, and sadness overwhelmed the screens and the feelings of the viewers.
It was natural to recall the world’s preoccupation in September 2015 with the image of the corpse of the Syrian Kurdish child, Alan, lying on the shore of the Mediterranean after the “death boat” betrayed its passengers… “Death boats” are known to betray.
On that day, the image of the child invaded world screens and impacted some countries’ decision to open doors for Syrians fleeing the hell of war.
Rayan’s tragedy confirmed the enormous influence of the media, with its screens, websites, and newspapers, as the breaking news raced as if we were in the midst of a major battle. It also emphasized the ability of the media to mobilize broad public opinion behind a cause and demonstrated its capacity to inflame sentiments and bring about rapid change in people’s priorities.
Such a role is useful and noble in a human story of this kind. But let us examine its danger if the media is used to fuel ethnic or national hatreds or promote misleading scenarios. The media forest currently offers golden opportunities for poisoned emotions, misinformation, and intentional disinformation campaigns. Rayan’s story had a sad ending. But a conclusion must be drawn for the benefit of children and humanity. The truth is that a child falls into a well when he is born in extreme poverty. He also falls when he is unable to go to school or is forced to drop out.
A child is exposed to a kind of downfall when his/her abilities are lost due to backward educational programs that do not keep pace with the era, just as the lives of young men and women, who spend their years in the well of unemployment, are gone astray. More dangerous than all of that is the fall of boys and adolescents into the well of anxieties, and seeing them train with machine guns in the custody of the promoters of dark ideas and clans that divide countries and double the rates of poverty and death. It is no exaggeration to say that the wells for any child born in the terrible Middle East are very deep and extremely dangerous. The curtain fell on the story of the child and the well. Great waves of human sympathy are known to recede as quickly as they have erupted. The truth is that this outpouring of sympathy does not change much in the course of humanity. The future is shaped by economies, arsenals, schemes, maneuvers, and power relations that do not reflect long when small states fall into wells, from which they cannot get out without resorting to the powerful, compromising their sovereignty and their right to draw their future.
As we were preoccupied with Rayan’s story, the world was witnessing an exceptional date for which both sides chose an exceptional occasion, the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Leave the athletes and medals aside. The big event was the summit held in the Chinese capital between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. What made the summit more crucial is the fire of the Ukrainian crisis, which worries America and disturbs the Europeans, who have been led by the past decades to believe that the Old Continent has escaped the rumble of arms and the obsession with invasions and changing features by force.
The Russian-Chinese summit laid a solid foundation for what looks like an axis directed against the United States, which threatens to revive the winds of the old Cold War. China supported Putin’s position, opposing not only the expansion of NATO near the Russian borders but also its behavior when it moved its new European pawns after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Russian-Chinese statement demanded that NATO retract what it described Cold War approaches. It also criticized the negative US influence in the Asia-Pacific region, referring to the OCOs alliance, which includes the United States, Britain, and Australia. It was expected that the visiting “friend” would adopt Beijing’s stance on the Taiwan file.
There is no doubt that Putin succeeded in provoking a major crisis that is part of his attempt to organize a large-scale coup against the role assumed by the United States, which had contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union without firing a bullet.
The Chinese station in Putin’s attack is very important, especially since it emphasized that the “strategic choice of China and Russia in the international arena is unshakable.” The visit also saw long-term agreements to supply China with oil and gas from Russia.
As in the tragedy of Moroccan Rayan, the media assumes a major role in the Ukrainian crisis. Putin’s media plays an old and sensitive melody with his people, according to which the West is seizing every opportunity to encircle Russia, weaken its position and reduce its role.
Putin has put his country in the position of a concerned state that is trying to counter a NATO blockade project.
The Kremlin resident, who considers the collapse of the Soviet Union the greatest geostrategic catastrophe of the twentieth century, is leading a counterattack and a major retaliation.
Clearly, what worried Putin was not the NATO getting near his country’s borders, but rather the color revolutions, which he believed were being run from US embassies in violation of the sovereignty of countries and the interests of others. On the other side, the media played a major role in exaggerating the talk about the approaching Russian attack and the thousands of dead and millions displaced in the event of a total invasion by Putin.
What is certain is that the Ukrainian crisis is a very dangerous well. Has Putin lured the United States into a well that it is difficult to get involved in? Has Putin become a prisoner of the well that he tried to lure others into?

Europe Thinks Putin Is Planning Something Even Worse Than War
Ivan Krastev/The New York Times/February 07/2022
In the final weeks of World War I, a German general sent a telegram to his Austrian allies summarizing the situation. It was, he wrote, “serious, but not catastrophic.” The reply came back: “Here the situation is catastrophic, but not serious.”
It’s a joke, of course. But it captures, in a nutshell, the disagreement between America and Europe about the situation in Ukraine. For the United States and President Biden, who on Wednesday formally approved a deployment of American troops to Eastern Europe, a Russian invasion led by President Vladimir Putin is a “distinct possibility.” For Europe, not so much. A senior German diplomat summed up the divergence. “The US thinks Putin will do a full-blown war,” he said. “Europeans think he’s bluffing.”
Perhaps that’s to be expected. After all, full-scale war is generally as unimaginable for a Western European public as an alien invasion. The many decades of peace in Western Europe, combined with the continent’s deep dependence on Russia’s oil and gas, incline officials to assume aggressive Russian moves must be a ruse.
But the European tendency to accommodate Russia doesn’t explain why Ukrainian officials, after initial alarm, now seem to share the same view. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, last week played down the immediate threat of war, suggesting the situation was “dangerous, but ambiguous.” For a country menaced by 130,000 Russian troops at its border, it’s a striking assessment. What lies behind it?
The answer is surprising, even paradoxical. Europeans and Ukrainians are skeptical of a major Russian invasion in Ukraine not because they have a more benign view of Mr. Putin than their American counterparts. On the contrary, it’s because they see him as more malicious. War, they reason, is not the Kremlin’s game. Instead, it’s an extensive suite of tactics designed to destabilize the West. For Europe, the threat of war could turn out to be more destructive than war itself.
America and Europe aren’t divided on what Mr. Putin wants. For all the speculation about motives, that much is clear: The Kremlin wants a symbolic break from the 1990s, burying the post-Cold War order. That would take the form of a new European security architecture that recognizes Russia’s sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space and rejects the universality of Western values. Rather than the restoration of the Soviet Union, the goal is the recovery of what Mr. Putin regards as historic Russia.
In Washington and Brussels, the message has gotten through. There’s a general agreement on both sides of the Atlantic that the Kremlin, whatever it might do next, won’t stay still. Russia will not simply step back. But while Americans tend to believe that Mr. Putin needs a hot war in Ukraine to realize his grand ambitions, Europeans and presumably Ukrainians believe that a hybrid strategy — involving military presence on the border, weaponization of energy flows and cyberattacks — will serve him better.
That’s based on some sound reasoning. A Russian incursion into Ukraine could, in a perverse way, save the current European order. NATO would have no choice but to respond assertively, bringing in stiff sanctions and acting in decisive unity. By hardening the conflict, Mr. Putin could cohere his opponents. Holding back, by contrast, could have the opposite effect: The policy of maximum pressure, short of an invasion, may end up dividing and paralyzing NATO.
To see how that might play out, we need only look to Germany. Before the crisis, Germany was America’s closest ally in Europe, boasted a special relationship with Moscow and was the most important partner for Eastern and Central Europe. Today, some in Washington have questioned the country’s willingness to confront Russia, Berlin’s relationship with Moscow is fast deteriorating, and many Eastern Europeans are agitated by Germany’s apparent reluctance to come to their support. Germany’s difficulties are a hint of what could come if Mr. Putin continues his brinkmanship, without providing the certainty of an actual invasion.
Germany, crucially, has not changed — but the world in which it acts has. (The country is “like a train that stands still after the railway station has caught fire,” Bojan Pancevski, The Wall Street Journal’s Germany correspondent, told me.) Today, geopolitical strength is determined not by how much economic power you can wield, but by how much pain you can endure. Your enemy, unlike during the Cold War, is not somebody behind an iron curtain, but somebody with whom you trade, from whom you get gas and to whom you export high-tech goods. Soft power has given way to resilience.
That’s a problem for Europe. If Mr. Putin’s success will be determined by the ability of Western societies to steel themselves for the pressure of high energy prices, disinformation and political instability over a prolonged period, then he has good reason to be hopeful. As things stand, Europe is signally unprepared for these challenges. Remedying that, through investment in military capabilities, energy diversification and building social cohesion, should be the continent’s focus.
Europeans are right to believe that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not inevitable — and may even be correct that it’s not the most likely scenario. But we cannot deceive ourselves that we can skip the resilience test. “If you invite a bear to dance, it’s not you who decides when the dance is over,” the Russian proverb goes. “It’s the bear.”

Celestial Sexism in Jannah?
Raymond Ibrahim/February 07/2022
If Muslim martyrs (aka suicide bombers) are rewarded with 72 supernatural concubines in heaven, what do female martyrs get? This age-old question was, once again, on recent display. According to a Jan. 12 report, Maulana Sajid Rashidi, President of the All India Imam Association, said during a televised interview that “72 hoors are made available for men in jannat (Islamic heaven) as a reward for their ‘good deeds’ on earth.”
The complete Arabic term for these entities is hoor al-‘ayn. They are supernatural, celestial women—“wide-eyed” and “big-bosomed,” says the Koran (56:22, 78:33)—created by Allah for the express purpose of sexually gratifying his favorites in perpetuity. (Whether or not the English word “whore” is etymologically connected to the Arabic hoor is ultimately a moot point as they both seem to serve the same function.)
Imam Rashidi and all other advocates of the hoors trace their information back to a canonical hadith—a statement attributed to Muhammad that mainstream (Sunni) Islam acknowledges as true. In it, the prophet of Islam declares:
The martyr [shahid, one who dies fighting for Islam] is special to Allah. He is forgiven from the first drop of blood [that he sheds]. He sees his throne in paradise…. And he will copulate with seventy-two hoors. [See also Koran 44:54, 52:20, 55:72, and 56:22. ]
While the hoors may invoke images of scantily-clad genies and/or other wild tales from the Arabian Nights to the Western mind—and thus be dismissed as “fairy tales” with no capacity to inspire anyone—the fact is, desire for these immortal concubines has driven Muslim men to acts of suicidal terror, past and present (see here).
During the televised interview, Arzoo Kazmi, the female host, asked Imam Rashidi why Muslim women get no such “reward”:
On being questioned why no such provision was made for women, he first replied that the woman would be made the head of the 72 hoors that her husband gets. When Kazmi bemoaned that a woman would be stuck with the same earthly husband even in paradise, while the husband would have a bevy of beauties to choose form, Rashidi had no reply and said that Kazmi should be asking this question to Allah who has made these provisions for Muslims in heaven.
Thus, not only does Arzoo Kazmi joins ranks with countless Muslim women throughout the ages who question Allah’s patriarchal designs and sexist proclivities; but when she asked the imam, if Muslims are supposed to lead moral and alcohol-free lives—because Islam maintains that morality and sobriety are intrinsically good—why are they (at least men) “rewarded” with things like 72 hoors and “rivers of wine” (Koran 37:45) in heaven? Again, the imam gave no satisfactory answer.
All of this is a reminder that, if many Muslim men obsess over the hoors—not a few of them hastening their exits from this world to meet them—so too do many Muslim women obsess over them, but in reverse. For example, in one Arabic-language video I watched back in 2016, another Muslim imam took and answered questions via phone calls. A woman called in expressing outrage at the hoors, saying that she would be driven “mad with jealousy” seeing her husband copulating with these supernaturally beautiful women all day in heaven.
The cleric responded by telling her that “when you enter paradise, Allah will remove the jealousy from your heart. And have no fear, for you will lord over the hoors and be their queen.” Still apprehensive, the Muslim wife pleaded: “But must he have the hoors?” Laughing, the cleric reassured her: “Look, when you enter paradise, you will be more beautiful than the hoors—you will be their mistress. Okay? And, when you enter paradise Allah will remove any jealousy or concerns from your heart.”
Such is the lot of women under Islam: not only are they, as is well known, second-class citizens in the here, but in the hereafter as well.

Syria’s emerging drug empire is not going away soon
Haid Haid/The Arab Weekly/February 07/2022
Drug trafficking is nothing new in the Middle East but the last decade of conflict has given way to a challenge of endemic proportions. In 2021 alone, 250 million narcotic pills were confiscated. That is 18 times the amount seized just four years ago.
Under Bashar Al-Assad’s leadership, Syria has become the focal point for drug manufacturing and export in the region. The Assad regime’s links to the drug business are well-documented and barely concealed, which explains why there has been little public effort by Damascus to crackdown on the booming drug trade. In addition to reaping the financial gains from the drug business, Assad is using drugs as a strategic lever against his regional opponents.
Since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011, armed groups in Syria have been involved in the drug industry. However, this illicit business did not boom until after the regime’s territorial expansion, which peaked in the summer of 2018. In addition to expelling his opponents from the majority of Syria, Assad’s victory allowed him to consolidate his grip over most of the border regions with Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, which have become hubs for drug smuggling from Syria.
The territorial shift turned Syria into a narco-state, which is now the global epicentre of Captagon production. Captagon is a stimulant with addictive properties used recreationally across the Middle East. Its ability to boost courage and energy explains why it is also known as “poor man’s cocaine”. As a result of the not-so-secret support from the Assad regime, Captagon production is now more industrialised, adaptive and technically sophisticated than ever. Even the concealment of drug shipments coming from Syria to other countries in the region has become profoundly more sophisticated.
The boom in the Captagon industry could have only happened with the protection of a state, which is demonstrated by the involvement of key regime figures and networks. Chief among them is the 4th Armoured Division of the Syrian Army, an elite unit commanded by Maher Al-Assad, the president’s younger brother and one of Syria’s most powerful men. The New York Times recently exposed the role of the 4th Division in the drug trade. The division is responsible for the borders with Lebanon and Jordan, which are the primary export points for Captagon pills manufactured in Syria. The 4th Division also maintains a network of checkpoints across regime-controlled areas, which enable it to provide vital protection to Captagon factories and facilitate the movement of drugs across the country.
Several other relatives of the Syrian president are also heavily involved in this illicit business, including Samer Al-Assad. Despite being a distant paternal cousin of Bashar, Samer reportedly oversees the majority of Captagon production around Latakia and exercises a high degree of influence over trafficking throughout the Syrian coastal region. The Captagon factory he owns in the village of Al Basa, south of Latakia, which is disguised as a manufacturer of packaging materials, has become an open secret.
Many analysts believe that the profits generated by drug manufacturing and export have become an important revenue stream for the cash-strapped Syrian government. According to various estimates, the street value of seized Syrian drugs, which is a fraction of the total sum, amounted to about $3.4 billion in 2020. Placing relatives and other confidants in positions of authority over the drug trade is a testament to just how valuable it is for the regime.
There is a geopolitical dimension at play as well. Drugs have become an important bargaining chip for the regime with other countries. For example, the regime could be using drugs to pressure countries to restore ties with Damascus in exchange for curtailing the flow of drugs or diverting them to other countries. In the past, Assad skillfully facilitated jihadist attacks in Iraq and Lebanon to advance his agenda. Assad used the same strategy again in Syria during the ongoing conflict to force rival states to back off from supporting his opponents. These well-documented incidents show that the Syrian regime is no stranger to such tactics.
Jordan and Saudi Arabia are the two countries in the region suffering the most from Syria’s drugs. However, other regional states and Europe are equally concerned. While some of those governments might be tempted to cave into Assad to protect their population, they should know that there are no guarantees that the regime will honour its end of the deal. That is evidenced by the failure of Jordan’s normalisation efforts to curb drug trafficking to its territories.
Moving forward, Assad will likely continue to pocket the concessions made by the drug business without pushing back against his relatives and associates who are managing the country’s emerging drug empire. Instead of giving in, affected countries should come together and find a more reliable solution to countering Syria’s drugs and that likely starts at home.

Abduction ordeal of 6-year-old Fawaz Qetaifan prompts pushback against cruelty and lawlessness in war-torn Syria
Nadia Al-Faour/Arab News/February 08, 2022
DUBAI: Fawaz Qetaifan, a six-year-old Syrian boy who was kidnapped on his way to school in Daraa four months ago, could be returned to his parents in the coming hours or days after his family raised the ransom to secure his release, sources have told Arab News.
“It seems that the issue will be resolved within the next 48 hours as the money has been raised,” Rami Abdulrahman, founder of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Arab News.
“We do not know who kidnapped him for sure. Kidnappings have been increasing in all areas of Syria.”
The abduction of Fawaz captured the world’s attention in recent days after graphic video footage surfaced on social media showing the boy, stripped to his underwear, being savagely beaten by his kidnappers.
In the shocking images, the boy can be heard crying: “For Allah’s sake stop hitting me.”
His cries for mercy touched a nerve with people throughout the Arab world and beyond, especially in Morocco, where this week a desperate struggle to save a five-year-old boy named Rayan Aourram from the bottom of a well ended in tragedy.
For a moment, Rayan’s ordeal placed renewed focus, importance and value on the life of a child, drawing reactions from hundreds of thousands of well-wishers hoping for his survival. Fawaz is now widely seen as “Syria’s Rayan,” with calls on social media for him to be rescued from a “different type of hole.”
Fawaz’s ordeal began in November as he walked to school with his sister in their home village of Itmaa in Daraa, southern Syria, and two motorbikes pulled up alongside them. According to witnesses, a female passenger pointed at Fawaz and three men grabbed him before speeding away with their captive.
The boy has not been seen in person since but his story became widely known across Syria owing to a series of chilling videos his kidnappers have used to extort ransom money from his family.
The abductors contacted Fawaz’s parents on WhatsApp before switching to Telegram, which allows the sender to remain untraceable. They initially demanded a ransom of 500 million Syrian pounds ($200,000) for the safe return of their child but reduced the sum to 400 million. The brutality in the videos sent by the kidnappers has gradually grown worse.
“This will be the state of the boy every day,” the kidnappers said in a message accompanying the video of Fawaz being beaten.
Fawaz’s uncle told local media that the captors had threatened to torture the child unless the ransom is paid. He added that they said they would cut off one of the boy’s fingers each day until the family pays up.
The family reportedly cobbled together much of the ransom by selling their land and anything else they had of value. The rest was crowdfunded in the past few days by the Qetaifan tribe.
Abdulhakim Al-Qetaifan, a Syrian actor who is from the same tribe, recently posted a video on Facebook in which he talked about the child’s plight.
“We thank everyone who has extended their love and aid to help free (Fawaz) from these beasts,” he said. “We have decided to collect the money. If we are not able to, we will reach out, but we thank everyone who has offered.”
Even if Fawaz is returned safely to his family, the payment of the ransom and the failure of the Syrian authorities to track down the kidnappers means many more children could be at risk of similar ordeals.
Even in a war-torn country so inured to cruelty and lawlessness in recent years, scenes of a young child begging for his life as his adult captors ruthlessly beat him have stirred a collective pushback against the country’s seemingly never-ending social decay.
Syria has become one of the most lawless places on earth. Extortion, kidnapping, blood feuds and revenge killings are rampant — and often occur with impunity.
“I worry about my children,” Hassan, a resident of Daraa who did not want to give his full name, told Arab News. “I bought a gun and I sleep near it every night.
“I am in a constant state of worry because I cannot accompany my girls to school. I dread to think what these beasts would do to my girls, who are 7 and 12. This country has turned into a lawless land; it is kill or be killed. It is a struggle for safety and survival every day.”
A 2020 report by Syrians For Truth and Justice, titled Daraa: Child Kidnappings Haunt Locals, documented 31 abductions of children between January and August that year. Like Fawaz, many of the victims were taken on their way to school. Others were playing outdoors. As in the case of the abduction of Fawaz, the report mentioned a woman accompanying the kidnappers.
It also found that many of the kidnappings happened near government security checkpoints, giving rise to suspicions that the army or security personnel were somehow complicit. Moreover, when families reported the kidnappings to authorities, no action was taken. Some of the children mentioned in the report were rescued but others, as young as 10 years old, are still missing.
“Kidnapping cases have been happening throughout the Syrian war,” Bassam Al-Ahmad, the co-founder and CEO of Syrians For Truth and Justice, told Arab News.
“Daraa has witnessed a lot of cases. Abductors came from all factions, rebels, mercenaries and regime thugs. The kidnappings continued to happen despite the areas falling under Russian and governmental control.”
Under Syrian law, kidnappings are classified as “crimes against freedom and honor.” The penal code states that if a kidnapper abducts a minor, he can be imprisoned for between six months and three years. If a ransom is demanded, the perpetrators can face up to 20 years in jail. If the child is murdered or sexually abused, the death penalty can be imposed.
Such cases rarely reach a courtroom, however. And with multiple armed factions roaming the country — be they pro-government, opposition or extremist elements — it is almost impossible to know who to turn to for help if a family member is abducted.
A decade of war, a crumbling economy and a complete breakdown in trust have left the population facing living conditions that continue to deteriorate. Food prices have skyrocketed beyond the means of many to pay, and job opportunities are scarce or nonexistent. Against this backdrop, kidnapping for ransom has become a lucrative alternative.
“People have resorted to such ways to make money,” Al-Ahmad told Arab News. “We are talking about a country with no laws, a country with hungry people. The abductors coming from all sides is actually the norm.
“While the Syrian government is technically the one responsible for people’s safety and implementing the law, it is difficult to expect any results with everything going at the moment.”

		
		Abp. Viganò endorses Canadian truck drivers, calls for 
		prayers to defeat ‘infernal’ Great Reset

		‘Your protest, dear Canadian truck driver friends, joins a worldwide 
		chorus that wants to oppose the establishment of the New World Order on 
		the rubble of nation states.’

		Steve Jalsevac / LifeSiteNews

		
		
		
		
		https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/abp-vigano-endorses-canadian-truck-drivers-may-your-efforts-be-crowned-with-success/

		(LifeSiteNews) – Dear Brothers and Sisters 
		Canadian truck drivers,

		The global coup that in these two years of psycho-pandemic farce has 
		been carried out by the globalist elite appears most clearly if we do 
		not limit ourselves to considering what happened in individual Nations, 
		but broaden our gaze to what has happened everywhere. 

		Your protest, dear Canadian truck driver friends, joins a worldwide 
		chorus that wants to oppose the establishment of the New World Order on 
		the rubble of nation states, through the Great Reset desired by the 
		World Economic Forum and by the United Nations under the name of Agenda 
		2030. And we know that many heads of government have participated in 
		Klaus Schwab’s School for Young Leaders – the so-called Global Leaders 
		for Tomorrow – beginning with Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron, 
		Jacinta Ardern and Boris Johnson, and before that Angela Merkel, Nicolas 
		Sarkozy and Tony Blair. 

		It would seem that Canada is – along with Australia, Italy, Austria and 
		France – one of the nations most infiltrated by the globalists. And in 
		this infernal project we must not only consider the psycho-pandemic 
		farce, but also the attack on traditions and Christian identity – 
		indeed, more precisely the Catholic identity – of these countries. 

		You understood this instinctively, and your yearning for freedom was 
		shown in all its coordinated harmony, moving towards the capital Ottawa. 
		Dear truck drivers, you are facing great difficulties, not only because 
		you give up your work to demonstrate, but also because of the adverse 
		weather conditions, long nights in the cold, and attempts to be cleared 
		away that you face. But along with these difficulties you have also 
		experienced the closeness of many of your fellow citizens, who like you 
		have understood the looming threat and want to support you in protesting 
		against the regime. Allow me also to express to you my support and my 
		spiritual closeness, to which I join the prayer that your event may be 
		crowned with success and may also extend to other countries. 

		In these days we see the masks of tyrants from all over the world fall, 
		and unfortunately we also see so much conformism, so much fearfulness, 
		so much cowardice in people who up until yesterday we regarded as 
		friends, even among our family members. Yet, precisely because of this 
		extreme situation, we discover with amazement gestures of humanity made 
		by strangers, signs of solidarity and brotherhood on the part of those 
		who feel close to us in the common battle. We discover so much 
		generosity and so much desire to shake us from this stupor. We discover 
		that we are no longer willing to passively suffer the destruction of our 
		world imposed by a cabal of unscrupulous criminals, thirsty for power 
		and money. 

		In this relentless attack on the traditional world, not only your way of 
		life and your identity have been affected, but also your possessions, 
		your activities, and your work. This is the Great Reset, this is the 
		future promised by slogans like Build Back Better, this is the future of 
		billions of people being controlled in their every move, in all their 
		transactions, in every purchase, every bureaucratic practice, every 
		activity. Automatons without souls or wills, deprived of their identity, 
		reduced to having a universal income that allows them to survive, to buy 
		only what others have already decided to put up for sale, transformed by 
		a gene serum into people who are chronically ill. 

		Today more than ever it is essential that you realize that it is no 
		longer possible to passively assist: it is necessary to take a position, 
		to fight for freedom, to demand respect for natural freedoms. But even 
		more, dear Canadian brothers, it is necessary to understand that this 
		dystopia serves to establish the dictatorship of the New World Order and 
		totally erase every trace of Our Lord Jesus Christ from society, from 
		history, and from the traditions of peoples. 

		Demonstrate for your rights, Canadian friends: but may these rights not 
		be limited to a simple claim to the freedom to enter supermarkets or not 
		to be vaccinated: may it also be a proud and courageous claim to your 
		sacrosanct right to be free men. But your demonstration should be one of 
		true freedom, reminding you that it is the Truth – that is, Our Lord 
		Jesus Christ – who alone can guarantee you freedom: the truth will make 
		you free.

		Let us pray that Christ will return to reign in society, in your hearts 
		and in your families. Take up the spiritual weapon of the Holy Rosary, 
		and pray to the Blessed Virgin, Sainte Ann, Saint George and the Holy 
		Canadian Martyrs to protect your homeland.

		I would like to conclude my appeal by asking you to pray with me, with 
		the words that Our Lord has taught us: may they be the seal of this 
		awakening, of this national liberation. Let us all pray it together, out 
		loud, so that our prayer may rise to Heaven, but also so that it may 
		resound powerfully in these squares, in these streets, all the way to 
		the palaces of the powerful:

		Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; 
		thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily 
		bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass 
		against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. 
		Amen.

		+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

		7 February, 2022.