English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For 24 July/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.july24.22.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
The Wheed & Good Wheat Seed Parable/The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field
Matthew 13/24-30: “Jesus put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?”But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’.

Titels For English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 23-24/2022
Reports: Shea says US keen on border deal as Washington and Paris intervene
'90% of demarcation file finalized' as veteran diplomat says no war
Bassil: Aoun eagerly waiting to leave Baabda, resistance can't be strong without state
Lebanon bids to please striking public sector employees with pay rise, social assistance
Maronite Catholic Archbishop Musa al-Hajj was detained today and interrogated in Lebanon/Alberto Fernandez/Face Book/July 19 /2022
The Committee of Support for the Lebanese Southerners in Enforced Exile in Israel: Proudly We Stand By Archbishop Mussa Al Hajj/Claude A Hillar Hajjar/July 23/2020
UN Reminds Lebanon of Commitment to Non-Refoulement of Displaced Syrians
Sharing Israel's Natural Gas Revenues With Lebanon Is A Mistake/Yair Ravid/Media/23 July/2022

Titles For Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 23-24/2022
Senior IRGC member caught and interrogated by Mossad in Iran, report says/Itamar Eichner|/Ynetnews/July 23/2022
Israel’s Gantz: War Is a Last Resort against Iran
France tells Iran it's disappointed at lack of progress over nuclear talks - Elysee Palace
US Warns of Renewed Attacks by Iran-Backed Militias
Iranian Dissident Summit in Albania Postponed over Security Threat
At Least 22 Killed in South Iran Floods
Iran Media: Gunmen Kill Brother of Collapsed Tower’s Owner
Iran’s state TV says 2 moderate quakes hit southern province
Russia’s Lavrov to visit Egypt during Africa tour
Russia’s Lavrov to address Arab League on Sunday
Russia, Ukraine Trade Missile Strikes on War’s 150th Day
Russian Missiles Hit Ukraine Port; Kyiv Says It Is Still Preparing Grain Exports
Looking back at Egypt’s July 23 revolution, 70 years on
Tunisia police crack down on anti-Saied protest
Iraq Submits Complaint to UN against Turkey after Attack
Iran seeks to ease tension with Saudi Arabia as Western pressure builds up
Saudi seizes 15 million captagon pills
Macron hosts Sisi as France hopes to boost security ties with Egypt
UN health agency declares monkeypox a global emergency

Titles For LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 23-24/2022
Conservative leadership contest in UK has an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ feel to it/Andrew Hammond/Arab News/July 23/2022
The world needs to work together to confront growing threat of drought/Ibrahim Thiaw/Arab News/July 23/ 2022
Last hope for Tunisia/Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/July 23/2022
Today in History: Peasant Crusaders, Islamic Terrorists, and the Church Bells of Noon/Raymond Ibrahim/July 23/2022
Australia: New Government Maintains Hardline Stance on China/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/July 23/2022
The Politics of Persecution: Middle Eastern Christians in an Age of Empire/Raymond Ibrahim/July 23/2022
Biden's Trip: A Total Disappointment to Allies/Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/July 23/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 23-24/2022
Reports: Shea says US keen on border deal as Washington and Paris intervene
Naharnet/July 23/2022
U.S. sea border demarcation mediator Amos Hochstein is preparing to return to Lebanon soon, specifically before the end of this month, senior diplomatic sources told al-Manar TV. “The indications coming from U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shea point to U.S. desire to reach an agreement over demarcation,” the sources added. Informed sources meanwhile told al-Binaa newspaper that the Naqoura indirect negotiations between Lebanon and Israel will likely be resumed soon. “The file has reached its conclusions and several countries have intervened to secure a solution before September, especially the U.S. and France,” the sources added.

'90% of demarcation file finalized' as veteran diplomat says no war
Naharnet/July 23/2022
Ninety percent of the file of sea border demarcation between Lebanon and Israel has become finalized, al-Joumhouria newspaper quoted informed high-ranking sources as saying in remarks published Saturday. A veteran diplomat meanwhile told the daily that “no war is expected to erupt in south Lebanon nor on other fronts in the region, because it would spiral out of everyone’s control, especially should it erupt on the southern front and spread to other fronts.” “The United States has no interest in any new wars in the region, at a time it is strongly seeking to pacify things and push for finalizing normalization between some Arab countries and Israel,” the diplomat said. “Among the reasons why the war will not happen is that Israel is incapable of fighting such a war without obtaining a prior U.S. permission,” the diplomat added. The diplomat also stressed that “an agreement over sea border demarcation will take place and will allow Lebanon to obtain its border and oil and gas rights, seeing as things are moving forward as planned.”

Bassil: Aoun eagerly waiting to leave Baabda, resistance can't be strong without state
Naharnet/July 23/2022
President Michel Aoun is eagerly waiting to leave the Baabda Palace when his term ends and "then we will return to our nature away from the palace’s limitations," Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil said on Friday. "The caretaker cabinet is not eligible to practice presidential powers and the presidential vote must be held on time to prevent vacuum," Bassil added, in an interview on al-Manar TV. As for the formation of a new government, the FPM chief said "there is no hope that a government will be formed" soon, adding that he does not have "any demands.""We call for forming a government so that we don't enter a full vacuum, " he added. "The PM-designate has no intention to form a government and he is not exerting efforts," Bassil charged. Mikati "wants to keep this government because he doesn't want to shoulder the responsibility of three matters -- removing the central bank governor, the border demarcation file and the issue of refugees," the FPM chief added. Moreover, he stressed that it is Mikati and not the FPM who does not want a new government because he was "the one who visited Baabda and presented a line-up to the president, telling him 'I changed three of your ministers and a I've changed a fourth in agreement with Speaker (Nabih) Berri.'"Bassil also said that he "will not insist on the energy portfolio in the new government," adding that he has informed France of this. "We have not held onto the energy portfolio and in Hariri's government we suggested allotting it to Hezbollah but it refused it," he noted. As for the relation with Hezbollah, Bassil said: "The resistace was betrayed in the July War and I will defend Hezbollah no matter what, because there is a scheme to liquidate it and eliminate it." "The resistance cannot be strong without a state," he added, criticizing Hezbollah's alliance with Berri. "We won over Israel in war but we didn't win over it in peace, and victory does not only come through weapons but rather in living with dignity. Why should the resistance be at the expense of the state?" Bassil asked. "Without a state, there would be no homeland, but rather sectarian fiefdoms," he warned.

Lebanon bids to please striking public sector employees with pay rise, social assistance
Najia Houssari/Arab News/July 23/2022
BEIRUT: Political observers fear a strike by Lebanon’s public sector employees that started a month ago will turn into civil disobedience if it is not dealt with properly, amid government efforts to address their grievances. The heads of the administrative units in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education announced that they, too, would join the strike by Monday. Ministry employees said they were joining the strike because their salaries no longer covered the cost of getting to work and because of delays in paying transport allowances and social assistance that were approved months ago.
They said they were also protesting against the “humiliation” they faced in banks while trying to withdraw their salaries, which were barely enough to feed their children and cover medicine and hospitalization costs. But public sector employees fear their industrial action will affect their July salaries as Finance Ministry employees are also on strike.
Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, director-general of Lebanon’s General Security agency, warned that political disasters were ravaging the country and the state was “rapidly falling.”He said: “Only the military and security institutions remain, but the country could be facing further deterioration.”Salaries were not enough to cover basic needs, and there were no signs that Lebanon and its components were making any progress, he added. “Everyone seems to be involved in the race for the presidency while forming a government seems to be postponed due to the current political impasse.”
He said public administration was shut and that the Lebanese were suffocating. “We do not know when it is time to surrender. We are in a country roaming on shifting sands.”Ibrahim said the national currency’s value was ever-depreciating and that Lebanon was, unfortunately, not present at the discussion table of the regional and international community, except as a new home for refugees and displaced people. His warnings came amid indications that public sector employees might hear some good news in the coming days.
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Finance Minister Youssef Khalil have been making efforts to convince Finance Ministry employees to go to their offices to ensure all striking workers receive their July salaries on time. The representative for the Employees Association in the government, Hassan Wehbe, said: “The initial agreement provides for giving an additional salary with the previously approved social assistance worth LBP2,000,000 ($1,326.7) in addition to an LBP95,000 transportation allowance for every work day, with incentives that may amount to a minimum of LBP200,000 LBP and a maximum of LBP300,000.”
Lebanese President Michel Aoun has signed a decree to give temporary social assistance to all public sector employees and retirees and to give the Finance Ministry an advance from the treasury to cover this assistance. But the proposal has not satisfied the committees leading the strike. The industrial action was sparked by a decision to pay judges' salaries according to the US dollar exchange rate of LBP8,000 instead of LBP1,507, which was the official rate before the Lebanese economic collapse began in 2019.
Caretaker Minister of Social Affairs Hector Hajjar said a meeting on Monday was expected to suggest solutions that would be in everyone’s interests, especially employees. Hajjar said that the public sector could not function properly by only allocating two working days per week but through the possibility of allocating new revenues to the treasury.
A delegation of the Lebanese-American Coordination Committee said the country was facing an unprecedented crisis at the constitutional, sovereign, economic and social levels. It said many sectors were severely affected and subject to massive collapse. The observations came at the end of the delegation's visit to Lebanon, which included meetings with key government officials, parties, and activists. The committee said that Lebanon’s friends in the international community and the Arab world had expressed keenness to save the country's identity and ensure its recovery.
“This proves that Lebanon is not left behind, and all concerned parties in the US are making sure support is provided for Lebanon, especially to the Lebanese army. The constitution must be respected and all international resolutions regarding Lebanon’s sovereignty must be implemented. “This is a historic moment that should not be wasted because of political settlements and positions that lack courage. Wasting this opportunity could lead to Lebanon’s total collapse.”

Maronite Catholic Archbishop Musa al-Hajj was detained today and interrogated in Lebanon
Alberto Fernandez/Face Book/July 19 /2022
Lebanese Maronite Catholic Archbishop Musa al-Hajj was detained today and interrogated in Lebanon by the authorities for eight hours before being released. He had just crossed over from Israel where he has been for the past decade the Maronite Archbishop and Exarch (in charge of all Maronites in the Holy Land). He was ostensibly detained for investigation for the crime of "cooperating with Israel" ("a crime" used as a weapon in Lebanon for political reasons). Some suspect that this is a message sent to the Maronite Patriarch, a warning shot, about his stated policy of Lebanon being neutral from the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Also a message to all Christians and any Lebanese dissident that Hezbollah doesn't need to kill you, the state can be used to persecute you, as needed, at any time.

The Committee of Support for the Lebanese Southerners in Enforced Exile in Israel: Proudly We Stand By Archbishop Mussa Al Hajj
Claude A Hillar Hajjar/July 23/2020
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/110590/claude-a-hillar-hajjar-the-committee-of-support-for-the-lebanese-southerners-in-enforced-exile-in-israel-proudly-we-stand-by-archbishop-mussa-al-hajj/
We, the Committee of Support for the Lebanese Southerners in Enforced Exile in Israel, proudly stand by the Archbishop Mussa Al Hajj, the Maronite Archbishop of Haifa and the Holy Land and the Patriarchal Vicar for Lebanon, Jerusalem, the Hashemite Kingdom and the Palestinian Territories, and accuse the Lebanese authorities of following the orders and desires of the Terrorist Iranian occupier, and their Lebanese acolytes, just as it happened previously under the Syrian terrorist occupation. And in this tragic and inadmissible act of arrest, detention and interrogation by the Lebanese Military Court, we call upon the United Nations Security Council to take urgent, immediate and effective action to implement Resolutions 1559/1680 under Chapter 7, art. 43 of the United Nations Charter in order to Proclaim the Permanent Neutrality of Lebanon and provide its people protection.
To these Iranian-Syrian terrorist occupiers and their power-hungry Lebanese acolytes, we promise that no matter what they do, no matter how much they try to intimidate, frighten or humiliate us, we will never bend and we will remain standing strong, just like the CEDARS OF GOD, THE GLORIOUS CEDARS OF LEBANON. And our Martyrs, just like our Phoenix, will rise from their ashes, in new future generations.
*The Committee of Support for the Lebanese Southerners in Enforced Exile in Israel

UN Reminds Lebanon of Commitment to Non-Refoulement of Displaced Syrians
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 23 July, 2022
The United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon, Najat Rochdi, reiterated that protection of refugees is a humanitarian and moral imperative and lies at the heart of all humanitarian actions. She recalled the commitment of the Lebanese government to the principle of non-refoulement under international law, and to the principle of ensuring the safe, voluntary, and dignified return of Syrian refugees. Officials in Lebanon have been increasingly pushing for the return of Syrian refugees to their homes. Rochdi stressed in a statement on Friday that the humanitarian community wishes to reiterate and clarify that the protection of the most vulnerable women, men, boys, and girls is of high priority to the UN and its partners and that the UN is always willing to engage in a constructive dialogue with the Lebanese government. She called on everyone to refrain from fueling the media and social media with negative sentiments and hatred, adding that she counts on all to continue to display the spirit of solidarity and mutual respect in these difficult times. “Amid Lebanon’s unprecedented economic meltdown and significant increases in poverty levels and humanitarian needs, the UN and its partners remain committed to supporting the most vulnerable populations based on needs regardless of their nationality, disability, religion, gender, sexuality, or place of origin,” she continued. She added that over the past year, the humanitarian community, including the UN through the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan (LCRP) and the Emergency Response Plan (ERP), has increased its support to the Lebanese people, families, communities, and public institutions to lessen the impact of the multiple crises and meet the dire needs of the most vulnerable, as part of its primary mission to “Leave No One Behind.”She recognized the “incredible generosity of the Lebanese people and authorities who have hosted refugees at a time when they have been struggling with their own vulnerabilities,” and expressed the UN gratitude for the continued solidarity. The longstanding collaboration of the Lebanese government in responding to the ongoing impact of the Syria crisis on Lebanon and its people, under the LCRP, and in supporting the most vulnerable populations affected by the unfolding economic crisis, under ERP, is also highly appreciated and commended, she stressed. Lebanon had declared a plan to deport 15,000 displaced Syrians per month. Lebanese caretaker Minister of Displaced Persons Issam Sharafeddine said he will soon visit Damascus and hold talks with relevant authorities to develop a plan and ensure the refugees’ safe return.

Sharing Israel's Natural Gas Revenues With Lebanon Is A Mistake
Yair Ravid/Media/23 July/2022
BYLINE: AS LONG AS THE NEIGHBOUROING COUNTRY IS CONTROLLED BY HEZBULLA AND IRAN, ANY REVENUE SHARED WITH IT WILL NOT REACH THE LEBANESE CITIZEN BUT WILL BE USED FOR WAR AGAINST ISRAEL.
During the recent visit of US president Biden to the region, Op-ed print praise in favor of promoting a shared distribution agreement of natural gas resources, produced from the sea between Israel and Lebanon, intensified in the local press and mainstream media.
Some writers, including experienced and well-known pundits, have even gone as far as suggesting that sharing natural gas revenue profits with Lebanon will ease the financial plight of the Lebanese citizens whose economy has collapsed and many of whom are struggling to survive. The same pundits even pinged their hope of a military calm between the two countries and a chance for future peace deals shall an agreement as such be pushed forward.
As for that theory, If I may, I will quote one of Israel’s most renowned satirical writers, the late Ephraim Kishon who once wrote “Everything I have written thus far is precise, eloquent and beautiful. The only problem is it has nothing to do with the truth”.
Given the current political situation in Lebanon, which is not about to change in coming years – shall Lebanon receive even partial revenue produced by the natural gas reserves that were discovered and built by Israel, none of it will reach the Lebanese citizens. The price of bread will not be reduced for the suffering population of Lebanon, nor will their daily gas price be reduced. Revenue received by a shared Gas production deal will make its way directly to Hezbollah, an internationally recognized terror organization, who will use the money to continue its war against Israel and Lebanese President Michel Aoun and his son-in-law Gebran Basil who are directly responsible for the country’s financial collapse. The chatter over the need to divide the natural gas resource revenues between the two countries can be heard and read in Lebanon as well. The unity of the opinion, on both sides of the border is not surprising. On the Lebanese side, there will always be support in accepting financial funds without having to invest anything in return. On the Israeli side, you will always find those who will be happy to give up and give in, in exchange for the elusive promise of a peace deal which is as possible as a foundationless castle in the air, given the current political situation in Lebanon. The distribution of gas profits between Israel and Lebanon would be appropriate and acceptable between neighboring countries who are living in peace with each other. That is not the case. Furthermore, as long as Lebanon is controlled by Iran through its proxy terror organization Hezbollah, no profit-distribution agreement or any other agreement will provide a barrier to war against Israel. A war, which is sure to happen, if Iran demands Hezbollah engages in one.
The interception of three unmanned aerial vehicles launched by Hezbollah earlier this month and aimed at the Israeli maritime “Karish” natural gas rig strengthens my opinion. It proves that Lebanon is run by various conflicting factors, each driven by its own agenda, and there is no correlation between the distribution of Israel’s natural gas resources and Iran's war interests in the region. The issue of the distribution of gas profits from the sea must be the last clause in peace negotiations between Israel and Lebanon should such negotiations ever occur.
Yair Ravid is the former head of Mossad’s operational arm in Beirut, He also served as commander of the Northern Region in a unit that recruited and operated intelligence agents in Syria and in Lebanon, His book “Window to the backyard: The History of Israel-Lebanon relations – facts and illusions” is available on Amazon, kindle edition. OP-ED

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 23-24/2022
Senior IRGC member caught and interrogated by Mossad in Iran, report says
Itamar Eichner|/Ynetnews/July 23/2022
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hkfkflv3c#autoplay
Saudi backed, UK based Iran International says Yadollah Khedmati serves as the deputy chief of the head of the logistics department in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, provides information about arms shipments to Hezbollah and other proxies
A senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) member was caught and interrogated by the Mossad intelligence agency, Iran International reported on Thursday. The Saudi-sponsored TV channel, broadcasting from London claims Yadollah Khedmati was captured by Mossad operatives and provided information about weapon shipments to Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen. "A senior IRGC official named Yadollah Khedmati has been interrogated by Israel’s Mossad in Iran and confessed to his role in sending weapons to other countries," said the post published on Twitter. According to the report, the interrogation of the senior IRGC member led to the grounding of an Iranian Plane in Argentina last month, in suspicion of possible links to the IRGC. The report claimed Khedmati serves as the deputy chief of the head of the logistics department in the Revolutionary Guard Corps Ali Asghar Norouzi who is behind the Iranian arms transfers to Hezbollah. The mechanism for transferring the weapons to Iran's proxis is even called the "Norouzi mechanism.", after him. In a video that was published in the Iranian media, Khedmati said: "My name is Yadollah Khedmati and I work for the logistics department of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps under the command of Norouzi." "Norouzi is the man behind all the transfers of missiles, weapons, or drones from the logistics department of the IRGC to neighboring countries and Hezbollah - and I work in Norouzi's office and very much regret what I'm doing. I shouldn't have done that, and I recommend all my coworkers to stop as well," he said. The alleged interrogation follows a similar reported incident in which Mossad had reportedly interrogated Mansour Rasouli, a member of the IRGC who was tasked with Killing an Israeli diplomat in Turkey, an American general in Germany, and a French A recording of his investigation showed the man described his assignment and the payment, he had been promised for planning the assassination and later for their executions.
According to the reports, after his interrogation, he was released and is now residing in Europe..

Israel’s Gantz: War Is a Last Resort against Iran
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 23 July, 2022
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said that war with Iran will be a “last resort.”Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, he said Israel could move against Iran when needed but won’t do so unless it was its “last resort.”Gantz added that Iran, regardless of its nuclear program, is mainly engaged in “malign activities” in the region. The minister stressed that Iran poses a global security challenge, and that many countries, including Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia, suffer more from it than Israel. “Should we be able to conduct military operations to prevent it [a nuclear Iran] if needed, the answer is 'yes.' Are we building the ability [for war], 'yes.' Should we use it as a last case, yes, and I hope that we will get US support,” he remarked. Gantz said that he attaches great importance to the statements made by US President Joe Biden in Tel Aviv a week ago. Biden had affirmed that the US would not allow Tehran to obtain nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, Gen. Michael Kurilla, the head of the US Central Command, told Israeli media that consolidating cooperation between Israel and Arab nations in the field of air defenses and missile interception figures high among US priorities in the region. He stressed that the US “has not and will not withdraw from the Middle East, and that it is still committed to ensuring the security of its allies in the region.” In an interview with “Walla!” in Tel Aviv, Kurilla said the threat of missile attacks and Iranian drones has become one of the most dangerous threats facing the US, Israel, and the Arab countries in the Middle East. Accordingly, Washington wants to strengthen cooperation between Israel and Arab nations by coordinating warning, early intelligence and interception systems owned by these states.

France tells Iran it's disappointed at lack of progress over nuclear talks - Elysee Palace
PARIS (Reuters)//July 23, 2022
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his disappointment to his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi at the lack of progress over talks on the 2015 nuclear agreement, the Elysee Palace said in a statement on Saturday. In June, Iran began removing essentially all the agency's monitoring equipment, installed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The French leader urged Raisi to make a "clear choice" to reach a deal and go back to the implementation of Iran's commitments under the 2015 nuclear agreement, the Elysee Palace said. Macron said he was convinced that such an outcome was still possible but that it should take place "as soon as possible," the French presidency said. Macron also urged the liberation of four French citizens that he said were "held arbitrarily" in Iran.

US Warns of Renewed Attacks by Iran-Backed Militias
Washington - Elie Youssef/Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 23 July, 2022
Washington has renewed its warnings against Iran-backed militias targeting its forces and interests in the Middle East. US concerns are growing against a backdrop of dispute engulfing nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers. The new US Air Force commander in the region warned that Iranian proxies could renew their attacks, leading eventually to a greater escalation of tensions in the region. Besides dealing with Iran, the US must maintain regional partnerships to prevent Russia and China from gaining a foothold in the Middle East, urged Maj. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich. Grynkewich took charge of 9th Air Force (Air Forces Central) in a ceremony at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Thursday. He warned attacks cannot be ruled out amid continued regional tensions over Iran’s rapidly expanding nuclear program and deadlock stalling the negotiations for reviving the nuclear agreement with Iran. “We’re in this position where we’re not under attack constantly, but we do see planning for attacks ongoing,” Grynkewich said. “Something will occur that unleashes that planning and that preparation against us,” he added. Last week, as US President Joe Biden toured the region, Iran unveiled armed drones on its warships in the Arab Gulf. Tehran has rapidly grown its stockpile of near-weapons-grade nuclear fuel in recent months, spreading fears about an escalation. It also has spun more advanced centrifuges prohibited under the landmark atomic accord, which former President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018. Iran tested a satellite-carrying rocket last month, prompting the White House to threaten more sanctions on Tehran to prevent it from accelerating its advanced ballistic missile program. “Everyone in the region is very concerned,” Grynkewich said. As other threats subside, the US has sharpened its focus on containing and countering Russian and Chinese influence in the region, Grynkewich said, noting that Russia is seeking to maintain the leverage it gained from years of military intervention in the region, especially Syria.

Iranian Dissident Summit in Albania Postponed over Security Threat
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 23 July, 2022
A global summit in Albania dedicated to advocating regime change in Iran has been postponed due to security threats, an exiled Iranian opposition group said Friday. The Free Iran World Summit was set to take place this weekend outside the Albanian capital Tirana, at the headquarters of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK), AFP said. The event was called off "upon recommendations by the Albanian government, for security reasons, and due to terrorist threats and conspiracies", the MEK said in a statement. The Albanian authorities have not commented on the issue. The US embassy in Tirana on Thursday evening tweeted about a "potential threat" targeting the summit and warned its citizens in Albania to avoid the event and keep a low profile. "The US government is aware of a potential threat targeting the Free Iran World Summit", the embassy said. According to the local media, prosecutors have opened investigations into a possible spy ring, ordered check-ups of the venue and questioned some of the former members of the group who had left the camp. The event was supposed to be attended or joined online by various high-profile political delegations, including hundreds of lawmakers from six continents, organizers said. The annual summit has been hosted in Albania after the Balkan country agreed to take in some 3,000 members of the exiled Iranian opposition group at the request of Washington and the United Nations in 2013. In 2018, Belgian police thwarted a terrorist attack that was supposed to target an Iranian opposition rally outside Paris, after which an Iranian diplomat was convicted for supplying explosives for the plot.

At Least 22 Killed in South Iran Floods
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 23 July, 2022
Flooding in southern Iran has killed at least 22 people and left one person missing following heavy rainfall in the largely arid country, a local official said Saturday. Iran has endured repeated droughts over the past decade, but also regular floods, a phenomenon made worse when torrential rain falls on sun-baked earth. Videos posted on local and social media showed vehicles being carried away by the rising waters of the Roodball river in the southern province of Fars. One video showed adults pulling a child from a car as it began to shift downstream. "The number of people killed has risen to 22 after another body was found," due to floods that affected several towns in and around Estahban county, Javad Moradian, who heads a local rescue unit, told Mehr news agency. A Red Crescent official earlier put the death toll at 21, with two people missing. The governor of Estahban, Yousef Kargar, said "around 5:00 pm yesterday, heavy rains... in the central parts of Estahban County led to flooding", according to state news agency IRNA. The incident happened 174 kilometers (108 miles) east of the provincial capital Shiraz on a summer weekend, when families tend to head to cooler areas such as rivers, lakes and valleys. "A number of local people and sightseers (from other areas) who had gone to the riverside and were present in the river bed were caught in the flood due to the rise in the water level," Kargar added. Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber called on the governor of Fars province to open an investigation into the incident and "to compensate the families of the victims," according to IRNA. Photos released by Iran's Red Crescent Society showed rescue workers walking on cracked dry soil while others searched among reeds.
Drought and floods
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi toured the region to monitor rescue efforts, IRNA said.
The state news agency also reported that a weather report put out by meteorologists in Fars warned there could be further strong rainfall ahead. In 2019, heavy rains in the country's south left at least 76 people dead and caused damage estimated at more than $2 billion. In January, two people were initially reported killed in flash flooding in Fars when heavy rains hit the area, but the toll rose to at least eight there and elsewhere in Iran's south. Like other regional countries, Iran has suffered chronic dry spells and heat waves for years, and these are expected to worsen. Scientists say climate change amplifies extreme weather, including droughts as well as the potential for the increased intensity of rain storms. In the last few months, Iran has seen demonstrations against the drying up of rivers, particularly in central and southwestern areas. Last November, tens of thousands of people gathered in the parched riverbed of the country's Zayandeh Rood river, which runs through the central city of Isfahan, to complain about drought and condemn officials for diverting water. Security forces fired tear gas when the protest turned violent and said they arrested 67 people. Last week, official media said Iranian police had arrested several suspects for disturbing security after they protested against the drying up of a lake once regarded as the Middle East's largest. Lake Urmia, in the mountains of northwest Iran, began shrinking in 1995 due to a combination of prolonged drought and the extraction of water for farming and dams, according to the UN Environment Program. In neighboring Iraq in December, 12 people died in flash floods that swept through the north of that country following a severe drought.

Iran Media: Gunmen Kill Brother of Collapsed Tower’s Owner
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 23 July, 2022
A pair of gunmen opened machinegun fire on Saturday in the southwestern Iranian city of Abadan, killing the brother of the owner of a tower that collapsed there earlier this year, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. The May 23 collapse at the Metropol Building, some 660 kilometers (410 miles) from the capital of Tehran, killed 41 people and dredged up painful memories of past national disasters in Iran. It also triggered street protests in Abadan over the collapse, demonstrations that saw police club protesters and fire tear gas. The fate of the building's owner, Hossein Abdolbaghi, has been the subject of much speculation — from initial reports that he had been arrested to rumors that left the country. Official media in Iran said he died in the collapse. IRNA's report said Abdolbaghi's brother Majid was gunned down on Saturday in “an assassination” and died of severe injuries from multiple gunshots. A video on social media shows Majid's killing. He is seen at the parking lot outside his home in Abadan when a white car stops by the gate. A gunman gets out and opens fire from his machinegun. A second gunman shoots from inside the car. No one immediately claimed responsibility for Saturday's slaying. After the Metropol collapse, authorities arrested 11 suspects in a widening probe, including the city’s mayor. Over the weeks that followed, videos on social media showed protest gatherings in Abadan, with protesters often blaming the owner for the collapse. The deadly collapse raised questions about the safety of similar buildings in the country and underscored an ongoing crisis in Iranian construction projects that has seen other disasters amid allegations of government negligence and deeply rooted corruption.

Iran’s state TV says 2 moderate quakes hit southern province
AP/July 23, 2022
TEHRAN: Two moderate earthquakes rattled Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan on Saturday evening, the country’s state TV reported. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, according to the state-run IRNA news agency, but the quakes, both after sundown, caused people to rush out and stay on the streets as several aftershocks jolted the area. The TV report said that first, a magnitude 5.7 quake struck after 8 p.m. at a depth of 10 kilometers (about 6 miles). The second, magnitude 5.8 temblor happened two minutes later, at a depth of 9 kilometers (5.5 miles). The area of both quakes, near the city of Bandar Khamir, is roughly about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of the capital, Tehran. The area lies along Iran’s coast, near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which is the passageway for nearly a third of all oil traded by sea. It has seen many moderate earthquakes in recent weeks. Earlier this month, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed five people and injured 44 in the same province. And in November, two earthquakes, magnitude 6.4 and 6.3, led to the death of one man. Iran lies on major seismic fault lines and experiences one earthquake a day on average. In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake flattened the historic city of Bam, killing 26,000 people. A magnitude 7 earthquake that struck western Iran in 2017 killed more than 600 people and injured more than 9,000.

Russia’s Lavrov to visit Egypt during Africa tour
Mohammed El Shamaa/Arab news/July 23, 2022
CAIRO: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will begin a tour of Africa starting with Egypt on Sunday in an effort to build non-Western ties. Lavrov’s Cairo visit will be followed by trips to Ethiopia, Uganda and Congo. He will meet with members of the Arab League in the Egyptian capital, and is scheduled to address the Council of the Arab League, according to an announcement. Lavrov will meet Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit and representatives from the organization’s 22 member states. Political expert Jamal Shakra said that Lavrov’s visit to Egypt comes in line with Cairo’s “unbiased position” on the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Shakra expects Lavrov to use the visit to clarify Russia’s view of the war and attract allies outside the West. He told Arab News that Lavrov’s first visit to the region since the February invasion of Ukraine will bolster ties that were strengthened following a visit to Moscow by an Arab delegation in April. The Russian foreign minister’s tour follows US President Joe Biden’s first visit to the Middle East, during which he visited Israel, the Palestinian territories and Saudi Arabia. Biden also took part in a summit of the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, in addition to Egypt, Jordan and Iraq. Hussein Haridi, a member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, said that Lavrov’s visit “is not a response” to Biden because Russia is targeting its interests in Africa as opposed to the Middle East. Haridi added that Moscow has a “large presence in the region,” and that Arab and African countries are keen to strengthen relations with Moscow, but will avoid taking sides in the Ukraine war. The former Egyptian diplomat said that the course of Egyptian-Russian bilateral relations is “completely independent” of events in Ukraine.Haridi told Arab News that Lavrov’s visit to Egypt and Ethiopia could indicate Moscow’s interest in the Renaissance Dam dispute. Eurasia Review, a US-based independent journal, described the visit as an attempt by Moscow to “form a new international and regional agenda,” and “build a multicenter structure for relations between countries.”
Lavrov announced the tour in a press conference on Thursday, saying: “We have reciprocal annual visits to Africa, and this year my visit to Africa will include Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda and Congo. Egypt is our leading partner in the construction of the industrial zone in Suez and the El-Dabaa nuclear plant.” He added: “We have participated in the construction of giant industrial projects on the African continent, in addition to the role of the Soviet Union in liberating many African countries from colonialism.”Lavrov said that the tour will also focus on preparations for this year’s Russia-Africa summit.

Russia’s Lavrov to address Arab League on Sunday
AP/July 23, 2022
TEHRAN: Two moderate earthquakes rattled Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan on Saturday evening, the country’s state TV reported. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, according to the state-run IRNA news agency, but the quakes, both after sundown, caused people to rush out and stay on the streets as several aftershocks jolted the area. The TV report said that first, a magnitude 5.7 quake struck after 8 p.m. at a depth of 10 kilometers (about 6 miles). The second, magnitude 5.8 temblor happened two minutes later, at a depth of 9 kilometers (5.5 miles).
The area of both quakes, near the city of Bandar Khamir, is roughly about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of the capital, Tehran.The area lies along Iran’s coast, near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which is the passageway for nearly a third of all oil traded by sea. It has seen many moderate earthquakes in recent weeks. Earlier this month, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed five people and injured 44 in the same province. And in November, two earthquakes, magnitude 6.4 and 6.3, led to the death of one man. Iran lies on major seismic fault lines and experiences one earthquake a day on average. In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake flattened the historic city of Bam, killing 26,000 people. A magnitude 7 earthquake that struck western Iran in 2017 killed more than 600 people and injured more than 9,000.

Russia, Ukraine Trade Missile Strikes on War’s 150th Day
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 23 July, 2022
Russia's military fired a barrage of missiles Saturday at an airfield in central Ukraine, killing at least three people, while Ukrainian forces launched rocket strikes on river crossings in a Russian-occupied southern region. The attacks on key infrastructure on the 150th day of Russia's war in Ukraine marked new attempts by the warring parties to tip the scales of the grinding conflict in their favor. In Ukraine's central Kirovohradska region, 13 Russian missiles struck an airfield and a railway facility. Gov. Andriy Raikovych said that at least one serviceman and two guards were killed. The regional administration reported the strikes near the city of Kirovohrad, wounded another 13 people. In the southern Kherson region, which Russian troops seized early in the invasion, Ukrainian forces preparing for a potential counteroffensive fired rockets at Dnieper River crossings to try to disrupt supplies to the Russians.
The new attacks came hours after Moscow and Kyiv signed deals with the United Nations and Turkey that were intended to avert a global food crisis. The agreements clear the way for the shipment of millions of tons of Ukrainian grain and some Russian exports of grain and fertilizer held up by the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address that the agreements offer “a chance to prevent a global catastrophe – a famine that could lead to political chaos in many countries of the world, in particular in the countries that help us.”Despite the progress on that front, fighting raged unabated in eastern Ukraine's industrial heartland of the Donbas, where Russian forces tried to make new gains in the face of stiff Ukrainian resistance. Russian troops also have faced Ukrainian counterattacks but largely held their ground in the Kherson region just north of the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. Earlier this week, the Ukrainians bombarded the Antonivskyi Bridge across the Dnieper River using the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russia-appointed regional administration in Kherson, said.
Stremousov told Russian state news agency Tass that the only other crossing of the Dnieper, the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant, also came under attack from rockets launched with the weapons supplied by Washington but wasn't damaged.
HIMARS, which fires GPS-guided rockets at targets 80 kilometers (50 miles) away, a distance that puts it out of reach of most Russian artillery systems, has significantly bolstered the Ukrainian strike capability. In addition, Ukrainian forces shelled an automobile bridge across the Inhulets River in the village of Darivka, Stremousov told Tass. He said the bridge just east of the regional capital of Kherson sustained seven hits but remained open to traffic. Stremousov saod that unlike the Antonivskyi Bridge, the small bridge in Darivka has no strategic value. Since April, the Kremlin has concentrated on capturing the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking region of eastern Ukraine where pro-Russia separatists have proclaimed independence. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasized Wednesday that Moscow plans to retain control of other areas its forces occupy during the war.

Russian Missiles Hit Ukraine Port; Kyiv Says It Is Still Preparing Grain Exports
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 23 July, 2022
Russian missiles hit Ukraine's southern port of Odesa on Saturday, the Ukrainian military said, threatening a deal signed just a day earlier to unblock grain exports from Black Sea ports and ease global food shortages caused by the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the strike showed Moscow could not be trusted to implement the deal. However, public broadcaster Suspilne quoted the Ukrainian military as saying the missiles had not caused significant damage and a government minister said preparations continued to restart grain exports from the country's Black Sea ports. The deal signed on Friday by Moscow and Kyiv and mediated by the United Nations and Turkey was hailed as a breakthrough after nearly five months of punishing fighting since Russia invaded its neighbor. It is seen as crucial to curbing soaring global food prices by allowing grain exports to be shipped from Black Sea ports including Odesa. UN officials had said on Friday they hoped the agreement would be operational in a few weeks, and the strikes on Odesa drew strong condemnation from Kyiv, the United Nations and the United States.
Turkey's defense minister said Russian officials had told Ankara that Moscow had "nothing to do" with the strikes on the port. A Russian defense ministry statement on Saturday outlining progress in the war did not mention any strike in Odesa. The ministry did not reply to a Reuters request for comment. Two Russian Kalibr missiles hit the area of a pumping station at the Odesa port, while another two missiles were shot down by air defense forces, according to Ukraine's Operational Command South. Yuriy Ignat, spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force, said the cruise missiles were fired from warships in the Black Sea near Crimea. Suspilne later quoted the spokesperson for Ukraine's southern military command, Natalia Humeniuk, was quoted as saying the port's grain storage area was not hit. No casualties have been reported. Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Facebook that "we continue technical preparations for the launch of exports of agricultural products from our ports".The strike appeared to violate the terms of Friday's deal, which would allow safe passage in and out of Odesa and two other Ukrainian ports. "This proves only one thing: no matter what Russia says and promises, it will find ways not to implement it," Zelenskiy said in a video posted on Telegram. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres "unequivocally condemned" the reported strikes, a spokesperson said, adding that all parties had committed to the grain export deal and full implementation was imperative. "These products are desperately needed to address the global food crisis and ease the suffering of millions of people in need around the globe," spokesperson Farhan Haq said in a statement. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said in a statement that "In our contact with Russia, the Russians told us that they had absolutely nothing to do with this attack, and that they were examining the issue very closely and in detail". "The fact that such an incident took place right after the agreement we made yesterday really worried us," he added.
Safe passage
Ukraine has mined waters near its ports as part of its war defenses, but under the deal pilots will guide ships along safe channels in its territorial waters. A Joint Coordination Center (JCC) staffed by members of all four parties to the agreement will then monitor ships transiting the Black Sea to Turkey's Bosphorus Strait and off to world markets. All sides agreed on Friday there would be no attacks on these entities and that it would be the task of JCC to resolve if any prohibited activity is observed. Ukraine foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said on Facebook that "the Russian missile is (Russian President) Vladimir Putin's spit in the face" of Guterres and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. The US ambassador to Kyiv, Bridget Brink, wrote on Twitter, "The Kremlin continues to weaponize food. Russia must be held to account". Moscow has denied responsibility for the food crisis, blaming Western sanctions for slowing its own food and fertilizer exports and Ukraine for mining the approaches to its Black Sea ports.
Soaring food prices
A blockade of Ukrainian ports by Russia's Black Sea fleet since Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion has trapped tens of millions of tons of grain and stranded many ships. This has worsened global supply chain bottlenecks and, along with Western sanctions on Russia, stoked food and energy price inflation. Russia and Ukraine are major global wheat suppliers and a global food crisis has pushed some 47 million people into "acute hunger," according to the World Food Program. UN officials said on Friday the deal, expected to be fully operational in a few weeks, would restore grain shipments from the three reopened ports to pre-war levels of 5 million tons a month. Zelenskiy said on Friday the deal would make around $10 billion worth of grain available for sale with roughly 20 million tons of last year's harvest to be exported. However, on the wider conflict, he told the Wall Street Journal there could be no ceasefire without retaking lost lands. Ukraine struck a bridge in the occupied Black Sea region of Kherson on Saturday, targeting a Russian supply route as Kyiv prepares for a major counter-offensive, a Ukrainian regional official said. The deputy head of the Russian-installed regional authority said the bridge had been hit by seven rockets from Western-supplied high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), but that the bridge still worked, Russia's TASS news agency said. The assertions from both sides could not be independently verified by Reuters. Putin calls the war a "special military operation" and has said it is aimed at demilitarizing Ukraine and rooting out dangerous nationalists. Kyiv and the West call this a baseless pretext for an aggressive land grab.

Looking back at Egypt’s July 23 revolution, 70 years on
Mohammed El Shamaa/Arab news/July 23, 2022
CAIRO: Egypt’s so-called July 23 revolution established the “first republic” in the country, radically changing the face of life not only in Egypt, but also the entire region, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said.
Speaking on the 70th anniversary of the 1952 uprising, El-Sisi said that the tumultuous events contributed significantly to the end of colonialism in many Arab and African states, as well as fostering a “growing spirit of national feeling” in those countries.
However, seven decades after the revolution, opinions on its merits and mistakes remain divided. Ahmed Al-Nabhani, professor of history at Menoufia University, told Arab News that Egyptian society before the July revolution faced a growing disparity between the social classes, with a widening gap between rich and poor, and successive governments failing to help those who were less well off.
According to Al-Nabhani, out of the total cultivated land area of about 6 million acres, 280 owners owned 583,400 acres, while most agricultural owners owned no more than a quarter of an acre. “The July revolution addressed the issue of corruption and bribery that prevailed in society at that time. In addition, the revolution took many successful measures to improve the social situation in Egypt, including the agrarian reform law, which called for equal distribution and ownership among small farmers. That gave them an opportunity to diversify the sources of agriculture and not rely on just one cultivation,” he said.
“Those in charge of the July revolution adopted a national economic policy, and made many major national projects, such as the Aswan High Dam, as well as building iron and steel factories, and spinning and weaving,” he said.
The revolution sided with the workers, Al-Nabhani said. “The government issued a decree establishing the Supreme Consultative Council for Labor to examine workers’ problems. It also established the General Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions in January 1957, and issued laws setting the upper limit for individual salaries and incomes for the purpose of bringing social classes together in 1961. All of this contributed to improving the social environment for Egyptians.” Writing in the Egyptian newspaper Akhbar Al-Youm, Maj.-Gen. Samir Farag, a former military leader, said that one of the positive outcomes of the revolution was a growing sense of patriotism and Arab nationalism.However, entering into a costly Yemen conflict had damaged Egypt militarily and economically, he said. Political expert Sayed Fouad agreed that Egypt’s participation in the Yemen war was perhaps the most significant mistake of the revolution.
However, it was “a necessity at the time, after the disintegration of the Arab unity project with Syria, which Gamal Abdel Nasser wanted to revive,” he said.

Tunisia police crack down on anti-Saied protest
AFP/July 23, 2022
TUNIS: Tunisian police used pepper spray to disperse protesters and arrested several demonstrators Friday, as hundreds rallied against President Kais Saied three days before a controversial vote on a new constitution. More than 300 people had gathered on Habib Bourguiba Avenue in central Tunis, surrounded by a heavy police presence with water cannons and riot gear, AFP reporters said. Some protesters moved toward a police barrier near the imposing interior ministry building, where police roughly blocked their passage. At least 10 demonstrators were arrested, according to two police sources. The protest came as Tunisians prepare to vote Monday on a draft constitution that would enshrine the vast powers that Saied has exercised since he sacked the government and suspended parliament on July 25 last year. His move was a decisive blow against the crisis-ridden political system in Tunisia, the only democracy to have emerged from the 2011 Arab uprisings, and his rivals say his constitution aims to restore an autocracy. Some demonstrators carried placards reading slogans such as “the constitution will not pass” and “Saied the dictator.” “We (Tunisian people) didn’t write anything!” read one, a reference to Saied’s draft charter. The head of the SNJT journalists’ union, Mehdi Jelassi, was treated on the spot after being sprayed in the face with tear gas, he told AFP. A police officer blamed the demonstrators for the unrest, saying they had been authorized to hold a protest on one part of the city center boulevard but had “purposely moved toward the ministry because they sought provocation.” Hamma Hammami, head of the far-left Workers’ Party, vowed that Saied’s opponents would not give up. “Whether the constitution passes or not, our struggle will continue until the fall of this new tyrant,” he told reporters. “We are not afraid of prison, torture or death.”

Iraq Submits Complaint to UN against Turkey after Attack
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 23 July, 2022
Iraq has filed a complaint to the UN Security Council, requesting an urgent session to discuss a deadly artillery attack this week that Baghdad blames on Turkey, the Foreign Ministry said Saturday. Wednesday’s attack on the district of Zakho in Iraq’s northern, semi-autonomous Kurdish region killed nine Iraqi tourists, including a child, and wounded 20. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmad al-Sahaf said the ministry also recalled Iraq's chargé d’affaires from Ankara. Iraq’s parliament held a session Saturday on the attack, with lawmakers deciding to form a committee to investigate further.Turkey, which has several bases in northern Iraq and often conducts cross-border military operations there, says it’s targeting militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. The group, declared a terrorist organization by Turkey and the West, has for decades waged an insurgency against the government in Ankara and maintains hideouts in Iraq's mountainous north. And though Iraqi civilians, mostly local villagers, have been killed in past Turkish attacks, Wednesday marked the first time that tourists visiting the north from elsewhere in Iraq were killed. Ankara has denied it was behind Wednesday's attack. Iraqi media reported that the Security Council session was due next Tuesday. The recent escalation threatens to further erode ties between the two neighboring countries at a time when Iraq relies heavily on Turkish trade and negotiations are underway on water-sharing of the Tigris and Euphrates River basin. Following the attack, angry Iraqis who took to the streets in protest and Baghdad summoned Turkey's ambassador to Iraq, handing over a “strongly worded” protest note, according to the foreign ministry

Iran seeks to ease tension with Saudi Arabia as Western pressure builds up
The Arab Weekly/July 23/2022
While Saudi Arabia is content with silence, Iran says that reconciliation talks with Riyadh are continuing and that the secret meetings will soon become public, transcending security issues to cover political files. Observers believe that the Saudi silence is a sign of caution as Riyadh wants to avoid any talk about a rapprochement with Tehran, at a time when differences continue on a number of regional issues, especially the war in Yemen. Any praise of the ongoing talks, observers added, would be considered as an acceptance of Tehran’s detrimental activities in the region. Iran, they noted, has not changed course nor attempted to rein in its militias and proxies, which continue pose a serious threat to Saudi interests in the Middle East and elsewhere. According to observers, Iran’s ongoing praise of dialogue with Saudi Arabia and its attempt to exaggerate outcomes of meetings that took place in Baghdad are but an indication of a complex crisis that Tehran is currently dealing with.Iran, observers told The Arab Weekly, wants to ease tensions with regional rivals in a way that would allow it to better confront Western pressures when it comes to a number of files, particularly the talks to resume the nuclear pact and the issue of sanctions.
Iran has another issue to which it wants to devote its time and efforts, observers added, hinting at the ongoing Israeli airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria. Israel is also stressing Iran out with the targeting of nuclear projects and the assassination of nuclear scientists and officials. In view of all the above, Tehran appears to be hoping to reduce pressure by appeasing Saudis, in a way that would dissuade Riyadh from joining an anti-Iran security alliance, proposed by Washington to combat Iranian drone and missile attacks in the Middle East. In an interview with Iran’s state broadcaster on Thursday night, Iran’s foreign minister said Iran and Saudi Arabia are ready to move reconciliation talks to a higher level, more than a year after they began and six years after the two rivals severed relations.
Since April last year Iraq has hosted five rounds of talks between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shiite-majority Iran, which support opposing sides in various conflicts around the region. “Progress has been made in these negotiations,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said. He added that last week Iran had received a message from Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein who said “the Saudi side is ready to move the talks to the political and public level.”Iran’s top diplomat noted that previous rounds had mainly been at the level of security officials. “We announced our readiness for the talks to enter the political stage,” he said. In 2016, Iranian protesters attacked Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran after the kingdom executed Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Riyadh responded by cutting ties with Tehran.
Amir-Abdollahian said he hoped that the negotiations with Riyadh would lead to “normal diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Officials in Tehran have previously said that holding talks on a political level could yield better and faster results. After the last round of negotiations in April, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi said he believed that “reconciliation is near” between Riyadh and Tehran, a further reflection of shifting political alignments across the region.Following the severance of ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi downgraded diplomatic relations with Tehran and Kuwait recalled its ambassador. Last week the United Arab Emirates said it was “considering” appointing an ambassador in Tehran. Amir-Abdollahian described the Emirates’ move more definitively, saying “the UAE has decided to send an ambassador to Tehran” and that will happen “soon.”Amir-Abdollahian also said a similar measure is being taken by Kuwait. “Kuwait has introduced its ambassador and we have also announced our agreement. The new ambassador of Kuwait will arrive in Tehran within the next few days,” he said.

Saudi seizes 15 million captagon pills
Agence France Presse/July 23, 2022
Saudi Arabia announced Friday the seizure of nearly 15 million captagon pills, an amphetamine that is wreaking havoc in the kingdom as well as across the region. The oil-rich Gulf state is estimated to be the largest market for the drug, where it is used for recreational purposes but also as a stimulant for workers.
The customs authority had "foiled an attempt to smuggle" the drug through the Red Sea port of Jeddah, said the official Saudi Press Agency. As many as 14,976,000 of the pills had been found "hidden in a machine designed to manufacture concrete blocs" in a commercial consignment from abroad, SPA said.
Saudi Arabia regularly announces seizures of captagon. The drug usually comes from Syria and transits through Lebanon in cargo such as fruit and vegetables. The kingdom's customs authority said it seized a total of 119 million pills last year, and figures so far for 2022 show trafficking of the drug is continuing to rise. The vast majority of captagon, which derives its name from a once legal drug against narcolepsy, is produced in Syria and Lebanon and smuggled to its main consumer market in the Gulf. It is used by the super-rich in Saudi Arabia as a party pill, by armed men for the feeling of invincibility it produces as well as by poorer people who need to work several jobs.

Macron hosts Sisi as France hopes to boost security ties with Egypt
The Arab Weekly/July 23/2022
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday met Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Paris for their latest talks aimed at tightening a relationship based on security and defence ties. Macron hosted the Egyptian president at the Elysee Palace days after hosting UAE leader Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, himself a close ally of Sisi’s secular administration. With growing concern over the effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on global food supplies, the pair discussed ways to deal with the “economic, energy and global food security consequences of this conflict,” the Elysee said in a statement.
Egypt is due to host the COP 27 climate summit in Sharm El-Sheikh in November and Macron and Sisi also discussed the fight against global warming. “The two presidents took stock of the main issues of bilateral cooperation, which are very dense in all areas,” it added. Last year, Egypt’s military ordered 30 more Rafale jets from French defence firm Dassault Aviation in a multi-billion-dollar defence deal confirmed by France. Macron has during his rule placed considerable emphasis on relations with Egypt and during a state visit in December 2020 gave Sisi France’s highest award, the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, in a move that left rights activists aghast. Activists have long expressed unease over Sisi’s visits, saying that France should be doing more to raise concern about the estimated 60,000 political prisoners languishing in Egyptian prisons. In a nod to these concerns, the Elysee statement said: “As part of the dialogue of confidence between France and Egypt, they also addressed the issue of human rights.”There has been particular concern over the case of dissident Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, who has been on a hunger strike for more than 100 days after being sentenced in December to five years in prison. Press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) had ahead of the talks urged Macron not “to ignore the fate of Alaa Abdel Fattah… and of all the detained journalists.”France had secured promises of new energy supplies from the United Arab Emirates on Monday after talks between Macron and Sheikh Mohamed, known as MBZ.

UN health agency declares monkeypox a global emergency
AP/July 23, 2022
LONDON: The World Health Organization (WHO) said the expanding monkeypox outbreak in more than 70 countries is an “extraordinary” situation that now qualifies as a global emergency.
Saturday’s declaration could spur further investment in treating the once-rare disease and worsen the scramble for scarce vaccines. Although monkeypox has been established in parts of central and West Africa for decades, it was not known to spark large outbreaks beyond the continent or to spread widely among people until May, when authorities detected dozens of epidemics in Europe, North America and elsewhere. Declaring a global emergency means the monkeypox outbreak is an “extraordinary event” that could spill over into more countries and requires a coordinated global response. WHO previously declared emergencies for public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak, the Zika virus in Latin America in 2016 and the ongoing effort to eradicate polio.
The emergency declaration mostly serves as a plea to draw more global resources and attention to an outbreak. Past announcements had mixed impact, given that the UN health agency is largely powerless in getting countries to act.
Last month, WHO’s expert committee said the worldwide monkeypox outbreak did not yet amount to an international emergency, but the panel convened this week to reevaluate the situation. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 16,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 74 countries since about May. To date, monkeypox deaths have only been reported in Africa, where a more dangerous version of the virus is spreading, mainly in Nigeria and Congo. In Africa, monkeypox mainly spreads to people from infected wild animals like rodents, in limited outbreaks that typically have not crossed borders. In Europe, North America and elsewhere, however, monkeypox is spreading among people with no links to animals or recent travel to Africa.
WHO’s top monkeypox expert, Dr. Rosamund Lewis, said this week that 99 percent of all the monkeypox cases beyond Africa were in men and that of those, 98 percent involved men who have sex with men. Experts suspect the monkeypox outbreaks in Europe and North America were spread via sex at two raves in Belgium and Spain. Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at Southampton University, said it was surprising WHO hadn’t already declared monkeypox a global emergency, explaining that the conditions were arguably met weeks ago. Some experts have questioned whether such a declaration would help, arguing the disease isn’t severe enough to warrant the attention and that rich countries battling monkeypox already have the funds to do so; most people recover without needing medical attention, although the lesions may be painful. “I think it would be better to be proactive and overreact to the problem instead of waiting to react when it’s too late,” Head said. He added that WHO’s emergency declaration could help donors like the World Bank make funds available to stop the outbreaks both in the West and in Africa, where animals are the likely natural reservoir of monkeypox.
In the US, some experts have speculated whether monkeypox might be on the verge of becoming an entrenched sexually transmitted disease in the country, like gonorrhea, herpes and HIV. “The bottom line is we’ve seen a shift in the epidemiology of monkeypox where there’s now widespread, unexpected transmission,” said Dr. Albert Ko, a professor of public health and epidemiology at Yale University. “There are some genetic mutations in the virus that suggest why that may be happening, but we do need a globally-coordinated response to get it under control,” he said. Ko called for testing to be immediately scaled up rapidly, saying that similar to the early days of COVID-19, that there were significant gaps in surveillance.
“The cases we are seeing are just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “The window has probably closed for us to quickly stop the outbreaks in Europe and the US, but it’s not too late to stop monkeypox from causing huge damage to poorer countries without the resources to handle it.” In the US, some experts have speculated that monkeypox might become entrenched there as the newest sexually transmitted disease, with officials estimating that 1.5 million men are at high risk of being infected. Dr. Placide Mbala, a virologist who directs the global health department at Congo’s Institute of National Biomedical Research, said he hoped any global efforts to stop monkeypox would be equitable. Although countries including Britain, Canada, Germany and the US have ordered millions of vaccine doses, none have gone to Africa.
“The solution needs to be global,” Mbala said, adding that any vaccines sent to Africa would be used to target those at highest risk, like hunters in rural areas.
“Vaccination in the West might help stop the outbreak there, but there will still be cases in Africa,” he said. “Unless the problem is solved here, the risk to the rest of the world will remain.”

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 23-24/2022
Conservative leadership contest in UK has an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ feel to it
Andrew Hammond/Arab News/July 23/2022
Conservative MPs in the UK on Wednesday selected their final two candidates to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister, in a contest that increasingly has an “Alice in Wonderland” fantasy quality to it.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was a Remain campaigner during the 2016 Brexit referendum but has since moved to the party’s right wing and is seen as a continuity candidate by Johnson’s supporters.
Her opponent is Rishi Sunak, a former finance minister and a long-time Brexiteer who was once Johnson’s closest ally but is now facing criticism from some Conservatives, especially friends of Johnson, for being too “left wing.”
There are two phases to the Conservative leadership contest. During the first, now completed, the party’s MPs voted to choose two candidates, from the 11 who were standing, to progress to the second and final stage. In the vote on Wednesday, Sunak received 137 votes and Truss, 113. Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt, with 105 votes, performed best among the others who were eliminated.
Now, all of the party’s members, of which there are about 200,000, will vote for their choice of new leader, with the winner of the postal ballot due to be announced on Sept. 5. These party members, which account for about 0.3 percent of the UK population, are disproportionately old (44 percent of them are over 65), white (97 percent), and geographically skewed toward London and southern England (54 percent), so they are not very representative of the wider UK population.
Unlike in 2019, when Johnson was the clear favorite to win the Conservative leadership contest from start to finish, there is no overwhelmingly strong frontrunner this time. While Sunak won the most support in the vote by Conservative MPs, polls suggest he could lose to Truss when the wider party membership votes.
However, the result is considered too close to call. At this early stage, Truss is a modest favorite but Sunak could definitely still emerge victorious in the coming weeks if he can outshine her in the upcoming leadership debates, known as hustings, around the country.
With Wednesday’s vote revealing Conservative MPs to be split into three broadly equal groups, Sunak and Truss will now try to secure an endorsement from third-placed Mordaunt, a vote of approval that could prove to be very influential among party members. In return, Mordaunt is likely to receive a significant Cabinet role in the next government if she backs the eventual winner.
Neither Truss nor Sunak seems likely to achieve the electoral success Johnson enjoyed in 2019. Therefore, the Conservatives have a very tough choice to make in coming weeks, as the person they choose will almost certainly lead the party into the next general election in 2023 or 2024.
So far, the leadership contest has hurt the national image of the Conservatives as a result of significant party infighting. Meanwhile, the opposition Labour Party will be relieved that an “outsider” such as Mordaunt has not been selected, as such a candidate would perhaps have had more of a chance to “shake up” the political landscape in a way that Truss and Sunak, as established, senior Cabinet ministers for the past few years, might not be able to.
Labour has also been adding up the cost of the policy pledges made by the Conservative leadership candidates and claims that they amount to £330 billion ($395 billion) of unfunded spending commitments. This includes an estimated £38 billion of tax cuts Truss has promised to introduce if she wins, including the reversal of an increase in corporation tax due next April, estimated at £14.5 billion. It is too early to assess the full policy implications of the leadership contest, which will not start to become clearer until at least next month. Tax will be one of them, however. While Sunak favors fiscal prudence, Truss has said she wants early, significant personal tax cuts, including the scrapping of a rise in National Insurance planned for April, which was introduced by the government while Sunak was still at the Treasury.
Sunak has rubbished her proposals, saying that tax rises are needed to repair public finances after the pandemic and accusing Truss of peddling the idea of “something-for-nothing economics.” He has said he wants to lower the tax burden but this should only be done when inflation, which is currently running at its highest level for 40 years, has been brought under control. Ultimately, party members will take a long, hard look at both candidates and decide which of them seems best placed to beat Labour at the next election. Truss lacks charisma and is widely seen as “robotic,” as was Johnson’s predecessor as prime minister, Theresa May.Sunak, like Johnson, was recently fined by police over the Downing Street “partygate” scandal resulting from illegal social gatherings during COVID-19 lockdowns, so his reputation is tarnished in the eyes of some voters. He also was recently criticized over the tax affairs of his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of Indian billionaire N.R. Narayana Murthy. The couple met while studying at Stanford University.
Neither Truss nor Sunak seems likely to achieve the electoral success Johnson enjoyed in 2019. Therefore, the Conservatives have a very tough choice to make in coming weeks, as the person they choose will almost certainly lead the party into the next general election in 2023 or 2024.
• Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.

The world needs to work together to confront growing threat of drought
Ibrahim Thiaw/Arab News/July 23/ 2022
Drought may be an ancient scourge but the threat is getting worse. Now, no region or country is immune to its effects.
Southern Europe, for example, is in the grip of a severe drought, the worst that Italy has experienced in 70 years. In the western US, the past two decades have been the driest in 1,200 years. Chile is in its 13th consecutive year of drought and Monterrey, Mexico’s third-largest city, is being forced to ration water.
In the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia have recorded their fourth consecutive year without rains and the situation has grown increasingly dire for people, livestock and the ecosystems that support them. Owing to a lack of adequate nutrition, children are dying from diseases they would ordinarily survive. Even camels, which typically survive longer than people or other animal species in tough conditions, are dropping dead in large numbers across this region.
This suffering evokes traumatic memories of my own first encounter with drought, in Mauritania. I was barely 12 years old when every household in our community lost everything: Food, livestock and their livelihoods. Unable to provide for their families, many adults took their own lives.
That experience has stayed with me, motivating my efforts to ensure that no more children have to live through what I did. Sadly, many still are being traumatized by drought, and many more soon will be. Scientists predict that climate change will increase the frequency, duration and geographic spread of droughts, with three out of four people in the world affected by 2050.
Areas across all regions are becoming drier, and while there is not yet a consensus on where exactly the most acute drought conditions will emerge, scientists agree that land degradation exacerbates the problem. Worse, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report warns that we are not making sufficient progress in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avert even more severe conditions in the decades ahead.
Taken together, recent traumatic experiences and the latest scientific projections should convey a sense of urgency, compelling everyone to build resilience against future drought risks. Drought is a natural phenomenon but it need not become a natural disaster. Land degradation can be mitigated, at least partly, through better decisions about land and water use and land restoration initiatives.
In a recent report, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification highlighted successful examples of systems that have reduced the drought risk among vulnerable populations. In Brazil, Ethiopia, India and Tunisia, a combination of water harvesting and sustainable land management practices are being used to reduce the impact of droughts. While it might take time, all countries can adopt similar strategies to help move their people from water scarcity toward water security.
We can rein in the effects of drought, together. But all leaders will need to commit to doing what it takes to build effective resilience.
A major shortcoming of the current approach, however, is that it is based on national systems, even though droughts do not observe political boundaries. Proactive planning across sectors within countries is essential; but without international collaboration, the effects of drought eventually will reach other countries. Common knock-on effects include conflicts over diminished water resources, soaring food prices or shortages, wildfires, mass wildlife and livestock losses, sand and dust storms, human displacement and forced migration, and civil unrest.
Collaborative arrangements to anticipate and respond to droughts quickly can avert or reduce the scale of these outcomes. Australia and the US, for example, have long had policies and planning protocols in place to ensure that affected communities can endure droughts with dignity.
Building such resilience globally will take time and political will. Fortunately, even in the world’s most vulnerable regions, policymakers already have foundations on which they can build. For example, Africa’s Sahel — the area between the Sahara in the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south — has a regional drought-risk system that was set up 50 years ago. It brings together a broad range of stakeholders, from producer associations to political decision-makers, and benefits from the pooling of scientific and technological capabilities at the regional level.
India has adopted an even more comprehensive approach that includes drought management as part of its national disaster management plan. An intricate strategy is in place to include all the relevant government ministries and closely coordinate responses at the national, state and local levels. Thanks to a process that began 15 years ago, India now has an integrated water management system that also serves as a drought warning system.
In June, the US announced that drought is now considered a strategic domestic and foreign policy priority. As home to one of the most sophisticated and advanced drought-monitoring and response mechanisms in the world, the US could help to fast-track the development of better risk-management systems globally.
Around the world, there is a strong appetite among governments to act quickly, before the effects of increasingly frequent and severe droughts become unmanageable. And following the creation of an intergovernmental working group on drought during the UN summit in May, we now have a platform for mobilizing collective action according to what science tells us is necessary.
We can rein in the effects of drought, together. But all leaders, from the very top all the way down to the community level, will need to commit to doing what it takes to build effective resilience — starting immediately.
• Ibrahim Thiaw is executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. ©Project Syndicate

Last hope for Tunisia
Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/July 23/2022
Next week, Tunisians face a difficult yet familiar decision. After more than a decade, unmet aspirations will likely be usurped by a return to Ben Ali-esque centralization of power in a revised presidential system envisioned in the draft of a new constitution. Or, sensing the urgency of the moment, Tunisians could rally once more to reignite the fury that took the Arab world by storm in 2011 to decisively put an end to President Kais Saied’s designs for the presidency in what should have been the Arab world’s first full-fledged democracy.
Most external observers expect the planned constitutional referendum to pass, albeit narrowly, owing to calls for a boycott by the opposition that will likely dampen turnout. Widespread apathy among Tunisians, frustrated by socioeconomic woes and almost a decade of political chaos, will also impact who will show up and what their ultimate choice will be when they cast their ballots.
Faced with the simmering summer heat, soaring food prices and dwindling job prospects, there is simply very little energy to fill the streets and make a raucous challenge to Saied’s power grab, especially without an organized and united opposition movement. As a result, the president’s pillaging of hard-fought democratic norms culminating in next week’s referendum that the government is barely prepared for will write the final chapter of Tunisia’s experiment with democracy.
It begs the question: What lies ahead for Tunisia in this Saied era?
In a nutshell, a dizzying patchwork of contradictory principles and complicated procedures strewn together in the draft constitution are going to become the foundation of the country’s political future. Tragically, the public’s “reward” for its justifiable indifference and apathy is a confusing, illiberal landscape — a stark contrast to the highly touted accomplishments made eight years ago, at the peak of Tunisia’s democratization.
Furthermore, if an expected 30 percent of Tunisians grant Saied what is basically a blank check on July 25, it would cement a process that the president began advocating as far back as 2011. In it, the presidency will essentially become the state itself, making a mockery of the separation of powers by usurping the legislature, erasing the autonomy of the judiciary and rendering the electoral commission obsolete — all hallmarks of the 2014 constitution.
Of particular concern is the focus on establishing an inverted pyramid of power to ensure popular representation in Tunisia’s political processes. Saied’s ideas are not exactly groundbreaking, nor are they feasible, since such a system of governance closely resembles Muammar Qaddafi’s Jamahiriya, which strangled neighboring Libya for 42 years until its downfall in 2011. In it, Qaddafi attempted to invert traditional power structures in Libya by establishing local councils at its foundation, while decision-making remained vested in the presidency, and a notorious intolerance of dissent chastened the public.
Tunisians need not look too far into the future to see their fates years into Saied’s dissonant era. After all, the natural conclusion of an inverted pyramid of power is playing itself out right across Tunisia’s eastern border, and remains a crucial, tragic reminder of the need to resist the allure of something “different” over the unavoidable pains of establishing a functioning democracy.
On paper, Saied’s hyper-presidentialism disguised as returning power to the people sounds appealing, especially to a public exhausted by an ineffectual political elite that prized feckless squabbling over taking decisive action to preempt socioeconomic collapse and end Tunisia’s political malaise. By feigning to give a voice to the voiceless, so to speak, it became possible to center this fringe take on direct democracy.
It may be premature to declare that Tunisia’s experiment with democracy is over. However, there is less and less faith in Tunisians overcoming their apathy and dispiritedness to confront a gathering storm now threatening to decimate their once cherished aspirations.
In addition, by waffling on economic reform and echoing populist vagaries, Saied was able to secure the tacit collusion of a traditionally vocal, heavily unionized Tunisian urban middle class. This group is increasingly unnerved by the prospect of successive governments acquiescing to demands for painful austerity in order to secure a $4 billion lifeline from the International Monetary Fund.
Strangely, however, even after Saied greenlit talks between the government and the IMF, in addition to dissolving the High Judicial Council, Tunisia’s largest labor union — Union Generale Tunisienne du Travail — shied from opposing the president’s political agenda. By resisting the temptation to corral an opposition movement in disarray to deliver a resounding rejection of Saied’s brand of politics, the union’s fence-sitting indirectly sponsors the president’s unilateralism that will ultimately put the focus on any potential sources of dissent.
The firing of almost 60 judges from the Judicial Council should have engineered a split within the union, given the threat that the judiciary posed to Saied’s political machinations penned in this draft constitution. Should a small plurality create an unconstrained and unaccountable President Kais Saied, there is little hope that the union’s vast ranks would be sufficient for countering inevitable designs to curb its power and influence going forward.
Besides Saied’s war on the judiciary being a sign of what the opposition can expect after the referendum passes, empowering local councils to send representatives to regional councils that will, in turn, appoint representatives to a reworked parliament, has a sinister end-goal. Pursuing this formula for direct democracy will result in elections only happening at a very local level, completely eradicating national political parties — a possible last refuge for the opposition, leaving Tunisia, ironically, with the exact opposite of a democracy.
The June 2022 draft constitution also envisions a bicameral legislature, but none of the representatives will be elected directly by average Tunisians, and new electoral laws are anticipated to favor independent candidates instead — but, even then, nothing is guaranteed. After all, the new constitution is as vague as it is full of loopholes that the presidency can and will exploit to strengthen and consolidate its autocratic rule. Take, for instance, what the 34 articles in the June 2022 draft say about personal rights and civil liberties. On cursory examination, it appears as though the constitution will protect a range of freedoms, but digging deeper, additional articles appear to qualify those rights according to vague cultural, religious and even moral criteria.
Much like in the autocratic constitutions of other Arab countries, nothing is ever as it seems since intentionally vague stipulations or conditions make it possible for aspiring despots to exploit gaping loopholes, particularly in how personal rights and liberties are interpreted, in order to limit or eradicate them. The same goes for proposed procedures and articles that, in theory, read as checks on executive authority but, in practice, tend to be enablers of gross overreach and abuse of power.
It may be premature to declare that Tunisia’s experiment with democracy is over. However, there is less and less faith in Tunisians overcoming their apathy and dispiritedness to confront a gathering storm now threatening to decimate their once cherished aspirations. In addition, Tunisia’s woes are unlikely to cause any ripples or receive any more attention other than perfunctory statements expressing moral outrage. The only hope remaining is that it will take more than a shoddy referendum to transition the North African country back to autocracy, especially given the still formidable opposition movement that is yet to mobilize.
• Hafed Al-Ghwell is a non-resident senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He is also a senior adviser at the international economic consultancy Maxwell Stamp and the geopolitical risk advisory firm Oxford Analytica, a member of the Strategic Advisory Solutions International Group in Washington, and a former adviser to the board of the World Bank Group.
Twitter: @HafedAlGhwell

Today in History: Peasant Crusaders, Islamic Terrorists, and the Church Bells of Noon
Raymond Ibrahim/July 23/2022
Today in history, on July 22, 1456, the West scored one of its greatest victories over the jihad—and, in so doing, inaugurated the ringing of church bells at noon.
Three years after conquering Constantinople, the Ottoman Sultan, Muhammad II, at the head of over 100,000 Turks, marched towards the strategic fortress town of Belgrade, key to Western Europe, in the spring of 1456.
Cognizant of all the death, destruction, and mindboggling atrocities this massive Muslim march presaged—memory of the sack of Constantinople was still fresh—a great panic swept through the Danube region. Even Hungarian king Ladislaus V fled his capital to Vienna (on the pretext that he was going “hunting”).
Only one stood his ground—only John Hunyadi, the Transylvanian voivode who had long been a thorn in the Turks’ side. Even as the king fled west, Hunyadi raced to the eastern frontier—towards, not away from, the Turkish army. He immediately manned the fortress of Belgrade with 6,000 veteran fighters at his own expense. Although he implored the higher nobles for aid, few were responsive.
Meanwhile, the 70-year-old Franciscan friar, John Capistrano, went to southern Hungary calling on the people to take the cross and defend their nation against Islam. His “burning zeal, soul-piercing eloquence, and heroic austerities” set tens of thousands of the lower classes aflame. Before long, a massive crusader force of some 40,000 peasants were following Capistrano.
The world had turned upside down: “Where is the French king,” a contemporary document inquires, “who wants to call himself the Christian king? Where are the kings of England, Denmark, Norway, Sweden…? Unarmed peasants, blacksmiths, tailors, tradesmen are walking in front of the armies!”
By late June, Muhammad’s vast forces had reached and surrounded Belgrade. If it fell, all of Hungary and further west would be exposed to and eventually inundated by the hordes of Asia.
Muhammad ordered the heavy bombardment to begin on July 4. The crashing and careening cannon fire was so thunderously loud that it could be heard for a hundred miles around. Twelve days later, on July 16, massive breaches punctuated this once formidable fortress.
It was then that Hunyadi’s army appeared, floating down the Danube on makeshift vessels of war. Marching alongside them by land were Capistrano and his army. On seeing the puny, Christian fleet nearing their professional galleons, many of which were fettered together by chains and formed a huge damn across the water, the Turks scoffed, even as they braced for the inevitable crash. On the signal—loud cries of “Jesus! Jesus!”—the Christian flotilla crashed into the chained Muslim boats.
The Danube flowed with hot blood as a wild river battle took place for five hours. The massive linked chains of the Ottoman boats eventually burst asunder, and the Christian fleet made it to and reinforced Belgrade, which was at its final extremity.
A spectacular start for the relief force, it was only a scratch to the vast Muslim army. On that same day, Ottoman cannons—now living instruments of the sultan’s wrath—exploded in a barrage of fire that rocked Belgrade to its very foundation.
For another week, the cannons continued to thunder, until most of Belgrade’s ramparts were on a level with the ground. Then, at the crack of dawn, on July 21, for miles around, “one could hear the ceaseless beat of the drums that announced the attack.” Throngs of Muslims came rushing to the dilapidated fortress to cries of “Allah! Allah!”
Once thousands of Turks had crowded in between the crumbling walls and the citadel, the signal was given: to the piercing sound of blasting horns, Hunyadi and his men came charging out of the citadel, even as throngs of hidden peasant crusaders appeared above the walls and behind the Turks. The Muslims were trapped between a rock and a hard place. According to one account:
A terrible struggle ensued. The Turks, though taken at an advantage, were as ten to one and armed to the teeth, whilst most of their antagonists were scarcely armed at all. A hand-to-hand melee went on in every street, but the fight was fiercest on the narrow bridge leading from the citadel to the town, where Hunyady commanded in person….
Despite being so wildly disadvantaged in numbers and arms, the Christians—including Hunyadi, who fought in their midst like a common foot-soldier—held their own and managed to kill many the Turks.
It was now just before dawn, July 22; the battle had raged for a day and night, and it was clear that the Christians, having reached the limits of human capacity and endurance, were on the verge of collapsing under the sheer numbers of their foes pouring in. High up on a watch tower, the 70-year-old Capistrano was seen waving the banner of the Cross and imploring Heaven for aid.
The Christians, now pushed back to the citadel and high places, began to rain down fire on the votaries of Islam. With all the combustibles they could gather—wood, dried branches, anything that would burn—the defenders “cast them down, mingled with burning pitch and sulphur, both upon the Turks who were in the ditches and upon those who were scaling the walls,” writes a battle participant.
After all the shrieks had died out and the smoke cleared, the rising sun slowly revealed the gory aftermath. All around Belgrade, inside and out, were the dead and dying bodies of countless Muslims—charred beyond all recognition.
[T]he ditches and the whole space between the outer walls and the citadel were filled with their scorched and bleeding corpses. Thousands of them had perished there. The janissaries in particular had suffered so terribly that the survivors of them were thoroughly cowed, while the sultan’s body-guard, which had led the attack, was well-nigh annihilated. So, after a twenty-hours’ combat, the Christian host was able to breathe freely once more.
And yet, in terms of actual casualties, this was but a scratch to the gargantuan Ottoman army that still surrounded Belgrade. Another assault was expected; and Hunyadi ordered everyone to remain at his post, on pain of death, “lest the glory of the day be turned into confusion.”
By late noon on July 22, however, an unauthorized skirmish between the crusaders and jihadists prompted the former to pour out of Belgrade and take the battle to the Turks. Seeing that the die had been cast, Hunyadi and his professional men-at-arms rushed to their aid. By 6 pm, the entire Christian army was fighting outside the ruined walls Belgrade.
In this bedlam, even Sultan Muhammad was espied fighting. By now, however, the masses of Turks making up his army, who had set off expecting a relatively easy victory, had had enough. When the fiery Christians managed to capture and turn the blasts of several Ottoman cannons on their former besiegers, demoralization turned into panic, and the Turks, tens of thousands of them, fled, with Sultan Muhammad carried in their midst, “foaming at the mouth with impotent rage,” even as some 50,000 other Turks lay dead before the ruined walls of Belgrade.
It was arguably the worst defeat that Muhammad the Conqueror suffered in his long career of terrorizing Christians. And it is for this victory at Belgrade that church bells ring at noon—a tradition started by Pope Calixtus III to mark the time when a small but devoted force of Christians defied a much larger force of Muslims intent on annihilating them; a tradition that continues to this day, including in older Protestant churches—even if Christians of all denominations have forgotten or been shielded from its significance.
*This article was abstracted from Raymond Ibrahim’s new book, Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood against Islam, which includes a full chapter on John Hunyadi.
https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2022/07/22/today-in-history-peasant-crusaders-islamic-terrorists-and-the-church-bells-of-noon/

The Politics of Persecution: Middle Eastern Christians in an Age of Empire
Raymond Ibrahim/July 23/2022
by Mitri Raheb
Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2021. 207 pp. $24.99.
Reviewed by Raymond Ibrahim
Author of Sword and Scimitar
Middle East Quarterly /Summer 2022
Raheb, a Lutheran clergyman and academic in Bethlehem, argues that “Christian persecution is a Western construct that says more about the West than about the Christians of the Middle East.” Whatever persecution Christians may experience has little to do with Islam and is rather a byproduct of political developments that were and are almost always precipitated by Western or Israeli actions.
To make his thesis work, Raheb predictably begins his history in 1800 with the waning of Islam and the ascendancy of Europe. Christianity under Islam for the preceding twelve centuries—when it went from being the dominant faith to a tiny minority due to sporadic bouts of persecution and systemic discrimination—is otherwise presented in a rosy picture. Thus, the “persecution of Christians under the Ottomans, if any, was rare and localized.”
On the other hand, the “penetration by European powers had disastrous consequences for the region by introducing Zionism, nationalism, and colonialism.” The Mount Lebanon massacre of 1860 when Muslims butchered more than ten thousand Christians, and even the Turkish genocide of millions of Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Christians, are presented as byproducts of European interference. Thus, “the only two cases of Christian persecution [by Muslims] in the past two centuries must be interpreted within the context of Western imperial penetration.”
Raheb avoids mentioning the obvious: While Western interference, past and present, may well have prompted and continues to prompt Muslims to massacre Christians, that is only because Muslims already see Christians as inferior infidels. Muslims massacred Christians in Mount Lebanon, during the Armenian genocide, etc., because they felt Christians were, thanks to colonial powers, becoming equals as opposed to knowing their place as second-class dhimmis within the Muslim social order as they did for the preceding millennium.
Although the European contemporary sources and eyewitnesses Raheb quotes disagree with him—always presenting the Muslim massacres of Christians as a byproduct of religious animosity—he gets around this by arguing that such Europeans did not understand the true, “political” significance of what they were reporting on—because they understood everything through an “Orientalist paradigm”:
In this paradigm, we depict an orientalist attitude of a superior and civilized Christian West that gazes at a barbaric ‘Orient’ that is Islamic, irrational, anti-Christian, and stuck in a primitive mindset … This discourse is part of an orientalist perception that persists in framing the Middle East as a backward, barbaric and intolerant region.
Clearly, Raheb, the Palestinian academic, is very much influenced by another famous Palestinian academic, Edward Said. This is especially evident in his presentation of Israel as one of the worst persecutors of Christians even though the examples he offers are sparse and pale in comparison to those furnished by Muslim-majority countries. Worse, whereas Israel’s conflict is not with Christians or Muslims but rather a territorial dispute with Arabs—and therefore furnishes the only example that truly conforms to his political thesis—he bemoans the actions of “radical Jewish groups” and “terrorists.”
Raheb boasts that an important and unique feature of this book is that it is written by a native Palestinian Christian theologian who has spent his entire life in the region … As such, it provides a decolonial interpretation … [and] allows us to expose the orientalist perception dominant in Western discourse.
But his pedigree also involves well-known drawbacks: Christians living in the Middle East tend to have a dhimmi/hostage mentality that accommodates Muslims, whereas those living abroad can speak more forthrightly. The insistence that the persecution Christians suffer is an outcome of anything and everything except Islam—including “climate change [which] will take its toll on the Christian community”—is especially absurd.
Although Raheb makes some good points—for example, that Westerners can exploit the persecution of Christians for their own agendas without actually trying to make a difference—these are overshadowed by the book’s defects. In short, Politics of Persecution is fatally marred by the author’s own politics.
https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2022/07/21/the-politics-of-persecution-middle-eastern-christians-in-an-age-of-empire/

Australia: New Government Maintains Hardline Stance on China
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/July 23/2022
Australia's new Labor Party government has signaled that it will maintain the hardline policies toward China pursued by the previous conservative government and expand security ties with the United States.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi blamed the previous government for the break-down in ties and warned the new government that it must "take concrete actions" to adopt a "correct understanding" of China. He then handed Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong a list of four demands the new government must meet to "recalibrate" the relationship: 1) do not treat China as a rival; 2) seek common ground; 3) do not do the bidding of the United States; and 4) build public support for China.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese replied: "Australia doesn't respond to demands; we respond to our own national interests."
In April 2022, China signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands. A leaked draft of the agreement indicates that China intends to establish a military presence in the South Pacific.
"A closed one-party state — that would never allow a foreign company near China's critical technologies — expects one-sided reciprocity and openness from Australia. China would also reject out of hand any similar attempt by another country to meddle in its domestic politics and foreign policy as a precondition for better relations." — Editorial Board of the Australian Financial Review, July 11, 2022.
Australia's new Labor Party government has signaled that it will maintain the hardline policies toward China pursued by the previous conservative government and expand security ties with the United States. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (R) and Foreign Minister Penny Wong speak during a press conference at the Pacific Islands Forum in Suva, Fiji on July 13, 2022. (Photo by William West/AFP via Getty Images)
Australia's new Labor Party government has signaled that it will maintain the hardline policies toward China pursued by the previous conservative government and expand security ties with the United States.
Australia's fraught relationship with China was a key issue in the May 21 election and the Labor Party was said to have won due in part to hopes that a new left-leaning government could improve bilateral ties.
Those hopes have been dashed by China itself. On July 8, in the first high-level meeting since China froze bilateral relations in 2019, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong met with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali.
Wang blamed the previous government for the break-down in ties and warned the new government that it must "take concrete actions" to adopt a "correct understanding" of China. He then handed Wong a list of four demands the new government must meet to "recalibrate" the relationship: 1) do not treat China as a rival; 2) seek common ground; 3) do not do the bidding of the United States; and 4) build public support for China.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese replied: "Australia doesn't respond to demands; we respond to our own national interests."
Since taking office, the Albanese government has shown that there is a strong bipartisan consensus in Australia about the threat posed by China and that the new prime minister will not fundamentally alter the hardline position held by the previous government.
May 24. In his first appearance on the world stage as prime minister, Albanese met with leaders from the United States, Japan and India at a meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) in Tokyo. He reaffirmed Australia's commitment to the Quad: "We have had a change of government in Australia, but Australia's commitment to the Quad has not changed and will not change." He also pledged to work more closely with Indo-Pacific nations to counter China's growing influence in the region. Moreover, Albanese reaffirmed his commitment to AUKUS, a trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States to develop a nuclear-powered submarine capability for Australia.
May 26. In her first bilateral visit as foreign minister, Wong traveled to Fiji, where, in a speech to the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, she promised that Australia would pay more attention to the views and needs of the Pacific Island countries, whose leaders have long complained of being ignored by Canberra. Wong's diplomacy was instrumental in the May 30 decision by ten Pacific Island countries to reject a sweeping security and trade deal with China. Fiji, an archipelago of more than 300 islands, instead signed on to the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), an alternative pact led by the United States.
June 24. Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States established Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP), a new initiative aimed at boosting economic and diplomatic ties with Pacific island nations. The move is part of an effort to counter China's growing influence in the region.
June 28. In an interview with Australian Financial Review, conducted en route to Spain for the NATO Summit in Madrid, Albanese said that the Chinese government, when thinking about Taiwan, should learn the lessons of Russia's "strategic failure" in Ukraine. He added that the so-called special relationship between Russia and China had "reinforced the implications for the world beyond just what is happening in Russia and Ukraine." He elaborated:
"This is about whether, in an international rules-based order, you will see a sovereign nation such as Ukraine invaded in such a brutal, illegal way by a country that is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council."
Albanese added:
"The resistance of Ukraine has brought democratic nations closer together which have a shared commitment to rules-based, international order, whether they be members of NATO, or non-members such as Australia."
July 6. Wong, in her first major foreign policy speech, delivered in Singapore, called on China to exert its influence on Russia to end the war in Ukraine. "Exerting such influence would do a great deal to build confidence in our own region," she said. "The region and the world is now looking at Beijing's actions in relation to Ukraine." Wong also called on China to exercise restraint in its dealings with its own neighbors.
July 12. Australia's new defense minister, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, in a speech to the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and International Affairs, reaffirmed that "there is no more important partner" to Australia than the United States, and that the U.S.-Australian alliance has become a "cornerstone" of Australia's foreign and security policy. He then listed some of the challenges posed by China:
"A military buildup occurring at a rate unseen since World War II; the development and deployment of new weapons that challenge our military capability edge; expanding cyber and gray-zone capabilities which blur the line between peace and conflict; and the intensification of major-power competition in ways that both concentrate and transcend geographic confines. These trends compel an even greater Australian focus on the Indo-Pacific.
"For the first time in decades, we are thinking hard about the security of our own strategic geography; the viability of our trade and supply routes; and above all the preservation of an inclusive regional order founded on rules agreed by all, not the coercive capabilities of a few. In particular, we worry about the use of force or coercion to advance territorial claims, as is occurring in the South China Sea, and its implications for any number of places in the Indo-Pacific where borders or sovereignty are disputed."
Marles added that his "first priority" will be the trilateral partnership with the United States and the United Kingdom under AUKUS:
"For a three-ocean nation, the heart of deterrence is undersea capability. AUKUS will not only make Australia safer; it will make Australia a more potent and capable partner. That the United States and the United Kingdom have agreed to work with Australia to meet our needs is not only a game-changer; it illustrates why alliances help reinforce, not undermine, our country's national sovereignty."
Australia has long been a vocal critic of China's human rights abuses, especially the repression of ethnic Uyghurs, as well as the crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong, its threats against Taiwan, its aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea. China is also accused of meddling in Australia's political process. In June 2018, the Australian Parliament passed a package of laws aimed at preventing foreign interference in the country.
Bilateral relations reached a new low in September 2020, when then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an independent international inquiry into the COVID-19 outbreak. China retaliated by imposing sanctions on the imports of Australian goods.
In April 2022, China signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands. A leaked draft of the agreement indicates that China intends to establish a military presence in the South Pacific.
In June 2022, a Chinese fighter jet intercepted an Australian surveillance plane in international airspace over the South China Sea. The Chinese jet then released small pieces of aluminum which were sucked into the engine of the Australian plane. Australia's defense ministry said it had "for decades undertaken maritime surveillance activities in the region" and "does so in accordance with international law, exercising the right to freedom of navigation and overflight in international waters and airspace." Defense Minister Marles added that Australia will continue its legal operations in the South China Sea:
"This incident will not deter Australia from continuing to engage in these activities which are within our rights at international law, to ensure that there is freedom of navigation in the South China Sea because that is fundamentally in our nation's interests. This is a body of water which is deeply connected to Australia."
The Editorial Board of the Australian Financial Review, in an essay — "Albanese Government No Soft Touch Under China's One-Way Pressure" — wrote that the tone of Beijing's rhetoric remains aggressive:
"The tone of Beijing's message — along with the presumed right to issue one-sided diktats demanding Australia take 'concrete action' to correct its attitude and behavior — remains much the same. All the blame for the problems in the relationship are placed at Australia's feet. This, of course, ignores the reality that assertive China has changed.
"All this is underlined by the attempt to pin the 'root cause' of the deteriorating relationship on the former Coalition government's 'irresponsible words and deeds' — such as Malcolm Turnbull's legitimate decision to protect Australia's sovereignty by banning China-owned Huawei from participating in the 5G network build.
"A closed one-party state — that would never allow a foreign company near China's critical technologies — expects one-sided reciprocity and openness from Australia. China would also reject out of hand any similar attempt by another country to meddle in its domestic politics and foreign policy as a precondition for better relations.
"If China genuinely seeks a reset of the relationship, it should take the first concrete action itself and withdraw the unwarranted trade punishment against Australia's grain, beef, and wine exports — not make this conditional on improved political relations on its terms first."
In an article — "Plus ça Change: The New Australian Labor Government's Foreign Policy Agenda" — Thomas Wilkens, Senior Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, concluded:
"The new government's continued emphasis on the Quad and AUKUS will likely disappoint Chinese observers who hoped that Labor may downplay these groupings, given their perceived role as instruments designed to respond to China's growing power and assertiveness, out of deference to Beijing. While many commentators have viewed the change of government as an opportunity to 'reset,' or at least improve, dire bilateral relations with Beijing, the new Labor government indicated that 'fixing' the relationship is a high priority, but it will not occur at the expense of close cooperation with fellow democratic allies and partners, whom Albanese praised as 'like-minded friends.' Indeed, given the parlous state of bilateral relations over the past few years, such a task appears 'a difficult one,' as Mr. Albanese himself indicated....
"PM Albanese comes to the premiership at a fraught time both in terms of the deteriorating regional security environment and the economic challenges that Australia will face in the coming period. When considering Labor approaches to foreign policy, it must be remembered that the core aspects of Australian external relations, famously characterized by Allan Gyngell as (i) support for the rules-based international order, coupled with (ii) the US-alliance, and (iii) Asian engagement, have enjoyed bipartisan consensus. Only in select policy spheres such as climate change and nuclear weapons are significant partisan divergences apparent.
"Thus far, all has been quite predictable — plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same.)"
*Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.
© 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.

Biden's Trip: A Total Disappointment to Allies
Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/July 23/2022
The Islamic Republic of Iran did not murder just one American journalist... in 1983, Iran murdered 241 American servicemen in the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.
To top it off, then in 2018, Iran was ordered by a US federal court to pay billions of dollars in compensation to relatives of victims in the 9/11 attacks that murdered 3,000 people on US soil.
Iran is still holding six Americans hostage... In addition, Iran recently called for the assassination of leading US officials, a story the Biden administration reportedly tried to "keep under wraps," lest it disturb their efforts to enable Iran to acquire nuclear capability along with more than a trillion dollars to revive what has been called, in a scathing analysis by Richard Goldberg, a former National Security Council official and US Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer, "the new worst deal in history."
"Words will not stop them, Mr. President. Diplomacy will not stop them. The only thing that will stop Iran is knowing that if they continue to develop their nuclear program, the free world will use force." — Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, speaking alongside US President Joe Biden at a joint news conference, July 14, 2022.
Iran also now has "over 3,000 [ballistic] missiles of various types," many capable of carrying nuclear warheads — US Central Command Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, Jerusalem Post, March 15, 2022.
The Iranian regime has also switched off UN cameras to monitor its nuclear program and announced that it will not allow the IAEA to see images from the devices.
In addition, the Iranian regime is refusing to answer the IAEA's questions about uranium particles found at three clandestine and undeclared nuclear sites in Iran.
The Biden administration not only wants this warmed-over nuclear deal, but also appears eager to throw more billions at a regime that used the last billions to solidify its takeover of four countries: Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.
The ruling mullahs of Iran are freely being allowed to violate US sanctions and UN Security Council Resolutions. Shipments of weapons to the Houthis in Yemen are in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2140.
Any revival of a nuclear deal will only enrich what the US State Department has called the "top state sponsor of terrorism": Iran. Since its founding in 1979, the regime has openly called for "Death to America" and "Death to Israel". Or are these results what the Biden administration possibly wants?
The Islamic Republic of Iran did not murder just one American journalist... in 1983, Iran murdered 241 American servicemen in the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut. Pictured: An aerial view of the destroyed US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. (Image source: U.S. National Archives/Gun. SGT. Lucas)
Many Americans as well as allies of the United States were hoping that US President Joe Biden and his administration, on his recent trip to the Middle East, would announce a firmer policy towards the regime of Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran did not murder just one American journalist: it celebrated its birth in 1979 by kidnapping more than 50 Americans from the staff of the US Embassy in Tehran and holding them hostage for 444 days. Then, in 1983, Iran murdered 241 American servicemen in the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.
To top it off, then in 2018, Iran was ordered by a US federal court to pay billions of dollars in compensation to relatives of victims in the 9/11 attacks that murdered 3,000 people on US soil.
Iran is still holding six Americans hostage, as well as the remains of another, Robert Levinson. In addition, Iran recently called for the assassination of leading US officials, a story the Biden administration reportedly tried to "keep under wraps," lest it disturb their efforts to enable Iran to acquire nuclear capability along with more than a trillion dollars to revive what has been called, in a scathing analysis by Richard Goldberg, a former National Security Council official and US Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer, "the new worst deal in history."
"Iran was cheating on the old deal from the very start and using its benefits to destabilize the Middle East. Which is exactly what they will do again," Goldberg wrote.
Last week, Biden nevertheless stressed again that he would continue to pursue diplomacy (read: appeasement) and efforts to revive the disastrous nuclear deal with the ruling mullahs in Iran.
"I continue to believe that diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome," Biden stated. Appearing alongside Biden at a joint news conference in Jerusalem, referring to Iran's nuclear program, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid warned:
"Words will not stop them, Mr. President. Diplomacy will not stop them. The only thing that will stop Iran is knowing that if they continue to develop their nuclear program, the free world will use force. The only way to stop them is to put a credible military threat on the table... the Iranian regime must know that if they continue to deceive the world, they will pay a heavy price"
Let us examine what has Biden's diplomacy with the ruling mullahs of Iran done so far. The Iranian regime, for the first time its history, has now enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear bomb -- a fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has acknowledged. The Institute for Science and International Security also reported in November 2021:
"Iran has enough enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6) in the form of near 20 and 60 percent enriched uranium to produce enough weapon-grade uranium (WGU), taken here as 25 kilograms (kg), for a single nuclear weapon in as little as three weeks. It could do so without using any of its stock of uranium enriched up to 5 percent as feedstock. The growth of Iran's stocks of near 20 and 60 percent enriched uranium has dangerously reduced breakout timelines."
Iran also now has "over 3,000 [ballistic] missiles of various types," many capable of carrying nuclear warheads, according to Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of the United States Central Command.
Thanks to Biden's diplomacy-only approach, the ruling mullahs have succeeded at advancing their nuclear program to the highest level ever, conducting uranium metal production, and adding additional advanced centrifuges. The Iranian regime has also switched off UN cameras to monitor its nuclear program and announced that it will not allow the IAEA to see images from the devices.
In addition, the Iranian regime is refusing to answer the IAEA's questions about uranium particles found at three clandestine and undeclared nuclear sites in Iran. "Iran has not provided explanations that are technically credible in relation to the Agency's findings at those locations..." the IAEA stated. "The Agency remains ready to engage without delay with Iran to resolve all of these matters."
While the ruling mullahs of Iran are going nuclear, the Biden administration is busy appeasing them. The Biden administration not only wants this warmed-over nuclear deal, but also appears eager to throw more billions at a regime that used the last billions to solidify its takeover of four countries: Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.
The Biden administration also revoked the designation of an Iranian proxy, Yemen's Houthis, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, in gratitude for which the Houthis began firing missiles into Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia. The Biden administration also removed sanctions on three former Iranian officials and several energy companies, and is considering lifting sanctions against Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The US administration is also continuing to turn a blind eye away from the Iranian regime's destructive behavior in the region and beyond -- activities that encompass smuggling weapons to the Houthis, shipping oil and weapons to Venezuela, harassing the US Navy, and targeting US bases in Iraq. Iran's shipment of weapons to Venezuela have included , according to the US Department of Justice, advanced arms such as:
"171 guided anti-tank missiles, eight surface-to-air missiles, land attack cruise missile components, anti-ship cruise missile components, thermal weapon optics and other components for missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles [drones]".
The ruling mullahs of Iran are freely being allowed to violate US sanctions and UN Security Council Resolutions. Shipments of weapons to the Houthis in Yemen are in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2140, which states:
"Obligation to freeze all funds, other financial assets and economic resources that are owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the individuals or entities designated by the Committee, or by individuals or entities acting on their behalf or at their direction, or by entities owned or controlled by them; no funds, financial assets or economic resources to be made available to or for the benefit of such individuals or entities."
Any revival of a nuclear deal will only enrich what the US State Department has called the "top state sponsor of terrorism": Iran. Since its founding in 1979, the regime has openly called for "Death to America" and "Death to Israel". Or are these results what the Biden administration possibly wants?
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
© 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.