English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For 12 July/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 15/10-20/:”Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, ‘Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.’ Then the disciples approached and said to him, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees took offence when they heard what you said?’He answered, ‘Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.’ But Peter said to him, ‘Explain this parable to us.’Then he said, ‘Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.

Titels For English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 11-12/2022
Saudi dissident “Manea Al-Yami”, Killed in Lebanon; his brothers detained
Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Rejects ‘Manipulation’ of Presidential Vote
Lebanon Telecoms Mark-up Threatens Migrants' Link to Jobs and Safety
Firefighters battle massive fire in Roumieh
Corona - MoPH: 691 new Corona cases, 2 deaths
Ambassador Collard: Farewell Lebanon
Lay your Cards on the Table/Charles Elias Chartouni/Face Book/July 11/2022

Titles For Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 11-12/2022
In Mideast, Biden struggling to shift policy after Trump
Israeli PM calls for Saudi relations ahead of Biden visit
IRGC Member Killed Under Unclear Circumstances
Dissident Iranian Film-Maker Jafar Panahi Arrested
Iran Defends ‘Legitimacy’ of Enriching Uranium to 20% at Fordow
Family of Belgian held in Iran pleas for his release
Jordan has key observations on Iran's handling of some issues in the Middle East: PM
Growing Israeli West Bank Settlements Test US Position Ahead of Biden Visit
With Biden, Palestinians Seeking Freedom Get Permits Instead
Israel to Examine Reports of Decades-Old Grave for Buried Egyptian Soldiers
White House: Iran set to deliver armed drones to Russia
Turkey: Operation in North Syria Neither Postponed Nor Cancelled
UN agrees to extend cross-border Syria aid by six months
Ukraine Apartment Block Toll Rises as Zelenskiy Laments Russian Firepower Advantage

Titles For LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 11-12/2022
Iran has Iraq’s Kurds in its crosshairs/Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Asia Times (Syndication Bureau)/July 11/2022
Biden's Saudi Close-Up/Alberto M. FernandezMEMRI./July 11/2022
Nazism… On the Subject of Khomeinism!/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/July 11/2022
Biden and Returning to the Tango/Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/July 11/2022
Boris Johnson Exits, But the Damage to the UK Will Linger/Max Hastings/Bloomberg/Monday, 11 July, 2022
Inflation Is Raging Because Globalization Is Fading/Stephen Mihm/Bloomberg/11 July/2022
The Future WHO (World Health Organization)/Pete Hoekstra/Gatestone Institute/July 11/2022
What the Arabs Expect from Biden's Visit to the Middle East/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/July 11/2022
Video From FDD Covering /Biden in the Middle East: Opportunities and Challenges/Ebtesam al-Ketbi, Tamar Hermann, Dennis Ross, Robert Satloff
Will Biden Take Trump's or Obama's Path With Iran?/Dr. Walid Phares/Newsmax/July 11/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 11-12/2022
Saudi dissident “Manea Al-Yami”, Killed in Lebanon; his brothers detained
Associated Press/Monday, 11 July, 2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/110032/%d9%85%d9%82%d8%aa%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%b9%d8%a7%d8%b1%d8%b6-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b3%d8%b9%d9%88%d8%af%d9%8a-%d9%85%d8%a7%d9%86%d8%b9-%d8%a2%d9%84-%d9%85%d9%87%d8%b0%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%a7/
A Saudi opposition party has said that one of its founding members was killed in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. The National Assembly Party, whose members live in exile, said that founding member Manea Al-Yami was slain in "complicated circumstances.""Upon the news of the assassination, the party has been trying to verify its details and motives," the statement said. "The party also holds the Saudi authorities responsible for exposing the people of this country to danger, forcing them to live in exile, and reside in unsafe environments because of their political beliefs or their demands for human rights."
The Lebanese Internal Security Forces issued a statement saying that Al-Yami's two brothers stabbed him to death in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh on Saturday evening. The two brothers are in custody and admitted they murdered Al-Yami due to "family reasons," the statement said. Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Lebanon Waleed Bukhari issued a brief statement on the killing, saying in a tweet that he "highly appreciated the efforts of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces in uncovering the facts and bringing the perpetrators to justice for the murder of a Saudi citizen killed in Beirut's southern suburbs."Al-Yami's death was not reported by the Saudi Press Agency. His party was established in September 2020 and is headquartered in London. It is critical of Saudi Arabia's King Salman and the Al-Saud royal family and calls for an elected parliament in Saudi Arabia.
Yahya Assiri, another founding member based in London, told The Associated Press that Al-Yami was "generally worried" about being harmed, "but he wouldn't specify from who.""His activism was done in an undisclosed manner, and (he) was a core member of the party," Assiri added. Ties between Lebanon and Gulf states have strained in recent years over Hezbollah's growing political power in the country. Gulf states have especially been critical of opposition groups holding events in Dahiyeh, a political stronghold of Iran-backed Hezbollah, which Gulf states consider a terrorist organization. Lebanon's interior minister in December ordered the deportation of members of outlawed Bahraini opposition party Al-Wefaq, after it held a conference criticizing the kingdom's human rights record. In January, Hezbollah hosted a conference for Saudi opposition figures on the anniversary of the death of influential Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. He was one of 47 people who died in a mass execution by Saudi authorities in January 2016. Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels were also present at the conference.

Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Rejects ‘Manipulation’ of Presidential Vote
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 11 July, 2022
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday warned against “manipulating” the presidential elections due before the end of October. He also said during his sermon that "not facilitating the formation of a new government with full constitutional powers" is an "act of sabotage.""Leaving the country without a government at the end of a presidential term … would certainly lead to weakening the representative nature of the Lebanese state in negotiating with the international community," he warned. The patriarch also insisted on the need to respect the constitutional timeframe to elect a president who should enjoy political expertise and be impartial. He should also be committed to his patriotism, al-Rahi said. Lebanon's lawmakers designated incumbent Prime Minister Najib Mikati to form a new government end of June, more than a month after parliamentary elections that yielded no clear majority. President Michel Aoun subsequently asked him to form a new government, a task analysts fear could take weeks, if not months, despite the economic emergency facing the country. Aoun’s term ends on October 31. But the constitutional deadline for electing the president begins on September 1.

Lebanon Telecoms Mark-up Threatens Migrants' Link to Jobs and Safety
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 11 July, 2022
Kenyan cleaner Noel Musanga survived Lebanon's economic meltdown, waves of COVID-19 and Beirut's port blast. But when her internet provider announced rates would double, she feared her last lifeline to family and work would snap. The freelance migrant worker already barely earned enough to survive. Now, the higher telecoms bill means she will have to ration her calls to relatives and potential employers. "It will be like (being) in a deep hole," Musanga said in her ground-floor apartment in the densely-populated Burj Hammoud neighborhood on the edge of Beirut. Lebanon hosts an estimated 250,000 migrant workers primarily from sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, according to the United Nations. Their residence is usually subject to "kafala", a sponsorship system that rights groups say gives employers excessive control over workers' lives. Lebanon's three-year financial downturn has only added to their woes, with employers abandoning domestic migrant workers in the streets as their monthly wages – between $150 to $400 – became too expensive. Some went freelance, living on their own and taking on cleaning or nannying work to pay the bills. But that has become harder by the day. Lebanon's currency has lost 95% of its value while food and public transportation costs have risen roughly eleven-fold. The internet is the next big challenge. Until this month, Lebanon's telecoms sector had continued to use the government's old peg of 1,500 Lebanese pounds to the dollar to charge for phone calls, broadband and mobile internet. With slim revenues, the state struggled to import enough fuel to run telecoms transmitter stations, leading to cuts in coverage throughout 2021.To reverse that trend, Lebanon’s cabinet said telecoms tariffs would be calculated based on the much weaker flexible currency rate set by the government's Sayrafa platform. Using the government's formula, that would cause up to four-fold increases in customers' bills, according to digital rights group SMEX.
Musanga, who also volunteers as a migrant rights advocate, said that mark-up will be life-changing for vulnerable workers. They would have to choose between paying for a home connection or a mobile one, which they would likely use less to conserve data packages. It could also present a higher risk for workers seeking to escape abusive employers. "All the time, I'm on the phone receiving complaints from the girls on contract who are in trouble ... So, I have to have the internet to reach them and solve all these problems," Musanga said. The higher cost of living all-around also meant migrant workers had almost nothing left to send in remittances to their relatives back home. "Now in Lebanon if you are here, you are wasting your time, wasting your energy ... Because everything is expensive, and you'll have nothing to save for yourself or send to your family. So it's better to go home," she said.
The price jumps could even have an impact on the mental health of migrant workers and their families back home. With cases of domestic violence on the rise across Lebanon since 2019, workers' families back home would be in a constant state of worry if they didn't hear from them, Kareem Nofal, communications specialist at the Anti-Racism Movement, said. Live-in workers had relied on their phones and Wi-Fi connections to stay connected, particularly throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Tsigereda Birhanu, a 27-year-old advocate for migrant workers in Lebanon, told Reuters. "That's their therapy," Birhanu said. "If you don't have 3G, if you don't have internet, you are going to lose everything."

Firefighters battle massive fire in Roumieh
Naharnet/July 11/2022
Civil Defense firefighters backed by the Lebanese Army battled Monday a large fire that had ripped through the forests of Roumieh, a village north-east of Beirut surrounded by pine-forested hills. The Army sent water-dropping helicopters to help the Civil Defense extinguish the fire, as the wind speed, the rugged area where the fire erupted and difficulty to secure water for the fire engines complicated efforts to contain the blaze. Municipal police chief Christian Nawfal and MP Elias Hankash said that the fire was premeditated. "The fire had erupted in three different sites at the same time," the LBCI said, backing the hypothesis of a premediated fire. Wildfires have hit many countries in Europe this summer, from Greece to Portugal. Scientists say climate change brings more drought and higher temperatures that make it easy for fires to start and spread.

Corona - MoPH: 691 new Corona cases, 2 deaths
NNA/July 11/2022
In its daily report on COVID-19 developments, the Ministry of Public Health announced on Monday the registration of 691 new Coronavirus infections, which raised the cumulative number of confirmed cases to-date to 1,125,411.
The report added that two deaths were recorded during the past 24 hours.

Ambassador Collard: Farewell Lebanon
NNA/July 11/2022
After an eventful year serving as the British Ambassador to Lebanon, this week I will leave your uniquely beautiful country to return to my own. I am sad to go. I have greatly enjoyed my Lebanese experiences. Exploring stunning landscapes, delving back through your archaeological history, tasting your delicious food, and above all meeting so many of you on my travels, from north to south, into the mountains and the Bekaa. Thank you for welcoming me with open arms and sharing with me your culture, your counsel and your wisdom. Lebanon may be small, but it is in several respects perfectly formed. Lebanon enjoys many of the ingredients necessary for success, in particular a foundation cemented in its rich and deep history, complemented by a modern vibrancy, entrepreneurship and undeniable human capacity. Yet, the jewel of the eastern Mediterranean is not living up to its potential. Many of you are suffering amid the ongoing failure of Lebanon’s powerbrokers to serve your interests – the interests of the Lebanese people. If the ingredients are present, the recipe for a brighter future is also clear and within grasp. It is clear that Lebanon’s broken economy desperately needs the support of an IMF deal. In my meetings with politicians and bankers, most seem not to want to accept that Lebanon must do everything that is asked in order to receive an international rescue package. There can be no Lebanon exceptionalism any more. Lebanon must adopt the necessary laws, open the books without preconditions, and reset the banking sector. The alternative is more and more of you forced into increasingly desperate measures to survive.
Reform, done now, is the key to resolving Lebanon’s economic woes. Now is not the time for politicking. Never has it been more critical for your leaders to take the necessary decisions, however challenging that may be. They owe it to you to deliver better governance, transparency and accountability. They must show compassion and a commitment to bettering the lives of their fellow country people. Public interest must outweigh personal interest.
The UK’s priorities remain clear. The British government is committed to supporting Lebanon’s stability and security. We have deepened and broadened our partnerships with the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Internal Security Forces. Our support to the education sector has helped build a better future for Lebanon’s youth, those who will be the future generation of Lebanese leaders. We will continue to provide humanitarian support to the most vulnerable, advocate for their rights, and stand up for those at risk of prejudice and persecution. Lebanon matters. In 2019, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II said that Lebanon was a “symbol of diversity, tolerance and resilience”. She wished for continuing strong bonds of friendship between our two countries for many years. As I depart as British Ambassador, I share her ambition. I am proud that we, the United Kingdom, continue to fulfil our role as your steadfast friend – a friend of the Lebanese people.

Lay your Cards on the Table
Charles Elias Chartouni/Face Book/July 11/2022
“Why do you dress me in borrowed robes”, (Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3.)
The usual business of dissembling and double speaking which features the essence of politics in this debilitated Republic should be debunked and its jerks denounced. There is no more room for equivocations in a country where nothing is left, no Trust, no Statehood, no Public Treasury, no Private integrity (Habeas Corpus), and where a whole population was brazenly robbed of its lifetime labor by a cohort of criminal oligarchs, its social capital, systemic equilibriums, cultural and political values deliberately targeted by Shiite subversion politics and moral delinquency, and a coterie of insipid poltroons, would-be politicians. Unfortunately, the late elections were not helpful redressing the course of Lebanese politics, and the purported opposition doesn’t seem to stand the test of mundane politics let alone of time.
The politics of subversion of Hezbollah and its minions seems to define the immediate political course and endorse the subservient status of political institutions. I wonder whether this whole political plot is worth considering in its own right, rather than deconstructed as a shadowy theater for dirty power politics and fiendish maneuvering. We must be very wary about the way we engage the political process, and be mindful about the nature of the issues at hand lest we lose track and end up in the sideshow that kept us at bay for the last thirty two years.
The challenges that lie ahead of us could be summed up likewise: 1/ Is there a chance to oversee an equitable presidential election that is likely to bring back the country to a median angling? The question is unavoidable, however the prospects are poor on account of Shiite political radicalization and Iranian subversion politics; 2/ Is it likely to oversee a fair and professional arbitration to address the travails of a mortal financial crisis and its overall destructive consequences. Nothing is more tentative than this scenario mainly hobbled by the sturdy political entanglements and the rapacity of oligarchic greed;3/ The proliferating hazards of Syrian massive post war migration have become unmanageable and are tendentially upending the equilibriums of Lebanese National society (demographic, political, economic, social, urban, cultural) and its underlying political and national cultures. Syrian, Iranian and Turkish power politics are adroitly instrumentalizing these variables to serve their clashing political agendas, and erode the very foundations of Lebanese Statehood; 4/ the terrorist explosion of August 4th 2020 was metonymic and its inherent political innuendos were quite explicit, subverting the urban dynamics via a total war scenario which triggers the massive departure of Christians, and the overall liberal and trans-communal constituencies. The intentional sabotaging of the legal process was defiantly disparaging the Constitutional governance and destroying its pillars. 5/ Lebanon has lost its international political stature (Lebanon is a founding member and a signatory of the Charters of San Francisco which created the United Nations, June 26, 1945, Cairo that fashioned the Arab League, March 22, 1945, and Paris which set the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948) and is actually relegated to the status of a Rump State instrumentalized by the rogue politics of an imploded Arab World.
Bluntly said, the only Liberal, pluralistic and Constitutional State advocated by the Christians led by the Maronite historical proto-national consciousness and historical endeavors is succumbing to the destructive sway of Arab and Islamic power politics, ambiguities of political and social modernization, rise of Muslim radicalism, cumulated pitfalls of endemic instability and dysfunctional governance.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 11-12/2022
In Mideast, Biden struggling to shift policy after Trump
Associated Press/July 11/2022
Joe Biden took office looking to reshape U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, putting a premium on promoting democracy and human rights. In reality, he has struggled on several fronts to meaningfully separate his approach from former President Donald Trump's. Biden's visit to the region this week includes a meeting with Saudi Arabia's King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the oil-rich kingdom's de facto leader who U.S. intelligence officials determined approved the 2018 killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey.
Biden had pledged as a candidate to recalibrate the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, which he described as a "pariah" nation after Trump's more accommodating stand, overlooking the kingdom's human rights record and stepping up military sales to Riyadh.
But Biden now seems to be making the calculation that there's more to be gained from courting the country than isolating it.
Biden's first stop on his visit to the Mideast will be Israel. Here, again, his stance has softened since the firm declarations he made when running for president.
As a candidate, Biden condemned Trump administration policy on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. As president, he's been unable to pressure the Israelis to halt the building of Jewish settlements and has offered no new initiatives to restart long-stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Biden also has let stand Trump's 2019 decision recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which reversed more than a half-century of U.S. policy.
The Biden administration "has had this rather confusing policy of continuity on many issues from Trump — the path of least resistance on many different issues, including Jerusalem, the Golan, Western Sahara, and most other affairs," says Natan Sachs, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
Now Biden appears to be trying to find greater equilibrium in his Mideast policy, putting focus on what's possible in a complicated part of the world at a time when Israel and some Arab nations are showing greater willingness to work together to isolate Iran — their common enemy — and to consider economic cooperation.
"Biden is coming in, in essence making a choice," Sachs said. "And the choice is to embrace the emerging regional architecture."
Biden on Saturday used an op-ed in the Washington Post — the same pages where Khashoggi penned much of his criticism of Saudi rule before his death — to declare that the Middle East has become more "stable and secure" in his nearly 18 months in office and he pushed back against the notion that his visit to Saudi Arabia amounted to backsliding.
"In Saudi Arabia, we reversed the blank-check policy we inherited," Biden wrote. He also acknowledged "there are many who disagree" with his decision to visit the kingdom. He pointed to his administration's efforts to push a Saudi-led coalition and Houthis to agree to a U.N.-brokered cease-fire — now in its fourth month — after seven years of a war that has left 150,000 people dead in Yemen. Biden also cited as achievements his administration's role in helping arrange a truce in last year's 11-day Israel-Gaza war, the diminished capacity of the Islamic State terrorist group in the region and ending the U.S. combat mission in Iraq.
But Biden's overall Mideast record is far more complicated. He has largely steered away from confronting some of the region's most vexing problems, including some that he faulted Trump for exacerbating.
Biden often talks about the importance of relationships in foreign policy. His decision to visit the Mideast for a trip that promises little in the way of tangible accomplishments suggests he's trying to invest in the region for the longer term.
In public, he has talked of insights gained from long hours over the years spent with China's Xi Jinping and sizing up Russia's Vladimir Putin. He's relished building bonds with a younger generation of world leaders including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Japan's Fumio Kishida
Biden has met every Israeli prime minister dating back to Golda Meir, has a long-standing relationship with Jordan's King Abdullah II and was deeply involved as vice president in helping President Barack Obama wind down the Iraq War. But Biden, who came of age on the foreign policy scene during the Cold War and sees the rise of China as the most pressing crisis facing the West, has been less oriented toward the Middle East than Europe and Asia.
"He doesn't have the personal relationships. He doesn't have the duration of relationships," said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He arrives at an uncertain moment for Israeli leadership. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid last month dissolved the Knesset as their politically diverse coalition crumbled. Lapid, the former foreign minister, is now the caretaker prime minister.
Biden also will face fresh questions about his commitment to human rights following the fatal shooting of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Independent investigations determined that she was likely shot by an Israeli soldier while reporting from the West Bank in May.
The Abu Akleh family, in a scathing letter to Biden, accused his administration of excusing the Israelis for the journalist's death. The State Department last week said U.S. security officials determined that Israeli gunfire likely killed her but "found no reason to believe that this was intentional."
Two of the most closely watched moments during Biden's four-day Middle East visit will come when he meets with Israeli opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and when he sees the Saudi crown prince.
But neither encounter is likely to dramatically alter U.S.-Mideast political dynamics. Both leaders seem to have set their eyes on a post-Biden America as the Democratic president struggles with lagging poll numbers at home driven by skyrocketing inflation and unease with Biden's handling of the economy, analysts say. "Both of these leaders in my judgment are now looking past the Biden administration, and looking very much forward to the return of Donald Trump or his avatar," said Aaron David Miller, who served six secretaries of state as an adviser on Arab-Israeli negotiations and now is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "I think it's a complex trip, and I think we should be extremely realistic about these expectations."
Biden's prospects for progress on returning the U.S. to the Iran nuclear deal, brokered by Obama in 2015 and withdrawn from by Trump in 2018, remain elusive. The administration has participated indirectly in Vienna talks aimed at bringing both Washington and Tehran back into compliance with the deal. But the talks have thus far proved fruitless.
As a candidate, Biden promised the Saudis would "pay the price" for their human rights record. The sharp rhetoric helped Biden contrast himself with Trump, whose first official foreign trip as president was to the kingdom and who praised the Saudis as a "great ally" even after the Khashoggi killing.
Biden's tough warning to the Saudis came at a moment when oil was trading at about $41 barrel; now, prices are closer to $105. The elevated oil prices are hurting Americans at the gas pump and driving up prices on essential goods, while helping the Saudis' bottom line.
White House officials have said energy talks would make up one component of the Saudi leg of the president's visit, but they have played down the prospect of the Saudis agreeing to further increase oil production because the kingdom says it is nearly at production capacity.
But Bruce Riedel, who served as a senior adviser on the National Security Council for four presidents, said the Saudi Arabia visit is "completely unnecessary" under the circumstances.
"There's nothing that Joe Biden is going to do in Jeddah that the secretary of state or the secretary of defense, or frankly, a really good ambassador couldn't do on his own.," Riedel said. "There's no outcome that's going to come from this that really warrants a presidential visit."

Israeli PM calls for Saudi relations ahead of Biden visit
Associated Press/July 11/2022
Israel's prime minister has expressed hope that his country will establish formal diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, days before President Joe Biden visits the two countries as part of a regional trip. Israel and Saudi Arabia do not have official diplomatic relations, but have shared clandestine security ties over a mutual enmity of regional arch-rival Iran. The kingdom is widely believed to be among a handful of Arab states weighing open ties with Israel. "Israel extends its hand to all the countries of the region and calls on them to build ties with us, establish relations with us, and change history for our children," Prime Minister Yair Lapid said during a weekly Cabinet meeting. He said Biden will carry "a message of peace and hope from us" when he embarks for Saudi Arabia. Israel's ties with Arab states have grown since normalizing relations with four Arab states in 2020 as part of the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords. Defense cooperation has tightened since the Pentagon switched coordination with Israel from U.S. European Command to Central Command, or CENTCOM, last year. The move lumped Israel's military with those of former enemy states, including Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations that have yet to recognize Israel. Biden is set to arrive in Israel Wednesday for three-day trip that will also include meetings with Palestinian officials in the occupied West Bank. From there, he will fly directly to Saudi Arabia. In an opinion piece in the Washington Post on Sunday, Biden said he's aiming to bring the two countries closer together. "I will also be the first president to fly from Israel to Jiddah, Saudi Arabia," Biden wrote. "That travel will also be a small symbol of the budding relations and steps toward normalization between Israel and the Arab world, which my administration is working to deepen and expand."Formal ties with Saudi Arabia would be a major diplomatic coup for Israel. The kingdom has been publicly reticent about acknowledging cooperation with Israel. Saudi Arabia's King Salman has been a longtime supporter of the Palestinians and their desire to establish an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Israel captured all three areas in 1967, though it withdrew its forces and settlers from Gaza in 2005. The kingdom has long conditioned the establishment of full diplomatic ties with Israel upon a two-state solution to the decades-long conflict with the Palestinians. Israel and the Palestinians have not held substantive negotiations in more than a decade. But recent years have seen signs of a shifting attitude. Saudi Arabia has allowed flights between Israel and Gulf states to cross through its airspace. In 2020, then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly flew to Saudi Arabia for a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and last week several Israeli defense reporters visited the kingdom and published news reports about their welcome.

IRGC Member Killed Under Unclear Circumstances
Joe Truzman/FDD/July 11/2022
Iran-based Tasnim News Agency reported Mostafa Mahdovinejad, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was killed on Tuesday while “carrying out missions on the resistance front.”Tasnim also reported Mahdovinejad was a “defender of the shrine”, a common phrase used to describe Iranian military personnel who have fought in Syria and Iraq. While there are no official reports offering more details on Mahdovinejad’s death, it’s likely he was killed in Syria. The IRGC has maintained a presence in the country since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war and have fought on behalf of the Syrian regime, an ally of the Iranian government.Numerous members of the IRGC have been killed in Syria under different circumstances. Some by rebels fighting against the Syrian regime, others by the Islamic State, and some assisting Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed forces fighting Israel. As Qalaat al-Mudiq, a military analyst focused on Syria noted, Mahdovinejad died on the same day Syrian rebels attacked a vehicle on the Western Aleppo front, which is “known to have an IRGC presence.” Al-Mudiq also stated that the photos of Mahdovinejad “suggest he died in a blast.”Another possibility is that Mahdovinejad was killed in an Israeli airstrike that occurred on Wednesday in the Quneitra region in southern Syria. One member of the Syrian army’s auxiliary forces was reportedly killed in the attack. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Syrian armed forces have not officially commented on the assault, but the airstrike was likely in response to the presence of Iran and its proxies near Israel’s northern border. While the Iranian government occasionally reveals details on the deaths of IRGC members in Syria, it appears for now it will remain ambiguous regarding Mahdovinejad’s death.
*Joe Truzman is a contributor to FDD's Long War Journal.

Dissident Iranian Film-Maker Jafar Panahi Arrested
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 11 July, 2022
Award-winning dissident Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi has been arrested, the third director to be detained in less than a week, the Mehr news agency said Monday. Panahi, 62, won a Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival in 2015. "Jafar Panahi has been arrested today (Monday) when he went to the prosecutor's office to follow up on the situation of another film-maker, Mohammad Rasoulof," Mehr reported. State news agency IRNA had reported late Friday that Rasoulof, also an award winning film-maker, had been arrested along with colleague Mostafa Aleahmad. Panahi has won a slew of awards at international festivals, including the top prize in Berlin for "Taxi" in 2015, and best screenplay at Cannes for his film "Three Faces" in 2018. But since being convicted of "propaganda against the system" in 2010, following his support for anti-government protests and a string of films that critiqued modern Iran, he has been barred from leaving the country to pick up any of these awards. Rasoulof, 50, won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2020 with his film "There Is No Evil" but was likewise unable to accept the award in person as he was barred from leaving Iran. Rasoulof and Aleahmad were arrested over events relating to a deadly building collapse of the Metropol building in the city of Abadan, an event which sparked angry protests, official news agency IRNA said. "In the midst of the heart-breaking incident in Abadan's Metropol, (the filmmakers) were involved in inciting unrest and disrupting the psychological security of society," IRNA said. The 10-storey Metropol building, that was under construction in southwestern Khuzestan province, collapsed on May 23, killing 43 people. It sparked demonstrations in solidarity with victims' families. Demonstrators demanded that "incompetent officials" responsible for the tragedy be prosecuted and punished, while many faced tear gas, warning shots and arrests by the police. A group of Iranian filmmakers led by Rasoulof published an open letter calling on the security forces to "lay down their arms" in the face of outrage over the "corruption, theft, inefficiency and repression" surrounding the Abadan collapse. Organizers of the Berlin film festival on Saturday protested against the arrests of Rasoulof and Aleahmad and called for their release. Rasoulof's passport had been confiscated after his 2017 film "A Man of Integrity" premiered at Cannes, where it won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival.

Iran Defends ‘Legitimacy’ of Enriching Uranium to 20% at Fordow
London - Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 11 July, 2022
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran defended the legitimacy of its latest step to accelerate uranium enrichment by 20 percent through operating IR-6 centrifuges at its underground Fordow facility. Iran has escalated its uranium enrichment further with the use of advanced machines at Fordow in a setup that can more easily change between enrichment levels, the UN atomic watchdog said in a report on Saturday seen by Reuters. Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said uranium enriched to 20 percent was collected for the first time from advanced IR-6 centrifuges on Saturday. He said Iran had informed the UN nuclear watchdog about the development two weeks ago. The IR-6 centrifuges have already produced uranium enriched to purity of 20 percent, Kamalvandi stated. He added that what the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has done is in line with its legitimate responsibility to launch and power 1,000 (six cascades) of IR6 centrifuges. "On 7 July 2022, Iran informed the Agency that, on the same day, it had begun feeding the aforementioned cascade with UF6 enriched up to 5 percent U-235," the confidential report to IAEA member states said. Iran had previously told the IAEA that it was preparing to enrich uranium through a new cascade of 166 advanced IR-6 centrifuges at its Fordow facility. But it hadn’t revealed the level at which the cascade would be enriching. Tehran’s 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers had called for Fordow to become a research-and-development facility and restricted centrifuges there to non-nuclear uses. The IAEA reported in April that Iran has uranium enriched to 60 percent purity — a short step to 90 percent. Iran said it was working to enrich uranium to 20 percent at Fordow, a level well beyond the 3.67 percent agreed under the 2015 deal.

Family of Belgian held in Iran pleas for his release
AFP/July 11, 2022
BRUSSELS: The family of a Belgian aid worker being held in Iran, Olivier Vandecasteele, pleaded Monday for their government to do “everything necessary” to secure his release. “Even though he’s innocent, he has been rotting away for nearly five months in total solitary confinement,” his sister Nathalie Vandercasteele said in a video released to media. “Today Olivier needs your support... It is unthinkable for our family that our democratic Belgium isn’t doing everything necessary to get innocent prisoners out of countries like Iran,” she said. Vandecasteele, pleaded Monday for their government to do “everything necessary” to secure his release. “Even though he’s innocent, he has been rotting away for nearly five months in total solitary confinement,” his sister Nathalie Vandercasteele said in a video released to media. “Today Olivier needs your support... It is unthinkable for our family that our democratic Belgium isn’t doing everything necessary to get innocent prisoners out of countries like Iran,” she said. Vandecasteele, 41, was arrested in Iran at the end of February and is being held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison on charges of “espionage.”His family, some Belgian MPs and rights groups such as Amnesty International underlined Iran’s tactic of taking foreigners hostage to pressure Western countries to make concessions. In this case, they say Iran is seeking to force Belgium to release one of its diplomats who was last year found guilty of masterminding a 2018 foiled bomb attack outside Paris.
The diplomat, Assadollah Assadi, 50, is serving a 20-year sentence in a Belgian prison for attempted “terrorist” murder and “participating in the activities of a terrorist group.”Belgium’s government is currently urging parliament to pass a controversial prisoner-swap treaty with Iran which could pave the way for Vandercasteele and Assadi to each return to his country. In the family video, Vandercasteele’s mother Annie barely held back tears as she implored authorities to get her son freed. “Since he finished his studies, he has been far from us to help others. Now, help us to get him out of there and bring him home so we can hug him close,” she said. Nathalie Vandercasteele said her brother had received two consular visits that revealed he suffered major weight-loss and a foot infection. “He has spent two months without even a mattress, in a cell lit up around the clock, and being subjected to daily psychological pressure from interrogators,” she said. The convicted Iranian diplomat Assadi was attached to Iran’s embassy in Austria where investigators said he served as a regime agent under diplomatic cover. After European intelligence services uncovered the Iranian plot to set off a bomb at a rally of Iranian dissidents outside Paris, Assadi — who supplied the explosives — was arrested in Germany, where his claim for diplomatic immunity was denied. He was extradited to Belgium for his trial, and chose not to challenge his sentence on appeal. Tehran has furiously rejected the charges levelled at the diplomat.

Jordan has key observations on Iran's handling of some issues in the Middle East: PM
Arab News/July 11, 2022
AMMAN: Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh stressed that Jordan has key observations on Tehran's handling of some issues in the Middle East, Petra News Agency reported on Monday. In an interview with the BBC Arabic’s Murad Shishani, the prime minister added Jordan’s observations also include Iran’s intervention in neighboring countries, including the Gulf, whose national security are considered integral to Jordan’s national security. According to Khasawneh, Jordan is looking forward to bilateral ties with Iran based on the principles of good foreign policy, non-interference in domestic affairs, and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. He did, however, point out that Jordan did not view Iran as a threat to its national security. Khasawneh emphasized that in his recent interview, King Abdullah II did not address Arab NATO, but rather answered a hypothetical question about a regional and Arab framework linked with the formation of a military formula in a purely hypothetical framework. On Jordanian-Saudi relations, the prime minister emphasized the historic and strategic ties that unite Amman and Riyadh, emphasizing the significance of the Saudi crown prince's visit to Jordan, where a wide range of issues were discussed, including investments in the water and energy sectors, as well as the integration of Aqaba and Neom. Regarding Jordan's relations with Arab states, the prime minister stated that Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates all agree on various issues and threats that these countries face.
The Prime Minister emphasized that Jordan has never been late in responding to requests for defense assistance from neighboring countries that have faced military threats, and vice versa. According to Khasawneh, Jordan's comprehensive reform is based on three key subjects: political modernization, economic sphere, and administrative sphere. "Today, we have in the Central Bank a historical cash reserve of $18 billion, and macroeconomic indicators are positive, as international financial rating and credit agencies have raised our financial credit rating." the prime minister said of Jordan's monetary situation. Commenting on the 340km-northern borders, he pointed out that there is a significant increase in drug smuggling operations, noting that a dialogue and discussion between Jordan’s military and security apparatuses and the Syrian authorities are taking place. Khasawneh emphasized that the Russian military police played an important role in maintaining security during the reconciliation agreements sponsored by Russia at one point. He went on to say that the absence of a strong presence of Russian military police in southern Syria has exacerbated the Kingdom's problems.

Growing Israeli West Bank Settlements Test US Position Ahead of Biden Visit
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 11 July, 2022
Steps away from a cluster of Palestinian tents and shacks in the northern Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank, trucks were working in full force to prepare for the construction of a school for Israeli settlers. The settlement of Mehola is trying to expand, as demand has become very high, Zohar Zror, 32, a resident, told Reuters. Largely out of the public eye, Israeli settlements are expanding across the occupied West Bank, raising Palestinian fears of displacement and posing a test for US opposition to such building ahead of President Joe Biden's visit this week. In a Washington Post op-ed published on Saturday, Biden said the United States has rebuilt ties with the Palestinians and is working with Congress to restore about $500 million in funding for the Palestinians. His administration has also pledged to reopen a consulate in Jerusalem closed by his predecessor Donald Trump. But that has done little to satisfy Palestinian demands for US support for an end to Israel's decades-long occupation. While the administration has expressed strong opposition to Israeli settlement expansion, which it said "deeply damages the prospect for a two-state solution," settlement construction has gone ahead apace. Meanwhile, the search for a solution involving an independent Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, which the United States and other countries see as the best basis for a lasting peace, has stalled. "They don't want to leave any Palestinians here," said Salah Jameel, 53, a Palestinian farmer in the Jordan Valley. "They want to take the land."Most countries regard settlements Israel has built on territory it captured in a 1967 Middle East war as illegal. Israel disputes this and has settled some 440,000 Israelis in the West Bank, citing biblical, historical and political ties to the area, where 3 million Palestinians live under military rule.
In May, the Israeli government approved 4,400 new homes for Jewish settlers. Plans for a further expansion of settlements, that will effectively cut through the area Palestinians hope will form the basis of a future state, are set to be discussed after Biden's visit. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment about the expansion of West Bank settlements. The US Embassy's Palestinians Affairs unit referred questions to the White House. David Elhayani, outgoing head of the Yesha Council, the settlers' main umbrella organization, said it is time the Palestinians accept that there will be no Palestinian state."The settlement enterprise has taken off, it cannot be stopped now," he told Reuters.
Noise
As Israel deepens its normalization with Arab countries in the region, it remains unclear what steps the United States is willing to take to discourage its ally from further entrenching the occupation. Biden's upcoming visit "can impact the amount of noise Israel is making about settlement expansion but not on the construction itself," said Dror Etkes of Kerem Navot, an organization that monitors Israeli policy in the West Bank. "The entire political system (in Israel) is mobilized to protect the settlement enterprise," he said. The first settlements in the Jordan Valley date from the immediate aftermath of the 1967 war. A fertile area of orchards and date plantations on the border with Jordan, it was seen by Israeli planners as key to creating a defensive buffer well to the east of Jerusalem. Mehola, which was built in the late 1960s on Palestinian-owned land with Israeli government approval, is one example. The military protection and the roads, water and power infrastructure underpinning settlements stand in stark contrast to conditions in nearby Palestinian villages. But Israel strongly rejects accusations from international and local rights groups that the settlement enterprise has created a system of apartheid. Data collected by Israeli authorities shows a trend of expanding Israeli presence. In the area of the West Bank where Israel has full control and where most Jewish settlements are located - a zone referred to as Area C under the Oslo Peace accords agreed in the 1990s - only 33 building permits for Palestinians have been approved in the last five years, Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Alon Schuster told the Knesset plenum in February. During that time, more than 9,600 housing units were started for Israeli settlers in the West Bank, according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics. Palestinian Mahmoud Bisharat, 40, has no expectations from Biden's visit. Still, he told Reuters he hopes the US administration will take stronger action to stop Israeli settlements and "the dispossession of Palestinians.""We have been on this land before 1967, the least they can do is protect our rights," he said.

With Biden, Palestinians Seeking Freedom Get Permits Instead
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 11 July, 2022
For more than two years, the Biden administration has said that Palestinians are entitled to the same measure of "freedom, security and prosperity" enjoyed by Israelis. Instead, they've gotten US aid and permits to work inside Israel and its Jewish settlements. The inconsistency is likely to come up when President Joe Biden visits Israel and the occupied West Bank this week for the first time since assuming office. Israeli officials will likely point to the thousands of work permits issued to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, allowing them to make far higher wages and injecting much-needed cash into economies hobbled by Israeli restrictions. Biden will likely tout the tens of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians he restored after it was cut off during the Trump years.
Supporters say such economic measures improve the lives of Palestinians and help preserve the possibility of an eventual political solution. But when Biden is driven past Israel's towering separation barrier to meet with Palestinians in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, he will hear a very different story - about how Israel is cementing its decades-long military rule over millions of Palestinians, with no end in sight. "Economic measures do have the potential to positively contribute to making peace, but that would require Israel and the US having a plan to end this 55-year-old military occupation," said Sam Bahour, a Palestinian-American business consultant based in the West Bank. "They don’t, so any so-called economic ‘confidence-building measures’ are merely occupation-entrenching measures," Bahour said. Israel's short-lived coalition government issued 14,000 permits to Palestinians in Gaza, which has been under a crippling blockade since the Hamas movement seized power 15 years ago. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent Hamas from arming itself. Israel also increased the number of permits issued in the West Bank, where well over 100,000 Palestinians work inside Israel and the settlements, mostly in construction, manufacturing and agriculture. It has even begun allowing small numbers of Palestinian professionals to work in higher-paying jobs in Israel's booming high-tech sector.
The government billed those and other economic measures as goodwill gestures, even as it approved the construction of thousands of additional settler homes in the occupied West Bank. The Biden administration has adopted a similar strategy, providing financial assistance to Palestinians but giving Israel no incentive to end the occupation or grant them equal rights. Even its relatively modest plan to reopen a US Consulate in Jerusalem serving Palestinians hit a wall of Israeli opposition. Ines Abdel Razek, advocacy director at the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, says both the United States and the European Union are "throwing money at the Palestinians" instead of owning up to their complicity in the occupation. "All Biden is trying to do is maintain a certain quiet and calm, which for Palestinians means entrenched colonization and repression," she said.
Michael Milshtein, an Israeli analyst who used to advise the military body in charge of civilian affairs in the territories, says the theory of "economic peace" - or promoting economic development in the absence of peace negotiations - goes back decades. He says it's making a resurgence because of the prolonged lack of any peace process and the political crisis within Israel, but at best will only bring temporary calm. "This is the way to preserve stability," he said. "This is not a way to solve deep political problems." For individual Palestinians, the permits are a godsend. Their average wage inside Israel is around $75 a day, twice the rate in the West Bank, according to the World Bank. In Gaza, where unemployment hovers around 50%, tens of thousands lined up for the permits last fall.
But critics say the permits - which Israel can revoke at any time - are yet another tool of control that undermines the development of an independent Palestinian economy. "Every permit Israel issues to Palestinian workers goes to serve Israel’s economic development and hollows out Palestine’s workforce, so we in the private sector will remain unable to create a different economic reality," Bahour said. Even as it issues work permits, Israel is tightening its grip on what's known as Area C - the 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli control according to interim peace agreements signed in the 1990s. The Palestinian Authority has limited autonomy in an archipelago of cities and towns. Area C includes most of the West Bank's open space and natural resources. The World Bank estimates that lifting heavy restrictions on Palestinian access to the area would boost their economy by a third. Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state.
That's not on the table.
Israel's political system is dominated by right-wing parties that view the West Bank as an integral part of Israel. Even if Lapid, who supports a two-state solution, manages to form a government after Nov. 1 elections - which recent polls suggest is unlikely - his coalition would almost certainly rely on some hard-line parties. It's often argued that even if economic measures do not lead to a political solution, they still promote stability - but history hasn't borne that out. In the 1980s, nearly half of Gaza's labor force was employed in Israel and workers could travel in and out with ease. Hamas, which opposes Israel's existence, burst onto the scene in 1987 with the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising against Israeli rule. The second Palestinian uprising, in 2000, also erupted during a period of relative prosperity. The Gaza permits, the first to be issued since the Hamas takeover, appear to provide a powerful incentive for the group to maintain calm, as any rocket fire could cause thousands of people to lose good-paying jobs. Then again, conflict between Israel and Hamas has always come at a staggering cost to Palestinians. In the West Bank, where far more Palestinians have the coveted permits, a recent wave of violence has brought deadly attacks inside Israel and near-daily military raids. A recent poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 65% of Palestinians support the so-called confidence-building measures, including the issuing of permits. The survey included 1,270 Palestinians from across the West Bank and Gaza, with a margin of error of 3 percentage points. But the same poll also found some striking measures of despair: Support for a two-state solution dropped from 40% to 28% in just three months, and 55% of those surveyed support "a return to confrontations and armed intifada."

Israel to Examine Reports of Decades-Old Grave for Buried Egyptian Soldiers
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 11 July, 2022
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said on Sunday that his office would investigate reports of a mass grave in central Israel containing the bodies of Egyptian commandos who were killed during the 1967 Middle East war.
Lapid's office said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi brought up the issue in a call after two Israeli newspapers published witness accounts suggesting there was an unmarked grave near Latrun, an area between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv where Israel's army fought the Egyptian soldiers decades ago. Newspapers Yedioth Ahronoth and Haaretz published archival material and interviews with residents recounting how dozens of Egyptian soldiers killed in the battle may be buried there. "The Egyptian president raised the report about the collective grave of Egyptian soldiers during the (1967) Six Day War," Lapid's office said. The Israeli leader, according to the statement, directed his military secretary "to examine the issue in depth and to update Egyptian officials". After fighting another war in 1973, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979. That was first it signed with an Arab country.

White House: Iran set to deliver armed drones to Russia
AP/July 11, 2022
WASHINGTON: The White House on Monday said it believes Russia is turning to Iran to provide it with “hundreds” of unmanned aerial vehicles, including weapons-capable drones, for use in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said it was unclear whether Iran had already provided any of the unmanned systems to Russia, but said the US has “information” that indicates Iran is preparing to train Russian forces to use them as soon as this month. “Our information indicates that the Iranian government is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred UAVs, including weapons-capable UAVs on an expedited timeline,” he told reporters Monday. Sullivan said it was proof the Russia’s overwhelming bombardments in Ukraine, which have led it to consolidate gains in the country’s east in recent weeks, was “coming at a cost to the sustainment of its own weapons.”
Sullivan’s revelation comes on the eve of President Joe Biden’s trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia, where Iran’s nuclear program and malign activities in the region will be a key subject of discussion. Sullivan noted that Iran has provided similar unmanned aerial vehicles to Yemen’s Houthi rebels to attack Saudi Arabia before a cease-fire was reached earlier this year.

Turkey: Operation in North Syria Neither Postponed Nor Cancelled
Ankara - Saeed Abdulrazek/Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 11 July, 2022
Turkey announced on Sunday that it will neither cancel nor delay a military operation against sites controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria. Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Turkish forces are being targeted by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, YPG, the largest components of the SDF. Speaking from the military base in Daglica district of southeastern Hakkari province along the Turkish-Iraqi border, the Minister denied that Ankara was advised, during the summit of the leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries in Madrid, not to launch a military operation in northern Syria. In May, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would launch a cross-border operation against the YPG in Tal Rifaat and Manbij areas in the countryside of Aleppo to clear them of “terrorists,” without giving a specific timeline. Akar confirmed Erdogan’s announcement, saying the operation would be carried out during nighttime. The Turkish minister said his country does not seek to clash with the United States, which backs the SDF as part of its war against ISIS in Syria. However, he affirmed Ankara’s commitment to carry out the operation. Akar added that his country will continue its military operations against the Kurdish units in northern Syria and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, to prevent the formation of a “terror corridor” on Turkey’s southern borders. He mentioned the rising trend in terrorist attacks against Turkish troops in Manbij and Tal Rifaat in the countryside of Aleppo. The Minister said Turkey is following up on these threats and has plans to eliminate them. Akar then revealed that Turkey has “neutralized” more than 2,200 terrorists in cross-border operations in northern Syria and Iraq since the start of the year.
Ankara says its cross-border operations into Syria aim at establishing a 30-kilometer deep safe zone along its southern border. In the past few days, Turkey has brought military reinforcements to its troops deploying in Aleppo.

UN agrees to extend cross-border Syria aid by six months
AFP/July 12, 2022
UNITED NATIONS, United States: The UN Security Council has agreed to extend a vital system for cross-border aid to war-ravaged Syria by six months, the length of time wanted by Russia, diplomats told AFP Monday. Western nations had demanded a year-long extension, but a vote by the 15 members on half that is expected either later in the day or Tuesday. “Russia forced the hand of everyone. Either close the mechanism or only six months. We cannot let people die,” one ambassador told AFP on condition of anonymity. The aid delivery mechanism across Turkey’s border into rebel-held Syria at the Bab Al-Hawa crossing is the only way United Nations assistance can reach civilians without navigating areas controlled by Syrian government forces. The system, in place since 2014, had expired on Sunday. The agreement breaks an impasse that had threatened to derail the life-saving supplies for the more than 2.4 million people in the northwestern Idlib region of Syria, under the control of jihadists and rebels. Syrian ally Russia on Friday vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have prolonged the mechanism by one year, and Western powers then voted down Moscow’s competing resolution that proposed extending approval by just six months. The previous draft by Ireland and Norway suggested the possibility of a halt to the mechanism in January next year if the Security Council so decided. The new Irish-Norwegian text provides for a renewal in January 2023 for another six months, subject to the adoption of a new resolution. It also requires a briefing every two months on the implementation of the system and calls for a special report on humanitarian needs in the region to the UN secretary-general by December 10. Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN Dmitry Polyanski said Moscow would adopt the resolution with “a minimal modification.” An ambassador of an influential Security Council member said his country would adopt the resolution. For resolutions to be adopted, at least nine of the 15 members must support it, with none of the permanent members wielding their veto. Moscow has curtailed a number of Western-backed measures in recent years, using its veto 17 times in relation to Syria since the war’s outbreak in 2011. More than 4,600 aid trucks, carrying mostly food, have crossed Bab Al-Hawa this year, helping some 2.4 million people, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The mechanism has been extended for only six months in the past, although this short period makes it difficult to plan delivery, aid workers say. Dozens of NGOs and several senior UN officials had lobbied Security Council members for the year-long cross-border aid clearance. UN expert Richard Gowan said the war in Ukraine has “complicated negotiations on Syria this year.”

Ukraine Apartment Block Toll Rises as Zelenskiy Laments Russian Firepower Advantage
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 11 July, 2022
Rescue workers on Monday pulled some survivors from an apartment block destroyed by a Russian missile strike that killed 30 people in eastern Ukraine, while Russian shelling killed at least three in the second-largest city of Kharkiv. The civilian deaths hammered home the human cost of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth month, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy lamented Russia's "big advantage" in artillery despite Western offers of help. In the city of Chasiv Yar, rescuers made voice contact with two people in the wreckage of the five-storey apartment building demolished by a rocket on Saturday, and emergency services released video of workers pulling survivors from the concrete debris, where up to two dozen people had been trapped. But the death toll also rose steadily, the State Emergency Service said. An official from the president's office put the number of dead at 30. Rescuers could be seen lifting one person from the ruins to a stretcher, and carrying away two bodies in white bags. Nine people had been rescued so far. One survivor, who gave her name as Venera, said she had wanted to save her two kittens. "I was thrown into the bathroom, it was all chaos, I was in shock, all covered in blood," she said, crying. "By the time I left the bathroom, the room was full up of rubble, three floors fell down. "I never found the kittens." Further north in Kharkiv, Monday's strikes with artillery, multiple rocket launchers and tanks injured 31 people including two children, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said. At least one strike hit a residential building in the city, where a column of flats had collapsed into rubble. "I saw lights, the headlights of rescuers and I started screaming 'I am alive, please get me out'," survivor Valentina Popovichuk told Reuters on a nearby Kharkiv street. She was asleep when her building was hit three or four times in the early morning. "The rescuers entered the hallway, knocked down the door and took me out."The attack on Chasiv Yar in Donetsk province was part of Russia's push to capture all of the industrial Donbas region in the east, partly controlled by separatist proxies since 2014, after declaring victory in Luhansk province earlier this month. Military experts say Russia is using artillery barrages to pave the way for a renewed push for territory by ground forces. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who says he aims to hand control of Donbas to the separatists, on Monday eased rules for Ukrainians to acquire Russian citizenship. "(Russia) indeed unfortunately has a big advantage in artillery," President Zelenskiy told reporters in Kyiv on Monday alongside Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. "With all the partners who are ready to give support, I talk about artillery. There is indeed not enough."A spokesman for Ukraine's International Legion, a fighting unit of foreign troops, said Ukraine's heavy artillery was outnumbered roughly eight to one by Russian guns. Kharkiv, in the northeast close to the Russian border but outside the Donbas, suffered heavy bombardment in the first few months of the war followed by a period of relative calm that has been shattered by renewed shelling in recent weeks. Moscow denies targeting civilians but many Ukrainian cities, towns and villages have been left in ruins. Since the Feb. 24 invasion, attacks on a theatre, shopping center and railway station have caused many civilian deaths.
Zelenskiy said Russia had carried out 34 air strikes since Saturday, while his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said Moscow should be designated a state sponsor of terrorism over the apartment bombing.
Diplomatic faultlines
The war has exposed diplomatic faultlines across Europe and sent energy and food prices soaring. Applying a further phase of EU sanctions against Russia, Lithuania on Monday expanded restrictions on shipments over its territory to Russia's Baltic coast exclave of Kaliningrad. Moscow has threatened to retaliate for what it calls an illegal blockade there. The West is focusing on reopening Ukraine's Black Sea ports, which it says are shut by a Russian blockade, blocking exports from one of the world's main sources of grain and threatening to unleash global hunger. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who has offered to mediate on the grain issue, discussed it with Putin by telephone. The Kremlin said the talks took place in the run-up to a Russian-Turkish summit scheduled for the near future. Europe's dependence on Russian energy was preoccupying policymakers and the business world as the biggest pipeline carrying Russian gas to Germany began 10 days of annual maintenance. Governments, markets and companies are worried the shutdown might be extended because of the war. Putin calls the conflict, Europe's biggest since World War Two, a "special military operation" to demilitarize Ukraine and rid it of dangerous nationalists. Ukraine and its Western allies say Putin's war is an imperial-style land grab.
Wave of bombardments
Ukraine's general staff said on Monday that Russia had launched a wave of bombardments as they seek to seize Donetsk, the other province in the Donbas, after taking Luhansk. It said the widespread shelling amounted to preparations for an intensification of hostilities. The US-based Institute for the Study of War said Russian troops were regrouping and that the heavy artillery fire was intended to set conditions for future ground advances. Russia's defense ministry said its missiles struck ammunition depots in Ukraine's central Dnipro region used to supply rocket launchers and artillery weapons. Reuters was unable to independently verify the battlefield reports. Ukraine is preparing a counter-attack in the south of the country where Russia seized territory early in the war. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk warned civilians in the Russian-occupied Kherson region in the south on Sunday to urgently evacuate. She gave no time frame.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 11-12/2022
Iran has Iraq’s Kurds in its crosshairs
Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Asia Times (Syndication Bureau)/July 11/2022
After decimating Iraq’s Sunnis during years of political and military conquest, Iran and its Iraqi militias have now set their sights on Iraqi Kurdistan, harassing its government, targeting its energy facilities, and working to break and subdue the autonomous region – all while the United States is looking the other way.
Iraq is currently the second largest OPEC oil producer and the fifth largest in the world, with an output of more than four million barrels per day. Kurdistan produces half a million barrels of that total.
Following the US war in 2003, Iraq replaced its centralized governing system with a federal one. But a disagreement over one word in the country’s constitution caused a crisis. The constitution stipulates that, together with the federal government, the local Kurdish authority controls energy production of “current fields.” The Kurdistan government argues that the word “current” means fields operational at the time of ratification in 2005. All fields discovered since then, Erbil argues, belong to Kurdistan alone.
In February, Iraq’s federal supreme court — whose rulings have mostly benefited Tehran and its Iraqi allies — said that all energy fields in Iraqi Kurdistan were “current” fields, including those found after 2005, and ordered the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to surrender oil production, reserves, exports, and revenue. The judiciary council in Kurdistan later dissented, arguing that the federal court had no authority to interpret local laws.
Tehran and its militias, however, did not wait for a legal settlement. They started launching missiles against Kurdish energy fields and the houses of oil and gas tycoons. Iranian excuses have varied between claiming that the attacks targeted Israeli intelligence cells active in Iraqi Kurdistan and blaming Turkey for the attacks.But the dispute goes beyond a disagreement over the interpretation of the Iraqi constitution. Iran exports 64 percent of its gas to Iraq and 33 percent to Turkey. As cheaper and more reliable Kurdish gas came online, both Ankara and Baghdad started relying on Erbil for their gas needs, especially for electricity production. When Iran instructs its Iraqi militias to hit Kurdish energy fields, it is often for reasons of commercial competition rather than the enforcement of a rarely observed Iraqi constitution.
By the same token, Iran has used its influence in Iraq to try to kill a project that would see Baghdad export one million barrels from a southern oil field in Basra to the Jordanian port of Aqaba. Tehran believes that it has a chokehold on the Gulf, through which one in every four barrels of global oil passes daily. Pipelines circumventing the Gulf by pumping oil to the Red Sea overland weakens Iran’s ability to threaten global energy supplies.
When striking energy facilities in Iraqi Kurdistan, Tehran cares little about the Iraqi constitution or the interests of the federal government. What the Islamist regime of Iran wants to see is a subdued Kurdish government that stops pumping energy, expels Iraqi dissidents, and ends its opposition to Iranian diktats inside Iraq. Since the early 1990s, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the largest party in Iraqi Kurdistan, has been one of the most reliable allies to the US, the West, and moderate regional capitals that are standing up to Iranian bullying. Tehran rarely tolerates neighbors that disagree with its diktats and hashence ordered its militias to harass the Kurds and target KDP assets.
Meanwhile, despite providing military aid since 2014 to the Kurdish constitutional militia, known as the Peshmerga, Kurdish forces remain inadequately supplied. Whereas Iran provides its militias with armed drones and other technology, the $260 million allocated by the US to the Peshmerga for 2022 largely covers salaries, fuel and spare parts, rather than advanced weapons or equipment.
This despite the Peshmerga being the first to scramble to defend Iraq after the meltdown of the country’s national army resulted in ISIS taking over Mosul in 2014 and invading territory on the outskirts of Baghdad.
The Biden administration has argued that, out of respect for the Iraqi government and its sovereignty, Washington must channel its military assistance to the Kurds through Iraq’s federal government. But such an arrangement is akin to entrusting the fox with guarding the henhouse. Without direct US assistance, the Peshmerga could become another one of America’s allies to bite the dust, just like the Sunnis of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
The KDP understands that Iran’s militias in Iraq pose an existential threat to regional autonomy and the Kurdish government. After winning the second-biggest bloc in parliament in October, the KDP caucused with blocs that demand disarming Iranian militias, thus inviting further fury from Tehran against the Kurds and their region. US President Joe Biden will visit Israel and Saudi Arabia in mid-July. The White House said that “deterring threats from Iran” and “ensuring global energy” will be on the agenda during talks with America’s Middle East allies. Biden must remember that confronting Iran’s destabilizing activity should include supporting the Iraqi KRG, its militia, and its drive to get more energy to a desperately starved global market.
*Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. Twitter: @hahussain.

ألبرتو إم. فيرنانديز/موقع ميمري: تحليل سياسي يلقي الأضواء على التقارب الإضطراري بين الرئيس بيدن والسعودية
Biden's Saudi Close-Up
Alberto M. FernandezMEMRI./July 11/2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/110015/alberto-m-fernandez-memri-bidens-saudi-close-up-%d8%a3%d9%84%d8%a8%d8%b1%d8%aa%d9%88-%d8%a5%d9%85-%d9%81%d9%8a%d8%b1%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%86%d8%af%d9%8a%d8%b2-%d9%85%d9%88%d9%82%d8%b9-%d9%85%d9%8a/
President Biden's first trip to the Middle East as U.S. president this week after 18 months in office has generated intense coverage, particularly on the Saudi leg of his trip. Much profound analysis has been written but perhaps one fringe right-wing outlet said it most succinctly: "Biden going to Saudi Arabia for Oil and Groveling."[1] A headline that is a bit exaggerated and not completely accurate but not entirely wrong either.
Oil and groveling are both bound to be on the agenda but the trip is about much more than that. Biden's trip does not just come in the wake of comments he made about Saudi Arabia on the campaign trail: "I would make it very clear we were not going to sell more weapons to them, we were going to, in fact make them pay the price and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are. There's very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia."[2]
The trip also is not just within the context of anti-Saudi actions taken by the Biden Administration almost immediately from the beginning in early 2021, from the Houthis in Yemen to declassifying Khashoggi assassination files to stopping offensive weapons procurement. Nor is it principally about the Biden Administration's attempt to make a new nuclear deal with Iran that would reward the anti-Saudi regime in Tehran, long a sore point for Gulf states.
It is about all of these and more, the sense going back to the Obama Administration of which Biden was a part that the United States has become a fickle and untrustworthy ally, one that harbors a default enmity toward its traditional Arab allies, especially toward Saudi Arabia.[3] Aside from the niceties of diplomatic and official statements, which will always be polite and positive, what America's Arab allies say to each other about U.S. policy is often unprintable. What can be said is sometimes channeled through third parties such as a recent column by Iraqi Ali Al-Sarraf in a Gulf Arab owned daily, "the mere thought of welcoming him [Biden] is troubling and the thought of listening to him is repellent. One can imagine that millions of Saudis will feel repulsed by the mere idea of his feet touching their soil, not to mention the nonsense he may utter."[4]
Emirati scholar and commentator Dr. Abdul Khaleq Abdullah (a graduate of Georgetown and American University) was more diplomatic but perhaps more devastating in a July 7 "Letter to the American President from an Emirati Academic" in CNN Arabic. Dr. Abdullah warned President Biden that Gulf Arab states, "some of whose leaders are the age of your children or grandchildren," now "have the confidence to say no to Washington." These states have "their own national agendas and geopolitical priorities different from Washington," they have other options and the Gulf states of today are not the states they were in the 20th century. He cautioned against that "boring talk about human rights and democracy," as "America is unconvincing when it talks about this file" and the American model has lost its luster after the domestic turmoil of recent years.[5]
And although the Gulf Arab states are rather unique in the petro-abundance, much of the discourse by Abdullah and others about the need for Washington to temper its approach and adjust its policies to new realities is echoed across the world in other rising middle-to-larger powers, from Brazil to Turkey to India.
There was a time when Washington could give ironclad assurances behind the scenes (and receive them in kind) to these regimes while Washington could then put whatever spin it wanted to gullible audiences back home on the substance of these meetings. The world is smaller now and Gulf states need no help in figuring out what "a senior administration official" or "White House sources" tell Politico or the Washington Post about such a visit. Senior officials in the region are mature enough to differentiate between spin and reality but the fact that Washington's toxic discourse – especially that coming from the Obama and Biden Administrations – played out in public does complicate matters. Is plausibly deniable private regret going to be enough to balance out repeated public insult? Would – for example – a sea change in the U.S. policy of appeasement toward Iran, however unlikely that is to be seen in the coming days, be enough to overcome years of distrust and bitterness? Dr. Abdullah notes that Biden is not coming as a hero, he is coming because he forced to do so. Biden is seen as "devious" but "lacking cleverness," often a woeful combination in the region.[6]
As several experts have noted, the White House statement (and subsequent comments by Biden himself) announcing the trip tried to distance the U.S. president from the key element of the Saudi leg of the Middle East visit which is the interaction with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman (MBS).[7] The press statement only mentions MBS's father, the 86-year-old King Salman, and Biden noted that he will be attending two meetings in Saudi Arabia, a GCC regional meeting (GCC plus Egypt, Jordan and Iraq), and a meeting with the king and his advisors. Biden pointedly said that his trip is "not about Saudi Arabia, it's in Saudi Arabia."[8]
The White House would very much like to avoid a scene like the photograph illustrating this article, a repeat of a smiling triumphant MBS welcoming a glum repentant Erdoğan.[9] American officials could well think that the United States is not Turkey and America is not in the dire straits that the Turkish strongman finds himself in today. Such a photo op would be deeply satisfying to the Saudi side and probably embarrassing to an American president seemingly besieged on every side by problems beyond his capacity to solve.
America's biggest "ask" may well be about oil production as a way of curbing the war-making ability of the West's villain of the day, Putin's Russia. A well-placed Gulf oil executive told me recently that Saudi Arabia is already pumping well above its OPEC Plus limits. Other GCC states can add some more but in the short term no one can make up a potential cutoff in Russian oil (a global recession is the surest way to bring oil demands down, hurting Russia but also the Gulf states, and everyone else).
The best possible outcome may be that incremental, cool, and measured baby steps happen, that the U.S. gives its Arab allies renewed assurances that may or may not be fully met but are seen as sincere, that it reverses some security-related steps taken against the Arab allies, in part or in full, and that Gulf states offer to raise output some but not as much as Washington wants, improvements rather than solutions.
Biden can also try to look like progress is being made in the Palestinian-Israeli or Abraham Accords (a term his administration initially eschewed because of its connection with the Trump Administration) portfolios.[10] Hopefully, no senior administration official will be tempted to boast about keeping a distance from Saudi Arabia's future king and readily accept political reality.[11] The nadir of U.S. relations with its Arab allies was not reached overnight, it took years of hard, destructive work and will not be fully reversed in one brief trip, no matter what promises are made. A Turkish-like hug would be nice but Arab rulers are beyond the false glitter of superficialities unmoored from hard political reality, whether coming from Washington or from anywhere else.
https://www.memri.org/reports/bidens-saudi-close?fbclid=IwAR1eg_xLgT34GgbIpxj1LWCND6ZELEUwZc02cXFtYd7DcVVAq0nXNYh9NhQ
*Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI.
[1] Ussanews.com/2022/07/07/biden-going-to-saudi-arabia-for-oil-and-groveling, July 7, 2022.
[2] Theintercept.com/2019/11/21/democratic-debate-joe-biden-saudi-arabia, November 21, 2019.
[3] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 10045, Saudi Press Ahead Of Biden Visit And Summit With Regional Leaders: We Expect Satisfactory Answers Regarding Iran; Should U.S. Disappoint, We Have Alternative Allies, June 28, 2022.
[4] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 10032, Article In London-Based Emirati Daily: It Will Be Better If President Biden Does Not Visit Saudi Arabia; The U.S. Is A Disloyal, Hypocritical And Greedy Ally, June 22, 2022.
[5] Arabic.cnn.com/middle-east/article/2022/07/06/abdulkhaliq-abdullah-message-biden-gulf, July 6, 2022.
[6] English.alarabiya.net/views/2022/07/07/Biden-s-devious-rhetoric-on-Saudi-Arabia, July 7, 2022.
[7] Whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/06/14/statement-by-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-on-president-bidens-travel-to-israel-the-west-bank-and-saudi-arabia, June 14, 2022.
[8] Msn.com/en-us/news/world/biden-again-tries-to-distance-himself-from-saudi-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman/ar-AAZ2UJk, June 30, 2022.
[9] English.alaraby.co.uk/news/turkeys-erdogan-meets-saudis-mbs-develop-relations, April 29, 2022.
[10] Washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/getting-israeli-saudi-deal-tiran-and-sanafir, July 7, 2022.
[11] Alishihabi.com/articles/muhammad-bin-salman-is-here-to-stay, July 25, 2019.

Nazism… On the Subject of Khomeinism!
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/July 11/2022
Looking into the sympathy for the Iranian regime shown by its Arab sympathizers, we find many reasons. First and foremost, we have sectarian considerations, which cover the broadest segments of sympathizers. Another is a narrow segment of the supporters of Iran motivated by anti-American sentiments, and most of them have inherited a deep sense of frustration stemming from previous experiences with its wars and defeats.
That is why we find, in this blend, Nasserists and communists, as well as ex-Nasserists and communists, who have yet to lose hope that Khomeinist Iran will succeed where Nasser, the Palestinian resistance, and behind them the Soviet Union failed.
Not far from this segment of sympathizers stands another that is grateful to Tehran, as well as Moscow, for supporting and backing Bashar al-Assad. Of course, as with every political loyalty, we have a segment of supporters driven by personal benefits and profiteering...
However, we also find a factor that is rarely mentioned. It isn’t necessarily a cause, but it has the potential to reinforce or pave the way for other reasons to sympathize: limited familiarity with and sensitivity to Nazism.
Of course, that does not mean that the Iranian regime is a Nazi one, but watching a single movie about Nazism is enough to leave us rubbing our eyes and wondering: Where do we find scenes closest to this one today? crowds lined up in extremely orderly and symmetrical fashion, chanting with a single voice, saluting a single leader, and announcing that they are prepared to die, with both children and the elderly recruited to occupy the public space?
Recreating these scenes that are now being replicated by the Iranian regime was an aspiration of some Arab ideologues who had had no luck in the 1930s and 40s:
Let us read this excerpt from a lecture given by Syrian Social Nationalist Party Zaiim (führer) Antoun Saade:
“A day will come, and it is near, when the world will witness a new scene and a dangerous incident - men in black belts, leaden clothes, and with spears shining over their heads walking behind red whirlwind banners carried by the mighty army. The forests of swords will advance in splendidly ordered ranks. Thus, the will of the Syrian nation will become unrelenting because this is its fate and destiny.”
That is in Lebanon. In Iraq, the Director of General Education Sami Shawkat called for an “industry of death” powered by young men who believed in “iron and fire,” which the Arab Nationalist Movement elevated into a noble and reassuring principle: “iron, blood, fire/ unity, liberation, revenge.”
As we well know, where Saade, Shawkat, the Arab Nationalist Movement, and the others all failed, Khomeini and a few of his students succeeded.
These movements became extremely proficient at creating a fondness for death and creating this mesmerizing imagery around it, propelling what was a revolt against several intellectual traditions. It is a revolt, for example, against the tradition of philosophical pessimism rooted in the dread of death, which is particularly strongly linked with Schopenhauer.
It is also a revolt against the tradition of the absurd, which (also because of death) sees life as meaningless and is symbolized by Albert Camus - though he did not give in to this meaninglessness, calling for filling our lives, since living them is inevitable, with positive meaning.
It is, of course, also a revolt against the principle of "natality" put forward by Hannah Arendt, who argues that life is beginnings embodied by birth and its continuity, not ends. Here, with Nazism and Khomeinism, an optimistic view of death encourages demanding it and bragging about it.
However, their similarities go beyond questions of death and its epic, emotionally charged imagery.
At the political level, we are also looking at a duality of authority (party-state) that had been adopted by Nazism and Communism, and then Khomeinism, which, in turn, then exported it to Lebanon (Hezbollah), Iraq (Popular Mobilization Forces), and Yemen (Ansar Allah).
They also share an expansionist bent that does not recognize nation-states, their borders, or their sovereignty in practice, and it certainly does not recognize the will of these countries’ peoples.
Nonetheless, the most important feature shared by Nazism and Khomeinism remains that both combine an extremely ancient and primitive ideology with very modern institutions (the party, army, security apparatuses, and of course, the rule of a single transcendental leader).
The sum of these similarities makes the Iranian regime more dangerous than any political regime or idea that one could face with reservations or even hostility. It seems that disregarding this threat cannot be explained by a scarcity of sensitivity to Nazism or limited familiarity with it alone.
We also have a generous reading of modern Iranian history: even some of those opposed to the Iranian regime continue to find it difficult to admit that the 1979 revolution was a damned giant step backwards and that the Shah’s regime, which was undoubtedly despotic and extremely bad, had been hundreds of times better and thousands of times less dangerous than the regime that replaced it. This is true for freedoms, the economy and the status of women, as well as in the degree of hostility towards the outside world.
The reasons for not recognizing this are many. Still, in general, they stem from the extent of our reluctance to break with these worn-out principles, one of the sources of which is Nazism - that is, the single most monstrous idea known to man.

Biden and Returning to the Tango
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/July 11/2022
Tango experts say that this dance seems simple at first glance, but it is not. Its mastery requires a firm conviction in the need for it, psychological and physical fitness, and the ability to listen deeply to the partner, to his aspirations, fears and obsessions.
The dance cannot be performed by one of its two dancers, but needs both, to synchronize the steps and restore harmony.
One of the conditions for success is not to dictate your will to your partner, or to demand that he/she copies you. Difference enriches the dance, and commitment is the guarantee. In this world, there is an increasing need for the tango.
What applies on the relationship between individuals is also true of the relationship between states. The dance is based on an accurate reading of mutual benefits, and each dance needs constant maintenance, based on interests and long-distance calculations.
The United States is an economic, political, military and technological giant. Its steps are sometimes affected by the change of administrations and interpretations.
The dance sometimes confuses it, but the realistic calculations overcome everything else. Present and future interests have the final say.
No giant can dance solo, there must be partners, and there must be viable and sustainable partnerships. There is no escape from returning to the origins of the tango.
An observer of international affairs has the right to ask difficult and belated questions: Would the world have reached the current situation if the United States was keen to perform the tango with Russia, which emerged from the Soviet rubble? Would Russia have felt the need for a major revenge project that Vladimir Putin was assigned to carry out in response to the partner’s obsession with victory over the origins of the “tango”? What is left of the dance when the NATO alliance moves its pawns towards the Russian borders? Isn’t the first condition for dancing listening deeply to your partner’s concerns? It’s too late, the earthquake happened.
Post-earthquake policies are not the same. The issue is confirmed when the earthquake is wide-ranging and warns of dire political, military and economic consequences, and in areas far from its current arena. In this context, we can say that the Ukrainian earthquake is unprecedented, not only in the post-Berlin Wall world, but also in the post-World War II world.
From the very first moment, the Russian war in Ukraine jolted the office of President Joe Biden. It cannot be considered a border conflict, and it is more dangerous than the simple return of war rhetoric to Europe.
It is a massive reversal of the model that defeated and destroyed the Soviet Union. It is not just that a permanent member of the Security Council is engaged in a war to change maps and features. It is a war fought with the military arsenal of a nuclear state, as well as weapons of energy and wheat.
Biden has found himself in a difficult situation.
Abandoning Ukraine is more than America and the West can tolerate, and sliding into a direct confrontation between NATO and the Russian army is beyond the world’s capacity to bear.
The Americans and Europeans supported Ukraine to make the Russian invasion too costly and unrepeatable. It soon became clear that the world had fallen into the trap of a long war that is difficult to resolve and difficult to get out of.
Amid these circumstances, the Jeddah meetings are being held this week on Saudi territory, featuring an American-Saudi summit and US-Gulf-Arab top-level talks. The mere convening of these meetings means the return of the Middle East to the scope of interest in Washington, which had distanced itself from this region in order to contain the rise of China.
Washington realized that the Middle East is still a “necessity”, and still holds the keys to stabilizing energy markets, despite changes that occurred in the United States’ need for the region’s oil.
The US administration did not need a great effort to remember the importance of the stability of the Middle East and the safety of its energy supplies, at a time when the features of a difficult European autumn are emerging due to the dependence of the Old Continent on Russian gas. This is not limited to considerations pertaining to Russia alone, but also to China and Iran.
America cannot resign from the fate of the Middle East when it becomes obvious that developments in Ukraine are part of a wide program of a complete reversal of the balances that existed in the world five months ago.
It is unsurprising to see these important meetings convene in Saudi Arabia, with Gulf, Egyptian, Jordanian and Iraqi participation. The Kingdom’s Arab, Islamic and international weight has increased in recent years due to the renaissance launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that transformed the country into an engine of stability and prosperity.
The new Saudi Arabia is a crucial partner to achieve the goal of a stable and prosperous Middle East.
Years ago, Saudi Arabia engaged in a workshop to improve the quality of life for its citizens, which made it a source of inspiration throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds. Partnerships, bridges and relations based on mutual interests and responsibility in dealing with regional and international files. Progress has turned the page on the days when extremist ideas were able to confuse, lure and paralyze society and cripple ambitions.
America’s relations with its Arab friends in the region, including Saudi Arabia, have endured difficult tests. Many countries felt that America had moved away from the origins of the tango and the rules of listening to partners and understanding their concerns regarding old and new issues, which extend from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to Yemen, through the nuclear agreement with Iran, and Tehran’s insistence on exporting its destabilization policy.
While it is necessary to wait for the results; it is clear that the Biden administration is trying to return to the origins of the “tango,” because the Ukrainian earthquake will change the past equations.

Boris Johnson Exits, But the Damage to the UK Will Linger
Max Hastings/Bloomberg/Monday, 11 July, 2022
The English poet Andrew Marvell wrote famous lines on King Charles I’s 1649 execution: “He nothing common did or mean/upon that memorable scene.” Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s hero, Winston Churchill, often recited those lines to his staff, or even to himself. The great wartime prime minister was determined that when the history of World War II was written, he should be deemed to have spoken and acted likewise, in a fashion worthy of the grandeur and tragedy of the hour, as of course he did.
Johnson, who announced his resignation on Thursday, by contrast has done little during his three-year premiership, and nothing over the past week, that has not been common, mean or both.
The cynicism of his own Conservative Party was awesome when, in 2019, its members of Parliament anointed him as their leader. They knew him to be a serial liar and adulterer, previously expelled from the leadership; notoriously lazy and chaotic. They calculated, however, that he was a vote-winner among people who were not traditional Tories but embraced him as a lovable clown who would make politics fun.
Some of us said at the time that government is not meant to be fun. Few familiar with Johnson’s habits and record — he worked for me for seven years when I was a newspaper editor — thought him remotely qualified for public life. Though a brilliant journalistic entertainer, he is a narcissist of heroic proportions.
A decade ago, when Johnson was mayor of London, I wrote that he had never seemed to care for any human being save himself. If ever he achieved his ambition to become prime minister, for many of us a new life in, say, Argentina would suddenly seem inviting.
That remark caused Johnson’s father, Stanley, a figure cut from the same checkered cloth as Boris, to taunt me at a wedding a few years back: “Why aren’t you in Buenos Aires?” I responded that thanks to his son’s policies, I would have trouble affording the airfare.
Three years ago, we doomsayers were brushed aside, and Johnson delivered a massive election victory for the Tories against an extremist Labour Party leader — ahead of progressive disillusionment as the public wearied of the prime minister’s squalid personal conduct, broken political promises and contemptuous deceits.
Though Johnson adores what the great 1960s US administration figure George Ball once called “the satisfactions of power,” he has governed with embarrassing incoherence. He defies rules, conventions and even law according to whim. Last week, when it became plain that his untruths had finally forfeited the confidence of the best of his ministers, his party and the country, he was granted an opportunity to resign with dignity and grace.
He declined to accept this. Instead, again he borrowed from the playbook of former US President Donald Trump, asserting that he was being deprived of his rightful office by a cabal of party members who have defied the electoral will of the British people. He seems sincerely to delude himself that he still commands the affection of the nation, rather than of a small and ever-diminishing fragment of it.
He offers apologies for nothing, and will obviously spend the years ahead writing memoirs, making speeches and perhaps attempting to wield a wrecking ball against his successor’s government. He will seek to show that he, the people’s choice, was deposed by mean-spirited rivals envious of his popularity, celebrity, brilliance.
Only a minority of British people will buy this line — much smaller than the proportion of Americans who swallow Trump’s claim to have been defrauded of the US presidency. Britain’s travails, and Johnson’s appalling behavior, matter much less than does the struggle for legitimacy in Washington, because ours is not remotely such an important country.
But both highlight the same crisis of democracy, the eclipse of traditionally experienced, qualified and on the whole honorable politicians by carpetbaggers willing to say anything to get themselves elected and ultimately indifferent to any cause save their personal advancement.
Johnson’s premiership has been a long, sometimes apparently interminable, embarrassment. The vacuous rhetoric, abuse of foreigners, flagrant breaches of Covid laws made by himself, illegal partying and institutionalized lying progressively alienated all but the most devoted of his supporters.
Britain is not a very corrupt country by global standards, but Johnson has made it more so by his favoritism toward cronies — conferring state honors on fat cats whose only credentials are that they entertain the prime minister and his family.
Johnson loyalists, like Trump supporters, cling to a gut liking for the guy. They believe he is somehow on their side — a fallacy because Boris has never been on anybody’s side save his own. He seems fun, when conventional politics and government are grey and boring. Jeremy Hunt, the Tory whom he defeated to secure the leadership in 2019, is an intelligent, decent former head boy of his school with long ministerial experience, especially in the vital health sector.
Yet Hunt is also a dull dog, bereft of the stardust that fortune has sprinkled upon his rival. Some months ago, I had a conversation with a woman who is best friend of one of Johnson’s ex-lovers. I said: “I suppose she hates him now.” “Oh no,” responded my acquaintance. “She still thinks Boris is absolutely terrific.”
I retired confounded, obliged reluctantly to acknowledge that almost none of the women in Boris’s past has a bad word to say about him, except his ex-wives, whom he would probably say do not count.
Some of the above is sort of funny, like the Trump presidency, except that it is not. Politics and government are not meant to be music hall turns. It seems fair to suggest that something has gone badly wrong with democracy when such people ascend the highest slopes of power, as they do in a frightening number of countries. I forget who dubbed Johnson “Borisconi,” recalling the disastrous and shameless former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, but the nickname is appropriate.
Today, there is widespread disgust in Britain that the Tory party seems willing to indulge Johnson’s continuance in office as caretaker prime minister until completion of the election process to choose a replacement, which will certainly take weeks, possibly months.
The two powerful objections to his stewardship are, first, that it spares him from the ignominy of being precipitated onto the Downing Street sidewalk where he belongs. The second is that, being a much more vengeful man than is widely understood, he is likely to use residual control of the levers of power to influence the choice of his successor.
In particular, he will do all that he can to secure the defeat of former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, whose resignation last week Johnson regards as having triggered his downfall. Sunak, formerly a successful businessman, is far the best qualified of the candidates to become prime minister.
He launched his leadership campaign on Friday with an honorable and admirable pitch for the restoration of honesty in government. Sunak insists that when the nation faces hard times — Britain is forecast to be the worst-performing of the Group of Seven economies next year, with inflation rampant — there cannot be both public spending increases and tax cuts, as Johnson and the Tory right have been baying for.
The discredited prime minister once cheerfully described himself as a “cakeist,” who believes that everybody should be able to have their cake and eat it too. This view appears to be at the heart of his political creed, also of his life, but does not find much favor with economists.
Yet such is the siren appeal of a tax-cutting agenda among the dominant Conservative right that I fear the winner of the leadership contest is likely to prove to be a committed money-giveawayer. Moreover, under the flawed leadership contest rules, when Tories in parliament have narrowed the field to two contenders, those names are then passed to just 200,000 Conservative Party members around the country for the final decision.
The wider British nation, in other words, gets no say about our next prime minister until the next general election, not necessary until 2024. I am a cynic about Tory rank-and-filers: If Sunak is one of two candidates, and the other is white, I believe that he will lose. There is still more racism than we care to admit in some regions of Britain, just as there is in the US.
I told my wife yesterday that my other great fear is that the new prime minister will persist with Johnson’s disastrous policies, or rather lack of policies. She responded, “Can’t we just be satisfied for now with the fact that he is going? Just rejoice!” This last line echoed a remark of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher after a victory in the 1982 Falklands War.
Yet doubts about the quality of most of the front-runners for the leadership succession go far to explain why Johnson was not deposed months ago. They are lightweights. He chose his cabinet not on the basis of ability but of loyalty — some outstanding Tory MPs, including Jeremy Hunt and Tom Tugendhat, were excluded, while Foreign Secretary Liz Truss could never have aspired to a top cabinet job under any other leader save Johnson.
Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is deemed to have “had a good war” by providing maximum British arms support for Ukraine, when many European nations have hung back. Both he and Truss, like Johnson, have indulged in bellicose rhetoric about the need for Ukrainians to keep fighting until the last Russian is expelled from their soil. All three espouse the prospect of the West securing a “generational victory” over the Russians, which some of us think wholly unattainable. There was widespread surprise in London on Saturday, when Wallace ruled himself out of the leadership contest, because more than a few people — including me — thought he might have won it.
No Tory is likely to gain power who admits a harsh truth economists almost unanimously accept, that Brexit has wiped around 5% off our GDP, an act of massive self-harm, even before the further damage inflicted on every nation by Covid-19 and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
A wise British prime minister would abandon the institutionalized abuse of Europeans that has been a feature of the Johnson years, and seek to mend fences. Instead, the Tory right is likely to insist that fighting Europe, denouncing the Brussels bureaucracy of the EU, is an indispensable test of Brexit purity.
Worst of all, to please Ulster’s Protestant Unionists, the new prime minister may insist on continuing Johnson’s policy of unilaterally renouncing the Northern Ireland Protocol of the EU departure treaty, which his own government signed. Truss has been steering the parliamentary bill to implement this almost certainly illegal measure, which has provoked fury in Washington.
Most British people today want what most Americans wanted when President Joe Biden was elected: a return to calm, responsible, serious government wherein wise advice is sought and taken, discipline and order are acknowledged as essential elements of the management of public affairs. Unfortunately, just as in the US, in Britain there is a powerful, implacable right-wing minority that places ideology above pragmatism, party interest above that of the country.
Many of us believe that only the expulsion of the Conservatives from power can secure a revival of decent values and competent administration. Unfortunately, the Labour Party under Keir Starmer is as beset as US Democrats by sterile woke controversies and vacuous left-wing obsessions.
Race and gender issues matter greatly, but no successful ruling party in any society can allow these to dominate its agenda. Labour ought to be a shoo-in to win the next British election, but unless the lackluster Starmer can display mastery and grip — show himself a more formidable personality than he has contrived thus far — Labour will to struggle to secure national power, despite a hefty current lead in the opinion polls.
If much of the above suggests dismay, if not despair, about the condition of Britain’s body politic, my wife is assuredly right that the simple fact of Johnson’s resigning should allow Britons what Churchill in May 1945 called “a brief period of rejoicing.” Had he been able to survive in office until 2024, a message would have gone forth for future aspirants to Britain’s leadership that the bar for morality, ethics and decency in our democracy had sunk to a level unseen since some moments of the 18th century.
We have not, alas, heard the last of Boris Johnson. After quitting office, he will earn millions from his memoirs and public appearances, even as the rest of us pay the colossal bills for his mismanagement of Britain. We must hope fervently that the country falls into the hands of a serious leader, which means Sunak or Hunt. The UK, the US and other democracies around the globe share a desperate need for a new generation of honest and responsible politicians, to give our children and grandchildren the quality of government they deserve. But we are in peril of being denied this by the likes of Trump, Johnson and their would-be clones.

Inflation Is Raging Because Globalization Is Fading
Stephen Mihm/Bloomberg/11 July/2022
Inflation prognostication tends to come down to reading statistical tea leaves. Friday’s report of strong US job growth looks like a sign of economic strength that keeps inflationary pressure high. Recent declines in commodity prices reassured some analysts that the danger could be receding.
This focus on short-term price movements and the resulting interest-rate manipulations of central banks is only natural. But it obscures larger tectonic forces that dictate inflationary trends over years, even decades, and that can’t be controlled by the US Federal Reserve or European Central Bank. Though there’s no shortage of causes for these cycles, one stands out: globalization. Understanding this connection can help solve some of the economic puzzles of recent years — and suggest what’s in store for the future.
A good to place to start is this year’s Tawney Lecture, delivered at Cambridge University in April at the annual meeting of the Economic History Society. The 2022 honoree, Princeton University historian Harold James, used the opportunity to investigate the “causal relationships and interdependence between inflation and globalization.”
James noted that he was hardly the first person to make this connection. In 2005, former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan had raised the unsettling possibility that the era of low inflation and reduced volatility that defined the years following the inflationary blastoff of the 1970s might owe as much to globalization as to the competence of central bankers like himself.
Greenspan noted in a speech that year that the increase of cross-border trade meant that “many economies are increasingly exposed to the rigors of international competition and comparative advantage.” He added, “In the process, lower prices for some goods and services produced by our trading partners have competitively suppressed domestic price pressures.”
This hypothesis was at odds with much of the economic literature of the day, which held that globalization had almost no impact on inflation. But James pointed out that this view of cause and effect is rooted in a focus on short-term forces rather than historical trends that play out over many years.
He argued that the increased flow of capital, people and goods across national borders has the power to keep inflation in check. It just takes time.
Consider, for example, what happened in the 19th century.
In the 1840s, England and other nations wrestled with food shortages. After struggling with inflation and misguided policies, they began removing restrictions in order to allow the import of cheaper food from abroad. The lowering of trade barriers went hand in hand with increased international migration, and then the adoption of the gold standard, which encouraged more cross-border capital investment.
The result was an era of globalization between 1870 and 1914 characterized by what my Bloomberg Opinion colleague, the historian Niall Ferguson, once described as “relatively free trade, limited restrictions on migration, and hardly any regulation of capital flow.”
Significantly, inflation remained low during this period, with some countries even registering sustained periods of mild deflation. This was understandable: As transportation costs fell and competition played out on a global scale, prices dropped while volatility subsided.
World War I smashed the international order, and the pieces wouldn’t be reassembled until many years later. Yet the globalization cycle would restart in the 1970s, when the oil shock helped spark inflation. James described this as “the same move to an initial inflation, then a push to globalize to alleviate scarcity, and then a long disinflation.” The dynamic of the mid-19th century repeated itself.
The features of this wave of globalization included the cross-border movement of funds accumulated by oil-producing nations; the expansion of international capital markets; the near-universal adoption of standardized shipping containers; and, eventually, the expansion of intricate global supply chains.
While Paul Volcker, Fed chair during most of the 1980s, is often credited with slaying inflation with punishingly high interest rates, this narrative obscures the fact that he happened to take charge in 1979, at precisely the moment when the forces of globalization had achieved a critical mass. In 1970, global trade in goods represented 9.5% of global GDP. A decade later, that number had risen to nearly 15%. Other measures of globalization tell a similar story.
Over the course of the 1980s, globalization accelerated, as did offshoring and other cost-cutting moves that depressed the power of workers and put further downward pressure on prices. The end of the Cold War integrated previously isolated swaths of the global economy. At the same time, China became increasingly integrated into the rest of the world, culminating in its membership in the World Trade Organization in 2001.
For the next 20 years, inflation remained largely in check. Policy makers actually worried more about deflation, particularly in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Somewhat belatedly, a growing number of economists began to explore the ways that globalization, as much as domestic conditions, can determine inflation rates.
But eras of globalization don’t last forever. An earlier one ended with a bang in 1914. Our own may die a more protracted death. Well before the recent inflation scare, cracks began appearing in the globalization facade. After the Great Recession, more economists and scholars began to talk about “onshoring.” US President Donald Trump launched a trade war, curtailed immigration and began chipping away at the foundations of the international order. The UK left the European Union in 2020. All of this was before the coronavirus pandemic, the collapse of global supply chains and the outbreak of a land war in Europe.
These developments don’t all spring from related causes, but they work toward a common end, throwing one wrench after another into the carefully calibrated global economic machinery built over the past five decades.
Perhaps the recent inflation scare will prove transitory after all. But if the assault on globalization continues, history suggests that the days of stable low prices are likely to become a thing of the past.

The Future WHO (World Health Organization)
Pete Hoekstra/Gatestone Institute/July 11/2022
"The alarming amendments offered by the Biden Administration to the WHO's International Health Regulations would grant new unilateral authority to [WHO] Director-General Tedros to declare a public health crisis in the United States or other sovereign nations, without any consultation with the U.S. or any other WHO member. Specifically, the Biden Amendment would strike the current regulation that requires the WHO to 'consult with and attempt to obtain verification from the State Party in whose territory the event is allegedly occurring in,' ceding the United States' ability to declare and respond to an infectious disease outbreak within the United States, dependent on the judgment of a corrupt and complicit UN bureaucracy." — Rep. Chris Smith, ranking member of the House Global Health Subcommittee, May 18, 2022.
The delay was declared by some to be a huge win.... I believe that the time will be used to develop and market even more diabolical policies. Now is not the time to take a victory lap, it is the time to be ever vigilant.
Similar to the U.S. Disinformation Board that the Department of Homeland Security recently proposed, the WHO would now also be empowered to combat supposed disinformation and misinformation. It is disconcerting that governmental institutions and international organizations are seeking the power and public resources to combat what they determine to be misinformation; it is a development that should concern us all.
The Biden Administration, alarmingly, with its proposed 13 amendments, wanted to give this power to an international organization with no transparency, no accountability to the U.S. or anyone else, and an abysmal track record. Most conspicuously, it disregarded warnings from Taiwan about the human-to-human transmissibility of the COVID-19 virus, and instead colluded with the Chinese Communist Party in lying to the world about the danger of the virus while the CCP shut down domestic travel but encouraged foreign travel.
Expectations are already being created for what the result of these actions will be: unsettlingly, they seek to expand on the authorities the Biden Administration was prepared to concede to the WHO.
[H]ere are some steps that can and should be taken. A more than solid case can be made that the WHO failed spectacularly in the current crisis. There must be a laser-like focus pointing out how the WHO's actions were politicized and its recommendations were many times deeply flawed. Further, Americans must demand that Congress do thorough investigations of the WHO and U.S. funding going to the organization. Those should be complemented by continued efforts to encourage more whistleblowers to expose additional shortcomings or scandals involving the WHO.
Will the U.S. maintain control of its well-being and sovereignty, and those of our allies, or put our trust in failed international organizations?
The Biden administration recently proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations that would have dramatically expanded the scope and authorities of the World Health Organization (WHO), an international organization with no transparency, no accountability to the U.S. or anyone else, a pro-Communist China leadership and an abysmal track record. Pictured: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the WHO (left) shares a moment with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on January 28, 2020.
Recently the World Health Assembly (WHA), the governing organization of the World Health Organization (WHO), met to discuss and evaluate proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations. This document sets the legal framework for how countries respond to public health outbreaks that can cross borders and the broad range of responsibilities for the WHO in response. Amazingly, it was the Biden administration that proposed the set of amendments that would have dramatically expanded the scope and authorities of the WHO.
Rep. Chris Smith, the ranking member of the House Global Health Subcommittee, warned:
"The alarming amendments offered by the Biden Administration to the WHO's International Health Regulations would grant new unilateral authority to [WHO] Director-General Tedros to declare a public health crisis in the United States or other sovereign nations, without any consultation with the U.S. or any other WHO member.
"Specifically, the Biden Amendment would strike the current regulation that requires the WHO to 'consult with and attempt to obtain verification from the State Party in whose territory the event is allegedly occurring in,' ceding the United States' ability to declare and respond to an infectious disease outbreak within the United States, dependent on the judgment of a corrupt and complicit UN bureaucracy."
Just as amazingly, the amendments failed to be accepted at the WHA meeting. Instead, future amendments and potentially a future International Pandemic Treaty were pushed out into the future. The delay was declared by some to be a huge win. Color me skeptical. I believe that the time will be used to develop and market even more diabolical policies. Now is not the time to take a victory lap, it is the time to be ever vigilant.
In January of 2022, the Biden Administration quietly proposed thirteen amendments to be considered by the WHA. There was no notification to the U.S. Congress on the amendments, which would have significantly enhanced the WHO's power. For example, experts believed that the language would have enabled the WHO director to unilaterally declare a "pandemic" or "serious health status" within any country without providing the country a chance to respond or advising the WHO prior to a declaration. Instead, the director would unilaterally establish the parameters and basis for the decision.
Similar to the U.S. Disinformation Board that the Department of Homeland Security recently proposed, the WHO would now also be empowered to combat supposed disinformation and misinformation. It is disconcerting that governmental institutions and international organizations are seeking the power and public resources to combat what they determine to be misinformation; it is a development that should concern us all.
The Biden Administration alarmingly wanted to give this power to an international organization with no transparency, no accountability to the U.S. or anyone else, and an abysmal track record of disregarding warnings from Taiwan about the human-to-human transmissibility of the COVID-19 virus and instead colluded with the Chinese Communist Party in lying to the world about the danger of the virus while the CCP shut down domestic travel but encouraged foreign travel.
The good news is that these amendments have not been adopted. The WHA basically tabled the amendments for potential future consideration. Instead, it created a working group to further develop and consider those and other amendments. It also will begin work on a new International Pandemic Treaty. Expectations are already being created for what the result of these actions should be: unsettlingly, they seek to expand on the authorities the Biden Administration was prepared to concede to the WHO.
For example, a group of UN experts already has set the expectation that "ongoing multilateral negotiations on a new international instrument on pandemic preparedness and recovery is grounded in human rights." What that means is not clear, but if these experts use as a model the UN Human Rights Commission, a scandal-plagued and ineffective commission at best, we will be in serious trouble.
Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of India, the largest manufacturer of vaccines (by volume), already has laid out some of his ideas. Among them, he wants the sharing of intellectual property, global agreement on regulatory standards, and universal travel vaccine certificates on a digital platform. He goes on to explain either implicitly or explicitly that these types of activities could be regulated by international organizations, such as the WHO.
Unfortunately, what is being proposed here, beginning with the Biden Administration amendments, is an international organization whose leadership would have the ability to:
Identify independently what constitutes a pandemic or serious health concern;
Would define the rationale for such a designation;
Would be funded to combat "misinformation" and "disinformation";
Would establish the values (e.g., human rights) that would define how the pandemic would be addressed;
Would define how intellectual property would be shared and who controls it;
Would implement and manage global regulatory standards; and
Would develop a universal travel vaccine certification on a digital platform.
These proposals would be only the tip of the iceberg. At the moment, the plan has all the earmarks of empowering and funding an untransparent, unaccountable, un-removeable behemoth. Just imagine what other schemes these globalist bureaucrats may be envisioning as they begin the process of creating this new monster global health apparatus. There is little room for national sovereignty, and even less consideration for individuals making their own choices.
While some critics have expressed skepticism and that these concerns are overblown, this isn't just a perceived or manufactured threat to the freedom of American citizens and the sovereignty of the U.S. The Biden Administration and allies in Europe and Asia were all on board for the initial package of amendments. Imagine the surprise that the coalition that stopped this from happening was more than 40 countries on the continent of Africa and Brazil. Ironically, China, which in many respects controls the WHO, also wasn't fully on board.
For China, the current model works. The WHO has limited powers that can be used effectively to China's benefit as long as its leadership is pro-China. If the WHO leadership goes against China, China can just block them. Under the new proposals for the WHO, with a neutral or anti-China bias, China would be extremely vulnerable because the WHO could take action unilaterally. China might be thinking why fix something that, from their perspective, is not broken.
Despite the setback, the WHO and its supporters are still using the global COVID pandemic as the impetus to make these types of proposals reality. For those opposed, here are some steps that can and should be taken. A more than solid case can be made that the WHO failed spectacularly in the current crisis. There must be a laser-like focus pointing out how the WHO's actions were politicized and its recommendations were many times deeply flawed. Further, Americans must demand that Congress do thorough investigations of the WHO and U.S. funding going to the organization. Those should be complemented by continued efforts to encourage more whistleblowers to expose additional shortcomings or scandals involving the WHO.
The American people must demand full transparency from the Biden Administration and future administrations, as they participate in ongoing discussions around the International Health Regulations and the International Pandemic Treaty -- and any another other untransparent and unaccountable transnational organizations. This year, the current administration, by secretive actions, almost got away with yet another capitulation to Communist China that would have seriously weakened America. The U.S. Senate also needs to be more vigilant in its congressional oversight function of treaties. This vigilance by both the Senate and the public must start now, it cannot wait until proposals are finalized. That is too late.
This is a critical issue to the future of every American citizen and our country. Will the U.S. maintain control of its well-being and sovereignty, and those of our allies, or put our trust in failed international organizations? It is imperative that everyone understand the immense importance and associated risks of such a decision.
Peter Hoekstra was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration. He served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the second district of Michigan and served as Chairman and Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. He is currently Chairman of the Center for Security Policy Board of Advisors.
© 2022 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

خالد أبو طعمة/معهد جيتستون: ما يتوقعه العرب من زيارة بايدن للشرق الأوسط
What the Arabs Expect from Biden's Visit to the Middle East
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/July 11/2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/110023/khaled-abu-toameh-gatestone-institute-what-the-arabs-expect-from-bidens-visit-to-the-middle-east-%d8%ae%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%af-%d8%a3%d8%a8%d9%88-%d8%b7%d8%b9%d9%85%d8%a9-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%87%d8%af-%d8%ac/
The Arabs are also saying that they want Biden to understand that, over the years, the Gulf states have changed for the better, and that if he wants to maintain America's strategic partnership with its Arab allies and friends, it is important in this culture that he show respect.
The Arabs are telling Biden: Stay away from the mullahs of Iran; stop the appeasement of the Iranian regime, do not rush into making another nuclear deal that threatens the national security of the entire region and beyond, and please notice that some of the Arab countries have changed markedly and have new leaders who deserve to be involved politely and treated as real allies, not as enemies.
Biden would greatly benefit from working towards strengthening the partnership between the US and the Gulf states to move it to new and promising strategic horizons. — Abdul Khaleq Abdullah, prominent Emirati author and political analyst, open letter to Biden, Al-Ain, February 8, 2022.
Al-Dosseri expressed hope that the rapprochement between the US and the Gulf states would constitute a major blow to Iran, presumably before Iran deals a major blow to the Gulf states.
Iran's mullahs [will] try to obstruct the US-Arab rapprochement by preoccupying the Biden administration with other issues, such as renewed violence and tensions in Iraq or a new war between Israel and Hezbollah. — Mohammed Faisal Al-Dosseri, Saudi author, Al-Ain, July 8, 2022.
The Iranian regime "considered the gradual escalation between Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt with the US administration a victory for its policy." — Walid Phares, Lebanese-American professor and author, Independent Arabia, July 5, 2022.
If the Biden administration persists in its policy of appeasement towards Iran, according to these commentators, not only is the US unlikely to see peace and security in our time, but it could end up losing all its friends and allies in the Arab world.
On the eve of US President Joe Biden's first visit to the Middle East since taking office, many Arabs have expressed hope that he will realize the importance of America's partnership with the Gulf states and the immense dangers that Iran poses to their security and stability. Pictured: Biden boards Air Force One in Cleveland, Ohio, July 6, 2022. (Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
On the eve of US President Joe Biden's first visit to the Middle East since taking office, many Arabs have expressed hope that he will realize the importance of America's partnership with the Gulf states and the immense dangers that Iran poses to their security and stability.
The Arabs are also saying that they want Biden to understand that, over the years, the Gulf states have changed for the better, and that if he wants to maintain America's strategic partnership with its Arab allies and friends, it is important in this culture that he show respect.
The Arabs are telling Biden: Stay away from the mullahs of Iran; stop the appeasement of the Iranian regime, do not rush into making another nuclear deal that threatens the national security of the entire region and beyond, and please notice that some of the Arab countries have changed markedly and have new leaders who deserve to be involved politely and treated as real allies, not as enemies.
In an open letter to Biden, prominent Emirati author and political analyst Abdul Khaleq Abdullah wrote that Biden would greatly benefit from working towards strengthening the partnership between the US and the Gulf states to move it to new and promising strategic horizons. "The Arab Gulf states live next to a difficult Iranian neighbor that poses the greatest threat to the security and stability of the region," Abdullah wrote.
"Iran has a revolutionary and sectarian agenda and is rapidly moving to build huge nuclear and missile capabilities. Iran supports with money and weapons terrorist militias that tamper with the security and stability of the region and direct their terrorist activities against the Arab Gulf states."
Abdullah pointed out that the Gulf states are concerned about Washington's appeasement of Iran and its "uncalculated rush" to sign the nuclear agreement.
"The Arab Gulf states are the closest to Iran and understand Tehran more than others, and inevitably more than America, so you [Biden] should listen carefully to their legitimate concerns about Iranian expansion rather than push them to accept a nuclear agreement that consolidates Iran's hegemony and reinforces its plans to become the policeman of the Arab Gulf."
The Emirati political analyst said that it was time for America to reconcile with a new geopolitical reality: there is a new Arab Gulf that is confident in itself and in its present and future, and knows how to employ its oil, gas and sovereign funds to serve its national interests.
"They [the Americans] have not yet reconciled with the fact that this Arabian Gulf is different from the Gulf of the 20th century... If you come with the mentality of dealing with the old Arabian Gulf, you need to know in advance that your visit will be incomplete and unhelpful, and it may be better to stay in Washington. During your visit to the region, you will meet the new leaders of the Arab Gulf states, who are as old as your children, and some of them are as old as your grandchildren. You will find all of them very warmly welcoming, but it may be useful to realize that their world is different from yours, and that their confidence in America has recently been shaken. The new Arab Gulf leaders are convinced that the time has come for a different, and inevitably, balanced partnership."
The Gulf states, he continued, understand that oil is what prompted Biden to visit the region.
"It is okay to be frank in admitting this, instead of covering your visit with contradictory statements that are sometimes funny and not befitting the leader of a superpower," Abdullah suggested.
"The Arab Gulf states may be willing to meet the request of the American partner to raise the ceiling of oil production, but there is a price that America must pay, and the most important price is for it to speak from now on about the Gulf states and their leaders with respect, and recognize the importance of these countries in the new world order."
Saudi author Mohammed Faisal Al-Dosseri wrote that the US-Arab rapprochement will pose several challenges to Iran, especially the weakening of the terrorist militias affiliated with the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which will affect the Iranian military presence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
Al-Dosseri expressed hope that the rapprochement between the US and the Gulf states would constitute a major blow to Iran, presumably before Iran deals a major blow to the Gulf states.
"Restoring US-Arab relations to their normal course will open the door to economic and military cooperation, including arms deals that were hampered by President Biden's assumption of power," he argued. "This will weaken Iran's influence in the region and force it to reconsider its current strategy, which is based on the principle of escalation and interference in affairs of the region as a whole."
He predicted that Iran's mullahs would try to obstruct the US-Arab rapprochement by preoccupying the Biden administration with other issues, such as renewed violence and tensions in Iraq or a new war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Lebanese journalist Ali Hamade said that the crisis that erupted in the past few years between the US and Saudi Arabia had prompted the Kingdom and America's historical Arab allies to search for new paths in their international relations.
The crisis, Hamade wrote, has led to the maturation of a special Saudi foreign policy based on valuing the relationship with the US, but not at any cost, and on the basis of taking into account the interests of the Kingdom and its national security.
"Saudi Arabia's national security has been endangered since the signing of the Iranian nuclear agreement in 2015, when Washington did not take into account the security of Saudi Arabia as its most important ally," he remarked. "Former President Barack Obama's presidency was known for departing from the historical alliance with the Arabs and preferring the so-called Iranian option."
Hamade pointed out that since Biden came to the White House, the Saudi leadership has been exposed to negative policies, from the offensive electoral promises made by Biden against the Kingdom, to restricting Saudi arms purchases for defensive purposes, removing Yemen's Houthi militia from the US terrorist list, and practicing political blackmail from some pillars of the administration and Democratic Party over the issue of the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The Biden administration, the Lebanese journalist said, chose to rush towards Tehran to return to the 2015 nuclear agreement at the expense of the security of America's allies in the Middle East. "When we talk about allies, we do not mean Saudi Arabia alone, but all the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Egypt and Jordan," Hamade clarified. "The important thing today is that the crisis brought to light a firm, solid, conscious, mature, and experienced Saudi leadership."
Lebanese-American professor and author Walid Phares wrote:
"From the Iranian perspective, that is, from the perspective of the regime in Tehran, the rapprochement between the Biden administration and the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, even if it is limited, slow, or for relative goals, constitutes a major challenge to Iran's hegemony in the region."
The Iranian leadership, Phares said, "considered that the return of the US to the negotiating table in Vienna, and the growing influence of the Iranian lobby in Washington since the return of Barack Obama's policy to the White House, constituted a guarantee for the advancement of the most appropriate agenda for Iran."
The Iranian regime, he also pointed out, "considered the gradual escalation between Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt with the US administration a victory for its policy."
The Arabs are obviously aware that Iran will try to thwart any effort to improve relations between the US and the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia.
Biden, in the view of many Arabs, should be appropriately firm in dealing with the Iranian threat, and restore the confidence of America's traditional Arab allies. If the Biden administration persists in its policy of appeasement towards Iran, according to these commentators, not only is the US unlikely to see peace and security in our time, but it could end up losing all its friends and allies in the Arab world.
*Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.
© 2022 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Video From FDD Covering /Biden in the Middle East: Opportunities and Challenges
Ebtesam al-Ketbi, Tamar Hermann, Dennis Ross, Robert Satloff
July 11, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pSNo366AI8&t=29s&ab_channel=WashingtonInstitute
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Brief Analysis
Watch a webcast as veteran diplomats and expert scholars explore the goals, risks, and chances for success in President Biden's upcoming trip to the Middle East.
During his upcoming trip to the Middle East, President Biden will undertake an ambitious agenda during a challenging period for the region. He will visit an Israel led by a caretaker government and preparing for its fifth national election in three years. He will meet with Palestinian Authority leaders facing a crisis of confidence with their own people amid ongoing stalemate in the moribund peace process. He will attempt to mend fences with the leadership of Saudi Arabia after months of estrangement. And all of these encounters will take place against a backdrop of Iranian nuclear advancements and critical disruption in global energy markets due to the Ukraine war.
To assess the president’s prospects for success, The Washington Institute is pleased to announce a virtual Policy Forum with experts from the Gulf, Israel, and the United States:
Ebtesam al-Ketbi, founder and president of the Emirates Policy Center and a member of the Consultative Commission of the Gulf Cooperation Council;
Tamar Hermann, a senior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute and academic director of its Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research;
Dennis Ross, the William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute and former senior director for the Central Region at the National Security Council;
Robert Satloff, The Washington Institute’s executive director and author of a new American Purpose essay on the imperatives that should guide the president's trip to Saudi Arabia.
The Policy Forum series is made possible through the generosity of the Florence and Robert Kaufman Family.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Ebtesam al-Ketbi
Ebtesam al-Ketbi, founder and president of the Emirates Policy Center, the UAE's leading foreign policy and security think tank; professor of political science at United Arab Emirates University; and a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council's Consultative Commission.
Tamar Hermann
Tamar Hermann
Tamar Hermann is a senior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute and academic director of its Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research.
Dennis Ross
Dennis Ross
Dennis Ross, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama, is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute.
Robert Satloff
Robert Satloff
Robert Satloff is executive director of The Washington Institute, a post he assumed in January 1993.

د. وليد فارس/نيوزماكس: ترى هل سيسير بايدن في تعامله مع إيران على خطى اوباما أم ترامب؟
Will Biden Take Trump's or Obama's Path With Iran?
Dr. Walid Phares/Newsmax/July 11/2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/110039/dr-walid-phares-newsmax-will-biden-take-trumps-or-obamas-path-with-iran-%d8%af-%d9%88%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%af-%d9%81%d8%a7%d8%b1%d8%b3-%d9%86%d9%8a%d9%88%d8%b2%d9%81%d8%a7%d9%83%d8%b3-%d8%aa%d8%b1/
After the Trump administration withdrew from the Iran Deal in 2018 and designated the IRCG as a foreign terror organization in 2019, the “Islamic Republic” was seemingly in open war against the United States, targeting the Trump White House in particular.
The Trump policy of “maximum pressures” deprived Tehran from significant income, and sanctions were still escalating by early 2020 when the coronavirus practically paralyzed U.S. foreign policy as the pandemic bogged down international relations globally.
As of the Riyadh summit in May 2017, when for the first time a U.S. president addressed the leaders of more than 50 Arab and Muslim countries and openly accused Tehran of masterminding terror in the region — while also pledging to work with Arabs and Israelis to stop the regime from threatening the Middle East, Iranian networks started launching campaigns against the Trump administration to undermine its policies and with hopes to drive Trump and his team out of the White House.
For the first time since 2009, U.S. policy took clear action toward containing Iranian power in the Middle East. Sanctions were multiplied, and a special coordinator to set up an international coalition to isolate the regime was appointed.
Ambassador Brian Hook initiated a wide-scale campaign, involving dozens of countries, to follow up on the economic measures intended to cut Iran off from world markets — and to target its military and intelligence apparatus, not just to force Tehran to back off its plans for nuclear military power, but to curb its militia expansion in the region.
On the ground, U.S. units and weapons systems in east Syria, Iraq, and the Gulf were increased, and measured strikes on pro-Iranian militias were conducted.
Thanks to the Warsaw conference organized by Hook in 2019, Tehran’s regime and the IRCG were gradually blacklisted worldwide, opening the path for the designation of the “Pasdaran Guard” as a terror group by the U.S. and its allies.
For four years, the U.S. shifted from Obama’s policy of engagement and replaced it with efforts to roll back Iran’s influence.
However, Tehran feared most one aspect of pushback barely used by the Trump administration: Western support to the Iranian opposition (or even national resistance).
Indeed, while the Pasdaran and its regional militias, including the Quds force, were determined to confront the Trump administration’s military, security, and financial measures in a “four-year long war” (and, if needed, an eight-year contest should Trump be reelected), the regime’s real Achilles heel was its own people.
After several uprisings against Khamenei’s ruling elite, including in 1999 and 2009, a third wave of popular protests hit the country during fall of 2019. The third revolt was the largest and most enduring against the regime and should it have received proper sustained support, could have capsized the regime.
The second revolt, known as the Green Revolution during June 2009, was abandoned by the Obama administration, bumping possibility for a major change in Iran for almost a decade.
The 2019 revolt in the Islamic Republic was accompanied by two other massive protests in two Iranian militia-controlled countries, Iraq and Syria. The three popular movements resembled Eastern Europe’s revolution against Soviet Communism.
Tehran’s ultimate worry was that the Trump administration would strongly back the three revolts against Iranian domination, leading to the collapse of the regime and its vassals in four Arab countries (if we add Syria and Yemen).
Iranian militias began threatening U.S. forces and interests in Iraq but were shocked with the elimination of Quds force commander Soleimani.
By the summer of 2020, another nightmare was added to Tehran concerns: the signing of the Abraham Accords between Arab countries and Israel.
While Obama preferred to collaborate with the Iranian regime to reach a deal, the Trump administration criticized the regime’s suppression of its own population, stopped ignoring Iran’s internal strife, and brokered deals with countries the regime sought to intimidate.
It became obvious that the Iran Deal lobby had to put all its weight against a renewal of such policy and was relieved by the ousting of the Trump administration, signaling an end to the “maximum pressures” policy against the regime.
However, as President Biden is visiting both Israel and Saudi Arabia, will his administration decide to perform another shift and reimpose on Tehran a new wave maximum pressures reminiscent of the Trump era in order to regain the friendship and partnership of the Arab Coalition and Israel — or will it resume the Obama policy of maximum cooperation with the Islamic Republic?
Options are open, and the window is narrow. What will it be?
*Dr. Walid Phares, is a Newsmax foreign policy analyst — beginning in April of 2022. Since 2009, he has served as co-secretary of the Transatlantic Parliamentary Group. He has also served as a foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump in 2016 and was a national security adviser (in 2011) to now-Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Ariz. Dr. Phares is a noted author, professor and Mideast expert, as well as a former Fox News and MSNBC contributor. Read Dr. Walid Phares'
https://www.newsmax.com/walidphares/joe-biden-iran-biden-administration-donald-trump/2022/07/11/id/1078219/