English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For February 15/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 05/13-17: “‘You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. ‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden.No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 14-15/2022
Corona - Health Ministry: 3,717 new Corona cases,15 deaths
Hariri Prays at Father's Tomb on 17th Assassination Anniversary
Lebanon Marks Rafik Hariri's 17th Assassination Anniversary
Petroleum Egyptian Minister: The technical work to supply Lebanon with gas will end at the end of February, and there are no obstacles
Army Chief meets with US Central Command delegation
Ukraine, the New Cold War and its Middle Eastern Replicas/Charles Elias Chartouni/February 15/2022
Saad Hariri expects the worse for Lebanon
Lebanon's National Library acts as a cultural refuge amid hard times/Maghie Ghali/The National/February 14/2022

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 14-15/2022
Canada's Trudeau invokes emergency powers to quell protests
Israeli prime minister to make first visit to Bahrain on Monday
Fire Extinguished at Iranian Military Base, No Casualties
Iran Official: Nuclear Talks Harder as West 'Pretends' to Take Initiative
Iran Says Prisoner Swap with US on Agenda
Leaked Audio Sheds Light on IRGC Corruption, Mobilizes Parliament
War, Peace, Stalemate? Week ahead May Decide Ukraine's Fate
Iraqi top court bars Zebari's presidential bid over corruption charge
Dbeibah clings to power despite consensus between parliament and State Council to remove him
Turkish opposition strives to unite against Erdogan's 'one-man rule'
Erdogan seeks better domestic standing with visit to UAE
Egyptian FM in Germany to Drum up Support for COP27
Israeli Troops Kill Palestinian in West Bank Clashes
Saudi Sees Cyprus as Bridge between Europe, Middle East

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 14-15/2022
Bahrain chooses alignment with Israel over submission to Iran/Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Washington Examinar/ February 14/ 2022
Russia Driving Sweden and Finland into the Arms of NATO/Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/February 14, 2022
If Israel strikes Iran, what happens next?/Adam Hoffman/Jerusalem Post/February 14/2022
Putin in the 'Mother of All Battles'/Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/February 14/ 2022
Biden’s White House Makes a Telling Mistake/Jonathan Bernstein/Bloomberg/February 14/ 2022
Tobacco lobby cynically undermines Middle East health policy/Jonathan Gornall/The Arab Weekly/February 14/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 14-15/2022
Corona - Health Ministry: 3,717 new Corona cases,15 deaths
NNA/February 14/2022
In its daily report on the COVID-19 developments, the Ministry of Public Health announced on Monday the registration of 3,717 new Coronavirus infections, which raised the cumulative number of confirmed cases to-date to 1,020,204.
The report added that 15 deaths were recorded during the past 24 hours.

Hariri Prays at Father's Tomb on 17th Assassination Anniversary
Naharnet/February 14/2022
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri visited Monday his father’s grave in downtown Beirut. He had arrived at dawn Sunday in Beirut to mark the 17th anniversary of the assassination of father and ex-PM Rafik Hariri. This year's anniversary is different from the past ones, as Hariri, who had announced last month his withdrawal from politics, is not expected to deliver a speech. Media reports said he met Sunday with al-Mustaqbal Movement MPs and talked to them "as a brother, not as al-Mustaqbal chief."He advised them not to participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections, the reports said. Hariri inherited the political leadership from his late father, billionaire businessman Rafik Hariri, who was one of Lebanon's most powerful and influential politicians after the end of the 1975-90 civil war. The late Hariri was assassinated on February 14, 2005 in a massive truck bombing in Beirut. Afterward, the family chose Saad to lead despite the fact that he has an older brother.

Lebanon Marks Rafik Hariri's 17th Assassination Anniversary
Naharnet/February 14/2022
Prime Minister Najib Miqati tweeted Monday on the 17th anniversary of the assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri that "we especially remember his wisdom and determination, during this difficult situation."Miqati later arrived with MP Fouad Saniora at Hariri's tomb in Beirut downtown to commemorate the assassination, as Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi laid a wreath at the tomb. "We insist on holding the parliamentary elections as a gateway for the Lebanese to reach their constitutional rights and build the state," Mawlawi said, adding that Rafik Hariri was martyred "for the sake of building the state."Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat also visited the grave of the former Prime Minister. We must be patient and persevere," Jumblat said. "And we will persevere," he added. For his part, Lebanese Forces party chief Samir Geagea tweeted that the ex-PM's assassination was an attempt to "assassinate a project," describing Rafik Hariri as a "political Lebanese project" that put Lebanon on the Arab and international map."The Axis of Defiance assassinated him, believing that this assassination would destroy his project," Geagea said. He added that Hariri's blood united the Lebanese, Christians and Muslims. "They revolted on March 14 in an unprecedented million-strong uprising, chanting Lebanon first, the state first and sovereignty first," Geagea said."And this is how it will be," he concluded.

Petroleum Egyptian Minister: The technical work to supply Lebanon with gas will end at the end of February, and there are no obstacles
NNA/February 14/2022
Egyptian Petroleum Minister Tarek El Molla announced that the timetable for supplying Lebanon with Egyptian natural gas in cooperation with Jordan and Syria remains flexible, indicating that there are only procedural issues, according to what "Russia Today" quoted Egyptian media as saying.
On the sidelines of the Egypt Petroleum Exhibition "EGYPS" today, in a clarification on the date of pumping Egyptian gas to Lebanon, the minister said: "We want to send gas to Lebanon. The schedule is flexible, because this depends on other parties." He added: "We have agreed on technical and financial matters, and the technical work is supposed to be completed at the end of February... The issue is a matter of procedures, and there are no obstacles in front of us." He continued, "We are working with the World Bank, the United States and Lebanon, and the negotiations are going well."

Army Chief meets with US Central Command delegation
NNA/February 14/2022
Lebanese Armed Forces Commander, General Joseph Aoun, received at his office in Yarzeh on Monday, a United States Central Command delegation, headed by Maj.Gen Scott Benedict, where discussions touched on bilateral relations between the armies of both countries.

أوكرانيا والحرب الباردة الجديدة واستنساخاتها في الشرق الأوسط
Ukraine, the New Cold War and its Middle Eastern Replicas
Charles Elias Chartouni/February 15/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/106341/charles-elias-chartouni-ukraine-the-new-cold-war-and-its-middle-eastern-replicas-%d8%a3%d9%88%d9%83%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%a7-%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d8%b1%d8%a8-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a8%d8%a7%d8%b1/
The Ukrainian crisis ushers a new international dynamic structured on the crossroads between consecutive agendas: the equivocations of the transition regimes which succeeded the downfall of the Soviet Union and its world order, the plodding reforms, the death of the underpinning ideological and political scripts, and the emergence of a hackneyed political narrative crafted and manipulated by demagogues, nasty dictators and a trivialized recourse to violence as functional equivalents to failures. Ukraine awkward transition to democracy is hobbled by its oligarchic downturns and residual Soviet nomenklatura political culture, and the destructive impact of the Russian autocracy, it’s heightened strategic uncertainties, cultural dilemmas, oligarchic foreclosures, Leninist power technology, reformist ineptitude, and a well entrenched paranoïa induced by the rentier economy and its mafia driven governance. The cumulative internal problems are at the origin of the overlapping conflict dynamics, developing all along the continuum between domestic bankruptcies and the uncertainties of a chaotic geopolitical configuration.
The normalization is unlikely to take place unless the reformist narrative makes its way into Russia, as a prelude to a negotiated geopolitical order which likens the Helsinki accords in 1975. The autocratic mafia style governance is no solution, and can never make up for the absence of a new democratic and liberal narrative which rhymes with the cultural and political aspirations of a more westernized and libertarian civil society on both sides of the spectrum, and address the pending geopolitical issues in a peaceful and a democratic way. The very idea of the war is spurned by Russians and Ukrainians, by and large, who see no point in this conflict, on account of their cultural, religious and historical commonalities, and the absurdity of bloodletting while diplomacy can settle issues in a rational, moral and equitable manner. Put in other words, Russians and Ukrainians tend, more and more, to perceive this conflict as a reflection of Putin’s protracted autocracy (26 years re-editing Oriental Despotism, and absolutism ranging between Czarism, Communist dictatorship and KGB/Mafia discretionary power) and paranoid worldview, psychotic ideological blinders, bungled governance, neo-imperial delusions and ability to manipulate Western public opinions, and inaptitude to understand and address the challenges of a transforming world. This implies the absurdity of war, its hazardous pitfalls and ineptness to tackle the above mentioned issues. The overworked blame externalization and dissembling rhetorics in regard of NATO, EU and the US are threadbare pretexts to turn away the attention from the self defeating politics of an idle autocracy which has no other exit, but violence, nationalistic humbug, and post factual tale spinning.
This toxic political environment partakes of a general pattern and has its replica in the Larger Middle East, the Arab World, and at the core of Islamic geopolitics and political narratives. The Iranian, Turkish and Islamist geopolitics feed on ideological fallacies and unsettled disputes to build conflict dynamics, while overlooking the downsides of devastating domestic governance, deleterious political cultures, and incapacity to engage the rest of the world on the basis of discursive conflict resolution, working diplomacy and joint reformist undertakings. The US, EU and NATO have no choice but to reengage regional conflicts on the basis of elective military containment strategies, active and inclusive negotiation rounds to solve the open conflicts, in the Near East (Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories, Yemen, Lybia and the Gulf strategic security quandaries). The state of endemic instability, frozen conflicts, and the destructive consequences of regional and international power politics, and their prevalence over geopolitical stabilization, state reconstruction, and developmental politics are ominous and put at stake regional, European, and international security.
The containment of political authoritarianism and totalitarian Islamism is contingent upon mobile military coalitions, creative and steady diplomatic engagements, and marshaling of financial and technological resources to cater to developmental agendas. Russia and China are capitalizing on authoritarian survivalism and vested oligarchic interests, conflict decay and systemic societal and political unraveling, to further their neo-imperial political agendas and destabilization strategies. The Larger Middle East is in dire need for a comprehensive geopolitical and reformist roadmap, to extract itself from the damning cycles of systemic instability, political authoritarianism, religious totalitarianism and the endemic cycles of poverty and violence.

Saad Hariri expects the worse for Lebanon
Najia Houssari/Arab News/February 14, 2022
BEIRUT: The situation in Lebanon is deteriorating, said former Prime Minister Saad Hariri during a meeting with his parliamentary bloc on Sunday.Hariri met his supporters after he had paid his respects at the grave of his father, Rafik Hariri, on the 17th anniversary of his assassination in Beirut.
Prime Minister Najib Mikati and former premier Fouad Siniora also prayed at the grave. Hariri said that his home in Beirut will remain open, and the Future Movement will continue to work with the people and provide services and assistance to them, and it will never abandon its people.
The anniversary is a few weeks after Hariri announced he was leaving politics for now and would not run in upcoming parliamentary elections. Thousands gathered in front of Hariri’s tomb in Beirut for a moment of silence at 12:55 p.m., to commemorate the murder.
The supporters raised blue Future Movement banners and pictures of Saad Hariri, cheering and waving as he walked past them.
One supporter said: “How will become of life in Lebanon? The day of the assassination was a dark one, and it has gotten darker with Hariri’s withdrawal from political life.”
A woman from Tariq Al-Jadida said: “They killed the father and betrayed the son, so we became orphans, but we will never hand over our fate to them.”The size of the crowd at Martyrs’ Square in downtown Beirut surprised event organizers.
People climbed the stairs of the Al-Amin Mosque next to the tomb and filled the parallel road. The Future Movement did not invite its supporters to participate but supporters rallied for the commemoration on social media.
The annual gathering was different this year, as Hariri did not give his usual speech.
He simply recited Al-Fatihah in front of his father’s tomb, along with his aunt, MP Bahia Hariri, her husband and some family members.
He seemed very moved as he waved to the people who waited for him to greet them.
“The scene at the tomb says it all,” Hariri told the media.
Political, religious, diplomatic, social and economic figures visited Rafik Hariri’s tomb to mark the occasion. They included a Russian delegation, headed by Minister Plenipotentiary at the Russian Embassy in Lebanon Ivan Medvedsky.
Japanese Ambassador to Lebanon Takeshi Okubo tweeted on Monday, “We commemorate PM Rafik Hariri’s efforts with many countries, including Japan, for the reconstruction of Lebanon.”
Walid Jumblatt, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, said after visiting the tomb: “It was written for us to recite Al-Fatihah in Moukhtara, and in Beirut in Martyrs’ Square every year. It was written for us to persevere and we will.”
Former Future Movement MP Mustafa Alloush said: “We are seeing the results of the project that began with Rafik Hariri’s assassination, which is the invasion of the entire region that led to the destruction of Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.”
MP Mohammed Al-Hajjar noted: “Seventeen years have passed, and we are witnessing a state of denial and rejection of all calls for reform and commitment to Lebanon’s interests.
“Some still insist on dragging Lebanon away from our Arabism and true belonging. President Michel Aoun said we were going to Hell and Rafik Hariri’s assassination was certainly the gateway.”
Addressing his bloc MPs on Sunday, Hariri reaffirmed his withdrawal from political life, which he announced on Jan. 24.
He called on the Future Movement to take the same step and not to run for parliamentary elections or submit any nominations in the movement’s name.
He reportedly said: “Regardless of my political position and my decision, but my personal reading of the situation is that it will get worse, and my advice to you as a brother and not as a leader, is not to run for elections, because nothing portends positivity; spare yourselves the insults.”
Hariri had expressed his conviction that this step was correct because “there is no room for any positive opportunity for Lebanon, in light of Iranian influence, international confusion, national division, the rise of sectarian tensions and the deterioration of the state.”
When the MPs asked what they should do in the next stage in parliament, Hariri said: “Everyone must abide by their legislative duty, not boycott parliament. Participate in sessions and discuss the draft budget.
“Should there be a decision to extend the parliament mandate, then the bloc must boycott the session. The option to resign from parliament entirely would then be discussed.”
Hariri reportedly told MPs who wish to run for elections: “Every person who wants to run, believes they can win and has the financial, political and popular requirements to fight the electoral battle, can do whatever they want, but without using the name of Saad Hariri or the Future Movement.”
He added: “I will not provide cover for anyone and I do not want to be on anyone’s side.
“Make the alliances you believe serve you best, but you know who I do not want you to ally with.”
The bombing on Feb. 14, 2005, killed Rafik Hariri and Minister Bassem Fleihan and dozens of people who were in the Ain Al-Mraiseh area at the time.

Lebanon's National Library acts as a cultural refuge amid hard times
Maghie Ghali/The National/February 14/2022
The institution has reopened after major repairs and the restoration of 300,000 publications
Eighteen months on from the 2020 Beirut Port blast, which left thousands of buildings in ruin, The Lebanese National Library reopened its doors, following restoration of the Ottoman building complex it resides in.
Marked by an inauguration ceremony last week that was attended by Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Culture Minister Mohammad Mortada, a commemoration plaque in the library’s lobby was unveiled to celebrate what is hoped to be the last time the space will have to "reopen".
“We are here today again to witness and confirm that Beirut was and will remain the mother of poetry and a city that is not despairing,” Mikati said at the ceremony. “Despite all the challenges and political, economic and social concerns that surround us, literature and culture will have its place in the heart of this capital, as a living witness that Beirut will not die, and if it is ever destroyed under different circumstances, it will rise again to remain the beacon of the East.
“The port explosion on August 4, 2020 left tragedies and pains that have not yet healed, [and will not] before the full truth of what happened is known,” he said. “The National Library, where we meet today after the completion of its restoration work, was and will remain an oasis of hope that brings together the Lebanese and is one of the landmarks of culture, thought and science.”
The windows and interior fixtures were ripped apart during the blast, and most of the electronic equipment needed replacing. The work was funded by Qatar and the Aliph Foundation, which safeguards heritage in conflict areas around the world.
“Thankfully, the collection was saved due to its quick removal and transfer to the lower warehouses, in line with the library’s preventive preservation plan in the scenario of a catastrophic event,” Mortada tells The National. “The library has an amazing management team of 22 people who went above and beyond to extract the books from the rubble and were able to clean them up and store them safely until the library was ready again.”
Located in the Sanayeh area of Beirut, the library’s current home – a grand Ottoman-era complex built between 1905 and 1907 under the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II – was not its first.
The institution started as the personal collection of writer and scholar Viscount Philippe de Tarrazi, from his residence in 1919. On his recommendation, the government founded the Great Library of Beirut in 1922, located in the Prussian Deaconess School in downtown Beirut, upon which he donated his entire collection and began travelling to gather more books.
"Greater Lebanon was one year old when [Tarrazi] donated his rare collection to the library, which contained more than 20,000 books and about 3,000 manuscripts, thus forming the foundation of the National Library,” Mortada says. “It is the first official institution built with pure Lebanese hands, unlike many national institutions that were established by the French during the Mandate period.
“The knowledge content in this library grew year after year. Beirut at the time, until recently, was the printing press of the Orient and one of the few open to all cultures, old and new, and a place of debate, which led to a place of free expression that produced hundreds of publishing houses, thousands of books, theatres and exhibitions, a modernist literature movement, poetry and other fine arts; universities, forums, the media and the press,” he says. “The National Library was enriched by the effects of all this, until its shelves were stocked with innovations from everyone.”
By 1937, the library had moved into what is currently the parliament building in Nijmeh Square, where it flourished until the onset of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. In 1979, it closed down, having lost more than a thousand rare manuscripts to the fighting and the building becoming uninhabitable.
It wasn’t until 2005 that efforts to revive the library began again. Qatar donated $25 million to oversee the restoration of the current Sanayeh premises. Work began on restoring the 300,000 publications in the collection – a process that took almost two decades.
In December 2018, the library was officially reopened, but closed shortly after for maintenance that was unable to get off the ground owing to the country’s economic struggles, followed by the blast damage.
While the library may be functional once more – able to have 300 people at a time – there are still many details left to make it truly usable. Currently, plans for a library card have not been finalised and the country’s electricity shortages mean there are times it will have limited facilities.
“The library is open now but it won’t be able to provide the full role it should until the issues of electricity can be solved – likely a combination of state power, generators and hopefully renewable energy like solar panels,” Mortada says. “These things we have to take day by day until we can sort these matters. For now the library will be open every day, for as long as there is power, otherwise the computers to search for books etc won’t work.”
The deposit law created in 1924 by General Weygand means that any book published in Lebanon would give a copy to the library, too. Due to about 40 years of closure in total, the library will likely have gaps in its collection to fill. Mikati also called for the National Archives to be added for preservation and access for scholars or researchers.
“We are working to consolidate the role of the Ministry of Culture in protecting this history and handing it over to future generations in an active way," says Mortada.
“[We seek] to encourage in-kind exchange provided by libraries and various institutions, through partnership and co-operation, with a focus on supporting the knowledge economy, at a time when information has become the driving force of globalisation. We will be implementing the project of digitising the collection and publishing it virtually to make them available to all.
"In difficult times, culture remains a common refuge for all people, not to make them forget their reality, but to guide them to the intellectual rules and scientific mechanisms that can overcome it.”
Updated: February 14th 2022,

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 14-15/2022
Canada's Trudeau invokes emergency powers to quell protests
The Associated Press/15 February ,2022
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked emergency powers Monday to quell the protests by truck drivers and others who have paralyzed Ottawa and blocked border crossings in anger over the country’s COVID-19 restrictions. In invoking Canada's Emergencies Act, which gives the federal government broad powers to restore order, Trudeau ruled out using the military. He gave assurances the emergency measures “will be time-limited, geographically targeted, as well as reasonable and proportionate to the threats they are meant to address." “These blockades are illegal, and if you are still participating the time to go home is now,” Trudeau declared after meeting virtually with leaders of the country's provinces. For more than two weeks, hundreds and sometimes thousands of protesters in trucks and other vehicles have clogged the streets of Ottawa, the capital, and besieged Parliament Hill, railing against vaccine mandates for truckers and other COVID-19 precautions and condemning Trudeau’s Liberal government. Members of the self-styled Freedom Convoy have also blockaded various U.S.-Canadian border crossings, though the busiest and most important — the Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit — was reopened on Sunday after police arrested dozens of demonstrators and broke the nearly week-long siege that had disrupted auto production in both countries.
“This is the biggest, greatest, most severe test Trudeau has faced,” said Wesley Wark, a University of Ottawa professor and national security expert.
Invoking the Emergencies Act would allow the government to declare the Ottawa protest illegal and clear it out by such means as towing vehicles, Wark said. It would also enable the government to make greater use of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the federal police agency. One of the protest organizers in Ottawa vowed not to back down in the face of pressure from the government.
“There are no threats that will frighten us. We will hold the line,” Tamara Lich said. Cadalin Valcea, a truck driver from Montreal protesting for more than two weeks, said he will move move only if forced: “We want only one thing: to finish with this lockdown and these restrictions.”
Doug Ford, the Conservative premier of Ontario, which is Canada’s most populous province and includes Ottawa and Windsor, indicated support for the emergency action before the meeting with Trudeau, saying: “We need law and order. Our country is at risk now.” But at least three other provincial leaders — from Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan — warned the prime minister against taking emergency action, some of them cautioning that such a move could inflame an already dangerous situation.
“At this point, it would not help the social climate. There is a lot of pressure, and I think we have to be careful,” said Quebec Premier François Legault. “It wouldn’t help for the polarization.” The protests have drawn support from right-wing extremists and armed citizens in Canada, and have been cheered on in the U.S. by Fox News personalities and conservatives such as Donald Trump. Other conservatives pushed Trudeau to simply drop the pandemic mandates. “He’s got protests right around the country, and now he’s dropping in the polls, desperately trying to save his political career. The solution is staring him in the face,” said opposition Conservative lawmaker Pierre Poilievre, who is running for the party’s leadership. In other developments, the Mounties said they arrested 11 people at the blockaded border crossing at Coutts, Alberta, opposite Montana, after learning of a cache of guns and ammunition. Police said a small group within the protest was said to have a “willingness to use force against the police if any attempts were made to disrupt the blockade.” Authorities seized long guns, handguns, body armor and a large quantity of ammunition.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney also said protesters in a tractor and a heavy-duty truck tried to ram a police vehicle at Coutts on Sunday night and fled. He said some protesters want to “take this in a very dangerous and dark direction.”Over the past weeks, authorities have hesitated to move against the protesters. Local officials cited a lack of police manpower and fears of violence, while provincial and federal authorities disagreed over who had responsibility for quelling the unrest.
An earlier version of the Emergencies Act, called the War Measures Act, was used just once during peacetime, by Trudeau’s late father, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, to deal with a militant Quebec independence movement in 1970. Invoking emergency powers would be a signal to Canadians and allies like the United States and around the world “who are wondering what the hell has Canada been up to,” Wark said. The demonstrations have inspired similar convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands. U.S. authorities have said that truck convoys may be in the works in the United States.
Also Monday, Ontario’s premier announced that on March 1, the province will lift its requirement that people show proof of vaccination to get into restaurants, restaurants, gyms and sporting events. The surge of cases caused by the omicron variant has crested in Canada.
“Let me very clear: We are moving in this direction because it is safe to do so. Today’s announcement is not because of what’s happening in Ottawa or Windsor but despite it,” Ford said.
The Ambassador Bridge, which carries 25% of all trade between the two countries, reopened to traffic late Sunday night. The interruption forced General Motors, Ford, Toyota and other automakers to close plants or curtail production on both sides of the border.
The siege in Ottawa, about 470 miles (750 kilometers) away, has infuriated residents fed up with government inaction. They have complained of being harassed and intimidated by the protesters who have parked their rigs on the streets. “It’s stressful. I feel angry at what’s happening. This isn’t Canada. This does not represent us,” Colleen Sinclair, a counter-protester who lives in Ottawa. Many of Canada’s COVID-19 restrictions, such as mask rules and vaccine passports for getting into restaurants and theaters, are already falling away as the omicron surge levels off. Pandemic restrictions have been far stricter in Canada than in the U.S., but Canadians have largely supported them. The vast majority of Canadians are vaccinated, and the COVID-19 death rate is one-third that of the United States.

Israeli prime minister to make first visit to Bahrain on Monday
Reuters, Jerusalem/14 February ,2022
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will travel to Bahrain on Monday in the highest-level visit since the countries established relations under a 2020 US-sponsored deal based in part on shared worries about Iran.Bennett will meet with Bahraini Crown Prince and Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, his office said. “The leaders will discuss additional ways to strengthen bilateral ties... especially the advancement of diplomatic and economic issues, with an emphasis on technology and innovation,” it said in a statement. The two-day trip to Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s Gulf headquarters, comes amid heightened tensions after missile attacks on neighboring United Arab Emirates by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis. Israel also normalized ties with the UAE in 2020. Israel has stepped up cooperation with the Gulf states.Manama hosted Israel’s defense minister on February 2 and has said an Israeli military officer will be posted in Bahrain as part of an international coalition. On the commercial front, Israel has reported rising trade with Bahrain that reached $6.5 billion last year. There are direct flights between the countries.

Fire Extinguished at Iranian Military Base, No Casualties
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 14 February, 2022
A fire broke out at a military base in western Iran on Monday, according to media affiliated with the country's Supreme National Security Council. There were no casualties reported. "On Monday morning, a fire broke out in a stockroom where motor oil and other flammable materials were stored in one of the support bases of the Revolutionary Guards in the Mahidasht region of Kermanshah province, causing damage to an industrial shed," Nour news reported. According to Reuters, the fire was put out by rescuers, and teams have been dispatched to the support base to investigate the cause of the incident.

Iran Official: Nuclear Talks Harder as West 'Pretends' to Take Initiative
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 14 February, 2022
A senior Iranian security official said on Monday that progress in talks to salvage Iran's 2015 nuclear deal was becoming "more difficult" as Western powers only "pretended" to come up with initiatives. The indirect talks in Austria between Iran and the United States resumed last week after a 10-day break. Delegates have said the talks have made limited progress since they resumed in November after a five-month hiatus prompted by the election of hardline Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. "The work of Iranian negotiators towards progress is becoming more difficult every moment ... while Western parties 'pretend' to come up with initiatives to avoid their commitments," Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on Twitter. According to Reuters, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's envoy to the talks in Vienna, said on Twitter hours earlier: "Significant progress has been made in the course of negotiations."On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said there was still a long way to go before the 2015 deal could be revived. Iran's nuclear advances were curbed in exchange for the loosening of US and other economic sanctions. The agreement imposed restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities that extended the time Tehran would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it chose to, to at least a year from around two to three months. Most experts say that time is now shorter than when the deal was struck.  Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons. Then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, re-imposing punishing US sanctions on Iran's economy that slashed its vital oil exports. Iran responded by breaching many of the deal's restrictions and pushing well beyond them, enriching uranium to close to weapons-grade and using advanced centrifuges to do it, which has helped it hone its skills in operating those machines.

Iran Says Prisoner Swap with US on Agenda
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 14 February, 2022
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday that a prisoner swap with the United States was on the agenda in parallel with the nuclear talks in Vienna. "This issue is currently on the agenda in parallel with the Vienna talks.... But it seems that the US has not made a decision on it. Perhaps it is waiting for the results of the talks," said Saeed Khatibzadeh. On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said there was still a long way to go before the 2015 deal could be revived. Iran's nuclear advances were curbed in exchange for the loosening of US and other economic sanctions.

Leaked Audio Sheds Light on IRGC Corruption, Mobilizes Parliament
London - Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 14 February, 2022
Iranian lawmakers and local newspapers weighed in on the newly-leaked audio of top Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leaders discussing financial corruption and disputes between the top officials. Last Thursday, Farda Radio published a 50-minute audio file of a secret meeting between the former IRGC commander, Mohammed-Ali Jafari, and his economic affairs deputy Sadegh Zolghadr in 2018. The two officials discussed corruption cases involving IRGC's al-Quds Force and Cooperative Foundation. Fars Agency, affiliated with the IRGC, confirmed the leaked recording, saying it will release "more accurate information" on the case. Jafari chaired the IRGC for ten years before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued a decree appointing Hossein Salami in April 2019. Jafari and Zolghadr discussed the role of Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and the former mayor in the corruption case of Yas Holding Company, one of the most prominent companies of the Cooperative Foundation. The two officials also discussed the embezzlement of 8,000 billion tomans, which Jafari said embarrassed Qassim Soleimani, former chief of al-Quds Force, who was assassinated by the US in January 2020. The audio file also addressed the role of the Chief of the IRGC Intelligence Organization Hossein Taeb and IRGC Coordination Deputy Jamaloddin Aberoumand, Qalibaf's parliamentary assistant. Reformist Shargh newspaper quoted an unnamed informed source who said that the file was published three years ago by BBC Persian, adding that it is not a new issue and the persons involved in the case were brought before the court. The newspaper questioned whether the new audio was a "discovery" or a "leak" of information, referring to former leaks, including the audio of former Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif and file of former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili. Meanwhile, spokesman for the National Security and Foreign Policy parliamentary committee MP Mahmoud Abbaszadeh Meshkini said that the committee intends to discuss the audio. He told the ILNA news agency that "it is a bitter reality," but the authorities must accept that there is a leak, which is hard to determine, but not impossible. Meshkini said he heard the audio several times, but the "haters could not achieve what they wanted," adding that the enemy cannot harm the IRGC's popularity with this psychological war. Member of the Economic Committee MP Mojtaba Tavangar accused the foreign media of attacking the regime and people's security. "If some people try to use this audio file, they are inadvertently or deliberately spreading propaganda against the regime and completing the enemies' attack on IRGC," Tavangar told the state-run ISNA news agency. The MP admitted that transgressions are not surprising in any entity, but most importantly, they should be identified and treated, and offenders should be punished. The lawmaker called for a "decisive and frank review" of the case, saying a judgment was issued regarding the violations, still a large part of the allegations are false.

War, Peace, Stalemate? Week ahead May Decide Ukraine's Fate
Associated Press/February 14/2022
Even if a Russian invasion of Ukraine doesn't happen in the next few days, the crisis is reaching a critical inflection point with European stability and the future of East-West relations hanging in the balance. A convergence of events over the coming week could determine whether the stalemate is resolved peacefully or Europe is at war. At stake are Europe's post-Cold War security architecture and long-agreed limits on the deployment of conventional military and nuclear forces there."This next 10 days or so will be critical," said Ian Kelly, a retired career diplomat and former U.S. ambassador to Georgia who now teaches international relations at Northwestern University. The Biden administration on Friday said an invasion could happen at any moment, with a possible target date of Wednesday, according to intelligence picked up by the United States, and Washington was evacuating almost all of its embassy staff in Kyiv, Ukraine's capital. A phone call between President Joe Biden and Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Saturday did nothing to ease tensions. Biden and Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, spoke on Sunday. Even before the latest U.S. warnings and diplomatic moves, analysts saw this as a critical week for the future of Ukraine. "Russia and the United States are approaching a peak of the conflict of their interests regarding a future shape of the European order," Timofei Bordachev, said head of the Center for European Research at Moscow's Higher School of Economics. "The parties may take action against each other that will go much farther than what was considered admissible quite recently," he said in a recent analysis.
In the week ahead, Washington and NATO are expecting Moscow's formal response after they rejected its main security demands, and major Russian military drills in Belarus, conducted as part of a deployment near Ukraine, are to end. The fate of the Russian troops now in Belarus will be key to judging the Kremlin's intentions. At the same time, the Winter Olympics in China, often cited as a potential deterrent to immediate Russian action, will conclude Feb. 20. Although U.S. officials have said they believe an invasion could take place before then, the date is still considered important.
And an important international security conference is taking place in Munich next weekend, with Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and top European officials planning to attend. Putin has warned the West that he will not back down on his demand to keep Ukraine out of NATO. While Ukraine has long aspired to join, the alliance is not about to offer an invitation.
Still, he contends that if Ukraine becomes a member and tries to use force to reclaim the Crimean Peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, it would draw Russia and NATO into a conflict. His foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, has asked Western nations to explain how they interpret the principle of the "indivisibility of security" enshrined in international agreements they signed. The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday that it would not accept a collective response from the European Union and NATO, insisting on an individual response from each country.
Seeking to counter NATO's argument that every nation is free to choose alliances, Moscow has charged that NATO violated the principle and jeopardized Russia's security by expanding eastward. "Russia's bold demands and equally blunt U.S. rejection of them have pushed the international agenda toward the confrontation more than ever since the height of the Cold War," Bordachev said. He argued that closer relations with China have strengthened Moscow's hand. "Whatever goals Russia could pursue now, it can plan its future in conditions of a full rupture of ties with the West," Bordachev said. Russian officials have emphasized that negotiating a settlement over Ukraine depends squarely on the United States and that Western allies just march to Washington's orders. In the past, Russia had sought to build close contacts with France and Germany in the hope that friendly ties with Europe's biggest economies would help offset the U.S. pressure. But those ties were strained by the poisoning in 2020 of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who spent five months in Germany convalescing from what he described as a nerve agent attack he blamed on the Kremlin. Russia has denied its involvement.
More recently, Russian officials have criticized the position of France and Germany in the deadlocked peace talks on eastern Ukraine, holding them responsible for the failure to persuade Ukrainian authorities to grant broad self-rule to the Russia-backed separatist region, as required by a 2015 agreement. In a break with diplomatic rules, the Russian Foreign Ministry last fall published confidential letters that Lavrov exchanged with his French and German counterparts in a bid to prove their failure to help make progress in talks. Speaking after the latest fruitless round of those talks, Kremlin representative Dmitry Kozak bemoaned the failure by French and German envoys to persuade Ukraine to commit to a dialogue with the separatists, as the agreement stipulated. Despite the tensions with both Paris and Berlin, Putin spent more than five hours talking to French President Emmanuel Macron last Monday and will host German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday. Putin said he was grateful to Macron for trying to help negotiate a way to ease the tensions and said they would talk again. Moscow also just reopened a window for diplomatic contacts with Britain, hosting the foreign and defense secretaries for the first round of talks since ties were ruptured by the 2018 poisoning in Britain of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Lavrov's meeting with Liz Truss was frosty, but British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace's talks with Russia's defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, appeared more businesslike, with the parties emphasizing the need to maintain regular contact to reduce the threat of military incidents.

Iraqi top court bars Zebari's presidential bid over corruption charge
AP/The Arab Weekly/February 14/2022
Iraq's supreme court on Sunday ruled out a bid by veteran politician Hoshyar Zebari to run for president after a complaint filed against him over corruption charges. Zebari, 68, who served as foreign minister for a decade after the 2003 US-led invasion that the regime of former ruler Saddam Hussein, had already been suspended temporarily from the contest on February 6, the eve of the scheduled presidential vote in parliament. He was one of two frontrunner candidates. Postponement of that vote exacerbates war-scarred Iraq's political uncertainty because the president, a largely ceremonial post, however, names a prime minister from the largest bloc in parliament. Months after legislative elections, the head of government still has not been named, as pro-Iranian factions jockeyed to block the process. Following the court's decision, Zebari on Sunday protested what he called an "injustice" based on a political decision to keep him out of the race and stressed his innocence. "Our behaviour and good conduct are cleaner and purer than the snow on Iraq's highest summit," he told a news conference. Iraq's highest judicial body made its ruling after MPs submitted a complaint against Zebari. The complaint said his participation would have been "unconstitutional" because of the outstanding corruption charges, leaving him without the required "good reputation and integrity.""The federal court decided in its verdict to invalidate the candidacy of Hoshyar Zebari to the post of president of the republic," state news agency INA announced.
Controversial history
The February 7 voting session was not held due to lack of a quorum after several political blocs and parties announced boycotts, against the backdrop of competing claims to a parliamentary majority. Zebari was initially tipped as a favourite, along with incumbent President Barham Salih, out of a total of roughly 25 candidates. The complainants to the court cited Zebari's 2016 dismissal from the post of finance minister by parliament "over charges linked to financial and administrative corruption". Public funds worth $1.8 million were allegedly diverted to pay for airline tickets for his personal security detail. The complaint also cited at least two other judicial cases linked to Zebari. "I have not been convicted in any court," Zebari said in an earlier television interview, as the charges resurfaced on the eve of the scheduled parliamentary vote, alongside forecasts that he would unseat Salih for the four-year posting. On Tuesday, parliament announced the reopening of registration for presidential candidates, a post reserved for Iraq's Kurds. Zebari said Sunday that his movement, the Kurdistan Democratic Party which runs the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, does not for the moment have an alternative candidate. Controversially, Zebari was a keen supporter of Iraqi Kurdistan's ill-fated 2017 referendum on independence which sparked a crisis between Baghdad and the KDP, almost resulting in bloodshed between the two camps. In a separate decision the Federal Court said that President Barham Salih, who is also running for a second term, will continue in his position until a new president is elected. The court decision is a blow to populist Shia Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who was the biggest winner in the October parliamentary election. He had vowed to quickly push through a government that could exclude Iranian allies.
Sadr, along with the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) of which Zebari is a member and an alliance of Sunni Muslim lawmakers had supported Zebari's bid for president. The court's decision boosts the chances of the Iraqi incumbent being backed by Sadr for a new term in office. There is no major challenger for Barham Salih as president. The corruption allegations resurfaced after Zebari emerged as a strong contender and Sadr eventually appeared to withdraw his support, saying in a statement that any future president must "meet the conditions" to hold office.
Sadr had campaigned in the election on an anti-corruption platform. Iraqis are increasingly disillusioned with the political process, accusing almost all their politicians of corruption. Under Iraq's governing system in place since the post-Saddam Hussein constitution was adopted in 2005, the prime minister is a member of the Shia majority, the speaker is a Sunni and the largely ceremonial role of president is held by a Kurd. Iraqi politics have been in turmoil since general elections were held in October. The polls were marred by a record-low turnout, post-election threats and violence by pro-Iranian militias and a delay of months until final results were confirmed. Intense negotiations among political groups have since failed to form a majority parliamentary coalition to name a new prime minister to succeed Mustafa al-Kadhimi.

Dbeibah clings to power despite consensus between parliament and State Council to remove him
AP/The Arab Weekly/February 14/2022
Faced with a rapidly changing situation in Tripoli since the election by parliament, last Thursday, of former Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha as a new premier, Libyan interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah is trying to posture as the initiator of new moves to revive the political process, even though he is also sending signals he would not hesitate to deploy loyal militias against his rivals, analysts say. Dbeibah said on Saturday that he has a plan to hold legislative elections and a referendum on the constitution, the same day. But omitted any mention of presidential elections. Dbeibah was seen in the past as pushing for legislative elections that would elect a new parliament, which then would choose the country's president. The interim premier set February 17 as the date for the unveiling of a political plan for “the return of the mandate to the people”. He said, “The election train has started and will not stop except with an elected legitimate authority.”All during the proposed process, Dbeibah would stay in power, which many accuse him of exploiting to promote his personal interests and those of his entourage. The head of the Government of National Unity (GNU) asserted that "a political class has taken control of Libya during the past ten years and has taken over the money and the decision-making and they are the same faces that fight and then share the spoils." He described what happened in parliament during Thursday's session as an "absurdity marred by fraud and forgery led by a minority that seized control of the parliament through lack of transparency and integrity." According to analysts, Dbeibah's initiative aims to halt a political momentum led by the House of Representatives and the State Council (SC). Both bodies favour a change of premier as part of a process where Bashagha would form a new government and organise elections while pledging not to run himself. Analysts say that Dbeibah is well aware that his moves are probably doomed to failure, especially after SC head, Khaled el-Meshri, announced, Saturday, that he backs the change of government.
Meshri said a provision in last year's confidence vote in the government of interim prime minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah had "stipulated that its mandate would end at the latest on December 24, 2021", the date of the scheduled presidential ballot. Bashagha's designation Thursday replacing Dbeibah flowed from that text following a rare "consensus between parliament and the SC", Meshri added. An influential figure in western Libya, Meshri accused Dbeibah's government of "fuelling a campaign against the parliament and the SC." Dbeibah is seen as jockeying to stay in power despite the consensus that has emerged against him keeping the premiership. Many Libyans see Dbeibah as obstructing an historic opportunity to transcend the differences between eastern and western parts of the country under the authority of a single government led by Bashaga.
Observers do not rule out that Dbeibah could spark an armed confrontation in Tripoli against the armed groups affiliated with Fathi Bashaga, which would definitely dispel any illusions of him being a "peacemaker" in the country's fractured landscape. A convoy of fighters moved into Tripoli from the coastal city of Misrata on Saturday to shore up the interim prime minister. The convoy's arrival underscored the danger of renewed fighting in Libya as the crisis plays out, following mobilisations in recent weeks by armed factions backing different political sides. Saturday's convoy, comprising more than 100 vehicles, arrived after Dbeibah earlier on Saturday accused the parliament of being "responsible for all this bloodshed and chaos" in Libya over recent years. The parliament speaker, Aguila Saleh, has accused Dbeibah of corruption and of seeking to use his position for his own ends rather than to effect a meaningful transition. In the meanwhile, the UN chief's special adviser in Libya, Stephanie Williams, met separately with each rival prime minister on Sunday, urging them to preserve the country's fragile stability. Both men hail from the powerful western city of Misrata and are backed by rival armed groups in Tripoli. Libya has been ripped apart by a decade of regional, tribal and ideological violence since a 2011 NATO-backed revolt toppled and killed long time ruler Muammar Gadhafi.
Williams, who is de facto acting as the UN's envoy to Libya, Tweeted that she had met Dbeibah on Sunday to discuss the latest developments. "I reiterated the importance for all actors and institutions to work within the political framework and, above all, to preserve calm on the ground in the interest of Libya's unity and stability," she wrote. She also said the UN "remains committed to raising the voices of the 2.8 million Libyans who registered to vote". Williams also met Bashagha and "highlighted the need to go forward in an inclusive, transparent and consensual manner and to maintain stability in Tripoli and throughout the country", she said. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday he had "taken note" of the vote for Bashagha, urging all sides to preserve calm "as an absolute priority".

Turkish opposition strives to unite against Erdogan's 'one-man rule'
AP/The Arab Weekly/February 14/2022
The leaders of six opposition parties in Turkey have met to devise a strategy for the future of the country’s governing system, in a move that aims to unseat the country's long-time ruler. In a statement following the dinner Saturday night, the party leaders said Turkey was experiencing “the deepest political and economic crisis” of its history and blamed it on the executive presidential system. They said their joint goal was to transform Turkey’s governance into a “strengthened parliamentary system.”They did not mention President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by name but their clear aim is to find a way to work together to unseat him. After more than 11 years as Turkey's prime minister, Erdogan was elected president in 2014. At the time, the position was primarily ceremonial. But in 2017, Turkish voters approved an executive presidential system, greatly expanding Erdogan's powers at the expense of those of the prime minister and parliament. Erdogan was re-elected the following year. Critics call the system “one-man rule.”The leaders at the dinner were Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party; Meral Aksener from the nationalist Good Party; Temel Karamollaoglu from the conservative Felicity Party; Gultekin Uysal from the Democrat Party; Democracy and Progress Party’s Ali Babacan and Future Party’s Ahmet Davutoglu. They had previously conducted bilateral talks but Saturday's meeting was their first all together. They are expected to release details of their agreement on February 28.Davutoglu and Babacan were co-founders of Erdogan’s ruling party and served in top positions but broke away to form their own parties in criticism of Erdogan’s policies. The second-largest opposition party, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), was not at the meeting. The government has attacked that party and many of its members, including its former leaders, have been imprisoned over alleged links to outlawed Kurdish militants. Erdogan has also accused the Republican People’s Party of siding with “terrorists,” claims the party denies. The next parliamentary and presidential elections in Turkey are scheduled for June 2023.

Erdogan seeks better domestic standing with visit to UAE
AP/The Arab Weekly/February 14/2022
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in the United Arab Emirates Monday for the first time in nearly a decade, to revive relations that were long strained by regional disputes. Erdogan arrived in the capital Abu Dhabi, where he was greeted by Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, reported the official WAM news agency. Turkey and the oil-rich Emirates have backed opposing sides in the Libyan civil war and in a Gulf diplomatic crisis and they have sparred over issues such as gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean. But those tensions eased after Sheikh Mohammed, the de facto ruler of the UAE, travelled to Ankara in November, the first high-level visit to Turkey since 2012. That trip “marked the beginning of a new era in relations,” Erdogan told journalists at Istanbul airport before leaving for his two-day trip. The Turkish president’s visit to the UAE, meanwhile, is his first since 2013, when he was prime minister and it is his first as head of state. “We are planning to take steps that will bring relations back to the level they deserve,” Erdogan said, adding that Turkey-UAE dialogue and cooperation are “important to the peace and stability in our region.”“The timing of the rapprochement is not fortuitous," said Francesco Siccardi, Senior Programme Manager at Carnegie Europe, "Turkey is navigating one of its worst economic crises in over two decades and it is doing so when the country is relatively isolated from the West, following a series of assertive foreign policy moves in 2019 and 2020. Seen in this context, regional rivalries are becoming unsustainable." Siccardi added: “With parliamentary and presidential elections due in the next eighteen months, the Turkish president needs to right the economic ship if he wants to have a chance at reelection. New sources of hard currency and foreign direct investment are urgently needed and cash-surplus economies such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia can provide just that.”To greet Erdogan on his trip, which will take him to the Expo 2020 Dubai world fair on Tuesday, the host country was lighting up the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, in the colours of the Emirati and Turkish flags. Following Sheikh Mohammed’s visit in November, the UAE announced a $10 billion fund for investments in Turkey, where the economy has been reeling and inflation last month surged to a near 20-year high. During this week’s visit, Erdogan was expected to sign 12 agreements with UAE partners, ranging from media and communications to economic and defence deals, Turkish media reports said.
A new page
The Turkish president’s visit, “will open a new, positive page in bilateral relations,” said Anwar Gargash, adviser to the UAE president in a Tweet. Erdogan said in a weekend op-ed in the Emirati English-language daily Khaleej Times that “Turkey and the UAE together can contribute to regional peace, stability and prosperity. “As Turkey, we do not separate the security and stability of the UAE and our other brothers in the Gulf region from the security and stability of our own country. “We believe wholeheartedly in the importance of deepening our cooperation in this context in the future.”Turkey-UAE relations were particularly tense after Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain in 2017 cut all links with Qatar, a close ally of Ankara. Those relations were restored in January 2021. Erdogan has since last year sought to improve ties with regional rivals in the face of increasing diplomatic isolation that has caused foreign investment to dry up, particularly from the West. Last month he said he would visit Saudi Arabia in February, the first trip to Riyadh since relations soured over the 2018 murder of Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul. “To win a war, however, one needs allies," said Siccard, "That is why, in the course of 2021, Turkey’s tensions with former regional rivals progressively eased. Some countries, such as Egypt and Israel, have taken their time in responding to Turkey’s outreach.” He noted: “With Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the process is more advanced. In Ankara there is an expectation that, by mending ties with the two Gulf states, Turkey will replenish its foreign exchange reserves and attract some of the foreign direct investment it urgently needs.”
Cooperation
In the op-ed this weekend, Erdogan said Turkey also wanted to advance cooperation with the UAE on several fronts, including tackling “climate change, water and food security.”“I believe that both sides are eager to set new targets for further investment and cooperation,” he said, predicting benefits “at the regional level.” Turkey-UAE trade topped 26.4 billion dirhams ($7.2 billion) in the first half of 2021. The UAE hopes to double or triple trade volume with Turkey, which it sees as a route to new markets.
About 400 Emirati companies operate in Turkey, the UAE’s 11th largest trading partner, WAM said. Abdul Khaleq Abdallah, a political science professor in the UAE, Tweeted on Sunday that the two countries should aim to bolster a “strategic political partnership.”

Egyptian FM in Germany to Drum up Support for COP27
Cairo - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 14 February, 2022
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry headed Sunday to the German city of Bonn, where he will seek to drum up international support for the upcoming Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27) to be held in the city of Sharm El-Sheikh in November. Shoukry will visit the headquarters of the Executive Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). “Minister Shoukry is scheduled to visit the headquarters of the executive secretariat and hold meetings with its officials as part of the ongoing preparations for Egypt’s hosting of COP27,” said foreign ministry spokesperson Ahmed Hafez. As a representative of Africa, Egypt plans to discuss regional and African challenges in confronting climate change. Hafez said the November summit aims to build on the outcome of the Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) held in Glasgow, UK in October 2021. In a related development, Arab League Secretary-General Ahmad Aboul Gheit underscored Sunday the importance of pushing forward the sustainable development agenda for the year 2030 as the region recovers from the coronavirus pandemic. He spoke at the inauguration of the fourth edition of Arab week for sustainable development that is co-organized by the Egyptian Ministry of Planning, and Economic Development, the United Nations, the World Bank and the European Union. Arab League sources quoted Aboul Gheit as saying that Arab nations should benefit from events taking place in the region to support environmental issues and their interests .Two summits for the years 2022 and 2023 are scheduled in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates to tackle issues of climate change, nationalizing technology and providing financial resources to support climate adaptability projects.

Israeli Troops Kill Palestinian in West Bank Clashes
Associated Press/Monday, 14 February, 2022
Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian during clashes in the occupied West Bank late Sunday, hours after police fanned out in a tense east Jerusalem neighborhood trying to contain violence between ultranationalist Jewish activists and Palestinian residents. Early Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Akram Abu Salah, 17, died from a gunshot to his head. The clashes erupted after Israeli forces rolled into Silat al-Harithiya village near Jenin to destroy homes of two Palestinian detainees accused of opening fire at a car traveling near a West Bank settlement outpost and killing a settler in December. Earlier in Jerusalem, unrest took place in Sheikh Jarrah, a flashpoint neighborhood where clashes last year helped spark an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Dozens of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah and other east Jerusalem neighborhoods are at risk of eviction by Jewish settler organizations, and tensions between the sides often escalate to violence. The latest unrest erupted after a settler's home was torched over the weekend. Itamar Ben-Gvir, an ultranationalist lawmaker, responded to the fire by setting up a makeshift office early Sunday near the home of a family facing possible eviction. Palestinians moved in on Ben-Gvir's tent, throwing plastic chairs in the afternoon and scuffling with his supporters. Late Sunday, riot police sprayed putrid-smelling water to break up Palestinian protests. One video on social media showed an Israeli policeman kicking a young Palestinian man. Police reported at least 12 arrests. The Palestinian Red Crescent medical service said 14 Palestinians were wounded, including four people shot with rubber bullets. Explosions from stun grenades used by police to disperse crowds could be heard during the evening. Ben-Gvir, a follower of a radical rabbi who called for the expulsion of Arabs from Israel, accused police of using "extreme brutality" against his followers. He said he would spend the night in the area "so they will learn."In addition to the threatened evictions, thousands of Palestinians live in homes in east Jerusalem that face the threat of demolition because of discriminatory policies that make it extremely difficult for Palestinians to build new homes or expand existing ones. Threatened evictions, tied up in decades-old battles between Palestinian residents and Jewish settlers, set off protests and clashes last May that helped ignite the Gaza war. Israel captured east Jerusalem, along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. It later annexed east Jerusalem, home to the city's most sensitive holy sites, in a move that is not recognized by the international community. Israel considers the entire city to be its capital, while the Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. The city's fate is one of the most divisive issues in the century-old conflict.

Saudi Sees Cyprus as Bridge between Europe, Middle East
Associated Press/Monday, 14 February, 2022
Saudi Arabia views Cyprus as a "bridge" between the Middle East and the European Union, helping the 27-nation bloc "understand what's going on" in the region, the Saudi foreign minister has said. Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, speaking after talks with his Cypriot counterpart Ioannis Kasoulides, said that Cyprus helps "really focus the attention" on all the opportunities and challenges in the Middle East. Cyprus has ramped up its outreach to Gulf states in recent years to act as a broker as the closest EU-member country to the region. The Saudi top diplomat said both his country and Cyprus have a "very, very strong alignment" regarding regional stability and terrorism "whether it is (Yemen's) Houthis or others." He said both countries agree in the primacy of international law. "If we do not all agree that international law is the primary guide of state relations, we risk the instability for all," Al Saud said. "I think it's important that we all stand together to defend the primacy of international law or state sovereignty, a rejection of interventionism of all sorts." A coalition led by the Saudis entered Yemen's civil war in 2015 to try and restore the country's internationally recognized government, which had been ousted by the Iran-backed Houthis the year before. The conflict has turned into the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with international criticism of Saudi airstrikes that have killed hundreds of civilians and targeted the country's infrastructure. The Houthis, meanwhile, have used child soldiers and indiscriminately laid landmines across the country. Some 130,000 people, including over 13,000 civilians, have been killed in the Yemen conflict, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Project.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 14-15/2022
Bahrain chooses alignment with Israel over submission to Iran
Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Washington Examinar/ February 14/ 2022
Since the announcement of the Abraham Accords in August 2020, ties between Bahrain and Israel have grown steadily, reaching a milestone last week when an Israeli military aircraft, carrying Defense Minister Benny Gantz, touched down in Manama. It was the first Israeli military plane to fly over Saudi Arabia and land in a Gulf country.
Bahrain has long suffered from Iranian bullying. In 2007, Hussain Shariaatmadari, an aide to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, wrote that Bahrain was once a Persian province that Western powers unlawfully separated from Iran. In 2017, the state-owned daily Iran reiterated this claim, asserting that until 1956 Bahrain had been Iranian, with a 70% Persian-speaking Shiite population. In other words, Bahrain belongs to Iran, and its independence is not acceptable.
Neither history nor demographics supports Tehran’s claims. Today, the majority of Iranians who live on the east bank of the Persian Gulf, under Iranian sovereignty, are ethnic Arab citizens of Iran who suffer under immense discrimination and a policy of Persianization.
An island nation that could just about fit inside the Washington Beltway, Bahrain needs allies. Now it has found in military cooperation with Israel a good way to deter Tehran. Close ties to the Jewish state were once unthinkable for the Arab Gulf monarchies, but Iran has kept up its threats despite mounting evidence that it is driving its adversaries closer together.
In Bahrain, the Israeli defense minister met with top officials, including King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa and Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al Khalifa. Gantz also signed a memorandum of military cooperation with his Bahraini counterpart Abdullah al Nuaimi.
The memorandum accorded the Israeli navy basing rights in Bahrain, also home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, according to Israeli media reports. David Salama, the Israeli navy chief, implicitly substantiated such reports when he said that cooperation with Bahrain “will bring safe passageway and a secure maritime area for the State of Israel [like it does] for our partners in the U.S. Central Command.”
Cognizant that military cooperation between Bahrain and Israel will make Iranian bullying harder, Tehran-funded media threatened Manama, citing an attack that pro-Iranian militia launched on an alleged Mossad office in Iraqi Kurdistan. State-backed outlets quoted Israeli reports about the basing agreement, while pundits argued that the real added value to Israeli military power would be Bahrain’s proximity to Iran. “Israel will use Bahrain as a platform to conduct its intel operations” directed against Islamist Iran, an analyst wrote.
Only 170 nautical miles separate Bahrain’s Sitra port from the Iranian docks of Bushehr.
Inside Bahrain, parties sponsored by Tehran sent their supporters to the streets to protest Gantz’s visit. Pictures of the protest showed less than two dozen young men carrying placards that read: “Death to Israel. Death to America.” Other signs showed a drawing of the “sword of Imam Ali,” affirming that protesters were Shiite Islamists loyal to the Iranian regime.
Bahrain’s Sunnis, however, took a different approach. While Bahraini Salafists did not praise military cooperation between their country and Israel, they signaled their support for the country’s leadership. Many of them took to social media to congratulate their national army on its annual day of recognition, which fell on the day following Gantz’s visit.
Other Bahraini Salafists were busy raising awareness and funds to support Syrian refugees suffering from a brutal winter in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey.
In deepening its alliance with Israel, Bahrain has not been alone. Tehran’s proxies in Yemen fired Iranian ballistic missiles last month at both civilian and military targets in the United Arab Emirates. Iran’s hostility since the signing of the Abraham Accords has only affirmed the pact’s value. After deploying its third in line to reason with top officials in Tehran in December, the UAE has since received Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and President Isaac Herzog. After his meeting with Herzog late last month, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed said they discussed their “common view of the threats to regional stability and peace, particularly those posed by militias and terrorist forces,” and the UAE and Israel’s “shared understanding of the importance of taking a firm stance against them.”
For Islamist Iran, all the bullying of Bahrain and the missile strikes at the UAE might have been designed to convince these Gulf nations that their only safety comes from bowing to Tehran’s hegemony. But Iranian behavior has actually pushed Manama and Abu Dhabi in the opposite direction. The only way to deal with Tehran, they have become convinced, is by sticking to an alignment with militarily strong nations such as the United States and Israel.
While a common front against Iran might have brought Gulf countries and Israel closer together militarily, this is not a cold peace like the one Israel has had for decades with Egypt and Jordan. Israel’s trade with the UAE has already reached high levels, while normalization with Israel at cultural and social levels is happening fast in both the UAE and Bahrain.
Iran’s policies seem to have backfired. Gantz’s visit to Manama was only the tip of the iceberg.
*Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @hahussain.

Russia Driving Sweden and Finland into the Arms of NATO
Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/February 14, 2022
In response to the mounting tension with Russia, Sweden has been boosting its military preparedness and has sent soldiers and heavy military equipment to its largest island, Gotland, strategically located in the Baltic Sea, just 330 kilometers from Kaliningrad, the headquarters of Russia's Baltic Fleet... Sweden has been observing a deteriorating security environment in recent years with repeated Russian incursions into Swedish airspace and territorial waters.
Unlike Sweden, Finland, which shares a long land border with Russia, never stopped investing in its defense capabilities. It recently ordered 64 F-35 fighters, at a value of $9.5 billion, to replace its existing and ageing combat jets. According to Finland's former Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, Finland "can mobilize a reserve of 280,000 trained soldiers, which no other country in Europe can do."
In a meeting with Sweden and Finland on January 24 about the worsening security situation in Europe, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg invited the two countries to join NATO, stressing that each country has the right to choose its own military alliances.
Denmark is deploying four air force fighter jets to the Baltic states and a Danish Navy frigate will most likely be patrolling the Baltic Sea, as a contribution to NATO's patrolling in the region. This is "a very clear signal to Russia," Danish Defense Minister Trine Bramsen said.
In response to the mounting tension with Russia, Sweden has been boosting its military preparedness and has sent soldiers and heavy military equipment to its largest island, Gotland, strategically located in the Baltic Sea, just 330 kilometers from Kaliningrad, the headquarters of Russia's Baltic Fleet. Pictured: Swedish Soldiers patrol in Visby harbor, in Gotland on January 13, 2022. (Photo by Karl Melander/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images)
Russia's military buildup on the borders of Ukraine and its sweeping ultimatums to NATO on halting further expansion and rolling back its engagement on NATO's eastern flank is also causing tension in northern Europe. Russia has threatened that if Finland and Sweden -- which are not members of NATO but enjoy close ties with the transatlantic organization -- join the alliance, it "would have serious military and political consequences that would require an adequate response from the Russian side."
In response to the mounting tension with Russia, Sweden has been boosting its military preparedness and has sent soldiers and heavy military equipment to its largest island, Gotland, strategically located in the Baltic Sea, just 330 kilometers from Kaliningrad, the headquarters of Russia's Baltic Fleet. Swedish troops are now patrolling the streets of Visby, including its harbor and airport. Sweden has been observing a deteriorating security environment in recent years with repeated Russian incursions into Swedish airspace and territorial waters.
Most recently, Sweden has been experiencing an influx of large military-style drones hovering over its nuclear and power plants, royal castles and military areas. According to the Swedish Security Service (Säpo), the drones were suspected of "grave unauthorised dealing with secret information." Drones have also been observed around the parliament and government buildings, as well as the royal palace in Stockholm, and near the Kiruna and Luleå airports in the north of the country. On January 30, authorities arrested a Russian man who was flying a drone near one of the Swedish royal family's castles. The man claimed he was a tourist.
In 2019, Sweden, after realizing that it lacked crucial military capabilities and would be unable to defend itself against a Russian offensive, decided to increase its military spending by around 40%, with an increase in the military budget of 27.5 billion Swedish crowns ($3.10 billion) by 2025.
"Nothing can be ruled out in this situation. It may end in a total invasion with the risks of invading one of Europe's largest countries, but I think it is out of the question that nothing will happen," head of the Swedish Defence Forces, Micael Bydén, said. "The only question is what happens."
Lieutenant General Michael Claesson, Chief of Joint Operations of the Swedish Army, told Reuters that the army had recently noted an expansion of foreign offensive capability near Sweden. "... Russian landing ships are an example of such offensive capability," Claesson said. "They have passed through (Denmark's) Great Belt strait and continued into the Baltic Sea."
Unlike Sweden, Finland, which shares a long land border with Russia, never stopped investing in its defense capabilities. It recently ordered 64 F-35 fighters, at a value of $9.5 billion, to replace its existing and ageing combat jets. According to Finland's former Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, Finland "can mobilize a reserve of 280,000 trained soldiers, which no other country in Europe can do."
In a meeting with Sweden and Finland on January 24 about the worsening security situation in Europe, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg invited the two countries to join NATO, stressing that each country has the right to choose its own military alliances:
"NATO's door remains open. While NATO cooperates closely with Finland and Sweden, we fully respect your strong and independent security policies. It is for Finland and Sweden alone to decide on your path. Not Russia. Not anyone else. Sovereign nations have the right to self-determination."
Finland has made it very clear that it reserves the option to join NATO. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto reacted forcefully to Russia's threats by saying:
"Finland's room to maneuver and freedom of choice also include the possibility of military alignment and of applying for NATO membership should we ourselves so decide."
Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin shares Niinisto's sentiment, but has also said that she does not foresee a NATO application from Finland during her term, which ends in April 2023.
Russia, ironically, could end up pushing both Finland and Sweden towards NATO membership in the longer term. The Russian threats are forcing the countries to rethink their neutrality and spurring new debates about membership. One Finnish MP said that the country was now "closer than it has ever been" to applying for NATO membership and, for the first time, opposition to NATO membership has dropped to a record low. More than a quarter of Finns (28%) are now for NATO membership with 42% against, according to a recent survey, and the share of those who are uncertain at 30%. In the past, opposition to membership of NATO has been as high as 68% among Finns. Respondents were also asked on their position if Sweden were to join NATO, which caused respondents in favor of membership to rise to 38% and opposition to fall to 39%.
"We have been forming ever-closer cooperation agreements not only with NATO, but also the United Kingdom and the United States," said Elina Valtonen, vice-chair of Finland's opposition National Coalition Party, adding that joining NATO was "a natural step."
In Sweden, opposition to joining NATO is also at an all-time low, with 37% of respondents in favor of NATO membership and 35% against, according to a recent survey. In 2017, by contrast, 32% said yes to NATO, while 43% opposed it. Furthermore, Sweden, until now, has not had a NATO "option" as part of its declared foreign policy, but there is now a majority of parties in the Swedish parliament that want, as part of Sweden's foreign policy, to declare a "NATO option", similar to that of Finland. It is a marked departure from the past, when neutrality was paramount.
Not only are Sweden and Finland perceiving Russia to be the biggest threat in northern Europe. The Danish Defense Intelligence Service, in its most recent security assessment, concluded that Russia is one of the biggest threats to Denmark's security, especially Russian offensive intelligence operations and cyber espionage activities. Denmark, unlike Sweden and Finland, is a member of NATO.
"Russia is very concerned about Denmark by virtue of our geographical location and our membership in NATO. It is clear that the situation in the Baltic Sea, where there is a high level of military exercises, of course, raises concerns," said intelligence chief Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen. Denmark is deploying four air force fighter jets to the Baltic states and a Danish Navy frigate will most likely be patrolling the Baltic Sea, as a contribution to NATO's patrolling in the region. This is "a very clear signal to Russia," Danish Defense Minister Trine Bramsen said.
*Judith Bergman, a columnist, lawyer and political analyst, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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If Israel strikes Iran, what happens next?
Adam Hoffman/Jerusalem Post/February 14/2022
Nuclear deal talks are entering into their final stage in Vienna.
As negotiations between the world powers and Iran in Vienna continue and reportedly enter their “final stage,” many in the Middle East – but also in Washington and European capitals – hold their breath to see if a return to a nuclear deal with Iran is possible.
Israel is also closely following developments in Vienna. Accepting the fact that some agreement with Iran is almost certainly on the way, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett recently said that “the agreement and what appears to be its conditions will damage the ability to take on [Iran’s] nuclear program.”
Yet, if the talks in Vienna fail to produce an agreement and Iran is free to pursue its nuclear program (in addition to its existing malign regional activities, including against Israeli targets), the prospects for an Israeli strike against Iran become much higher.
Worrying that a deal with Iran won’t be able to stop the country from developing a nuclear weapon, Israel already signaled its readiness to strike Iran. Bennett stated that “Israel will continue to ensure its full freedom of operation in any place and at any time, with no limitations,” and incoming IAF commander Maj.-Gen. Tomer Bar said that the Israel Air Force is ready to attack Iran “tomorrow.”
If Israel does indeed attack Iran, as Israeli officials have increasingly implied might happen, what impact would it have on the Middle East? How would the region be any different after such a development?
These questions may be hypothetical now, but they could very well turn out to be reality tomorrow.
To explore how an Israeli strike would impact the region’s stability, the simulation focused on the five actors that were considered the most significant in the Gulf region: Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United States, China and Russia. The simulation included 31 experts from 13 countries and focused on three scenarios: a successful Israeli strike on Iran, a failed strike, and a partially successful strike.
Discussions in the simulation produced a few key insights, which observers of developments in the region may want to keep in mind as they try to make sense of the Middle East in the next few years.
First, the experts argued that in the years after an Israeli military strike (regardless of its results), the Middle East will enter the nuclear proliferation phase, which will include not only Israel but also Iran and possibly Saudi Arabia. An Israeli strike will embolden the Iran regime’s desire to have a nuclear weapon, viewing it – much like North Korea – as a guarantee against future attacks.
For its part, fearing an Iranian nuclear retaliation against it, Saudi Arabia will also seek to develop its own nuclear program. This is based on the participants’ assessment that a failed Israeli strike would drive the Saudi leadership to move forward as quickly as possible with its own nuclear program. A successful strike could serve as a catalyst to the Saudi nuclear program, encouraging Saudi decision-makers to leverage the attack and to catch up with the Iranian nuclear program.
How would an Israeli strike against Iran impact Israel?
A successful strike could lead to a Saudi-Israeli normalization. Some of the experts argued that a successful Israeli strike might cause Mohammed bin Salman, as king, to normalize relations with Israel, in the expectation that the entrenched anti-Iranian sentiment in Saudi Arabia would outweigh any backlash against normalization.
However, a failed strike could have a negative effect on Israel’s regional position, as Israel was perceived until then as a strong partner to the Gulf states on security affairs and a critical partner for confronting Iran. The experts assessed that if Israel failed to deliver on confronting Iran by failing to destroy its nuclear facilities, Saudi Arabia would be less inclined to engage with it.
While a nuclear deal between the US, other world powers and Iran seems almost certain at this point, the stakes for an unchecked nuclear Iran are higher than ever.
If Israel feels compelled to act alone to stop a nuclear Iran, a completely different geopolitical reality could emerge in the Middle East.
A simulation examining what happens when Israel strikes Iran, featuring some of the world’s top Iran and Middle East experts, gives us a look at the year after such a development.
Such a strike would impact Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China and the United States – but also Israel’s regional position.
The writer is Head of the Middle East desk at Wikistrat, a crowdsourced consultancy.

Putin in the 'Mother of All Battles'
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/February 14/ 2022
He stood alone at night before the map. The decisive appointment is not made by voters. It is an appointment by the spirit of the nation that is awaiting a strong man on whom it can hang its concerns and hopes. A long deep history has charged him with an important task that he will not hesitate in fulfilling.
This is a decisive year in his career. He looks at the clock on the wall. If only he could pause it. He will turn 70 before the end of the year.
He gazes at the map. The former borders of the Soviet Union are a festering wound in his memory. The vast country died and inheritors clamored to divide the spoils. They are unlucky. Russia has summoned and ordered him to prepare for the major coup. Russia has throughout history lived amidst the dangers. It battled and was battled. It fought and was fought and killed. It is in a better position now. The Persians whom Russia waged several wars with dispatched their president a few weeks ago. He sat at the same chair that the president of the Elysee would later occupy. Raisi came to request the deepening of cooperation after he became certain - like several others - that Russia is no longer the sick man. Raisi is aware that his country was on verge of losing the "crescent" had Russia not rushed to send its military to save president Bashar Assad's regime.
The Ottomans, who fought Russia in ten wars, have sent their president several times to Russia after they became neighbors on Syrian territory. Recep Tayyip Erdogan not only sought to appease it, but he went further than that. He bought the S-400 system and effectively deployed it in NATO.
He gazes at the map. Europe was always the source of poisonous winds. Napoleon subjugated his neighbors and was deluded in believing that he could crown his victories by subjugating Russia. Hitler did not derive lessons from Napoleon's defeat and he waged a battle that was suicide for his rule and country. Europe is an old continent, but the American shadow guards it and pushes it to play harmful roles in containing Russia through colorful revolutions or abiding by NATO laws. He smiles. Europe is not the problem. It has grown old and haggard. Without Russian gas, it will be killed by the cold. It is the American thread alone that guards its example, awakens its will and revives its stubbornness.
He has stifled his feelings long enough and concealed his calculations. He will not accept anything less than closing the chapter on America as the world's greatest power that was born with the fall of the Berlin Wall and that danced on the Soviet Union's corpse. He smiles mockingly. The sun of the single major world power will set at his hands, not Xi Jinping's.
There are scenes that he will not allow to be replayed. The American war machine crushed the Taliban regime. The system of fighters who were trained by America forced the Red Army to withdraw weakened from that treacherous country. He remembers it well. He was in his Kremlin office when George Bush appeared from the White House to deliver Saddam Hussein and his family an ultimatum to withdraw within 48 hours or face war. He watched on television how the American forces crushed the Soviet weapons that Saddam depended on.
He was prime minister when the NATO pounded Gaddafi's convoys and their Soviet weapons. He will not allow such scenes to play out again. He will not allow Russia to stand helpless on the sidelines as a second rate power. He will never ever allow a repeat of the humiliating scene in Moscow's Arbat Street. The scene of piles of Soviet military uniforms and their medals being sold for a handful of dollars to tourists and gloaters.
He looks at the clock. The West is afraid. It does not have the desire for war. It plays the same tune of "dire consequences" and "heavy price to pay". He laughs. When fear invades a country, it may spare you the hassle of sending an army to it. Here we have the West that has turned into a captive of the Ukrainian trap. Intimidation helps you turn a neighboring country into a hostage and helps you dictate your conditions to release it.
Forcing NATO to abandon its dream of expansion is the beginning of forcing it to make do with the positions it gained when Russia was buried under the Soviet rubble. By taking hostages, you can guide major countries into small cages because they fear for the lives of their citizens. The West today is confined in the Ukrainian cage.
His advisors relayed to him the western comments. This one says his is playing Russian roulette. That one says that backing down is fraught with danger, as was appeasing Hitler. Some claim that he has become detached from reality and that his game may bloody both the world and his country.
The czar disdains his rivals and sometimes his allies. It is not true that he is reckless. The recapture of Crimea was a successful test. As was the experiment of military intervention in Syria. He recalls how Barack Obama warned of red lines in Syria and how Sergei Lavrov succeeded in deceiving Washington. Biden, who is cut from the Obama cloth, will not be able to draw a red line on the Russian-Ukrainian border.
Revenge is fun when you are strong. They are abandoning Ukraine. One country withdraws its diplomats and another pulls out its military advisors. It is the time to flee Ukraine. He thinks about the president in Kyiv. A director and an actor. He never imagined that he would be confronted with such a harsh and precise Russian series. He was already living in the mysterious and strict world of the KGB when Volodymyr Zelensky was born.
The battle is decisive. Sitting on his table is his image and another of his country. How hard it is to turn back. He is counting on the Americans' preoccupation with the "Chinese danger". He is counting on the Europeans' fear of rockets and the rumbling of tanks. He will not back down despite the western visits and calls with the US president. The purpose of the major coup is to convince the world that America has lost its bite. That is why he made sure to showcase to the world the Chinese-Russian alliance before pushing the Ukrainian crisis to its climax.
It is a new chapter in the world. If Putin succeeds in turning Ukraine into the new Finland, then why should China continue to keep independent Taiwan as a thorn in its side? If he succeeds in his major coup, then what will the beloved North Korean leader conclude? If the mighty has the right to dictate his choices to his neighbors, then what will Iran, Turkey and all countries, which believe they are being unjustly confined in their current borders, conclude?

Biden’s White House Makes a Telling Mistake
Jonathan Bernstein/Bloomberg/February 14/ 2022
President Joe Biden’s White House usually gets the nuts and bolts of the presidency right. Recently, one example of getting it very wrong was in the news, and it’s worth considering what lessons it holds. The story: White House science adviser Eric Lander, who had cabinet status, resigned after Politico reported on an internal investigation that found he had bullied and mistreated staffers.
A lot of things went wrong. Lander shouldn’t have been nominated to begin with; he drew bipartisan criticism before even being confirmed. Biden himself didn’t help when he publicly pledged to fire any staffer who treated a colleague disrespectfully “on the spot — no if, ands or buts.” A great sentiment, but it set an unrealistic standard that the administration wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, have lived with. Of course they would want to have a process of investigating any allegations of misconduct, but any reasonable system would fall short of Biden’s boast. In the event, the White House apparently investigated Lander’s actions and then failed to act until Politico broke the news. At least things moved rapidly once the story went public, although even then Lander was allowed to resign, rather than be fired. All in all, the episode was hardly the administration’s brightest moment.
The lesson, however, is the opposite of what you might think. It’s evidence in favor of, rather than against, the idea that the government does too much vetting for administration posts. Yes, a bad pick does some damage. In this case? Presumably Lander wasn’t very good at his job while he had it, which has costs, and so does the need to fill another vacancy this quickly.
But intrusive vetting has real costs as well. A lot of people simply aren’t willing to go through the trouble of disclosing all the information needed for Senate confirmation. Especially people with complicated finances or a checkered life history. Yes, for some highly sensitive positions, a thorough vetting is probably a good idea. But most of the hundreds of administration posts that require confirmation (and the even more numerous positions that don’t) aren’t really that sensitive.
So intense vetting reduces the candidate pool, and increases the resources need to fill each position — including calendar time, which is a fixed and limited resource for any presidency.
Yes, reduced background checks would mean more mistakes. More nominees would run into trouble in their confirmation hearings. More would have some embarrassing past episode revealed after taking office, and perhaps need to resign. More might misbehave in various ways. Those are real costs. But as the Lander situation shows, the costs in most cases just wouldn’t be all that high. And one key cost — dealing with the subsequent vacancy after a failed nomination or a fired official — would be a lot lower if nominating people was easier.
The truth is that presidents, their staffs and senators (who are a big part of the problem, since they insist on extensive disclosure) are all being overly risk-averse. It’s understandable; no one wants to be the one who failed to disqualify the bully from office. But in doing so, they’re massively overstating one set of risks, and undervaluing the damage done in trying to avoid those risks. And by the way? It doesn’t even work all that well. As Lander has quite painfully demonstrated.

Tobacco lobby cynically undermines Middle East health policy
Jonathan Gornall/The Arab Weekly/February 14/2022
What we are really good at, however, is self-deception.
Take smoking. By now, just about everyone must surely know that tobacco is extremely bad for us in all kinds of horrible ways, yet every day millions of smokers and shisha fans ignore the very real risk that their habit will kill them.
They are taking a 50-50 gamble. Tobacco kills about half of its users.
Every year, according to the World Health Organization, smoking prematurely ends the lives of about eight million people.
Tobacco, it turns out, is an even more effective way of killing off human beings than war. In the 20th century, conflict, including the two world wars, killed 72 million people. Tobacco killed 100 million.
And the death is only half of it; the path to a tobacco-induced death is often a long, painful and distressing journey of suffering for the dying and their loved ones. Given all that and the vast cost to health systems around the world, you would have thought that governments everywhere would be doing all they could to slay the tobacco dragon. Think again.
As it is being increasingly driven out of markets in Europe and North America, the tobacco industry is maintaining and even increasing, its profits by targeting countries in the Middle East and doing so often with the collaboration of governments.
It is no coincidence that, according to the World Health Organization, more than 80 percent of the world’s 1.3 billion tobacco users now live in low- and middle-income countries.
In a devil’s deal struck in exchange for highly lucrative tax incomes, nations throughout the Middle East and North Africa are actively encouraging and, in some cases, even rewarding the growth of the world’s deadliest industry.
A report published this week by the Global Centre for Good Governance in Tobacco Control in collaboration with the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office exposed industry interference with tobacco control policies in eight countries, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan and Sudan. “Every time we trace the lack of progress in any aspect of tobacco control in individual countries or collectively in the East Mediterranean Region,” commented Dr. Jawad Al Lawati, a tobacco-control advocate in Oman’s health ministry, “we find the tobacco industry, its local distributors or front groups and individuals are behind it.”
Oman, it has to be said, emerges well from the Industry Interference Index 2021 report, banning industry representatives from public-health policy committees, offering tobacco companies no business incentives and refusing to enter into industry partnerships.
Oman is an exception, even though all eight countries in the report are parties to the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which in theory commits them to implement tobacco control measures and “protect their health policies from interference from commercial and other vested interest.”In Sudan and Iraq, for example, the industry “has found a way to participate in developing the standards for tobacco products,” with representatives sitting on various official committees.
In Jordan in 2018, a new factory built by international tobacco company JTI was given an Environmental Stewardship Award by the Jordanian environment ministry.
In Egypt, where international tobacco giant Philip Morris runs training courses for customs officials to combat smuggling that might undercut its market, the company was presented with a certificate of appreciation by the finance ministry for paying its taxes on time. The tobacco industry has long sought to gain leverage and improve its reputation through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, a tactic it perfected in America and Europe as awareness grew about the dangers of tobacco.
Cynically, having been rumbled in the West, it is now at the same game in the region and in various initiatives in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Pakistan, has even exploited the COVID-19 pandemic “to gain public endorsement and access senior government officials.”Perhaps the worst example of cynical CSR was in Iraq in 2020, when “the Ministry of Trade distributed locally produced Somar brand cigarettes together with the items of the free food ration program distributed as an assistance to poor families.”
Official conflicts of interest, meanwhile, are rife, but perhaps the most brazen is the fact that several countries, including Egypt (Eastern Tobacco Company) and Lebanon (Regie), have state-owned tobacco companies.
Governments are, quite literally, profiting from the death of the citizens they are supposed to be protecting. According to the American Cancer Society’s annual Tobacco Atlas, in the eight countries featured in the WHO’s Industry Interference Index, more than 360,000 people die of tobacco-related diseases every year. In the time of COVID, we have become used to reading about unspeakably high death tolls. To date, over 5.7 million lives have been lost to the coronavirus that emerged in China in December 2019.
The greater risk we are ignoring, however, is that each and every year the tobacco pandemic, against which the only vaccination is education and determined public-health policies, kills millions of people.
The result is the extraordinary and shameful spectacle of governments doing their best to end the curse of COVID-19, while on the other hand blithely encouraging the growth of the even more lethal pandemic of tobacco.