English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For March 05/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Parable Of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector and their kind of prayers: All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 18/09-14/:”Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.”But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 04-05/2022
Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Warns of 'Military Clash' with Hizbullah
Aoun Meets EU Delegation, Urges Dialogue between Russia and Ukraine
President Aoun meets European Union delegation: Lebanon is against any act of war and return to negotiation option is the best
Cabinet Postpones Municipal Vote, Forms Food Security Panel amid Russia Row
Alloush Resigns from al-Mustaqbal Movement
EU Ambassador Hails Lebanon's Anti-Russia Vote
Franjieh 'Won't Beg' for Presidency, Slams Hizbullah Alliance with FPM's Karam
UK Deputy Ambassador and Development Director Visit Akkar
Lebanese Bank Closes over 30 British-Held Accounts after UK Ruling-Depositors’ Group
Lebanon’s Economy Minister: Wheat Reserves Enough for a Month and a Half
Two Lebanese affiliated To Hezbollah Reside in Guinea were put on the US sanctions list
Abu Zeid meets Russia’s Bugdanov
More than 50 Lebanese students arrive from Ukraine to Phoenicia Hotel in Bucharest
Into Mount Lebanon/Andrew Doran/National Review/March 04/2022
Mona Tarazi: If the Lebanese state is to reconstruct the port, and it should, the silos need to be kept. “They are our memory”, she says, “our cultural heritage”.
Hezbollah and the Specter of Elections Being Canceled/Hanna Saleh/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 04/2022

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 04-05/2022
Israel to Do 'Whatever it Takes' to Prevent Iran from Acquiring Nuclear Capabilities
‘We Are Close’, UK Envoy to Iran Nuclear Talks Says as Europeans Fly Home
US says Iran nuclear deal 'close' but not certain
Iran Foreign Minister Says Nuclear Deal Subject to Tehran’s Red Lines
Iran Approaching Nuclear Bomb Yardstick as Enriched Uranium Stock Grows
Ukraine's Jewish leader invokes Judaism to rally support amid war
How Dangerous Was Russia's Nuclear Plant Strike?
UN Atomic Agency: No Radiation Release at Ukraine Plant
Fire Extinguished at Europe’s Biggest Nuclear Plant after Battle Causes Alarm
Russia Fights Back in Information War with Jail Warning
Fire Out at Ukraine's Key Nuclear Plant, No Leak Detected
Israeli Officers Warn against Security Chaos Erupting in Ramadan
ISIS Widow in NE Syria: I Couldn’t Believe I Got Rid of Him
Israeli Court's Decision to Cancel Russia's Church Ownership Could Lead to Tensions
ISIS Widow in NE Syria: I Couldn’t Believe I Got Rid of Him
US Committed to Seeking Accountability in Syria
Bombing of Mosque in Pakistan Kills at Least 56
Saudi Arabia, UAE point to changed world as they seek more balanced relations with US
Canada/G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting Statement

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 04-05/2022
Accommodating Iran Will Be No More Successful Than Accommodating Russia/Emanuele Ottolenghi/The Tablet/March 04/2022
Iran Approaches the Nuclear Threshold/Washington’s Narrowing Policy Options/Andrea Stricker and Anthony Ruggiero/Memo/March 04/2022
Erdogan’s Balancing Act Between Russia and Ukraine/Aykan Erdemir/The Globalist/March 04/2022
Ukraine Must Join the EU to Punish Russia/Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/March 04/2022
Determined Leadership Everywhere but America: Open the Spigots, Open the EastMed Pipeline/Pete Hoekstra/Gatestone Institute/March 04/2022
What Kind of Cold War Awaits the World?/Akram Bunni/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 04/2022
The Impact of the Ukraine War on Turkey/Omer Onhon/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 04/2022
The US and Russia Still Need to Get Along in Space/Adam Minter/Bloomberg/March 04/2022
Ukraine war challenges Israel's relationship with world Jews/Joseph Dana/The Arab Weekly/March 04/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 04-05/2022
Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Warns of 'Military Clash' with Hizbullah
Naharnet/Friday, 4 March, 2022 
Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan has warned of a military confrontation with Hizbullah "if the group continues its terrorist activities."Erdan said that UNIFIL is not fulfilling its mandate, during a meeting with the new head of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Maj. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz. He accused Hizbullah of "continued infringement on the freedom of movement of the Lebanese people and UNIFIL soldiers" and urged UNIFIL forces to act against it. "Hizbullah's actions could lead to a future military confrontation that would bring disaster to Lebanon," Erdan warned. "If Hizbullah continues its terrorist activities, Israel will have to respond forcefully,” he added.

Aoun Meets EU Delegation, Urges Dialogue between Russia and Ukraine
Naharnet/Friday, 4 March, 2022 
President Michel Aoun said Friday Lebanon is against any military operation on any free state and urged for negotiations to end the Ukrainian-Russian conflict. Aoun stressed, during a meeting with the EU Delegation in Lebanon, the importance of dialogue instead of war and violence. "We stand against any military operation that violates the sovereignty and independence of any free country," Aoun said, adding that Lebanon has suffered from wars especially during the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982. Meanwhile, al-Joumhouria newspaper had reported that the ministers of Hizbullah and Amal would once again criticize “Lebanon’s stance on the Russian-Ukrainian war” during a Cabinet session that will be held today in Baabda. A statement, issued last week by the Lebanese Foreign Ministry, had condemned Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, sparking controversy in the Lebanese political arena, with many parties openly criticizing it, most notably Hizbullah and its allies, while the Russian Ambassador to Lebanon said the statement will not affect the relations between Lebanon and Russia. Lebanon's vote at a U.N. General Assembly against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine followed. Among 141 nations, Lebanon voted Wednesday in favor of a U.N. resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as five countries rejected it and 35 nations chose to abstain.

President Aoun meets European Union delegation: Lebanon is against any act of war and return to negotiation option is the best
NNA/Friday, 4 March, 2022   
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, emphasized that referring to the negotiation option is the best way to resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, “Because the adoption of peaceful means leads to avoiding any repercussions that increase differences between countries in general, and neighboring countries in specific”. The President also pointed out that Lebanon's position has always been and still is against any act of war or aggression directed against any free and independent country, indicating the importance of adopting the language of dialogue and solidarity between peoples and countries during crises and wars. The President’s positions came while receiving the European Union delegation, today at Baabda Palace. The delegations was headed by Ambassador Ralph Tarraf, who thanked President Aoun for receiving him and the accompanying delegation, and for Lebanon’s position in the United Nations General Assembly regarding the crisis in Ukraine. “Lebanon joined 140 countries in the United Nations in condemning this unjustified Russian offensive act, which violated international laws and threatened security and stability in Europe. The EU calls on Russia to withdraw its forces from Ukraine and respect its sovereignty and territorial integrity” Ambassador Tarraf said.
Ambassador Tarraf also pointed out that the European Union had taken an effective action against this crisis and had issued a bundle of sanctions against the Russian economic system, its technology sector and its corrupt elite.
“We affirm that it is the hour of truth for Europe. Today's confrontation is between the democratic regime, the one-rule regime, and the aggressor. This war determines not only the fate of Ukraine, but the fate of all of Europe” Ambassador Tarraf added.
For his part, President Aoun pointed out that Lebanon’s position regarding the Russian-Ukrainian crisis stems from the necessity of adopting the language of dialogue to solve problems between countries and peoples, not the language of war.
“We are against any military action directed against any free and independent state, and we consider this an attack on sovereignty and independence as well as on the safe people. Lebanon has suffered many problems and wars, the consequences of which were dire for its people as well as for its infrastructure and economy, especially during the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982” the President said. Moreover, President Aoun thanked the European Union for standing by Lebanon in various circumstances, especially after the explosion of the Port of Beirut in 2020, and the huge losses that occurred as a result, whether in terms of the number of martyrs, victims and wounded, or in terms of material losses after destroying a large part of Beirut. In addition, the President pointed to the importance of solidarity between countries and peoples, especially during wars, and said: "Today, Europe will not abandon its role”.
On the other hand, President Aoun recalled that he had previously asserted the need to return to the negotiation option because it is the best solution to resolving the conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, because the adoption of peaceful means leads to avoiding any repercussions that increase differences between countries in general, and neighboring countries in particular. The President considered that peaceful means to address inter-state conflicts remain the alternative to violence and dangerous military operations.
Statement:
After the meeting, Ambassador Tarraf made the following statement:
"I am here today to thank Lebanon on behalf of the European Union and its member states for its position in the United Nations General Assembly on the Ukrainian crisis. Lebanon joined 140 countries in condemning the unprecedented Russian military aggression against Ukraine. This is an unjustified military action that violates international law and has endangered security and stability in Europe and the world. The Lebanese people understand the meaning of this battle because of the invasions, occupations and interventions they faced. Lebanon, the founding state of the United Nations, remained faithful to the principles of non-resort to force, and it supports the peaceful settlement of disputes, and this is something we highly appreciate”.The European delegation included: Ambassadors and chargé d'affaires of the following countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Denmark, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Sweden.
Australian Ambassador:
President Aoun met the Australian Ambassador to Lebanon, Rebecca Grindlay, on a farewell visit to mark the end of her mission in Lebanon.  The President praised the efforts made by Ambassador Grindlay during her stay in Lebanon with the aim of strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries and developing them in several means. President Aoun also wished Ambassador Grindlaysuccess in her new duties.
Former Minister Al-Khatib:
The President met former Minister Tarek Al-Khatib, and deliberated with him political developments, and the needs of Shouf and Kharoub regions. --Presidency Press Office

Cabinet Postpones Municipal Vote, Forms Food Security Panel amid Russia Row
Naharnet/Friday, 4 March, 2022   
The Cabinet on Friday decided to postpone the municipal and mayoral elections for a year, as it formed a ministerial panel on food security in connection with the war in Ukraine. MTV said the decision to postpone the municipal vote was taken due to a lack of financial resources and manpower.
“It suggested that it be held on May 31, 2023, and the suggestion will be referred to parliament to take the appropriate decision,” the TV network added. Separately, Cabinet formed a ministerial panel led by the economy minister and comprised of the ministers of industry, agriculture, defense and culture to “tackle the food security crisis” in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The committee would also “protect the markets in terms of preventing monopolization and price manipulation.”Labor Minister Mustafa Bayram of Hizbullah meanwhile renewed his criticism of Lebanon’s official stance on the Russia-Ukraine war, after Lebanon voted in favor of a U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning Moscow. “Lebanon’s bias does not have an impact and it will only aggravate our difficult and complicated situation. Doesn’t this stance deserve to be discussed in Cabinet to be properly presented, especially that we had previously objected against the foreign minister’s decision?” Bayram said. “Aren’t we all concerned as a Council of Ministers in taking the Lebanese political stances regarding the various topics?” he added. Prime Minister Najib Miqati responded by saying: “We have told you that Russia is not targeted by the statement. We are against any foreign intervention in any state, regardless of the intervening state.”

Alloush Resigns from al-Mustaqbal Movement
Naharnet/Friday, 4 March, 2022 
Al-Mustaqbal Movement deputy chief has submitted his resignation in a phone call with the Movement’s leader ex-PM Saad Hariri, the Movement said on Friday. “Ex-PM Hariri decided today to consider the resignation effective and the decision was submitted to the general secretariat,” the Movement said in a statement. “This absolves Dr. Alloush of any organizational commitments and he has the full right to take the path that he sees appropriate, whether in the elections or in other issues,” the statement added. “We appreciate his stances and the missions that he assumed in the Movement throughout the past years,” the statement said.The resignation comes after Alloush voiced support for ex-PM Fouad Saniora’s call for Sunni participation in the parliamentary elections in defiance of Hariri’s boycott decision. Alloush’s stance drew criticism from several Mustaqbal officials and many of them called on him to resign. Asked whether he intends to run in the elections, Alloush said in an interview with the Janoubia news portal that his nomination is not certain but stressed that he supports Saniora’s efforts in this regard.

EU Ambassador Hails Lebanon's Anti-Russia Vote
Naharnet/Friday, 4 March, 2022 
EU Ambassador to Lebanon Ralph Tarraf held talks Friday at the Baabda Palace with President Michel Aoun. “I am here today to thank Lebanon, on behalf of the European Union and its Member States, for its position in the United Nations General Assembly on the crisis in Ukraine,” Tarraf said after the meeting, referring to Lebanon’s vote in favor of a U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Lebanon joined 140 countries in condemning the unprecedented Russian military aggression against Ukraine. It is an unjustified and unprovoked military action that violates international law and undermines European and global security and stability,” Tarraf added. He noted that the Lebanese understand the “meaning of this fight” because they faced “invasions, occupations and foreign interventions.”“Lebanon, the founding state of the United Nations, remained faithful to the principles of non-resort to the use force and the peaceful settlement of disputes, and this is something we highly appreciate,” Tarraf went on to say.

Franjieh 'Won't Beg' for Presidency, Slams Hizbullah Alliance with FPM's Karam
Naharnet/Friday, 4 March, 2022
Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh has said he will not beg for Presidency. He added, in an interview with MTV, that he doesn't mind the idea, suggested by Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil, that Lebanese should elect their president in a popular vote. Franjieh considered that the presidency's performance was flawed, but added that it cannot be held responsible for everything, as there have been accumulations and wrong approaches and incorrect economic policies. "The problem with this presidency is that it promised what it can't do," Franjieh said. "It said it will solve everything, and now it says it's not our business," he added. Franjieh went on to say that "there will be no strategic nor radical changes in the upcoming elections." The revolution has failed to create an alternative system, Franjieh stated, adding that statistics show that politicians "who pretended to be part of the revolution" are those who will win. He cited the resigned MPs Sami Gemayel, Michel Moawad and Neemat frem, adding that these ex-MPs are part of the same political class. Moreover, Franjieh said that there is a "national problem" with Fayez Karam's candidacy, "as the latter had confessed and was tried for collaborating with Israel." "I do not know how Hizbullah will ally with the FPM after Karam's candidacy for the elections," he added. On another note, Franjieh said he will nominate Ziad Makari as a successor to former minister George Kordahi.

UK Deputy Ambassador and Development Director Visit Akkar
Naharnet/Friday, 4 March, 2022 
UK Deputy Ambassador to Lebanon, Alyson King, and Development and Humanitarian Director, Lucy Andrews, visited UK-funded projects in Akkar under the Lebanon Host Community Support Program (LHSP) in partnership with UNDP and the Ministry of Social Affairs. From Bebnine to Halba and Qobayat, they heard from local partners and beneficiaries about “the positive impact UK Aid is having on their lives during very challenging times,” a British embassy statement said. The UK has been one of the primary supporters to the LHSP program since 2014, reaching vulnerable communities across Lebanon with over $94 million. In Akkar, $15m has been spent on projects which benefit the most vulnerable Lebanese and refugees. LHSP projects in the area include essential COVID Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) production, agricultural roads and forest management activities that create much needed jobs for the most vulnerable, including women and persons with disabilities, build skills, protect health and improve accessibility and protection of natural resources. Marzouka Abbas one of the beneficiaries who learned how to produce PPE Equipment said: “My participation supported me financially, psychologically and socially. It enabled me to help my family and my sick husband during the hard times. I acquired a new skill through which I am earning an income daily, sewing and upcycling for my neighbors. I would love to take part in more empowering interventions to upgrade my know-how and advance my skills.” They also met with Governor of Akkar and Mayors from the region for a brief on the situation in the area and the challenges they are facing. At Akkar Network for Development (AND) NGO, Co-founder and Chevening Alumna Nadine Saba gave an overview of the work they have been doing in the area since 2011. AND is focused on supporting vulnerable women, youth and children including tackling gender based violence, providing Basic Literacy and Numeracy for children and youth and psycho-social support. Deputy Ambassador Alyson and Development Director Lucy also met with female candidates running in the upcoming parliamentary elections from the area. The UK is supporting U.N.-Women program to empower women for a more active role in public and political life. At the end of the visit Deputy Ambassador Alyson King said: “Pleased to have the opportunity to visit Akkar, and to see and hear from the people, our partners and officials about the challenges they are facing in these difficult economic times and also how some of the initiatives the UK is supporting are helping people in the area.” “I was also pleased to visit and hear about work tackling Gender Based Violence. We know that more women and girls are experiencing violence as a result of Lebanon’s crises. So it’s important that we all step up efforts to prevent and respond to violence, with our partners,” King added. “We also had the opportunity to meet with talented women from Akkar who will be running in May’s parliamentary elections. Lebanon’s women and men should have an equal place at the table when decisions are taken. That’s why we work with U.N. Women to support women to become change agents in their respective communities, and ensure more female representation in public and political life,” King went on to say.

Lebanese Bank Closes over 30 British-Held Accounts after UK Ruling-Depositors’ Group
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 March, 2022
Lebanon's Bank Audi has closed more than 30 accounts belonging to UK nationals or their close relatives since a London court ordered it to transfer funds stuck in the crisis-hit banking sector to a British client, a depositors' union said.The Feb. 28 order requiring Bank Audi and its peer SGBL to transfer $4 million is the first UK ruling obliging Lebanese banks to transfer dollars out of the paralyzed financial system, potentially encouraging similar claims. A Bank Audi official told Reuters the bank was "asking that the UK residents apply the terms applicable to anyone opening a new account: no international transfers, no cash withdrawals". "If this is not accepted, then the bank has no choice but to close the account". More than $100 billion remains stuck in a banking system paralyzed since 2019, when the economy collapsed due to decades of unsustainable state spending, corruption and waste. In the absence of formal capital controls, banks have largely blocked dollar withdrawals and transfers abroad, sparking numerous legal challenges, with mixed results. Since the UK order, Bank Audi, one of Lebanon's biggest, has told dozens of clients their accounts had been closed and a cheque issued for the balance at a notary public, lawyer Dina Abou Zour of the Depositors Union told Reuters. They were told the accounts could be reopened if they signed a form waiving the right to make international transfers or to withdraw dollars in Lebanon, and accept that a cheque was due payment of the balance. Abou Zour said the total amounts involved were in the tens of millions of dollars. Banks have already closed many dollar accounts by issuing cheques which cannot be cashed and instead change hands in the market, currently at about a quarter of their face value.
'Failing economy'
Bank Audi has said it intends to comply with the UK order but will consider its options on an appeal. British passport holder Maliha Badr Raydan said she got a call from a Bank Audi employee on Monday saying her account had been closed and a cheque issued for the balance. A second UK citizen said the bank told him the same on Wednesday. "They said it's because I have British passport," Raydan said, adding that money had been earmarked for the education of her two children after the death of her husband. She was told she could open a new account if she signed a form waiving some of her rights. She declined to do so. "I didn't steal this money, I did nothing wrong, it's the labor of my late husband over all these years and the future of my children and the other people I support."A copy of the form seen by Reuters sets terms for opening new accounts, including accepting that only Beirut courts have jurisdiction in any legal dispute. The Bank Audi official said the bank had not asked clients to waive the right to bring lawsuits. Bank Audi says the UK order will lead to unequal treatment among depositors, with wealthy savers who are UK residents able to get all their funds at the expense of others who cannot bring such cases. Many Lebanese have protested against unfair treatment by banks throughout the crisis, with influential clients able to make withdrawals and transfers abroad and ordinary people unable to send even small sums to children studying abroad, for example. Banks have been calling for a capital control law. A British embassy spokesperson said: "This unfortunate situation is symptomatic of Lebanon's failing economy and underlines the urgency of Lebanon's government adopting comprehensive economic reforms."

Lebanon’s Economy Minister: Wheat Reserves Enough for a Month and a Half
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 March, 2022
Minister of Economy and Trade Amin Salam reassured the people that Lebanon's wheat reserves were sufficient for about a month and a half. He stressed that several countries have expressed their willingness to help in the event that the country was forced to import additional quantities. He made his comments in response to fears expressed over wheat shortages as a result from the war in Ukraine, as Lebanon imports more than 60 percent of its wheat from the Eastern European country. Following a meeting on Thursday with Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Salam said: “There is a stock of wheat that is sufficient for a month or a month and a half… We are communicating with several countries, including the United States and others, who have expressed their willingness to help if we needed to import large quantities of wheat.” The minister called on the citizens not to panic. He said that with the approaching holy month of Ramadan and amid fears of food shortage, he held an extensive meeting on Wednesday with the concerned authorities from the private sector, specifically importers, owners of supermarkets, mills, bakeries and traders of livestock, poultry, dairy and cheese.“We reached an agreement that they will continue to provide us with the quantities they have, and we will continue to cooperate with them so that there is no interruption in the markets,” he stated. Salam added: “The quantities that we consume in Lebanon are not large compared to neighboring countries. There is aid and international support, and work through the government and the Ministry of Economy is in place.” The minister also warned merchants against manipulating food prices, stressing that the authorities would take harsh measures in this regard and would consider such acts as a criminal offense.

Two Lebanese affiliated To Hezbollah Reside in Guinea were put on the US sanctions list
Al Arabiya.net/ March 04/ 2022
Today, Friday, the US Treasury announced the imposition of sanctions on financiers of the Lebanese Hezbollah in Guinea, with the aim of disrupting its business network in West Africa. The Treasury Department's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence said the Treasury Department continues to expose businessmen who support Hezbollah's destabilizing activities through bribery and other corrupt activities. He also announced the inclusion of the two Lebanese businessmen, Ali Saadeh and Ibrahim Taher, on a sanctions list for providing material and financial assistance to Hezbollah.
It is noteworthy that last January, the United States imposed sanctions on 3 businessmen linked to the Lebanese Hezbollah, saying that their activity in facilitating the financial transactions of the Iranian-backed militia exploits Lebanon's economic resources at a time when the country is experiencing a crisis. And the US Treasury said in a statement that it had added Adel Diab, Ali Mohammed Al-Dawn, Jihad Salem Al-Alam and their company, Dar Al-Salaam Travel and Tourism, to its list of sanctions. It also added that "through businessmen such as those identified today, Hezbollah accesses in-kind and financial support through the legitimate commercial sector in order to finance its terrorist acts and attempts to destabilize Lebanese political institutions."

Abu Zeid meets Russia’s Bugdanov
NNA/Friday, 4 March, 2022
Adviser to the President of the Republic for Russian Affairs, former MP Amal Abu Zeid, on Friday afternoon met the Russian Special Presidential Representative for the Middle East and Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov.
As per a statement by Abu Zeid’s office, the meeting was described as "cordial touching on all aspects related to the Russian-Ukrainian crisis and its repercussions at the international level, specifically on the Middle East."The meeting included a lengthy discussion on Lebanon's stance on the crisis between Russia and Ukraine.

More than 50 Lebanese students arrive from Ukraine to Phoenicia Hotel in Bucharest
NNA/Friday, 4 March, 2022  
More than fifty Lebanese students in Ukraine arrived at dawn on Friday to Phoenicia Hotel in Bucharest after crossing the Ukrainian-Romanian border. Head of the Tourist Establishments Owners’ Syndicate in Romania, Dr. Mohammad Murad, who is hosting Lebanese students and some families in one of his hotels, said that tickets for their return to Lebanon have been secured “at our own expense”, noting that this effort is the fruit of cooperation with the Romanian and Lebanese authorities. Murad then thanked the Romanian government and authorities for all their efforts helping displaced Lebanese families and students. He also stressed that work was ongoing to help the Lebanese, shelter them, and provide them with food until their safe and secure return to Lebanon. “There is a new batch of Lebanese students, and some families, for whom we have provided transport by buses from the Romanian-Ukrainian border to Bucharest, and they’re on their way to us now that we have completed all required paperwork in cooperation with the Romanian authorities,” Murad concluded.

Into Mount Lebanon/في جبل لبنان
Andrew Doran/National Review/March 04/2022
Picture Enclosed/The chapel at the Monastery of Saint Anthony Abbot, Wata Houb, Lebanon
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/106768/andrew-doran-national-review-into-mount-lebanon-%d9%81%d9%8a-%d8%ac%d8%a8%d9%84-%d9%84%d8%a8%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%86/
Even after two hours of driving up Mount Lebanon, a range that spans over a hundred miles along the Levantine coast, you never quite feel that you’ve arrived; there are, somehow, always more mountains. With the Mediterranean at our backs, a Lebanese friend and I travel eastward and upward, by twisting roads that intersect with pathways ancient and new — even the Via Appia, from which all roads led and by which they returned to Rome. We drive to meet a monk.
Seventeen centuries earlier Abraham, a monk, made this same ascent on foot at the behest of Saint Maron (for whom the Maronites are named), to convert the recalcitrant and sometimes violent Phoenician pagans of Mount Lebanon. The mountain was sacred to the Phoenicians, and there they clung to ancient rites to appease terrifying deities. Brother Abraham succeeded in his mission, despite much hardship. The caves that for millennia were the scenes of macabre sacrifices by torchlight became the site of a new ritual, one that reenacted a single blood sacrifice in Jerusalem three centuries before.
God offered himself in place of men, Abraham taught them, and that sacrifice was sufficient. And so the stubborn pagans of the mountain became stubborn Christians; the River Adonis became the River Abraham, or Nahr Ibrahim. Into the holy valleys of the mountain went the followers of Maron, and there they chiseled monasteries and catacombs into Mount Lebanon. The people followed them and built homes and villages to be near these spiritual centers. On every windswept peak and precipice they erected a crucifix or statue of Mary that could be seen for miles. There they survived conquest and persecution by Persians, Turks, Mamelukes, and other invaders, who in every century seem to occupy the low-lying coastal city-states below — but never Mount Lebanon.
It was toward the mountain’s heights that we drove, and the further we went, the more the gravity of the crisis below — economic and political collapse, sudden poverty, the per­petual threat of war — seemed to lighten with the air, a momentary respite from the burdens of a world that felt especially heavy. The monks here as elsewhere aren’t entirely liberated from the human condition, but neither are they quite shackled to matter and time. Two weeks earlier I visited the Capuchin friary in Rome, where mosaics and altars made of the bones of deceased friars serve as a memento mori, with an inscription for pilgrims: “What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be.” Similarly, the Maronite monks asked that their bones be kept on the altar as a reminder to all that this life is only preparation for the next.
The Maronite monk whom we went to meet was my friend’s cousin, named for a saint from Mount Lebanon revered by Muslims and Christians alike but whom we’ll call, at his request, “Brother Thomas,” for his privacy and his reverence for the angelic doctor. “He is a saint,” a woman who’s known Brother Thomas all his life told me before we left. “You will see.”
We arrive at the Monastery of Saint Anthony Abbot, named for the Egyptian monk who was the founder of all Christian monasticism — an institution that, like Christianity, is Middle Eastern in origin. Like the Jews of Qumran, early Christian monks and hermits broke away from a world they believed to be too pagan — the Jews in rejection of the secular Hellenized world, the monks in preparation for the end of their lives or the end of the world. It was just such an extreme break with the world that brought Brother Thomas to a monastery on Mount Lebanon.
Brother Thomas, slender and energetic, graciously greets his cousin and me, and after a brief tour we sit together in the monastery’s courtyard. Brother Thomas has considered opinions on theology, science, dating, chastity, unchastity, engineering, sanctity, geology, Christian civilization, monasticism, Judaism, and the decline of the West, and he wastes little time expressing them. “Do you know that Benedictine monasticism saved Western civilization?” he asks. Some of his views are too strident for his cousin, some years older, who smiles and says, “You see? He’s our version of the Taliban.” They laugh.
It’s about 40 years since Brother Thomas was born into a Lebanese family with vast generational wealth, and 15 years since he oversaw every detail of a $300 million waste-to-energy recycling project in America. It was there, rather than the Middle East, that he had a conversion. In the corporate world, he was known to work 20-hour days and sometimes sleep in his office. “My darkness was that of the heathen person,” he says. “Thomas Aquinas teaches that desolation is the emptiness of God. God allows desolation as a punishment so that the person might be redeemed. Then you will be given happiness as a reward.”
Monasteries used to be ubiquitous in Europe and the Near East. Most people in those regions lived within walking distance of a monastery for most of the past 2,000 years. This is in stark contrast with America, a predominantly Anglo-Protestant culture, where the closest approximation to monasticism are the Amish and Mennonite communities, and where monasteries are rare. Yet it was in heavily Anglo-Protestant America that Brother Thomas’s journey to this monastery on Mount Lebanon began. It was at a church in rural Pennsylvania that he contemplated an interior desolation. “It’s still a blessed place for me,” he says of the church. “When you have a conversion, you don’t forget it.”
“I had everything,” says Brother Thomas. “I came from a rich family. And yet I was horribly depressed. You think you’ll get fulfillment from money or work but you can’t. In truth, I was dying.” He decided that he must begin to live the Christian life, and that he must do so radically.
Five years later, he began to experience what he calls intuitions. The intuition he heard asked, “Why don’t you become a monk?” This wasn’t easy for his family, including his cousin, who was grooming Brother Thomas for corporate leadership. “He was the perfect engineer,” his cousin says. “The perfect executive. A great businessman. He was a legend [at the corporate offices] in America. The employees still ask after him, even the security guards.”
His cousin tried at first to discourage Brother Thomas from entering the monastery, thinking he could do more good in the world in business, society, and culture, but eventually relented. “You cannot stand against the will of God,” he says. He may also have suspected that the stubborn soon-to-be monk would in any case follow the intuition that led him to the monastic life and that to discourage him would be pointless.
More than once, Brother Thomas recalls words of the French novelist Léon Bloy: “The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.”
In three gospel accounts, Jesus was approached by a young man who asked what he must do to have salvation. Jesus told him to sell his possessions, give to the poor, and then “come, follow me.” The young man departed in sadness, “because he was very wealthy.” Brother Thomas was also very wealthy, though, unlike the young man in scripture, he did not always follow the commandments. Also unlike the young man, however, Brother Thomas gave away his earthly wealth and followed Jesus. It was a radical break — from wealth, a career, the world, and even his family.
Brother Thomas’s conversion began with a sense of spiri­tual emptiness, followed by intuitions that drew him to the monastic life. “The Christian life is radical. The call to sanctity is universal but also radical. If you want to live a radical life, it’s hard to live among those who aren’t radical. God commands us to love. Saint Thomas teaches that love is governed by one law: perfection. Tell me how love can be moderate. How can love be anything but radical? Love and radicalism — perfection — are inseparable.”
His decision to enter the monastery was hardest on his parents, especially his father, who struggled to understand his son’s zeal, a familiar theme in Christian history. We can imagine that the family of Benedict of Nursia wasn’t thrilled when, “forsaking his father’s house and wealth,” he withdrew into a life of monasticism. Thomas Aquinas’s family, Italian nobility, tried to prevent him from entering the Dominican order by imprisoning him for a year; they even tried to lure him from his vocation by sending a prostitute. Francis of Assisi was born a generation before Aquinas to a wealthy family, and his vocation similarly enraged his father, who thought he’d gone mad. Each man’s assent to a radical life had profound consequences for history.
The rich young man of the gospel is remembered only for his decision to cling to the possessions of this world. He apparently wished to compartmentalize the worlds of matter and spirit. He no doubt knew of the Essene Jews who had withdrawn from a world they believed too pagan, too worldly. He likely regarded them as extreme and hoped to find a way to live in the world. Brother Thomas believes that to be impossible, and he believes that the model for the radical Christian life has its origins in the first branch of Abraham’s family.
“Look at Judaism,” he says. “Faith penetrates every aspect of their lives. It’s the opposite of laïcité. Nothing can be hidden from God. We sprang from the Jews and our closeness to them is very important for Christians.” It’s a somewhat unexpected disquisition for the Middle East, though perhaps fitting after a brief sojourn through a river valley named for Abraham.
Two thousand years later, many descendants of Abraham live in enmity. This monastery feels far removed from the failing state below, much of it hostage to a terrorist organization and its ideology rooted in antisemitism. This monk has staked out curious terrain and defends it without fear. “You know, anyone who looks at Judaism with denigration does so because of improper formation. The church teaches that the Old Covenant was never abrogated. Saint Paul says the same. Christians come from the Jews, and we must learn from the Jews again. Faith must penetrate everything, every part of our lives and our culture.” So it was for the Jews who withdrew from the world into the proto-monastic communities of the Judean Desert, and later for the Christian monks of Egypt and the Levant and Europe.
How could monks withdraw from the world, have no families or children, yet leave a legacy that lasted centuries? How could a person from wealth or nobility give it all away, retreat from the world, yet change the course of history? The rich young man simply couldn’t see it. Perhaps even Benedict of Nursia couldn’t imagine that his retreat to the hills outside Rome would lead to the reconstruction of the world that was dying before his eyes. The Western Roman Empire collapsed, and with it the state and its institutions, as wave after wave of barbarians descended on Italy from every corner of the earth. Benedict’s retreat from the world was radical.
Brother Thomas regards the church and its traditions as the protector of civilization, but his own calling was not gran­diose; indeed, he has yet to decide whether he feels called to the priesthood or will remain merely a brother in his order. The calculus for him, however, was and remains quite simple: “If a Christian man hasn’t made the decision to give his life to Christ, I think he’s not very intelligent. It’s like a business manager who doesn’t check profits and losses. Such people are lost. They must not understand what life is about.”
Families aren’t the only ones who lament when young men break from the world and enter the monastic life. In his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon likened the spread of Saint Anthony’s monasticism throughout Europe to a plague. Gibbon, who favored pagan virtù to Christian piety, seems to have held monks in the same contempt that he had for the scheming “eunuchs and women” of the imperial court.
Roman men who for centuries joined the legions and fought off the barbarians were followed by generations of men who entered the monastic communities of the pacifist religion that spread like brush fire from the Near East across the Mediterranean to the northern boundaries of the Roman Empire and beyond. Wave after wave of barbarian invaders came at the empire and eventually overwhelmed it. Even as they came by every road toward Rome, missionaries and monks set out by foot into barbarous country to convert the pagans. The monasteries and religious communities were conquered, destroyed, and rebuilt. Monte Cassino abbey in Italy has been destroyed by Lombards, Napoleon, Nazis, and earthquakes — and every time rebuilt.
The barbarians are, as in the age of Benedict and Augustine, never far off, bent on plunder and destruction. In Lebanon, their work was visible in the wreckage from the August 2020 Beirut Port blast, in the littered streets, in the despairing eyes of a people brought to ruin by their venal elites, who sold their futures in exchange for fleeting power or wealth. Less visible was the spirit that endures the rise and fall of states and empires, that called the monks and religious of history away from the world so that the world might be converted. John Henry Newman captured it well in his re­flection on early medieval monasticism, words that may be instructive beyond Lebanon. Saint Benedict, he wrote,
found the world, physical and social, in ruins, and his mission was to restore it in the way not of science, but of nature, not as if setting about to do it, not professing to do it by any set time, . . . but so quietly, patiently, gradually, that often till the work was done, it was not known to be doing. . . . Silent men were observed about the country, or discovered in the forest, digging, clearing, and building; and other silent men, not seen, were sitting in the cold cloister, . . . while they pain­fully copied and recopied the manuscripts which they had saved. There was no one who contended or cried out, or drew attention to what was going on, but by degrees the woody swamp became a hermitage, a religious house, a farm, an abbey, a village, a seminary, a school of learning, and a city.
This is how civilization survives decline and barbarism. “The history of mankind is the history of the devil trying to destroy God’s people,” Brother Thomas says. “The Jews in bondage and exile, and then the Holocaust. The waves of pagan barbarians, heresies, communism, and all the false gods. If you follow God, the devil will try to destroy you.”
He believes that it is normally the few, rather than the many, who alter the course of history. “True Christians are a small — very small — minority,” he says. “Saints are few. It’s always been this way, I think.” Saints also tend to be intense, eccentric, and maddening to their contemporaries. Relatives often regard them as disappointments or madmen.
Like Benedict, Brother Thomas watched the world he knew collapse, but he chose to fix his gaze on the eternal rather than the world. As our visit drew to a close, there was the haunting reminder that it often seemed impossible to be a Christian in the West yet felt nearly effortless here. It was like hearing an echo of the call that the young man heard before he turned away in doubt. Such doubts are not new and are, Brother Thomas believes, perfectly human. Indeed, the struggle against doubt is part of the spiritual journey. “The freedom that God gives us is unlimited: Even after a mystical experience, we can still say, as the once prince of Angels said, ‘Non serviam.’ I guess our fight with incredulity will last until our very last breath.”
It was a consolation to think of the cacophony below as the passing distraction, to think that the real work was to be done here, that civilization would be saved by the “silent men” who in every age of upheaval transmit old learning, build schools and hospitals, and gather in hills and mountains as the world below comes apart. Those silent men are still in the deserts of Egypt, in the hills outside Rome, and on Mount Lebanon.
We left Brother Thomas and the monks and departed by the winding mountain road back to the world of space and time, to the blend of civilization and barbarism that awaited us below. As we rounded a bend, my friend slowed the car and we looked back across the steep gorge that now separated us from the monastery, burrowed into the mountain, the mountain that had waited patiently for the arrival of Maron and Abraham. Perhaps it waited now for another — doubtless very similar and equally radical — Anthony or Benedict or Thomas.
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2022/03/21/into-mount-lebanon/?fbclid=IwAR0FXajPz-eG8oTQD5u2SQTRFBSgSrGAgORYAAODaWyjW9cBFPCxGiIcj5w

Mona Tarazi: If the Lebanese state is to reconstruct the port, and it should, the silos need to be kept. “They are our memory”, she says, “our cultural heritage”.
Beirut’s Ground Zero/Dana Hourany/Now Lebanon/March 04/2022
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The Lebanese government is planning to reconstruct the destroyed Beirut port, including the grain silos that serve as a memorial for the August 4, 2020 explosion. Families of the victims and experts are calling for their preservation.
Our loved ones’ spirits are still present, and they are pleading with us to not let them destroy the silos before the truth is brought forward.
A teary-eyed protestor yelled during a demonstration organized on February 20 by the Urban Declaration initiative and families of the Beirut blast victims calling to halt all operations to demolish the ruins of the silos in the Beirut port. The silos and surrounding areas had been severely damaged in the August 4 2020 explosion that killed over 220 people and wounded thousands.
“It’s a crime scene, you can’t demolish them [the silos] before you finish the investigation. People should always be reminded of this mistake so that it’s never repeated again,” Mireille Khoury, mother of 15-year-old victim Elias Khoury told NOW.
But the Lebanese government, as well as some experts, also see the reconstruction of the port as an essential move to put back Beirut on the world shipping map and, thus, to contribute to reviving an economy that has been going through one of the world’s worst crises in 150 years.
In February, Economy minister Amin Salam said in an interview that the government would open the bidding process for companies to demolish the silos and clear the area. On February 17, France’s shipping company CMA CGM, was awarded a contract to develop and operate the container terminal in Beirut for the next 10 years. But it is unclear if that contract also includes demolishing the silos. The information was never made public. The company also acquired in March 2021 Gulftainer Lebanon, the operator of the Tripoli port container terminal, currently the main operational commercial port in Lebanon.
Emmanuel Durand, a Swiss engineer who placed laser monitoring devices on the towers last year, warned that the silos could collapse at any time. Although he said he could not give any predictions regarding a specific time period for the collapse, he noted that the northern part of the structure was more at risk due to its daily tilting ratio. Economy minister Salam voiced the same concerns recently. He said he feared the structure would collapse in the case of a strong storm.
As the government pushes for reconstruction, families and experts say the cabinet is taking a negligent stance to the port’s historical and emotional value. Most Beirutis see the silos as a place of collective memory that should not be taken down before the investigation into the August 4 2020 explosion is concluded. Experts also say that there are ways to arrive at an optimal solution through public consultation, allowing the port to become part of Beirut’s economic and social life. Many fear that the reconstruction, if not done properly, would repeat the mistakes of the past made by Solidere in Downtown Beirut.
“The port should bring a redistributive economy so we need to adopt a modality that can secure this kind of economy. One foreign model adopted by cities like Marseille and Barcelona shows that 30 percent of the port’s income can come back to the city through jobs, cafes, restaurants, bars, tourists,” explained Mona Fawaz, co-founder of Beirut Urban Lab and professor in Urban Studies and Planning at the American University of Beirut.
International interest
The Beirut port attracted international interest with many international companies competing to rebuild it; Russian, Chinese, Turkish, German and French companies have all shown interest in the contract over the past year.
The French shipping group CGA CGM – controlled by the French Lebanese Saade family – said it would invest $33 million in the container terminal.
The deal was met with rejection from the families, who said that no international deals should be made before the investigation was concluded.
“We want international forces to stop meddling with our business, all of you leave us alone, it is up to us, the Lebanese, to decide what to do with our port,” one protester shouted at the protest on February 20.
An earlier German deal submitted by a consortium of German companies led by Hamburg Port Consulting in 2021 was turned down by the Lebanese government. It meant to redevelop the port and create a new residential area from the ruins, with a park and beaches, also creating 50,000 jobs in the process.
In January 2021, the World Bank published a note with recommendations for the Lebanese government in order to set out the conditions under which the international financial body would finance the reconstruction. The note pointed out that Lebanon needs a new governance structure based on the landlord port model, it needs to build efficient and modern customs and transparent border procedures, open a transparent bidding process to select investors, operators, concessionaires and build quality infrastructure.
Mona Tarazi, advanced architectural designer and CEO of Blob architecture, is one of the experts advocating for the preservation of the destroyed silos. If the Lebanese state is to reconstruct the port, and it should, the silos need to be kept.
“They are our memory”, she says, “our cultural heritage”.
She explains that she also advocated for reforming the way the Lebanese state manages the port and awards the contracts. She pointed out that the World Bank recommendations lay out all the proper steps in reforming the port authority in order to handle the reconstruction as a single project with accountability, and not bit by bit. Awarding just the container terminal contract means the government is not looking at the integrated reconstruction of the port, but only at monetizing it.
She also says that, indeed, the silos are in danger of falling by themselves, but only if they are completely neglected. There are always solutions to preserve them inside a comprehensive project of reconstruction that takes into consideration both what the state needs and what the people want, the architect pointed out.
“I had concerns early on that they may fall if not taken care of,” she explained. “We had concerns early on, and they told us much later [that they may fall]. Maybe something could have been done to preserve them in the meantime,” Tarazi added.
So far, Tarazi said, the only comprehensive project that demanded reforming the management of the Beirut port to ensure more accountability was the German proposal. It included the whole port reconstruction, came with a feasibility study and with a financial plan that did not include loans, but investments.
The design could be improved, she said, but there was room for discussion. “They just weren’t given a chance,” she explains.
A part of Beirut
Fawaz said that the port played an essential role in the city’s growth between 1840 and 1943, and established the country’s role as a center of trade.
“If it weren’t for the port, Beirut wouldn’t have played the role it did, Lebanon’s importance relied on the trade going through the port. It was directly connected to the city and it was running as its main engine,” Fawaz told NOW.
The port created all types of employment for the working class, as well as the wealthy.
However, in the post-civil war era, the port was severed from the city, she says. It had its own economy and the spillover onto the city became non-existent. Beirut and Beirutis together stopped benefiting from the presence of the port and its activities. Only the businessmen with control over it were making big bucks.
She said that a lot of factors should be considered before rebuilding, including the port’s future role in relation to Beirut and its inhabitants.
When we reconstructed the historic core of the city we tried to erase everything, we didn’t keep any mark. So the silos become even more important because they’re a memory we can all identify with and recall how it wounded us.
The professor said she did not trust the government’s recent statements regarding the structure’s potential collapse. A similar excuse was used in the 90s in order to justify demolishing buildings in Downtown Beirut.
“They told us that buildings in Downtown Beirut were structurally unsound and needed to be demolished. They brought kilograms of TNT and the buildings would not collapse. They just wanted an excuse to destroy the city and sell the land,” Fawaz said.
Solidere, a real-estate public-private partnership company that emerged after the civil war, was given the responsibility to rebuild post-war Central Beirut. The company performed urban landscaping, supervised the Lebanese government’s reconstruction plan, financed the restoration and rehabilitation of buildings and infrastructure, and constructed new structures for the city.
The city center was transformed into a luxurious, overpriced area with expensive restaurants and designer brands. This “modernization” of the urban area led to complete gentrification. It caused rent and property values to soar, ultimately leading to the displacement of the native working class and poorer communities by ruling class intruders.
Memory and justice
Dzovig Arnelian, 25, an experimental artist who worked in a gallery in the vicinity of the Beirut port, says she survived the explosion on August 4, 2020, with mild physical wounds. She said the silos probably saved her life: they sheltered the city’s western side, where Arnelian worked at the time.
She and other artists say they drew inspiration from the destroyed structure.
“Many artists live in the affected area of Gemmayze and Mar Mikhael. They see the port every day and it became engraved into their memory. Removing them as if nothing happened is totally unacceptable,” Arnelian told NOW.
Instead, she would rather see the silos and the surrounding areas as part of a memorial built to commemorate the victims, which is a popular opinion between experts and families of the victims.
Fawaz considers this kind of monument and commemorative points to possess a characteristic that aids in nation-building.
“Saving heritage has a socio-political component where the city has something to identify with so we begin to identify and share the same story. We become a “we”, instead of remaining islands,” she said.
For the families, the destruction of the silos is part of the politicians’ attempt at escaping responsibility by burying the case and erasing all evidence from the crime scene, while using the pretext of reviving the economy.
For Fawaz, a real-estate deal similar to Solidere did not seem like a viable option. She thought it was too early to comment on the French deal before more details were released, and urged the government to be more transparent with their contracts.
“When we reconstructed the historic core of the city we tried to erase everything, we didn’t keep any mark. So the silos become even more important because they’re a memory we can all identify with and recall how it wounded us,” Fawaz said.
*Dana Hourany is a multimedia journalist and producer with @NOW_leb. She is on Instagram @danahourany and twitter @danahourany.

Hezbollah and the Specter of Elections Being Canceled
Hanna Saleh/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 04/2022
The people of the South are aware of “the responsibility Hezbollah bears for leaving the state suspended and the interests of the Lebanese women and men marginalized to the benefit of its interests and commitments.” This phrase is not taken from a closed internal meeting but came at the beginning of a political statement of the “October” forces for change, which launched the “Al-Janub Maan” (The South Together) campaign with the intention of running candidates in all the districts of southern Lebanon in the face of the dominant sectarian-duo of Hezbollah and Amal Movement and their followers!
During Al-Janub Maan’s launching ceremony, the rhetoric the campaign would adopt became clear, and its slogans and objectives crystalized- the inevitability of peaceful, serious political action to change the authoritarian regime. Their proposals seemed very similar to those of the other “October” forces like “Sahlouna w Jaboulana” (Our Plain and Mountain) in the Western Bekaa, “Beirut Tuqawem,” (Beirut Resists), which is pushing the militias and those who empower them, and Liqa Al-Taaghyier (Change Gathering) in Akkar and “Shamaluna (Our North),” which will contest the elections in the North’s four districts. Their clear and unequivocal position on Lebanon’s Nakba, which they affirmed had been brought about deliberately by the “gang” running the sectarian-quota-based spoil-sharing regime, which “controls us and the state, and the time has come to hold it accountable … All of them means all of them.” They framed their battle as one “between a people whose state was looted and destroyed and whose homeland was violated, and a regime that is clearly responsible.”
Things had not been so clear. The authoritarians hedged their bets on despair overwhelming constituents at the financial, economic, and social collapse, its expansion with the pandemic that spread across the country a few months after “October 17 revolution” began, and its exacerbation after the port blast crime, which were accompanied by successive assaults on the interests of citizens and the country. It seemed that citizens would focus purely on their pursuit of bread and medicines and that they would fail to maintain their battle to retrieve the rights that had been taken from them, the attacks of their dignity, and the broad feeling of humiliation that spread across the country as the state was hijacked by weapons, corruption, and sectarianism.
The people found themselves trapped to live in destitution and starve, amid widespread unemployment and a scarcity of resources, because of the forces of the “counter-revolution’s” systematic campaign. This campaign drew its strength from the overwhelming military force of the statelet, which protected the men responsible for crimes of the sectarian-based-quota spoil-sharing system. They were all fully aware that the state would fall because of the looting of the country’s wealth and its people’s deposits. Money was legally smuggled outside of the country to finance the “Quds Force” and the Syrian regime’s militias; the country was turned into a hub for spreading Captagon’s toxins through the targeting of Gulf societies, entrenching the country’s isolation!
The aim of this was to turn the page on “October 17” because it was a genuine revolution that no one had not expected. Its objectives are deep; it is rich in its diversity, peaceful in its tactics, and democratic in its framework. And so the counter-revolution, led by Hassan Nasrallah personally, was launched, targeting the revolution with threats, accusations of treason, and subordination to the embassies, and subjecting them to physical assaults and unrestrained repression, as well as “on-demand” prosecution by security and judicial pursuits! All of this prevented the emergence of genuine revolutionary leaders, leaving a broad sense of frustration among the people. But in 2022, the year of parliamentary, presidential, and municipal elections, which despite being disregarded by the authorities, have begun to crystallize what had been delayed.
The picture has changed with the launch of forces of change’s campaigns seeking to unify the battlefields, and there is no shortage of outsiders seeking to accommodate them. What is remarkable is the crystallization of the campaign slogans and programs that people have been spreading across the country. The most notable of them is the retrieval of the hijacked state, i.e., retrieving its decision-making to make reform viable, enforce the constitution, and take the steps needed to save the country and safeguard its people’s rights and the judiciary’s independence, which would ensure accountability and the retrieval of rights. One noteworthy aspect of these campaigns is their approach to choosing candidates, as they allow citizens to vote on who represents them. This approach implies that the will of the voters delivers the best candidates for Parliament, and the best candidates are those who emerge as a result of an intersection of opinions and visions. Through their adoption of this approach, the forces of change are breaking with the traditions of the authoritarian system in which the choice is in the leaders’ hands, the leaders of authoritarian, sectarian, or tyrannical militias who disregard the will of the people. The outcome of these traditions has been a lack of legislators in Parliament, which is composed of subordinates to those occupying ministerial seats, creating successive emigration seasons!
It is likely that what was initiated by the forces of change will present different faces and show many capabilities. Lebanon is rich in its human resources, which will provide a serious impetus to the project forming a front for change called upon to formulate a political alternative. In parallel, the sectarian system has accelerated its efforts to consolidate alliances between autocratic leaders accused of crimes, including those sanctioned by the US as corrupt individuals who corrupted political life and privileged the interests of their mini-states over the public interest. With them are those politicians whom Judge Sawan suspected of being responsible for the Beirut Port blast, and thus they dismissed him. This corrupt elite was accused by Sawan of “probable intent” of murder received all the protections and immunities availed to them, even from the blood they shed and their incineration of the heart of the capital!
On the whole, recent gauges of trends in public opinion no longer yield the same tattered lexicon of incitement through accusations of subordination and foreign affiliation. It is no longer sufficient to claim that anyone who is not with Hezbollah is carrying out a conspiracy targeting the “resistance,” and what is left of this resistance anyway? What does it fight for? This tendency to bypass rigid stereotypes, and a “blood test” that is no longer limited to any region or sect, has given Hezbollah a headache that it did not anticipate. It placed Hezbollah in its rightful place – in the face of the people, as the party leading this authoritarian system responsible for moving Lebanon from affluence to famine, and the Lebanese from ease to hardship, and transforming the Lebanese welfare society into a society of beggars!
As of today, March 3, only 12 days remain until the closing of nominations for the parliamentary elections set to take place on May 15, that is, only 73 days from now. All indications point to a deficiency in nominations and the failure to launch the work of the electoral machines by ruling political forces, while all are awaiting the password! Certainly, the decision to go to elections, or otherwise, remains in the hands of Hezbollah and is inevitably linked to its assessment of the fate of its current parliamentary majority, and the size of Christian parliamentary representation within this majority, which can cover for its transgressions. If Hezbollah becomes certain that it cannot guarantee the persistence of this majority, no elections will be held, and Hezbollah will not hesitate to disrupt them. As such, Hezbollah would instruct its legislative arm, Nabih Berri, to find “legal” interpretations that would enable such a step. Moreover, Hezbollah will not shy away from fabricating security threats to impose its obstruction, which will be first met with expressions of condemnation, and later with attempts to handle this fait accompli!
Hezbollah’s monopoly over the parliamentary majority is not an insignificant issue. On the popular level, developments worry the party, especially as a popular majority is taking shape, which rejects Hezbollah’s domination. Therefore, Nasrallah threatened that changing Hezbollah’s parliamentary majority would not affect its statelet’s control, domination, and surplus power. However, he is deeply aware that losing this majority will transform him from the final arbiter of presidential elections next fall to a mere disrupter. Taking into account the ambiguity of developments in Vienna, and the extortion practiced by Tehran as if it were victorious, and on the eve of reaching its nuclear threshold and delaying the implementation of the agreement that pours water into its mill, all the way to the desires of the Lebanese presidency that fears the collapse of its Movement, there is an ongoing trend of hijacking the people’s voices, i.e., undermining the elections and putting all its eggs into one basket, parliamentary and presidential. This will take political confrontation to an entirely different level!

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 04-05/2022
Israel to Do 'Whatever it Takes' to Prevent Iran from Acquiring Nuclear Capabilities
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 March, 2022
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Israel would continue to do “whatever it takes” to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear capabilities. He made his remarks in wake of reports in Tel Aviv on Thursday that the United States had agreed to ease sanctions on non-nuclear parties, such as military militias operating in the Middle East. Addressing a graduation ceremony for naval officers, Gantz said: “In the coming weeks, perhaps even in the coming days, a nuclear agreement may be signed between [world] powers and Iran… Whether that happens or not, Israel will continue to do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from becoming an existential threat and possessing nuclear capability.”“We will also continue our diplomatic activity because Iran is first and foremost a global problem, then a regional problem, and it is also a potential threat to the State of Israel… We will continue to build our military force… All means are valid,” he stressed. Israeli Channel 12 quoted sources as saying that the United States will lift the sanctions that have been imposed for years on dozens of individuals and entities involved in terrorism and missile development. They include, according to the sources, the economic institutions of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as Khamenei’s senior advisor in international affairs, Ali Akbar Velayati, and his military advisor, Hossein Dehghan, who was sanctioned for his role in the 1983 bombing of the US Marines headquarters in Beirut. Ehud Yaari, commentator in Israel’s Channel 12 on Middle Eastern affairs, said US negotiators were making incomprehensible concessions in the ongoing talks in Vienna, which angered the representatives of Western European countries in the negotiations, in particular France. The journalist speculated that the leaks that came out of the negotiations were made by angry French sources, “who, in this way, want to express their discontent, as well as rally external pressure.”In this regard, Yaari stressed that if a nuclear agreement with Iran was reached, “it will be several times worse than the previous agreement in 2015.”

‘We Are Close’, UK Envoy to Iran Nuclear Talks Says as Europeans Fly Home
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 March, 2022
Indirect talks between Iran and the United States on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are close to reaching an agreement, the chief British envoy said on Friday as she and her French and German colleagues flew home to brief ministers. "We are close. E3 negotiators leaving Vienna briefly to update Ministers on state of play. Ready to return soon," Stephanie Al-Qaq said on Twitter, referring to the chief British, French and German diplomats involved in the talks. Despite the British diplomat's teasing Twitter post, two sources with direct knowledge said there was still no deal and European and Iranian officials said that Iran's lead negotiator, nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani was staying in Vienna. Negotiators have worked for 11 months to try to revive the 2015 deal under which Iran limited its nuclear program to make it harder to obtain fissile material for a bomb - an ambition Tehran denies - in return for relief from economic sanctions. Then US President Donald Trump reneged on the pact in 2018, restoring US sanctions that have slashed Iran's oil exports, and prompting Iran to begin violating the deal's nuclear limitations about a year later. On Thursday, the chief Russian diplomat at the talks said he did not think they would now collapse and a ministerial meeting - typically where a deal would be blessed - was likely but he could not say if it would be on Saturday, Sunday or Monday. However, there are myriad pieces that must fall into place for a deal to come together.One wildcard is an effort by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to resolve questions about nuclear material that the Vienna-based agency suspects Iran failed to declare, another obstacle to reaching an agreement to revive the deal. The IAEA has found particles of processed uranium at three apparently old sites that Iran never declared and has repeatedly said Tehran has not provided satisfactory answers. IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi will travel to Tehran on Saturday hoping to agree on a process that would lead to the end of the investigation, potentially clearing a way for the wider agreement, diplomats said. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian also suggested that an agreement may be close but said the West's "haste" to reach a nuclear deal "cannot prevent the observance of Iran's red lines." "Our delegation will continue to work hard to reach a final and good agreement," Iranian media quoted Amirabdollahian as telling the EU´s top diplomat Josep Borrell by telephone."We are ready to finalize a good and immediate agreement," he said, adding: "Most of Iran's requests have been considered in the upcoming agreement."

US says Iran nuclear deal 'close' but not certain
AFP/Washington/March 04/2022
The United States said Thursday that "a possible deal" on a new Iranian nuclear accord is close but several sticking points have prevented an agreement and time is running out.Negotiators meeting in Vienna to try and salvage the 2015 nuclear deal, which is meant to prevent Tehran from acquiring an atomic bomb, have made "significant progress," State Department deputy spokeswoman Jalina Porter told reporters, echoing other nations in recent weeks."We are close to a possible deal, but a number of difficult issues still remain unsolved," she said.
"We will not have a deal unless we resolve quickly the remaining issues," she added. However, "if Iran shows seriousness, we can and should reach an understanding of mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA within days," she said, using the acronym for the 2015 accord.
Enrique Mora, the European Union's coordinator for the talks, also said they were in the "final stages." "Some relevant issues are still open and success is never guaranteed," he Tweeted, adding "we are definitely not there yet."The so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, signed in 2015, secured sanctions relief for Iran in return for strict curbs on its nuclear programme. The agreement was between Iran on one side and Germany, China, the United States, France, Britain and Russia on the other. The agreement unravelled when former US president Donald Trump withdrew from it, with Israeli encouragement, in 2018. Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium has now reached more than 15 times the limit set out in the 2015 accord, the UN's IAEA nuclear watchdog said Thursday. The coming days are seen as critical by the West, which believes that the agreement could soon be irrelevant at the rate Iran is making nuclear advances. Several observers think that the West could leave the negotiating table and chalk the deal up to a failure if a compromise is not reached by this weekend. Among the problem points, Tehran is calling for the closure of the IAEA's investigation into the presence of nuclear material at undeclared sites. IAEA Director General Rafael Gross, who has said the agency would "never abandon" its attempts to get Iran to clarify the previous presence of nuclear material at the sites, will travel to Iran on Saturday to meet officials from the country.

Iran Foreign Minister Says Nuclear Deal Subject to Tehran’s Red Lines
Asharq Al-Awsat/March 04/2022
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Friday the West’s “haste” to reach a nuclear deal “cannot prevent the observance of Iran’s red lines,” including economic guarantees. Negotiations on reviving a 2015 Iran nuclear accord appear near a climax, amid talk of an imminent ministerial meeting. Such a meeting, said Amirabdollahian, “requires full compliance with the red lines.”Jalina Porter, a US State Department spokesperson, said a possible deal was close, but cautioned that unsolved issues remained. “Our delegation will continue to work hard to reach a final and good agreement,” Iranian media quoted Amirabdollahian as telling the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell by telephone. “We are ready to finalize a good and immediate agreement,” he said, adding: “Most of Iran's requests have been considered in the upcoming agreement.”Among remaining issues is an effort by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to resolve questions about nuclear material that the Vienna-based agency suspects Iran failed to declare. The IAEA has found particles of processed uranium at three apparently old sites that Iran never declared and has repeatedly said Tehran has not provided satisfactory answers. Iran wants the IAEA investigation ended as part of an accord, but Western powers have argued that the issue is beyond the scope of the 2015 deal, to which the IAEA is not a party.IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi is to travel to Tehran on Saturday hoping to agree on a process that would lead to the end of the investigation, potentially clearing a way for the wider agreement, diplomats said. The 2015 agreement between Iran and world powers was designed to make it harder for Iran to accumulate the fissile material for a nuclear weapons, an ambition it has long denied. Then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, reimposing tough economic sanctions on Tehran. Iran responded by breaching many of the deal's restrictions.

Iran Approaching Nuclear Bomb Yardstick as Enriched Uranium Stock Grows
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 3 March, 2022
The stock of enriched uranium amassed by Iran in breach of its 2015 nuclear deal is growing to the point that its most highly-enriched material is most of the way to a common bomb yardstick, a report by the UN nuclear watchdog showed on Thursday. The amount in the quarterly International Atomic Energy Agency report to member states seen by Reuters comes as negotiators at talks on salvaging the 2015 deal say they are in the final stretch. Western powers have warned time is running out before Iran's nuclear progress makes the talks pointless. The report showed Iran's stock of uranium enriched to up to 60% fissile purity had almost doubled, increasing by 15.5 kg to 33.2 kg (46 to 110 pounds). A senior diplomat said that is around three-quarters of the amount needed, if enriched further, for one nuclear bomb according to a common definition. That definition - 25 kg of uranium enriched to 90% - is a theoretical yardstick and how much is needed in real life would depend on further processes the material would still have to go through to make an actual bomb, the senior diplomat cautioned. The 2015 deal between Iran and world powers imposed restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. Then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, reimposing tough economic sanctions on Tehran. Iran responded by breaching many of the deal's restrictions, including a 3.67% cap on the purity to which it could purify uranium and a 202.8-kg limit on its enriched uranium stock. That total stock of enriched uranium now stands at 3.2 tons, an increase of 707.4 kg on the quarter, the report showed. That is still less than the more than five tons Iran accumulated before the 2015 deal but the highest purity it achieved then was 20%.

Ukraine's Jewish leader invokes Judaism to rally support amid war
Agencies/Friday, 4 March, 2022
With online posts in Hebrew and appeals to Jews to "cry out" in response to Russia's invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has invoked his faith to rally support for his embattled country.The 44-year-old comedian-turned-president told the Times of Israel in 2020 that he had an "ordinary ... Jewish upbringing", explaining "most Jewish families in the Soviet Union were not religious." He has also described religion as a personal matter and even swore his presidential oath on the Bible. But since Russia's invasion began on February 24, Zelensky has made explicit reference to Judaism in emotional social media posts seeking to rally support for Ukraine. On Wednesday, a day after a Russian attack on Kyiv's television mast beside Babi Yar, the site of a World War II Nazi massacre in which over 30,000 of the city's Jews were shot, Zelensky reacted with outrage. "I call now on all the Jews of the world; do you not see what is happening here? This is why it's important for millions of Jews around the world not to stay silent in the face of such sights. Because Nazism was born in silence," he wrote in Hebrew on the Telegram messenger service. The following day, Zelensky, who has visited Israel many times and said he has family there, reached out again to Jews. He told a news conference he was grateful for "a beautiful picture of people wrapped in the Ukraine flag at the Western Wall", in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem considered the holiest site where Jews can pray.
Zelensky added, however, that he did not feel "that the Israeli government had wrapped itself with the Ukranian flag".
'Unique role' -
Zelensky's comments appeared a clear attempt to broaden support for the Ukranian cause among Jews and especially within Israel, where Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has avoided forceful condemnations of Russia, seeking to preserve delicate security ties with Moscow. But his public referencing of his Judaism amid an unprecedented crisis is not just a tactic to rally Jewish goodwill, experts and a prominent Soviet-era dissident who knows the Ukranian president personally have said. Zelensky's "Jewishness is important for him," said Nathan Sharansky, who spent years in a Soviet Gulag accused of treason for seeking permission to move to Israel. "He is not a Jew who is making secret of his Jewishness and he is not a Jew who is looking for some other identity," Sharansky told AFP. Sharansky, who has spoken to Zelensky's chief-of-staff in recent days, was born in Ukraine and helped spark the Glasnost reforms that presaged the downfall of the Soviet Union. After a high-profile release from Soviet custody, he moved to Israel in 1986, where he held various senior public roles and is now a leading global figure in efforts to redress anti-Semitism. He noted that Zelensky is part of a long tradition of Jews in eastern European history, who faced death for standing up to autocracy, but said the Ukrainian president's Judaism may prove to have broader implications, including as a counter to rising anti-Semitism.
Far right militants--
The Ukrainian president’s appeal to world Jews comes amid a controversy in Germany over the travel of far right militants to Ukraine to fight against Russian troops. Berlin is downplaying the issue. There have been "significantly fewer" than ten recorded cases of Germans from the right-wing extremist spectrum who have travelled to Ukraine to take part in combat operations there, a German interior ministry spokesman said on Friday. One way to stop the extremists from leaving the country is to take away their passports and security officials are currently working on this, the spokesman said.However, German law does not allow for the prohibition of Ukrainian nationals nor German Ukrainians to travel back to Ukraine to take part in the defence of their country, he said.

How Dangerous Was Russia's Nuclear Plant Strike?
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 March, 2022
Europe's largest nuclear power plant was hit by Russian shelling early Friday, sparking a fire and raising fears of a disaster that could affect all of central Europe for decades, like the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown. Concerns faded after Ukrainian authorities announced that the fire had been extinguished, and while there was damage to the reactor compartment, the safety of the unit was not affected, AFP said. But even though the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is of a different design than Chernobyl and is protected from fire, nuclear safety experts and the International Atomic Energy Agency warn that waging war in and around such facilities presents extreme risks. One major concern, raised by Ukraine's state nuclear regulator, is that if fighting interrupts power supply to the nuclear plant, it would be forced to use less-reliable diesel generators to provide emergency power to operating cooling systems. A failure of those systems could lead to a disaster similar to that of Japan's Fukushima plant, when a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 destroyed cooling systems, triggering meltdowns in three reactors. The consequence of that, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, would be widespread and dire. “If there is an explosion, that's the end for everyone. The end for Europe. The evacuation of Europe,” he said in an emotional speech in the middle of the night, calling on nations to pressure Russia's leadership to end the fighting near the plant. “Only urgent action by Europe can stop the Russian troops. Do not allow the death of Europe from a catastrophe at a nuclear power station.”
WHAT HAPPENED?
After taking the strategic port city of Kherson, Russian forces moved into the territory near Zaporizhzhia and attacked the nearby city of Enerhodar to open a route to the plant late Thursday. It was not immediately clear how the power plant was hit, but Enerhodar Mayor Dmytro Orlov said a Russian military column had been seen heading toward the nuclear facility and that loud shots were heard in the city. Later Friday, Ukrainian authorities said Russia had taken over the nuclear plant. Plant spokesman Andriy Tuz told Ukrainian television that early Friday morning, shells fell directly on the facility and set fire to one of its six reactors. Initially, firefighters were not able to get near the flames because they were being shot at, Tuz said. After speaking with Ukrainian authorities on Friday, Rafael Grossi, the director general of the IAEA, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, said a building next to the reactors was hit and not a reactor itself.
“All of the safety systems of the six reactors at the plant were not affected at all and there has been no release of radioactive material,” he said. “However, as you can imagine, the operator and the regulator have been telling us that the situation naturally continues to be extremely tense and challenging.”Earlier this week, Grossi already had warned that the IAEA was “gravely concerned” with Russian forces conducting military operations so close nearby. “It is of critical importance that the armed conflict and activities on the ground around Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and any other of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities in no way interrupts or endangers the facilities or the people working at and around them,” he said.
WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED?
The reactor that was hit was offline, but still contains highly radioactive nuclear fuel. Four of the other six reactors have now been taken offline, leaving only one in operation. The reactors at the plant have thick concrete containment domes, which would have protected them from external fire from tanks and artillery, said Jon Wolfsthal, who served during the Obama administration as the senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the National Security Council. At the same time, a fire at a nuclear power plant is never a good thing, he said. “We don't want our nuclear power plants to come under assault, to be on fire, and to not have first responders be able to access them,” he said. Another danger at nuclear facilities are the pools where spent fuel rods are kept to be cooled, which are more vulnerable to shelling and which could cause the release of radioactive material. Perhaps the biggest issue, however, is the plant's power supply, said Najmedin Meshkati, an engineering professor at the University of Southern California who has studied both the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters, raising a concern also voiced by Wolfsthal and others.The loss of off-site power could force the plant to rely on emergency diesel generators, which are highly unreliable and could fail or run out of fuel, causing a station blackout that would stop the water circulation needed to cool the spent fuel pool, he said. “That is my big — biggest concern,” he said.David Fletcher, a University of Sydney professor in its School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, who previously worked at UK Atomic Energy, noted that even shutting down the reactors would not help if the cooling system failed in such a way. “The real concern is not a catastrophic explosion as happened at Chernobyl but damage to the cooling system which is required even when the reactor is shut down,” he said in a statement. "It was this type of damage that led to the Fukushima accident.”
WHAT CONCERNS REMAIN?
Ukraine is heavily reliant on nuclear energy, with 15 reactors at four stations that provide about half the country's electricity. In the wake of the attack on Zaporizhzhia, US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and others called for an immediate end to the fighting there. Following a conversation with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, IAEA Director Grossi appealed to all parties to “refrain from actions” that could put Ukraine's nuclear power plants in danger. Shmyhal called on western nations to close the skies over the country's nuclear plants. “It is a question of the security of the whole world!” he said in a statement. Ukraine is also home to the former Chernobyl nuclear plant, where radioactivity is still leaking, which was taken by Russian forces in the opening of the invasion after a fierce battle with the Ukrainian national guards protecting the decommissioned facility. In an appeal to the IAEA for help earlier this week, Ukrainian officials said that Chernobyl staff have been held by the Russian military without rotation and are exhausted. Grossi earlier this week appealed to Russia to let the Chernobyl staff “do their job safely and effectively.”During fighting on the weekend, Russian fire also hit a radioactive waste disposal facility in Kyiv and a similar facility in Kharkiv. Both contained low-level waste such as those produced through medical use, and no radioactive release has been reported, but Grossi said the incidents should serve as a warning. “The two incidents highlight the risk that facilities with radioactive material may suffer damage during the armed conflict, with potentially severe consequences,” he said. James Acton, the co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the simple key to keeping the facilities safe was to immediately end any military operations around them. “Under normal circumstances, the likelihood of a reactor losing power and of the emergency diesel generators being damaged and of not being repaired adequately quickly is very, very small,” Acton said. “But in a war, all of these different failures that would have to happen for a reactor to become damaged and meltdown — the likelihood of all of those happening becomes much more likely than it does in peacetime.” Mitsuru Fukuda, a professor at Nihon University in Tokyo and expert on crisis management and security, said the Zaporizhzhia attack raises broader questions for all countries. “Many of us did not expect a respected country’s military would take such an outrageous step,” he said. ”Now that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin has done it, not only Ukraine but the international community, including Japan, should reevaluate the risk of having nuclear plants as potential wartime targets.”

UN Atomic Agency: No Radiation Release at Ukraine Plant
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 March, 2022
The head of the United Nations’ atomic watchdog says there has been no release of radiation at the Ukrainian nuclear plant that was targeted. International Atomic Energy Agency director-general said that the agency has been in contact with the Ukrainian nuclear regulator and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant after a building on the site was hit, The Associated Press said. That caused a fire that was extinguished. Rafael Mariano Grossi said two people on the site were injured in the fire. He said that the operator and the regulator say the situation “continues to be extremely tense and challenging.” He said that only one reactor is operating at about 60%.

Fire Extinguished at Europe’s Biggest Nuclear Plant after Battle Causes Alarm
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 March, 2022
A huge blaze at the site of Europe's biggest nuclear power station was extinguished on Friday, and officials said the plant in southeastern Ukraine was operating normally after it was seized by Russian forces in fighting that caused global alarm. Separately, the governor of Mykolayiv said Russian troops had entered his city of around 500,000 people but a presidential adviser later said the Russian advance had been halted. The city, a ship-building hub, is in southern Ukraine where Russian forces have made the most progress so far, and if captured it would be the biggest yet to fall. Officials said the fire at the Zaporizhzhia compound was in a training center and not at the plant itself. An official at Energoatom, the state enterprise that runs Ukraine's four nuclear plants, said there was no further fighting, the fire was out, radiation was normal and Russian forces were in control. “Personnel are on their working places providing normal operation of the station,” the official told Reuters in a message.He said his organization no longer had communication with the plant's managers, control over the radiation situation there or oversight of potentially dangerous nuclear material in its six reactors and about 150 containers of spent fuel. Russia's defense ministry also said the plant was working normally. It blamed the fire on a "monstrous attack" by Ukrainian saboteurs and said its forces were in control.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said the plant was undamaged from what he believed was a Russian projectile. Only one reactor was working, at around 60% of capacity. He described the situation as still tense, with the plant operating normally but nothing normal about it. A video from the plant verified by Reuters had earlier shown one building aflame, and a volley of incoming shells, before a large incandescent ball lit up the sky, exploding beside a car park and sending smoke billowing across the compound.
The prospect that fighting at the plant could cause a potential nuclear disaster had set world financial markets tumbling. Even with that scenario seemingly averted, Russia's grip on a plant that provides more than a fifth of Ukraine's electricity was a big development after eight days of war in which other Russian advances have been stalled by fierce resistance.US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and other Western officials said there was no indication of elevated radiation levels. "Europeans, please wake up. Tell your politicians – Russian troops are shooting at a nuclear power plant in Ukraine," Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address. In another address later he called on Russians to protest.
Thousands of people are believed to have been killed or wounded and more than 1 million refugees have fled Ukraine since Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two. Russian forces advancing from three directions have besieged Ukrainian cities and pounded them with artillery and air strikes. Moscow says its aim is to disarm its neighbor and capture leaders it calls neo-Nazis. Ukraine and its Western allies call that a baseless pretext for a war to conquer the country of 44 million people.
Russia had already captured the defunct Chernobyl plant north of Kyiv, which spewed radioactive waste over much of Europe when it melted down in 1986. The Zaporizhzhia plant is a different and safer type.
Fighting rages, sanctions mount
In Russia itself, where Putin's main opponents have largely been jailed or driven into exile over the past year, the war has been accompanied by a further crackdown on dissent. Authorities have banned reports that refer to the "special military operation" as a "war" or "invasion". Anti-war demonstrations have been quickly squelched with thousands of arrests. On Friday the authorities shut down foreign broadcasters including the BBC, Voice of America and Deutsche Welle. The last major independent broadcasters, TV Dozhd (Rain) and Ekho Moskvy radio, were shuttered on Thursday. The State Duma lower house of parliament introduced legislation on Friday to impose jail terms on people for spreading "fake" reports about the military. Only one Ukrainian city, the southern port of Kherson, has fallen to Russian forces since the invasion was launched on Feb. 24, but Russian forces continue to surround and attack other cities, making more progress in the south than elsewhere. Vitaliy Kim, the mayor of Mykolayiv, told residents not to panic after Russian forces entered the city. Loud explosions could be heard in Kyiv on Friday morning and an air raid siren blared. Reuters journalists in the capital were not immediately able to determine the cause of the blasts. The southeastern port city of Mariupol has been encircled by Russian forces and subjected to intense strikes, Britain said in an intelligence update on Friday. "Mariupol remains under Ukrainian control but has likely been encircled by Russian forces," the Ministry of Defense said.
"The city's civilian infrastructure has been subjected to intense Russian strikes." In the northeast, along another major axis of the Russian attack, the cities of Kharkiv and Chernihiv have been under bombardment since the start of the invasion which worsened sharply this week, but defenders are holding out.Kyiv, the capital of 3 million people, has been shelled but has so far been spared a major assault, with Russia's main attack force stalled for days in a miles-long convoy on a highway to the north. In Washington, a US defense official said Russians were still 25 km (16 miles) from Kyiv city center. On Thursday, Russia and Ukraine negotiators agreed at peace talks on the need for humanitarian corridors to help civilians escape and to deliver medicines and food to areas of fighting.

Russia Fights Back in Information War with Jail Warning
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 March, 2022
Russia's parliament on Friday passed a law imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally "fake" information about the armed forces as Moscow fights back in what it casts as an information war over the conflict in Ukraine.
Russian officials have repeatedly said that false information has been intentionally spread by Russia's enemies such as the United States and its Western European allies in an attempt to sow discord among the Russian people. Russian lawmakers passed amendments to the criminal code making the spread of "fake" information a criminal offense punishable with fines or jail terms. Lawmakers also imposed fines for public calls for sanctions against Russia. "If the fakes lead to serious consequences then imprisonment of up to 15 years threatens," the lower house of parliament, known as the Duma in Russian, said in a statement. The Duma outlined a sliding scale of punishments for anyone deemed to have discredited the armed forces, with stiffer penalties for those who intentionally spread fake information or called for unsanctioned public action. The amendments, which could not be viewed by Reuters on the Duma's website, appear to give the Russian state much stronger powers to crack down. "Literally by tomorrow, this law will force punishment - and very tough punishment - on those who lied and made statements which discredited our armed forces," said Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the Duma.
President Vladimir Putin said the "special military operation" was essential to ensure Russian security after the United States enlarged the NATO military alliance to Russia's borders and supported pro-Western leaders in Kyiv. Russian officials do not use the word "invasion" and say Western media have failed to report on what they cast as the "genocide" of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine. The amendments have to be approved by the upper house of parliament before going to Putin to be signed into law.
'Tough punishment'
Russian opposition leaders have warned that the Kremlin could crack down on dissent after Putin ordered a special military operation in Ukraine. Even without the law on fakes, Russia's communications watchdog has restricted access to the Russian-language websites of the BBC and Radio Liberty for spreading what it cast as false information about the conflict. Russia has repeatedly complained that Western media organizations offer a partial - and often anti-Russian - view of the world while failing to hold their own leaders to account for devastating foreign wars such as Iraq and corruption.
Western leaders have for years raised concerns about the dominance of state media in Russia and say the freedoms won when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 have been rolled back by Putin. Russia's RIA news agency said access to the websites of BBC Russian service as well as Radio Liberty and the Meduza media outlet were being limited, citing the media watchdog's official register. According to an official notice received on March 3, the Russian communications watchdog said Radio Liberty's Russian service had spread "obviously fake socially significant information about the alleged Russian attack on Ukrainian territory". "Such information is wrong," Radio Liberty cited the official notice as saying. Britain's BBC said access to accurate information was a fundamental human right and it would continue its efforts to make its news available in Russia. "Access to accurate, independent information is a fundamental human right which should not be denied to the people of Russia, millions of whom rely on BBC News every week," the BBC said. "We will continue our efforts to make BBC News available in Russia, and across the rest of the world."

Fire Out at Ukraine's Key Nuclear Plant, No Leak Detected
Associated Press/Friday, 4 March, 2022
A fire at Europe's biggest nuclear plant ignited by Russian shelling has been extinguished, two people on the site were injured in the fire and Russian forces have taken control of the site. The head of the United Nations’ atomic watchdog said there has been no release of radiation at the Ukrainian nuclear plant that was targeted. International Atomic Energy Agency director-general said that the agency has been in contact with the Ukrainian nuclear regulator and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. Ukraine's state nuclear regulator said that no changes in radiation levels have been recorded so far. It said staff are studying the site to check for other damage to the compartment of reactor No. 1 at the Zaporizhzhia plant in the city of Enerhodar. The regulator noted in a statement on Facebook the importance of maintaining the ability to cool nuclear fuel, saying the loss of such ability could lead to an accident even worse than 1986 Chernobyl accident, the world's worst nuclear disaster, or the 2011 Fukushima meltdowns in Japan. It also noted that there is a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel at the site, though there was no sign that facility was hit by shelling. The shelling of the plant came as the Russian military pressed their attack on a crucial energy-producing Ukrainian city and gained ground in their bid to cut off the country from the sea. As the invasion entered its second week, another round of talks between Russia and Ukraine yielded a tentative agreement to set up safe corridors to evacuate citizens and deliver humanitarian aid.
Leading nuclear authorities were worried — but not panicked — about the damage to the power station. The assault, however, led to phone calls between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Joe Biden and other world leaders. The U.S. Department of Energy activated its nuclear incident response team as a precaution.
Earlier, nuclear plant spokesman Andriy Tuz told Ukrainian television that shells fell directly on the facility and set fire to one of its six reactors. That reactor is under renovation and not operating, he said. The Zaporizhzhia regional military administration said that measurements taken at 7 a.m. Friday (0500 GMT) showed radiation levels in the region "remain unchanged and do not endanger the lives and health of the population." The mayor of Enerhodar, Dmytro Orlov, announced on his Telegram channel Friday morning that "the fire at the (nuclear plant) has indeed been extinguished." His office told The Associated Press that the information came from firefighters who were allowed onto the site overnight. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council in "coming hours" to raise the issue of Russia's attack on the nuclear power plant, according to a statement from his office.
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm tweeted that the Zaporizhzhia plant's reactors were protected by robust containment structures and were being safely shut down. In an emotional speech in the middle of the night, Zelenskyy said he feared an explosion that would be "the end for everyone. The end for Europe. The evacuation of Europe.""Only urgent action by Europe can stop the Russian troops," he said. "Do not allow the death of Europe from a catastrophe at a nuclear power station."
But most experts saw nothing to indicate an impending disaster.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the fire had not affected essential equipment and that Ukraine's nuclear regulator reported no change in radiation levels. The American Nuclear Society concurred, saying that the latest radiation levels remained within natural background levels.
"The real threat to Ukrainian lives continues to be the violent invasion and bombing of their country," the group said in a statement. Orlov, the mayor of Enerhodar, said Russian shelling stopped a few hours before dawn, and residents of the city of more than 50,000 who had stayed in shelters overnight could return home. The city awoke with no heat, however, because the shelling damaged the city's heating main, he said. Prior to the shelling, the Ukrainian state atomic energy company reported that a Russian military column was heading toward the nuclear plant. Loud shots and rocket fire were heard late Thursday.
Later, a livestreamed security camera linked from the homepage of the Zaporizhzhia plant showed what appeared to be armored vehicles rolling into the facility's parking lot and shining spotlights on the building where the camera was mounted. Then there were what appeared to be muzzle flashes from vehicles, followed by nearly simultaneous explosions in surrounding buildings. Smoke rose into the frame and drifted away. Vladimir Putin's forces have brought their superior firepower to bear over the past few days, launching hundreds of missiles and artillery attacks on cities and other sites around the country and making significant gains in the south. The Russians announced the capture of the southern city of Kherson, a vital Black Sea port of 280,000, and local Ukrainian officials confirmed the takeover of the government headquarters there, making it the first major city to fall since the invasion began a week ago.
A Russian airstrike on Thursday destroyed the power plant in Okhtyrka, leaving the city without heat or electricity, the head of the region said on Telegram. In the first days of the war, Russian troops attacked a military base in the city, located between Kharkiv and Kyiv, and officials said more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers were killed.
"We are trying to figure out how to get people out of the city urgently because in a day the apartment buildings will turn into a cold stone trap without water, light or electricity," Dmytro Zhyvytskyy said. Heavy fighting continued on the outskirts of another strategic port, Mariupol, on the Azov Sea. The battles have knocked out the city's electricity, heat and water systems, as well as most phone service, officials said. Food deliveries to the city were also cut. Associated Press video from the port city showed the assault lighting up the darkening sky above deserted streets and medical teams treating civilians, including a 16-year-old boy inside a clinic who could not be saved. The child was playing soccer when he was wounded in the shelling, according to his father, who cradled the boy's head on the gurney and cried. Severing Ukraine's access to the Black and Azov seas would deal a crippling blow to its economy and allow Russia to build a land corridor to Crimea, seized by Moscow in 2014. Overall, the outnumbered, outgunned Ukrainians have put up stiff resistance, staving off the swift victory that Russia appeared to have expected. But a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia's seizure of Crimea gave it a logistical advantage in that part of the country, with shorter supply lines that smoothed the offensive there.
Ukrainian leaders called on the people to defend their homeland by cutting down trees, erecting barricades in the cities and attacking enemy columns from the rear. In recent days, authorities have issued weapons to civilians and taught them how to make Molotov cocktails.
"Total resistance. ... This is our Ukrainian trump card, and this is what we can do best in the world," Oleksiy Arestovich, an aide to Zelenskyy, said in a video message, recalling guerrilla actions in Nazi-occupied Ukraine during World War II.
The second round of talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations was held in neighboring Belarus. But the two sides appeared far apart going into the meeting, and Putin warned Ukraine that it must quickly accept the Kremlin's demand for its "demilitarization" and declare itself neutral, renouncing its bid to join NATO. Putin told French President Emmanuel Macron he was determined to press on with his attack "until the end," according to Macron's office. The two sides said that they tentatively agreed to allow cease-fires in areas designated safe corridors, and that they would seek to work out the necessary details quickly. A Zelenskyy adviser also said a third round of talks will be held early next week. Despite a profusion of evidence of civilian casualties and destruction of property by the Russian military, Putin decried what he called an "anti-Russian disinformation campaign" and insisted that Moscow uses "only precision weapons to exclusively destroy military infrastructure."Putin claimed that the Russian military had already offered safe corridors for civilians to flee, but he asserted without evidence that Ukrainian "neo-Nazis" were preventing people from leaving and were using them as human shields.
The Pentagon set up a direct communication link to Russia's Ministry of Defense earlier this week to avoid the possibility of a miscalculation sparking conflict between Moscow and Washington, according to a U.S. defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the link had not been announced.

Israeli Officers Warn against Security Chaos Erupting in Ramadan
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 March, 2022
Israeli security service officials have joined the warnings issued by Palestinian civil society and political leaders against potential escalation of violence by far-right proponents who are supported by Israeli police officers. The escalation by far-right activists portends a major security explosion in Jerusalem, especially with the advent of Islam’s holy month of fasting, Ramadan. Rallies by extremist right-wing activists, led by Knesset member Itamar Ben-Gvir, in the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods and other neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem, are being accompanied by fierce repression and abuse by the Israeli police towards the Palestinians. These transgressions are bound to generate intense tension among Palestinians, raising the stakes for the security situation exploding in Jerusalem at any moment. There is also fear that tensions and violence may spill over to other Arab towns in Israel, where residents are especially triggered by the situation in Jerusalem, home to both Muslim and Christian holy sites. The situation may also explode in Gaza and the West Bank. Haaretz newspaper quoted a number of Israeli police officers as saying that the orders issued in the name of “strictly dealing with the enforcement of the rule of law” are not proportionate to the events and involve significant exaggerations in the use of force and violence. Officers pointed out that continuing with the incumbent policy during Ramadan, when crowds of thousands of Palestinians perform prayers at al-Aqsa Mosque, might be a precursor for clashes erupting nationwide. Palestinian factions and personalities had warned several times in the past two weeks that the bloody attacks on the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and its residents, which are escalating and taking on the character of a racist Judaization, are a form of “playing with fire.”
The High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel has put the issue of Jerusalem at the forefront of the topics it will raise on Land Day this year, which falls on March 30.

ISIS Widow in NE Syria: I Couldn’t Believe I Got Rid of Him
Qamishli, London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 March, 2022
“I couldn’t believe I got rid of him and his oppression,” with these words Aisha Al-Ahmad, a minor and wife of an ISIS fighter, started telling her story to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Al-Ahmad lives with her family in the Rumailah neighborhood, the largest neighborhood in the city center of Syria’s northeastern city of Raqqa, the former capital of ISIS’ so-called caliphate. She is the eldest of six sisters who live in a tribal society that embraces “obsolete” traditions, including early marriage. Her first husband was an ISIS member known by his initials as M. A. “In 2013, when I was 15, I got married to one of my relatives according to our tribe’s traditions stipulating that girls have to get married as soon as they reach puberty. My father worked in the cattle market and was on a low income,” Al-Ahmad told the Observatory. “My first husband had stayed away from our house for so long, as he was a fighter of the ‘army of the caliphate state’ on the Tel Abyad frontline,” she added. “Our marriage lasted for three years, during which I gave birth to three children. My ex-husband was blunt and irascible. On his holidays, he humiliated me by beating and abusing me during marital cohabitation as if I were an inanimate object or a body without a soul.”“In 2016, during the Tal Abyad battles, the Office of Mujahideen Affairs informed me of the murder of my husband, aka ‘Abu Hassan.’ The news of his death was music to my ears. I felt as if I got out of prison and became free,” she recalled. Al-Ahmad nodded a little with her gaze and told the Observatory: “I was born to suffer.”“I lost my joy as once I finished ‘Iddah’ – in Islam, Iddah is the period of time a woman must observe after the death of her husband or after a divorce, ‘Abu Yusuf Al-Ansari,’ my ex-husband’s brother and also an ISIS fighter, proposed to me.”“I refused and told my father that I thought of Al-Ansari as my brother, and I can’t marry another man after the death of my husband. However, all my attempts to reject this marriage were in vain. I was forced to get married for the second time.” “My new husband was a fighter of ‘Jaish Al-Wilayah’ battalion and I gave birth to three children in 2016 and 2017.” “During the battles of the liberation of Raqqa, specifically in the Rumailah area, my husband sustained a foot injury, and after his arrest, he was taken to Tal Abyad Hospital for treatment. He was imprisoned in Ayed prison in Al-Tabqa until he was released in 2019.”Al-Ahmad is now a mother of six: three from each of her two husbands. She has undergone several psychosocial rehabilitation programs and courses, like many minor females from Raqqa who have been victims of “obsolete tribal traditions” and early marriage, said the Observatory.

Israeli Court's Decision to Cancel Russia's Church Ownership Could Lead to Tensions
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 March, 2022
The Jerusalem District Court halted the registration of ownership of the Russian Orthodox "Alexander Nevsky" church in the name of the Russian government on Thursday. Diplomatic sources warned that the court’s decision could create a diplomatic crisis with Moscow, mainly that it comes amid Russia's war in Ukraine. They called on Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to take advantage of his powers and officially transfer the church's ownership to the Russian government. The Alexander Nevsky church, built at the end of the 19th century and is considered the most important Russian holding in and around the Old City, is adjacent to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. During Ottoman times, the property was registered in the name of the Russian government. It was managed by a group of Russian immigrants to Palestine, who established an Orthodox company, Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, through which they handled dozens of Russian sites in the Holy Land. After the revolution in Russia, the government claimed ownership of these lands. But the British Mandate government, and later the Israeli government, rejected the request. In 2017, the Russian government filed a registration request for ownership rights with Israel's inspector in charge of the land registry. The then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to comply with the request but never fulfilled it. In 2019-2020, Netanyahu approved giving Alexander's Courtyard to Russia after Moscow agreed to release Naama Issachar, an Israeli woman arrested in transit in Moscow for smuggling hashish and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. The details of the deal remained unknown.
However, it turned out that one of those conditions was to approve the Russian government's request to register the Courtyard and the Church in the name of the Russian government. The Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society filed objections to the transfer of ownership, which the court rejected. The Society then filed an appeal, prompting Netanyahu to sign an order declaring that the church was a holy site, as defined by British Mandatory law, meaning that the government and not the courts are authorized to make any decisions regarding ownership disputes.
The Land Registry Commissioner dismissed appeals against the registration and ruled that the Russian Federation was recognized by international bodies and by the authorized bodies in the State of Israel as "the successor state" of the Russian imperial government.
Therefore, as part of the registration renewal order, the land should be registered in the name of the Russian Federation and not in the name of organizations representing the Russian imperial government, which no longer exists. The Society then filed a lawsuit against the Israeli government, asserting that its registration as a holy place aims to dispossess the company in preparation for transferring ownership of the land and the church to the Russian government. The court accepted the case. However, the presiding judge, Mordechay Caduri, referred to immense diplomatic sensitivity and opened a loophole for the government to resolve the matter by an official decision. Caduri said in his ruling that since the property is a holy site by definition, then the competent body to determine the ownership is not an administrative body or the court but the Israeli government. He admitted that the government would have to decide the issue considering various religious, political, and diplomatic considerations. In practical terms, the court passed the issue to Bennett, who must decide the matter amid the war between Russia and Ukraine and the massive sanctions imposed by the West on Moscow.
Bennett set up a ministerial committee to examine the matter in July 2021. He will have to ask the committee to decide, knowing that it has never met since its formation. According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry experts, a decisive decision in favor of the Russian government is inevitable.

ISIS Widow in NE Syria: I Couldn’t Believe I Got Rid of Him
Qamishli, London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 March, 2022
“I couldn’t believe I got rid of him and his oppression,” with these words Aisha Al-Ahmad, a minor and wife of an ISIS fighter, started telling her story to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Al-Ahmad lives with her family in the Rumailah neighborhood, the largest neighborhood in the city center of Syria’s northeastern city of Raqqa, the former capital of ISIS’ so-called caliphate. She is the eldest of six sisters who live in a tribal society that embraces “obsolete” traditions, including early marriage. Her first husband was an ISIS member known by his initials as M. A. “In 2013, when I was 15, I got married to one of my relatives according to our tribe’s traditions stipulating that girls have to get married as soon as they reach puberty. My father worked in the cattle market and was on a low income,” Al-Ahmad told the Observatory. “My first husband had stayed away from our house for so long, as he was a fighter of the ‘army of the caliphate state’ on the Tel Abyad frontline,” she added. “Our marriage lasted for three years, during which I gave birth to three children. My ex-husband was blunt and irascible. On his holidays, he humiliated me by beating and abusing me during marital cohabitation as if I were an inanimate object or a body without a soul.” “In 2016, during the Tal Abyad battles, the Office of Mujahideen Affairs informed me of the murder of my husband, aka ‘Abu Hassan.’ The news of his death was music to my ears. I felt as if I got out of prison and became free,” she recalled. Al-Ahmad nodded a little with her gaze and told the Observatory: “I was born to suffer.”“I lost my joy as once I finished ‘Iddah’ – in Islam, Iddah is the period of time a woman must observe after the death of her husband or after a divorce, ‘Abu Yusuf Al-Ansari,’ my ex-husband’s brother and also an ISIS fighter, proposed to me.”“I refused and told my father that I thought of Al-Ansari as my brother, and I can’t marry another man after the death of my husband. However, all my attempts to reject this marriage were in vain. I was forced to get married for the second time.” “My new husband was a fighter of ‘Jaish Al-Wilayah’ battalion and I gave birth to three children in 2016 and 2017.”“During the battles of the liberation of Raqqa, specifically in the Rumailah area, my husband sustained a foot injury, and after his arrest, he was taken to Tal Abyad Hospital for treatment. He was imprisoned in Ayed prison in Al-Tabqa until he was released in 2019.”Al-Ahmad is now a mother of six: three from each of her two husbands. She has undergone several psychosocial rehabilitation programs and courses, like many minor females from Raqqa who have been victims of “obsolete tribal traditions” and early marriage, said the Observatory.

US Committed to Seeking Accountability in Syria
Washington, London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 March, 2022
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich discussed with the head of Syrian Civil Defense Raed al-Saleh the vital work that the organization is doing to save lives through preparation, response, and recovery operations. The US embassy tweeted that Washington "is committed to​ seeking accountability for those responsible for atrocities in Syria," noting that for 11 years, the regime "has detained, tortured, and committed crimes against Syrians, but impunity will end. This month, we highlight how Syrians and the international community are pursuing accountability for these crimes."Goldrich was set to host on Thursday European Union, Arab and European envoys to discuss Syria. UN envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, was expected to brief them on the latest political developments. The gatherers will hold consultations on the field developments in Syria, the positions of Arab nations that are open to normalizing relations with Damascus, and the impact the Ukraine war will have on the country. Washington has notably invited Turkey to the talks. It had previously asked Ankara for the first such meetings held in Brussels in December. The invite is part of US efforts to steer Turkey away from Russia, ease tensions, and mitigate the severity of the situation due to Washington's support to Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Pedersen is scheduled to host the meeting of the Constitutional Committee in Geneva, starting Mar. 21, with the participation of delegations from the government, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), and the civil society.

Bombing of Mosque in Pakistan Kills at Least 56
Agencies/Friday, 4 March, 2022
A powerful bomb exploded inside a Shiite Muslim mosque in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar on Friday, killing at least 56 worshippers and wounding some 65 others, many of them critically, police said.
Peshawar Police Chief Muhammed Ejaz Khan said the violence started when two armed attackers opened fire on police outside the mosque in Peshawar’s old city. One attacker and one policeman were killed in the gunfight, and another police official was wounded. The remaining attacker then ran inside the mosque and detonated a bomb, The Associated Press said. Local police official Waheed Khan said the explosion occurred as worshippers had gathered in the Kucha Risaldar mosque for Friday prayers. The death toll will likely rise as many of the wounded are in critical condition, he added.
Ambulances rushed through congested narrow streets carrying the wounded to Lady Reading Hospital, where doctors worked feverishly. At least 150 worshippers were inside the mosque at the time of the explosion, witnesses said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, but both the ISIS group and a violent Pakistani Taliban organization have carried out similar attacks in the region, located near the border with neighboring Afghanistan. Shayan Haider, a witness, had been preparing to enter the mosque when a powerful explosion threw him to the street.“I opened my eyes and there was dust and bodies everywhere,” he said. At the Lady Reading Hospital Emergency department, there was chaos as doctors struggled to move the many wounded into operating theaters. Hundreds of relatives gathered outside the emergency department, many of them wailing and beating their chests, pleading for information about their loved ones. Outside the mosque, Shiite Muslims pressed through the cordoned-off streets. Kucha Risaldar Mosque is one of the oldest in the area, predating the creation of Pakistan in 1947 as a separate homeland for the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. The prayer leader, Allama Irshad Hussein Khalil, a prominent up and coming young Shiite leader, was among the dead. Throughout the city, ambulance sirens could be heard. Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the bombing. Retired army officer Sher Ali who had been inside the mosque at the time of the explosion was injured by flying shrapnel. He made an impassioned plea to the Pakistani government for better protection of the country's minority Shiite Muslims. “What is our sin? What have we done? Aren't we citizens of this country?” he said from within the emergency department, his white clothes splattered with blood. In majority Sunni Muslim Pakistan, minority Shiite Muslims have come under repeated attacks. In recent months Pakistan has experienced a broad increase in violence. Dozens of military personnel have been killed in scores of attacks on army outposts along the border with Afghanistan. Much has been claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, which analysts say have been emboldened by the Afghan Taliban's return to power last August. Pakistan has urged Afghanistan's new rulers to hand over Pakistani Taliban insurgents who have been staging their attacks from Afghanistan. Afghanistan's Taliban say their territory will not be used to stage attacks against anyone, but until now they have not handed over any Pakistani

Saudi Arabia, UAE point to changed world as they seek more balanced relations with US
AFP/March 04/2022
Statements coming out of Saudi Arabia and the UAE highlighted the challenges facing relations with the United States. On top of these is the failure by Washington to realise that worldview of Arab Gulf countries is changing, based on their perception of their evolving interests.
Talking to the US magazine, The Atlantic, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman rejected pressures and attempts at interference by the US administration of President Joe Biden in Saudi decisions, hinting at possible reduction of Saudi investments in America.
At the same time, UAE ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al-Otaiba, described his country’s relationship with the United States as being under “stress,” amid a controversy over Abu Dhabi’s attitude towards both Washington and Moscow after it abstained last week from voting for a US draft resolution condemning Russia over its war in Ukraine. Despite the calm tone that characterised the Saudi crown prince’s interview with The Atlantic, which was released on Thursday, Mohammed bin Salman was quite blunt about his relationship with the US president, who has not communicated with him since the inauguration more than a year ago. He said he did not care whether US President Joe Biden misunderstood things about him and stressed that the US leader should be thinking about his own country’s interests.
"Simply, I do not care," he said. It was up to Biden "to think about the interests of America", he said when asked whether Biden misunderstood things about him. “We don't have the right to lecture you in America,” he said. “The same goes the other way.”The crown prince also rejected the US intelligence claim of his own involvement in the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Moreover, Prince Mohammed bin Salman signalled that his country will not accept US pressure on internal issues in the kingdom nor allow Washington to define his country’s foreign policy orientations. He also noted that Saudi Arabia has the option of decreasing its investments in the United States. "In the same way we have the possibility of boosting our interests, we have the possibility of reducing them," he said, speaking about Saudi Arabian US investments which official press agency SPA said amount to $800 billion. Prince Mohammed told the Atlantic, that nonetheless, Riyadh's aim is to maintain and strengthen its "long, historical" relationship with America. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman speaks during the Gulf Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, December 14, 2021.
--New worldview --
The crown prince also pointed to possible changes in relations with Israel. "For us, we hope that the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is solved," Mohammed bin Salman said, according to a transcript issued by SPA. "We don't look at Israel as an enemy, we look at them as a potential ally, with many interests that we can pursue together ... But we have to solve some issues before we get to that."Mohammed bin Salman even hinted at better relations with Iran despite Tehran’s past destabilisation efforts in the region. "They are neighbours. Neighbours forever. We cannot get rid of them, and they can't get rid of us," the prince said of Iran. "So it's better for both of us to work it out and to look for ways in which we can coexist."Analysts say that Prince Mohammed bin Salman comments show that Saudi Arabia is looking for alternatives to the present status quo and that Washington’s abandonment of its security commitments absolves Riyadh of any obligation and could justify its turning to new partnerships. It is clear that Prince Mohammed bin Salman is telling Biden that if he chooses to move away from Saudi Arabia, as in the forthcoming deal with Iran, the defence pivot to East Asia and the ban on “offensive” weapons. sales, then he does not have the right to dictate Saudi policies. UAE ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al-Otaiba, chose to discuss openly the status of relations with the United States during a public forum, Thursday, in a step that observers said is aimed at seeking a correction in the course of the checkered bilateral relationship. Observers said that Otaiba, who knows well the American way of official thinking, wanted to bring differences to the fore at a time when American media are criticising the UAE after it abstained from voting in favour of an American resolution condemning Russia for attacking Ukraine.
Observers pointed out that Otaiba is a well-known figure in Washington and his words will be seen as an expression of the official and public opinion positions and hence will receive utmost US attention. Otaiba’s statements point out indirectly to the US responsibility in the change of tone marking the relationship towards the UAE and the Gulf as a whole, especially after Washington’s transfer of a large part of its military forces and equipment to Asia without taking into an account the security of the Gulf region. “Our relationship with the US is like any relationship,” Otaiba told the International Defence Industry, Technology and Security Conference in Abu Dhabi.
“It has strong days where the relationship is very healthy and days where the relationship is under question. “Today, we’re going through a stress test, but I’m confident that we will get out of it and we will get to a better place,” Otaiba added. The Arab Gulf state has been a strategic partner to Washington for decades, but its economic and political ties with Russia are growing as part of a self-confident diversification strategy and a more assertive diplomatic posture. The UAE, which currently holds the UN Security Council presidency, on Friday abstained from voting on a US-Albanian draft resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But on Wednesday it voted in the UN General Assembly in favour of a resolution slamming the Russian military incursion. The UN Security Council voted this week to extend an arms embargo to all of Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Otaiba hinted that the US is missing the bigger picture of the UAE's progress in recent years. He said the UAE's focus has shifted to “partnering” with big countries in areas such as defence and technology, rather than just “buying”. “I think it’s fair to say that ten, 20 years ago, the UAE was considered or viewed as a traditional buyer of advanced technology,” he said. “Today, in 2022, I think that framework is not still the same. I think today we are more of a developer ... We're not interested in just buying. We’re interested in partnering.”The Gulf state has also shown no interest in increasing oil production after prices were sent sky-rocketing by the Russian invasion, saying it remains committed to the OPEC+ alliance, which is led by Saudi Arabia and Russia and controls output levels. In December, the UAE threatened to scrap its mega-purchase of US F-35 fighter jets, protesting stringent conditions set by Washington over concerns about China.President Joe Biden, who was Obama's vice-president, softened the US on stance on the Houthis as it de-listed the Iran-backed group as a terrorist group. He also reopened negotiations with Iran, long involved in creating regional chaos and instability.

Canada/G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting Statement
March 4, 2022 – Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
Statement from the Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, and the High Representative of the European Union:
We, the G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, and the High Representative of the European Union reiterate our profound condemnation of Russia’s unprovoked and unjustifiable war of choice against Ukraine, enabled by the Belarussian government.
Russia must immediately stop its ongoing assault against Ukraine, which has dramatically impacted the civilian population and destroyed civilian infrastructure, and immediately withdraw Russia’s military forces. With its further aggression, President Putin has isolated Russia in the world, as evidenced by the overwhelming vote at the United Nations General Assembly condemning Russia’s aggression and calling upon it to withdraw its forces immediately.
We express our heart-felt solidarity with the Ukrainian people and our sympathy with the victims of this war and their families. We underline our unwavering support for Ukraine, its freely-elected government and its brave people at this most difficult time, and express our readiness to assist them further.
We condemn the Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals. We call on Russia to uphold its obligation to fully respect international humanitarian law and human rights law. Ukrainian and UN humanitarian agencies, medical personnel, and non-governmental assistance providers must be given safe, rapid and unimpeded access to people in need immediately throughout the entire territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders. We acknowledge the announcement of an arrangement on humanitarian access as an important first step. This will need to be implemented reliably and swiftly. We commit to increasing humanitarian support, as the needs of the Ukrainian people grow due to Russia’s aggression. We urge Russia to stop its attacks especially in the direct vicinity of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. Any armed attack on and threat against nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful purposes constitutes a violation of the principles of international law. We support the initiative of IAEA Director General Grossi announced today for an agreement between Ukraine and Russia to ensure the safety and security of nuclear facilities in Ukraine.
We are deeply concerned with the catastrophic humanitarian toll taken by Russia’s continuing strikes against the civilian population of Ukraine’s cities. We reemphasize that indiscriminate attacks are prohibited by international humanitarian law. We will hold accountable those responsible for war crimes, including indiscriminate use of weapons against civilians, and we welcome the ongoing work to investigate and gather evidence, including by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Russia’s blatant violation of the fundamental principles of international peace and security and the breach of international law have not gone unanswered. We have imposed several rounds of far-reaching economic and financial sanctions. We will continue to impose further severe sanctions in response to Russian aggression, enabled by the Lukashenka regime in Belarus.
We wish to make clear to the Russian and Belarusian people that the severe sanctions imposed on Russia and Belarus are a consequence of and clear reaction to President Putin’s unprovoked and unjustifiable war against Ukraine. President Putin, and his government and supporters, and the Lukashenka regime, bear full responsibility for the economic and social consequences of these sanctions.
We condemn the widespread use of disinformation by the Russian Government and its affiliated media and proxies to support its military aggression against Ukraine. Their steady stream of fabricated claims is putting additional lives at risk. We commit to countering Russia’s disinformation campaign.
We reaffirm our support and commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders, extending to its territorial waters. We underline that any purported change of status achieved by Russia’s renewed aggression will not be recognized.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 04-05/2022
إيمانويل أوتولينغي: استرضاء إيران والقبول بأطماعها لن يكون أكثر نجاحاً من استرضاء بوتين والرضوخ لأطماعه
Accommodating Iran Will Be No More Successful Than Accommodating Russia
Emanuele Ottolenghi/The Tablet/March 04/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/106754/emanuele-ottolenghi-the-tablet-accommodating-iran-will-be-no-more-successful-than-accommodating-russia-%d8%a5%d9%8a%d9%85%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%88%d9%8a%d9%84-%d8%a3%d9%88%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%84%d9%8a%d9%86%d8%ba/
Putin’s horrifying war in Ukraine shows the likely results of the West continuing to ignore Iran’s nuclear quest
Vladimir Putin has opened the gates of hell by invading Ukraine at the end of his 23-year journey to destroy Europe’s post-Cold War security architecture and reestablish Russia’s lost imperial glory. As the civilized world confronts a threat that we should have seen coming at us from the moment, more than 20 years ago, when Putin turned Grozny into Stalingrad and got away with it, our response is constrained by the fact that Putin’s Russia has a formidable nuclear arsenal, which the Russian tyrant has proclaimed himself willing to use. The shocking and horrifying scenes we witness on our television screens—and our inability to do anything about them—should be foremost in the minds of Western leaders as they blindly embrace a new nuclear deal with Tehran.
We should know better. Like Putin’s Russia, the Islamic Republic is a non-status quo power whose actions are driven more than anything else by ideology. Sooner or later, a revolutionary power aims to export its revolution, both as an instrument of radical change and as a tool to establish its hegemonic rule. In an article titled “A Powder Keg Named Islam,” published in Italy’s daily Corriere della Sera on Feb. 13, 1979, a few days after the Islamic Revolution’s founder, the late Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, returned to Iran from his Paris exile, the French philosopher Michel Foucault wrote that,
Maybe [its] historical significance will be found, not in its conformity to a recognized “revolutionary” model, but instead in its potential to overturn the existing political situation in the Middle East and thus the global strategic equilibrium. Its singularity, which has up to now constituted its force, consequently, threatens to give it the power to expand. Thus, it is true that as an “Islamic” movement, it can set the entire region afire, overturn the most unstable regimes, and disturb the most solid ones. Islam—which is not simply a religion, but an entire way of life, an adherence to a history and a civilization—risks becoming a gigantic powder keg, at the level of hundreds of millions of men. Since yesterday, any Muslim state can be revolutionized from the inside, based on its time-honored traditions.
At the time, at least, Foucault was a fan of Iran’s revolution. But he was not wrong.
The ayatollahs’ Iran aspires to reassert Shiite predominance over the Sunni world, much like Putin’s Russia seeks to resuscitate the czarist empire. Iranian mullahs hope to become the beacon of Islam beyond the region, much like Putin dreams of a pan-Slavic awakening; to emerge as leader of the oppressed of the earth, much like Russia seeks to undermine Western global dominance; and to persuade the downtrodden to embrace Khomeini’s vision as a banner of resistance against the Western-dominated international order, much like Putin appeals to Christianity, anti-capitalism, and anti-wokeness in his battle against America’s “Empire of Lies.”
Yet even after Putin upended all our illusions about resetting relations with Moscow and solving disputes amicably; even after he unleashed an unprovoked war of aggression against a defenseless neighbor; even after he has green-lighted the rape of cities and the wanton destruction of an entire nation; Washington’s Iran policy debate remains focused on the misguided belief—which the Biden administration shares with its Democratic predecessors—that well-placed safeguards (which the JCPOA is lacking in any case) in exchange for economic dividends will not only constrain Iran’s nuclear quest but also potentially change Iran’s behavior. We tell ourselves that Iran is not Russia. It does not need to be, to aspire to a greatness that will upend our world.
Yet our policy is still guided by the basic cost-benefit analysis that premised every sanctions regime adopted in the past and which also guided the West’s Russia policy since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet bloc: Faced with increasing isolation, costs, and damages to their economies, adversaries will barter the imagined rewards of bad behavior for economic opportunities. Even when they act irrationally—at least by the standards of Western, 21st-century rationality—we mistake their madness for a ruse, which we can defang through a calculated mixture of blandishments and punishments. We tried the same combination of carrots and sticks with Mussolini in Ethiopia and Hitler in Munich. Hollywood notwithstanding, it has never worked, because what ultimately motivates Tehran (and Moscow) is not rational calculations of national self-interest, as Barack Obama insisted back in 2015, but a burning desire to spread its revolutionary ideology and a determination to tirelessly wage a battle of ideas to undermine and destroy the Western rules-based international liberal order. The addition of nuclear power status ensures that existing constraints on those ambitions, however feeble, will wither away.
The Iranian regime as a whole may not be wedded to the kind of apocalyptic politics that the rhetoric of some of its leaders frequently suggests—but Iran remains, at heart, a revolutionary power driven by an ideology that successfully blends Persian nationalism, Shiite revivalism, Third World-ism, and revolutionary Marxist-Leninist theories. The revolution’s devastating potential always derived from the explosive combination of the subversive with the divine. The desire to push this agenda more aggressively and more successfully is what drives its quest for nuclear weapons.
The fact that Iran lacks the might of, say, the former Soviet Union in its revolutionary pursuit, does not make its efforts laughable or its position more vulnerable to pressure. It is what motivates Iran to acquire a nuclear weapons capability, no matter what sacrifices that effort entails. A nuclear arsenal, or even the prestige derived from becoming a nuclear threshold state after prolonged and successful defiance of Western economic pressure, is a force multiplier we underestimate at our own peril. Allowing Tehran to acquire this capability, which the JCPOA is designed to allow under U.S. protection, is the diplomatic equivalent of flicking a lit cigarette into dry brush.
That contemporary Iran is a revolutionary power whose decision-makers are virtually impervious to pressure should be obvious by now. Forty-three years after the overthrow of the shah and the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Tehran continues to invest considerable resources, even under extreme economic duress, to export its revolution to every corner of the globe. The financial and military undertakings required to save the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, enhance Hezbollah’s hegemony in Lebanon, and proliferate pro-Iran Shiite militias that fan the flames of violence from Yemen to Iraq, are only the most newsworthy, expensive, and nearby examples of how Iran prioritizes exporting its revolution abroad over public welfare at home.
Iran shares no border or personal territorial disputes with Israel, but it does nurse a pathological obsession with destroying it, which it cultivates through its support for Palestinian Islamists, worldwide terror plots against Jews, and relentless diplomatic pressure. Iran also bears considerable costs to sustain far-flung alliances (see: Venezuela) that yield little financial benefit and bring no domestic dividends. And then there’s Iran’s worldwide outreach to win acolytes through missionary work—a fool’s errand perhaps, but one Iran pursues with economic profligacy. Liberal democracies might view all this as the irresponsible squandering of precious national resources; Iran considers it a sacred duty.
That the cost-benefit analysis spurred by sanctions isn’t panning out the way it did with, say, apartheid South Africa, should also be obvious by now. Iran is not acting like an insolvent debtor trying to restore its credibility, but like an unrepentant thief who prefers to constantly improve its ability to crack ever more sophisticated security systems. With the example of Putin’s Russia before its eyes, the Biden administration needs to radically rethink America’s long game vis-à-vis Iran.
It is entirely reasonable to assume that Iran is seeking the protection that nuclear weapons clearly provide Russia to impose its will on its neighborhood—and to do so with impunity. And the new world that Iran seeks to create will be dominated by Tehran: It will be characterized by fierce competition with the United States for hegemony over the Persian Gulf and by efforts to cement alliances to confront Iran’s ideological and geopolitical antagonists in Riyadh, Ankara, Jerusalem, and Cairo. This will apply to a range of issues, including Iran’s all-consuming hostility to the existence of Israel or to any political accommodation with it.
But it will hardly stop at the Jewish state. Emboldened by its nuclear breakout, Iran’s revolutionary leadership will seek to cement partnerships and dependencies and establish its dominance far beyond the Middle East, using a new power and prestige to turn the tables on Western powers. The consequences will be severe, and the possibility for conflict far deadlier than what we are seeing in Ukraine can hardly be excluded.
Tehran makes no secret of its aspiration to become the node for all anti-Western and anti-global movements. Today’s Iran dreams of transforming itself into a Soviet Union redux, racing to the aid of anti-Western revolutionaries. Tomorrow’s nuclear Iran will be able to fulfill that dream. It will back a network of radical, violent groups that will rush to Tehran in search for a powerful patron. Tehran will then be only a small step away from becoming as potent a sponsor of subversion throughout the world as Putin’s Russia.
This scenario is not as far-fetched as it might appear. Iran already has important friends in Europe and stirs up revolutionary fantasies among hardcore Western Marxists. Links between Europe’s far left and Iran’s brand of radical Islam are well-established. Their mutual loathing for Western capitalism and democracy trumps differences they might have on issues like gender and homosexuality. At the opposite end of the political spectrum, expressions of sympathy and support for Iran are also evident among the far right, especially since the beginning of the civil war in Syria, which spurred numerous far-right organizations in Europe to idolize Russia, Hezbollah, and Iran as supposed defenders of Christian minorities and bulwarks against Sunni Salafists. Iran has since cultivated this image through foreign propaganda channels.
Nor would an emboldened, nuclear-capable Iran not stop at supporting anti-global political forces on the extremes of our political systems. It would consolidate an already existing international coalition of states that share Iran’s ideological antagonism toward the West. Iran’s alliances with Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba in Latin America have strengthened over the past decade. Whenever elections flip pro-Western governments across the developing world, Iran will have an easier time offering itself as their paladin—investing in their economies, topping up the bank accounts of compliant leaders, training and supplying their armies, and providing political support in international forums. Russia and China will be more than happy to use Iran as a hammer to strike at Western interests and security arrangements that interfere with their own ambitions.
As we watch Putin’s Russia destroy Ukraine, we should realize we are about to cross a similar threshold with Iran.
*Emanuele Ottolenghi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan research institute in Washington, D.C. devoted to foreign policy and national security. Follow him on Twitter @eottolenghi.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/accommodating-iran-will-be-no-more-successful-than-accommodating-russia

Iran Approaches the Nuclear Threshold/Washington’s Narrowing Policy Options
Andrea Stricker and Anthony Ruggiero/Memo/March 04/2022
The clerical regime in Iran is approaching the point at which no outside power could prevent it from building nuclear weapons. Iran would then be a nuclear threshold state. As Tehran approaches that threshold, the United States will face an increasingly difficult choice between allowing the regime to cross over it or taking assertive measures — including potential military strikes — to stop Iran from going nuclear.
In an effort to revive a watered-down version of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Biden administration has relaxed pressure on the Islamic Republic and fully committed itself to negotiations.1 Senior U.S. officials have criticized Iranian negotiators for obstructionism and delay, but the administration does not acknowledge that by drawing out the talks, Tehran can position itself to reach the nuclear threshold.2 At present, if the regime decides to make its first nuclear weapon, it may need as little as three weeks to produce enough fissile material.3
This memorandum documents the acceleration of Tehran’s nuclear program since Joe Biden’s election.4 The clerical regime understands that it can provoke the United States at minimal cost, since Biden is committed to a conciliatory policy that relies on goodwill, not leverage, to advance negotiations. To reverse this dynamic, the United States and its European partners will have to discard the JCPOA framework and implement a full-spectrum pressure campaign that confronts Tehran with the prospect of bankruptcy and isolation unless it relinquishes all pathways to a nuclear weapons capability.
Defining Threshold Status
To reach the nuclear threshold, a state requires fissile material and the ability to weaponize it. In addition, a threshold state must be able to dash to nuclear weapons quickly enough that foreign powers would not be able to disrupt its breakout efforts.5
The Islamic Republic has already enriched enough uranium that it could produce weapons-grade uranium (WGU) for at least four bombs. The short dash to producing WGU shows that Tehran has overcome the most difficult challenge that faces an aspiring threshold state. If Iran decided to produce WGU, the clerical regime would likely need additional time to build a functional warhead, but the technical challenges are not prohibitive given the regime’s past and possibly ongoing weaponization work. Iran is also expanding its ballistic missile program, which it could adapt for use as delivery vehicles.
Behavior and intentions often distinguish aspiring threshold states from latent powers. Several states, like Germany, Brazil, and the Netherlands, produce fissile material and could launch a nuclear weapons program, but have chosen instead to adhere firmly to their non-proliferation commitments. Scholars refer to this group as latent nuclear states.6 Tehran, by contrast, has pursued clandestine enrichment and weaponization programs, indicating a lack of peaceful intent.7 The Iranian program is also the subject of an ongoing investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which Tehran persistently obstructs.
Iran is currently the only state actively advancing toward threshold status.8 The IAEA has investigated Tehran’s nuclear activities since 2002 but has never been able to assure the international community of the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran. The Islamic Republic had a nuclear weapons program known as the Amad Plan until 2003, after which the clerical regime planned to downsize and disperse parts of the program to better camouflage it.9 Tehran likely continued weaponization activities at both civilian and military institutions. The entity reportedly in charge of such efforts is the U.S.-sanctioned Organization of Defense Innovation and Research, whose Persian acronym is SPND.10 Given the regime’s obstruction of IAEA inspections, it is not known how close Iran has come to weaponization.
Determining the point at which a state reaches the threshold is not a purely technical exercise, since it also depends on the intent of a government — specifically, whether it has decided to pursue a weapons program or whether ambiguity offers the government better advantages. Another factor is the defensive measures in place to protect the program and the offensive capabilities of those who wish to disrupt it. U.S. military leaders have expressed readiness to destroy the clerical regime’s nuclear capabilities if the president directed them to do so, but the estimated time necessary to carry out such a mission remains classified.11
Additional uncertainty stems from the potential for incomplete intelligence reporting about a potential decision by Tehran to pursue a breakout. States may gather information indicating that Iran has begun producing WGU, yet the intelligence may be vague or unreliable overall, including key details about timing and the facilities that Tehran would use. In such a scenario, Iran may restrict IAEA monitoring or delay IAEA access to declared nuclear sites in order to divert fissile material for further enrichment at a clandestine plant. The regime could also pursue enrichment and weaponization at highly fortified military sites. For example, it could make WGU at its underground Fordow enrichment plant.
The JCPOA: Iran’s Patient Pathway to the Nuclear Threshold
The imperative of keeping Tehran away from the nuclear threshold drove the Obama administration’s negotiation of the JCPOA, even though the administration’s efforts were ultimately insufficient. U.S. negotiators sought to ensure that Iran would remain at least 12 months away from producing enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon. Independent calculations put Iran’s breakout time under the JCPOA closer to seven months.12 Yet even this achievement would be temporary; the scheduled expiration (or “sunset”) of the JCPOA’s key restrictions would eventually bring Tehran’s breakout time close to zero.
Details aside, the JCPOA legitimized Iran’s advance toward the nuclear threshold despite the regime’s extensive record of illicit nuclear activities. Previously, there had been an international consensus enshrined in UN Security Council resolutions that Iran should stop enriching uranium completely.13 The JCPOA not only allowed the Islamic Republic to maintain an enrichment program with a breakout time of 12 months or less, but also paved the way toward a breakout time of zero, since restrictions on enrichment would gradually phase out from 2024 to 2031. Nor did the JCPOA prohibit Iran from carrying out research and development on advanced centrifuges, stockpiling materiel and equipment for advanced machine production, and, in 2027, enriching uranium in large numbers of advanced centrifuges.14
Under the terms of the JCPOA, Iran could also manufacture up to 2,400 of its fastest advanced centrifuges — the IR-6 and IR-8 — by 2029. In 2025, the “snapback” mechanism that permits JCPOA member states to reimpose prior UN Security Council sanctions on Iran is slated to terminate; Iran would be freed from international oversight of its nuclear-related imports. All told, the nuclear accord ensures that by 2031, when the last of its sunsets takes effect, Iran would have a massive enrichment capability and an unstoppable ability to break out of its nonproliferation commitments or even sneak out by using nuclear assets at covert facilities, undetected by international monitors.15
The JCPOA prohibited weaponization activities, but the deal’s weak monitoring and verification provisions made this irrelevant. The Islamic Republic insisted it would never allow inspections of its military facilities, regardless of what the deal stated. Neither the IAEA nor other parties to the deal challenged this assertion. The Obama administration and its JCPOA partners also quashed the IAEA’s ongoing investigation of Tehran’s previous nuclear weapons activities. The deal even left intact the fortified underground enrichment facility at Fordow, designed to protect Iran’s nuclear program during a potential dash toward the threshold and beyond. Under the JCPOA, Tehran’s economic and military power was set to grow in the absence of sanctions, further adding to the difficulty of keeping it away from the nuclear threshold.
Iran’s Muted Response to Trump, Escalation of Pressure on Biden
In May 2018, citing, among other objections, the JCPOA’s failure to stop Iran’s nuclear research and development, President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal. Tehran responded with graduated, incremental nuclear advances.16 In May 2019, the regime announced a plan to incrementally surpass JCPOA limits on a range of nuclear activities, with new advances every 90 days. The clerical regime began installing more and different types of centrifuges than permitted by the JCPOA, gradually increased its stockpile of low-enriched uranium, and increased uranium enrichment to 4.5 percent purity — exceeding the deal’s cap of 3.67 percent. These incremental steps continued through the U.S. presidential election in November 2020.17
The regime likely refrained from major advances to preserve the option of reviving the nuclear deal under a future administration. Tehran may also have wanted to avoid provoking a crisis during Trump’s tenure, given his unpredictability and his readiness to impose harsh economic sanctions.18 The value of patience also became clear when Biden pledged as a presidential candidate to reverse Trump’s Iran policy, which Biden characterized as a “dangerous failure.” Instead, Biden proposed that both Washington and Tehran return to the JCPOA, a move that would yield relief for Tehran from the most punishing U.S. sanctions.19
The clerical regime began testing Biden even before he formally took office. In January 2021, Iran began enriching uranium to 20 percent purity at the Fordow enrichment plant. Enrichment to 20 percent requires 90 percent of the effort to reach weapons-grade purity. In February, Tehran began producing uranium metal, a material used in the cores of nuclear weapons. That same month, the Islamic Republic stopped implementing the IAEA’s Additional Protocol (AP), a set of enhanced verification measures integral to the agency’s monitoring of nuclear programs. Tehran had agreed to implement the AP as part of the JCPOA. The regime also halted most JCPOA monitoring measures. In April, Iran started enriching uranium to the highest level ever achieved by the regime: 60 percent. This level constitutes 99 percent of the effort necessary to produce WGU.20
These unmistakable moves toward a nuclear weapons capability should have provoked a strong reaction from the Biden administration and the IAEA’s Board of Governors, which has responsibility for holding member states accountable to their nuclear nonproliferation obligations. The United States and its key allies hold seats on the board. Yet the Biden administration made sure the board would not punish or even censure Iran at any of its quarterly meetings in 2021.21 Tehran saw that it could advance with impunity toward threshold status.
In November 2021, the Institute for Science and International Security assessed that following a decision to produce enough WGU for one nuclear weapon, Iran could do so within three weeks by further enriching — using currently operating centrifuges — its stockpile of near-20 percent and 60 percent enriched uranium. Within three-and-a-half months, the institute found, Iran could produce enough material for three weapons, and after six months, it would have enough WGU for a fourth.22 By prolonging negotiations in Vienna, the Islamic Republic brought its breakout time close to zero while earning billions of dollars from oil exports thanks to Biden’s relaxation of sanctions as a goodwill gesture.
The U.S. negotiating team now acknowledges that restoring the JCPOA’s breakout time of 7-12 months is no longer feasible, given Iran’s advances.23 Washington reportedly estimates a breakout time of six-to-nine months under a revived accord, while Israel’s estimate is reportedly four-to-six months.24 These lower estimates are likely based on Tehran’s production and operation of hundreds of advanced centrifuge machines in violation of the JCPOA.25
Tehran reportedly refuses to destroy these advanced centrifuges as part of a new agreement, instead proposing their retention in storage, from which the regime could remove them at any time. If the Biden administration accepts that demand as part of its bid to revive a watered-down JCPOA, the administration would solidify a shorter breakout time for Tehran. This timeline could shorten further as Iran, per the JCPOA’s terms, manufactures and operates additional advanced centrifuges.26
In fact, the administration’s reason for not demanding that Iran destroy advanced centrifuges likely stems from the fact that the JCPOA permits their redeployment in just a few years. Moreover, because of Iran’s reduction of the IAEA’s monitoring, the Biden administration cannot assert with confidence that Tehran does not have clandestine stockpiles of advanced centrifuges that it could deploy to a covert enrichment facility. With its deficient monitoring and verification protocols, the JCPOA or an even weaker version is unlikely to facilitate the IAEA’s detection of such activity.
Becoming a nuclear threshold state requires weaponization capabilities in addition to fissile material. Iran’s stonewalling of the IAEA has ensured there are no reliable estimates of its weaponization timeline. David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security calculates that Tehran could explode its first crude nuclear test device within six months.27 The Islamic Republic has also continued to develop potentially nuclear-capable missiles, since the JCPOA imposes no restrictions on its missile program. According to Israeli estimates, Iran may be able to field a missile-deliverable nuclear weapon in one to two years.28
Policy Recommendations
Policy options narrow considerably when responding to a state that is advancing rapidly toward the nuclear threshold. Only senior officials in the U.S. government know how much time the Pentagon needs to prepare and carry out sufficient military strikes to prevent Iran from successfully sprinting toward a nuclear weapon. If the Islamic Republic chooses to move closer to threshold status — or dash to nuclear weapons — there would likely be substantial uncertainty surrounding its precise intentions and activities. In such a scenario, Tehran may not withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a move that could solidify Western resolve against the regime. Amid this uncertainty, President Biden might have to choose between carrying out military strikes based on incomplete or conflicting information or acquiescing to Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. It would be preferable to keep Tehran far away from the threshold so that an American president never reaches this wrenching decision point.
The Israeli response to the Vienna negotiations is revealing, given Tehran’s professed interest in destroying the Jewish state. Jerusalem has at least as strong an interest as Washington has in extending Iran’s nuclear breakout timeline. Yet even as Tehran approaches the nuclear threshold, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett reportedly told President Biden in February that Israel prefers a no-deal scenario and a campaign of multilateral pressure on Tehran.29 Bennett almost certainly wants to avoid a rift in U.S.-Israel relations like the one that emerged in 2015 when Israel opposed the JCPOA.30 Yet Bennett would still reject a deal that temporarily increased Iran’s breakout time, only to let it approach zero once again after a few years, which would be all but inevitable with the deal’s expiring provisions.31
The flawed premise of the JCPOA and of the Biden administration’s Iran policy is that Iran can both keep its uranium enrichment program — which the JCPOA allows to expand again starting in 2024 and to grow substantially from 2027 to 2031 — and be kept away from the nuclear weapons threshold.32 Instead of pursuing a defective and temporary accord, the United States should seek to restore the international consensus — embodied in successive UN Security Council resolutions from 2006 to 2010 — that the world cannot trust the Islamic Republic with an enrichment program.33 The regime’s relentless stonewalling of IAEA investigations demonstrates its bad faith. Furthermore, an energy-rich country like Iran has no economic need for an enrichment program. The purpose of Iran’s enrichment program has always been to build nuclear weapons.34
If and when the United States and the E3 (Britain, France, and Germany) recognize the need for a fundamental rethinking of their Iran policy, they should relaunch the kind of comprehensive economic, financial, and political pressure campaign that forced Iran back to the negotiating table during Barack Obama’s tenure. This time, however, the campaign should persist until Tehran accepts the dismantling of its enrichment program and related measures to permanently cut off all pathways to a nuclear weapon. The Iranian economy has begun a tentative recovery thanks to Biden’s relaxation of sanctions, but it remains vulnerable after a deep multi-year recession.35 The United States and the E3 should invite Russia and China to support their efforts, but only if they accept the premise of a permanent end to the Iranian nuclear threat and do not act as spoilers.
Even without Russian and Chinese support, the United States and the E3 can restore prior UN sanctions by invoking the snapback clause of UN Security Council Resolution 2231. Doing so would also restore all prior UN resolutions against Iran, which codify the principle of zero enrichment. Restoring multilateral sanctions would present Russia and China with a fait accompli regarding sanctions enforcement and provide a basis for further action by the United States and E3 to penalize non-compliance.
Congress can play an important role in encouraging the Biden administration to support a renewed pressure campaign. From 2009 through 2012, a bipartisan coalition in Congress played an indispensable role in creating the statutory framework for the pressure campaign that forced Iran back to the negotiating table. If there is renewed bipartisanship, Congress can prove similarly effective once again.
The most potent tool currently at the disposal of Congress is the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, or INARA, which gives Congress statutory review authority over any deal. Specifically, INARA requires the president to submit to Congress within five days any agreement with Iran and “all related materials and annexes.” There is then a 90-day review period during which the House and Senate hold hearings on the agreement and then debate it.36 Finally, INARA ensures a vote on whether to lift sanctions. Since the president can veto a resolution prohibiting him from lifting sanctions, a two-thirds majority in both chambers can block a deal. Thus, bipartisanship is essential. Even so, significant opposition sends a clear message to Tehran that a deal may last only as long as Biden remains in the White House.37 If the administration prefers an enduring agreement, it should stop relying on a partisan minority and submit a stronger accord to the Senate for ratification as a formal treaty. Ratification by the Senate would necessitate a bipartisan consensus on the merits of an accord and render it far less susceptible to cancellation by the next president.
Finally, the United States should continue — on its own and together with Israel — to increase the credible threat of military action should Iran move closer to the nuclear threshold or sprint to nuclear weapons. Specifically, Washington and Jerusalem should continue U.S.-Israeli military exercises practicing the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities.38 The United States and Israel should also consider actions short of military strikes, such as cyber-attacks and sabotage of nuclear or nuclear-related sites, to delay the Islamic Republic’s progress and remind the regime that its malign activity will not come without cost.
Still, it would be far better to avoid the risk war of war by discarding the JCPOA framework and implementing a comprehensive pressure campaign that confronts Tehran with the prospect of bankruptcy and isolation unless it dismantles its enrichment program. The Biden administration should take all related measures necessary to ensure that the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism can never reach the nuclear weapons threshold.

Erdogan’s Balancing Act Between Russia and Ukraine
Aykan Erdemir/The Globalist/March 04/2022
Turkey’s strongman leader has expressed support for the besieged country. He has also joined Putin’s assault on the Western media.
One day after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the West for “for being late in offering its concrete support” to Kyiv. “The EU and all the rest of the West have failed to display a decisive and serious stance,” he said. Since then, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union have introduced sweeping sanctions against Russia and provided weapons to Ukraine.
Erdogan on the fence
Yet Erdogan has not taken any punitive action against Moscow, and only provided humanitarian aid to Kyiv. But Ankara joined Moscow’s crackdown on Western media outlets, the latest episode of his balancing act designed to preserve his ties to both sides.
Hostile strongmen
Erdogan has drawn closer to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, since surviving an attempted coup in 2016. The two strongmen share an ideological hostility to the West and a common interest in ensuring their own impunity amid Western efforts to counter illicit finance and human rights violations.
Reckless policies
Meanwhile, Ukraine has emerged as Ankara’s leading defense industry partner in aviation and engine technologies. The Turkish government intensified its efforts to find alternative suppliers following a long list of arms export restrictions by Western governments worried about Turkey’s reckless policies at home and abroad, including its purchase of the S-400 air defense system from Russia.
Drones for Ukraine
Turkey’s turn to Ukraine to skirt Western defense restrictions, however, has complicated Erdogan’s relationship with Putin. Since 2019, Turkey’s Baykar defense company exported over a dozen armed drones to Ukraine and took steps for joint production in the country, drawing Moscow’s ire. Kyiv has already used these drones to strike Russian targets and praised them publicly. Erdogan stays mum on the role of these drones produced by his son-in-law’s company. Turkey’s deputy foreign minister stressed on March 3 that these drones do not constitute Ankara’s military aid to Ukraine and added, “these are products Ukraine purchased from a private Turkish company.”
Erdogan continues his balancing act by reiterating that he can neither abandon Russia nor Ukraine.
Ankara aiding the Kremlin
The Erdogan government continues to oppose sanctions against Russia, just as it challenged sanctions against Iran and Venezuela. Ankara also aided the Kremlin by abstaining in the Council of Europe’s February 25 vote to suspend Russia. Following the strong global reaction to Russia’s invasion, Turkey started to correct course. It joined 140 other countries on March 2 in condemning Moscow at the UN General Assembly.
Delayed response
The Turkish airspace is one of the last NATO airspaces that remains open to Russia. It took Ankara three days following Ukraine’s request to recognize that Russia’s invasion constitutes war. A day later it started implementing the 1936 Montreux Convention which restricts the passage of warships through the Turkish Straits a day later. Ironically, Ankara’s restrictions target not only the warships of the belligerent parties, Russia and Ukraine, under Article 19, but all warships, apparently under Article 21. This would also block U.S. and NATO warships from entering the Black Sea. Furthermore, Russian and Ukrainian warships returning from their Black Sea ports still retain their rights of passage.
Turkey’s spoiler role
Erdogan’s fence-sitting in Ukraine is in line with his previous enabling of Russia by playing a spoiler role within NATO. Ankara reportedly watered down the wording of NATO’s April 15, 2021 statement expressing solidarity with the United States following Russia’s cyberattacks on U.S. government agencies.
An emerging pattern
The Erdogan government did the same to NATO’s April 22, 2021 statement voicing concern over Russian military intelligence’s blowing up of ammunition storage depots in Czechia in 2014.
Ankara also blocked a NATO defense plan for Poland and the Baltic states for over six months until June 2020, prompting The New York Times to label Turkey “NATO’s ‘Elephant in the Room.”
Banning Western broadcasters
In the run up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Erdogan has also joined Putin’s assault on the Western media.
Turkey’s media regulator, RTUK, posted three official notifications on February 21 threatening to block Western broadcasters.
Deutsche Welle (DW), Euronews, and Voice of America (VOA), were reportedly banned unless they obtained internet broadcast licenses within 72 hours. Coming on the heels of Russia’s move to withdraw the press credentials of all DW staff and shutter the German public broadcaster’s Moscow studio, Ankara’s threat is facilitating the Kremlin’s campaign to silence Western media outlets.
Foreign media bans
RTUK’s move against these American, French, and German broadcasters marks the first time Turkey’s media regulator has targeted international media outlets using an authority created in 2019.
The media regulator used an authority the country’s Islamist-ultranationalist ruling coalition created with a 2019 regulation aimed at silencing critical online reporting. Russian and Chinese media exempt
Ankara has not made similar demands of either Russia’s public broadcaster Sputnik, whose Turkish service has thrived while pushing Kremlin propaganda. Beijing’s propaganda channel, China Radio International has also remained untouched.
Censorship pushback
Both DW and VOA pushed back against Ankara by declaring they will appeal RTUK’s threatened ban. Acting VOA Director Yolanda López said, “Voice of America’s independent journalism cannot be subject to this or any government’s control which results either in censorship or even the perception of it.”DW Director General Peter Limbourg warned that RTUK’s move “does not relate to formal aspects of broadcasting, but to the journalistic content itself.”He added that the 2019 regulation “gives the Turkish authorities the option to block the entire service based on individual, critical reports unless these reports are deleted. This would open up the possibility of censorship.”
Biden’s silence
In response to the Erdogan government’s targeting of Western broadcasters, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 23 tweeted, “A free and independent media is critical and must not be subjected to government control or censorship. Turkey has to respect and ensure freedom of expression.”The Biden administration, however, continued its radio silence over Turkey’s democratic backsliding and abysmal human rights record.
Erdogan’s impunity
If Erdogan knows that there will be no real consequences, he will persist with his plans to block Western media outlets. Their independent reporting continues to embarrass him and his fellow autocrat Putin.
Much needed consequences
If the Biden administration wants to fulfill its promise of a human rights-centered foreign policy, it needs to stand behind the U.S. public broadcaster VOA and other Western media outlets threatened by autocratic regimes. The European Union should also stand behind these outlets by warning Erdogan that there will be consequences for such hostile action.
Conclusion
As for Erdogan — if he wants to prove the veracity of his statements of support for Ukraine — the least he can do is to allow Western broadcasters to continue to reach Turkish audiences unhindered so that they can push back against the propaganda spouted by Russia’s and China’s Turkish services.
The Ukraine war is a unique opportunity for Erdogan to correct course and position Turkey on the right side of history.
Erdogan appears to be becoming cognizant of the threat Putin’s irredentism poses to all of Russia’s neighbors. This is precisely the right moment to join forces with NATO allies and strengthen the alliance’s deterrence of the Kremlin.
Aykan Erdemir is a former member of the Turkish parliament and senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Follow him on Twitter @aykan_erdemir. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Ukraine Must Join the EU to Punish Russia
Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/March 04/2022
With clear signs that the West's strong and united response to Mr Putin's aggression is paying dividends, there is a strong and compelling argument for the West to maintain the pressure on Russia by any means possible.
One option to increase Moscow's isolation further, for example, would be to expand membership of Western institutions such as the European Union and the Nato alliance to countries like Ukraine, a move that would guarantee their removal from Moscow's sphere of influence.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has already stated unequivocally that Ukraine should ultimately become an EU member state, declaring, "They are one of us and we want them in."
An excellent source of gas would be the EastMed pipeline project, which could provide energy to Europe from allies Cyprus and Israel, via Greece, and should be built without delay. US President Joe Biden recently killed it, as he has so far killed much of America's fossil fuel exploration, production and distribution -- policies economically and geopolitically crippling both to Americans and their allies in Europe.
The irony is that America, formerly energy independent, is currently importing 500,000 barrels of oil a day from Russia. At more than $100 a barrel, Biden, or rather Americans, are therefore providing Putin 50 million dollars a day to kill Ukrainians. When the United States recently asked OPEC to increase production to help lower prices in the US, they were told, "If you want more oil, pump it yourself."
Mr Putin, by invading Ukraine, has signalled no intention of abiding by the norms of international conduct. For its part, the West must respond by taking every measure to ensure Russia pays the heaviest price possible for its appalling conduct.
One option to increase Moscow's isolation further would be to expand membership of Western institutions such as the European Union and the Nato alliance to countries like Ukraine, a move that would guarantee their removal from Moscow's sphere of influence. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has stated unequivocally that Ukraine should ultimately become an EU member state, declaring, "They are one of us and we want them in." Pictured: Von der Leyen holds a news briefing with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev on October 12, 2021.
If any good is to come from Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, it is that the Western powers exploit the Kremlin's unprovoked act of aggression to further strengthen the cause of democratic freedom in Europe.
In many respects, Russia's brutal assault on Ukraine has acted as a salutary wake up call for Europe's liberal elites, who appeared more inclined to appease Moscow than stand up for Kyiv's democratic rights.
In the weeks immediately preceding last week's invasion, a number of prominent European leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, seemed perfectly willing to pacify Mr Putin by sacrificing Ukrainian sovereignty to Moscow.
Thankfully, their efforts ended in abject failure as the Russian leader, despite his repeated declarations that he had no intention of invading Ukraine, has caused the greatest crisis in European security witnessed since the creation of the Iron Curtain.
Consequently, not even Europe's most conflict averse countries, such as Germany, can maintain the fiction that Mr Putin does not impose a threat to global security. On the contrary, as Mr Scholz's address to the Bundestag at the weekend demonstrates, Germany has undergone a complete volte face in its approach to Russia, with Berlin committed to making a dramatic increase to its defense budget, while bringing decades of reliance on Russia for its energy needs to an end.
Nor should the dramatic changes taking place in the attitude of European leaders to Moscow end there. One of Mr Putin's greatest miscalculations in deciding to launch his invasion of Ukraine was that he would be able to exploit divisions within the Western alliance to achieve his aims. Events, however, since he launched the attack on February 24, show he was sorely mistaken. Any tensions that may have existed between European leaders over how to respond to Russian aggression, such as whether to exclude Moscow from the SWIFT payment system, were banished the moment Mr Putin went back on his word and launched the invasion. Instead, the West's response has been far larger, and demonstrating a far greater unity of purpose, than Moscow could ever have imagined, with the result that the rouble has lost almost 30 percent of its value, forcing Russia's central bank to raise its main borrowing rate from 9.5 percent to 20 percent. Nor does the misery end there. Action taken by the US Treasury, which has announced an immediate ban on transactions with Russia's central bank and new sanctions on the Russian Direct Investment Fund, means that the Kremlin's ability to access $630 billion in foreign reserves will be limited.
This represents a major blow to Mr Putin, who believed, as part of his planning for the Ukraine invasion, he had sanction-proofed the Russian economy by building up the country's foreign currency reserves. Instead, Moscow finds itself facing an economic calamity, and has been forced to impose draconian foreign currency restrictions, a move that is likely to prove highly unpopular with Russian voters, especially the cabal of wealthy oligarchs that Mr Putin depends upon to sustain his regime in power.
There have already been rumblings of discontent from several prominent oligarchs since the invasion began. Mikhail Fridman, one of Russia's richest men, has called for an end to the war, while the daughter of Roman Abramovich, another oligarch said to have close ties to the Kremlin, posted a message that appeared to criticise Mr Putin's invasion.
With clear signs that the West's strong and united response to Mr Putin's aggression is paying dividends, there is a strong and compelling argument for the West to maintain the pressure on Russia by any means possible.
One option to increase Moscow's isolation further, for example, would be to expand membership of Western institutions such as the European Union and the Nato alliance to countries like Ukraine, a move that would guarantee their removal from Moscow's sphere of influence.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has already stated unequivocally that Ukraine should ultimately become an EU member state, declaring, "They are one of us and we want them in."
Moreover, offers of EU membership should also be offered to countries, such as Serbia, Montenegro and Albania, which are vulnerable to Moscow's never-ending efforts to increase its sphere of influence. The West also needs to keep a wary eye on the likes of Moldova, Romania, Poland and the Baltic states, most of which are already members of Nato, but could also find themselves the target of Mr Putin's imperial ambitions.
Nor should the West's targeting of Russia's main financial institutions be confined to the country's banking sector.
To date, Russia's energy sector has managed to escape the worst effects of the sanctions, not least because Russia provides 40 percent of Europe's energy needs. But with countries like Germany, which previously backed the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline project (which this week filed for bankruptcy), realising their dependence on Russian energy must end, plans are actively under consideration to find alternative supplies for Europe's energy needs, with Brussels now pushing for Europe to develop extra storage capacity for liquefied natural gas, thereby ending its reliance on Russia.
An excellent source of gas would be the EastMed pipeline project, which could provide energy to Europe from allies Cyprus and Israel, via Greece, and should be built without delay. US President Joe Biden recently killed it, as he has so far killed much of America's fossil fuel exploration, production and distribution -- policies economically and geopolitically crippling both to Americans and their allies in Europe.
The irony is that America, formerly energy independent, is currently importing 500,000 barrels of oil a day from Russia. At more than $100 a barrel, Biden, or rather Americans, are therefore providing Putin 50 million dollars a day to kill Ukrainians. When the United States recently asked OPEC to increase production to help lower prices in the US, they were told, "If you want more oil, pump it yourself."
Mr Putin, by invading Ukraine, has signalled no intention of abiding by the norms of international conduct. For its part, the West must respond by taking every measure to ensure Russia pays the heaviest price possible for its appalling conduct.
*Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at 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.

Determined Leadership Everywhere but America: Open the Spigots, Open the EastMed Pipeline
Pete Hoekstra/Gatestone Institute/March 04/2022
Leadership starts at the top, and Zelenskyy's leadership -- even that of Europe -- stands in sharp contrast to the failed leadership coming from almost every corner of the Biden Administration.
The Biden Administration has been quick to join in on the sanctions and other measures targeting Russia, but note: Biden has joined, he has not led.
[T]he Biden Administration still refuses to reverse America's dependency on Russian oil and gas by increasing domestic production and opening pipelines at home. There also has been no move to close the gigantic loopholes that fail to sanction Russia's oil and energy sector...
Under Biden's leadership, we are experiencing policies that ask Americans to sacrifice and end up paying for Russia's aggression, rather than unleashing American ingenuity and creativity to meet the challenge.
Switzerland abandoned its famous neutrality to sanction Russia and freeze the legendary Swiss bank accounts of Russian oligarchs. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reversed course to close Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline, now in bankruptcy, to Germany, and to bolster the German military. Sweden and Finland are seriously considering reversing long-held positions, in order to join NATO. Meanwhile the Biden Administration remains stuck on its policy of American energy dependency, even pulling the plug on the crucial EastMed gas pipeline to Europe from America's allies, Israel, Cyprus and Greece. The EastMed pipeline should be built without delay.
Let us see to it that Ukraine does become the end of the line for Putin, who has already accumulated a long trail of war crimes and other atrocities. Putin's Waterloo. We have been imposing only half-hearted financial sanctions, "riddled with loopholes" and not hitting Russia's oil and gas. We have passively been watching Putin's savage assault on Ukraine in real time his countless war crimes -- including "pummeling civilian areas" and reportedly using cluster and vacuum bombs -- as well as the humanitarian crisis he has unleashed. Let us hope that Biden shows real leadership and changes course so that America will no longer be reliant on Russia and China, regardless of the outcome. Now that would be in the best interests of the United States.
Leadership starts at the top, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's leadership -- even that of Europe -- stands in sharp contrast to the failed leadership coming from almost every corner of the Biden Administration. Pictured: Zelenskyy meets with US President Joe Biden at the White House on September 1, 2021. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
At present, Ukraine's forces look out-gunned and outnumbered by Russia's military. If Russian President Vladimir Putin ultimately does succeed in overpowering Ukraine and its capital, Kyiv, let us make sure it is his Waterloo.
Boosted by the determined and pugnacious leadership shown by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, global reaction to Putin's invasion has been swift and hard on Russia. Sanctions on the Russian Central Bank and the restrictions on some Russian banks from the SWIFT banking transaction system have reduced the value of a Russian ruble to less than a penny while interest rates in Russia top 20%. The Russian stock market has been preemptively closed to prevent a crash, and Russian airlines are banned from flying over large swaths of the planet.
In a surprising move, Germany in an astounding reversal, put Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline on hold, and on March 1, its operator filed for bankruptcy and fired all its employees. In another impressive about-face, overturning decades of former policy, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that the country would increase military spending to meet NATO's defense spending requirement of 2% of GDP, and vastly increase its military capabilities. As a U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands, I had advocated both those moves.
When Putin started his military campaign, he surely did not see it unifying Europe and the West, bolstering NATO, and cratering the Russian economy.
The Biden Administration has been quick to join in on the sanctions and other measures targeting Russia, but note: Biden has joined, he has not led. It was, in fact, the Europeans who led on Nord Stream and restricting Russia's access to the SWIFT banking communications system. Europe and Canada have closed their airspace to Russian planes, yet American airspace remained open for days after that (only closing U.S. airspace as of last night). Germany reversed course on its military spending, yet the Biden Administration still refuses to reverse America's dependency on Russian oil and gas by increasing domestic production and opening pipelines at home. There also has been no move to close the gigantic loopholes that fail to sanction Russia's oil and energy sector, or to approve the EastMed pipeline that would diversify the supply of energy to Europe.
Ironically, as Americans are experiencing soaring gas prices at the pump, the U.S. is actually funding Russia's aggression in Ukraine by buying 500,000 barrels of oil per day from Russia. At $100 a barrel, that provides Putin with $50,000,000 a day to help him destroy Ukraine, possibly to be followed by Moldova, Lithuania, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia, Romania and Poland.
Rather than financing Putin's war, America should open America's Keystone XL pipeline and promote shale oil and gas production domestically. Conversely, the Biden administration, appears stuck on doubling down on its failed energy policies -- "OPEC Says to Biden: If You Want More Oil, Pump It Yourself"; the Green New Deal, where Americans are supposed to buy expensive electric vehicles that of course require of fossil fuels to manufacture, and "climate change."
It is telling of the Biden Administration's priorities that, as war rages, innocent civilians are massacred and the entire world order is being threatened by Russia, China and Iran. Regrettably, Biden's "esteemed" national security team also decided to share U.S. intelligence on Russia with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in hopes that the CCP would rally with West to deter Russian aggression. As former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, it is stunning to see that the intelligence community and the Biden national security team could even think this was a good idea.
Leadership starts at the top, and Zelenskyy's leadership -- even that of Europe -- stands in sharp contrast to the failed leadership coming from almost every corner of the Biden Administration. Under Biden's leadership, we are experiencing policies that ask Americans to sacrifice and end up paying for Russia's aggression, rather than unleashing American ingenuity and creativity to meet the challenge. As Ukrainian citizens risk their lives and die fighting to save their country, the Biden Administration is worrying about CO2. In its promotion of "green energy," we see the Biden administration embracing strategies that empower the Chinese Communist party, who control the rare earth minerals and solar panel production needed for "green energy."
Zelenskyy, who may end up paying with his life, evidently saw that he needed to provide bold leadership for his people in the face of a militarily superior foe. When the Biden team offered to help evacuate Zelenskyy from Kyiv, he responded, "I need ammunition, not a ride." Switzerland abandoned its famous neutrality to sanction Russia and freeze the legendary Swiss bank accounts of Russian oligarchs. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reversed course to close Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline, now in bankruptcy, to Germany, and to bolster the German military. Sweden and Finland are seriously considering reversing long-held positions, in order to join NATO. Meanwhile the Biden Administration remains stuck on its policy of American energy dependency, even pulling the plug on the crucial EastMed gas pipeline to Europe from America's allies, Israel, Cyprus and Greece. The EastMed pipeline should be built without delay.
Let us see to it that Ukraine does become the end of the line for Putin, who has already accumulated a long trail of war crimes and other atrocities. Putin's Waterloo. We have been imposing only half-hearted financial sanctions, "riddled with loopholes" and not hitting Russia's oil and gas. We have passively been watching Putin's savage assault on Ukraine in real time his countless war crimes -- including "pummeling civilian areas" and reportedly using cluster and vacuum bombs -- as well as the humanitarian crisis he has unleashed. Let us hope that Biden shows real leadership and changes course so that America will no longer be reliant on Russia and China, regardless of the outcome. Now that would be in the best interests of the United States.
*Peter Hoekstra was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration. He served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the second district of Michigan and served as Chairman and Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. He is currently Chairman of the Center for Security Policy Board of Advisors, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the 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.

What Kind of Cold War Awaits the World?
Akram Bunni/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 04/2022
It is not a hasty conclusion or a kind of simplification to consider Russia’s war on Ukraine to be a turning point for Russia’s relations with the West, creating a total rupture and replacing dialogue and cooperation with quiet hostility. In other words, those who thought the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall should follow the news… President Putin’s decision to put his nuclear deterrence forces on high alert days after declaring his war on Ukraine and sending his forces in from multiple axes to take control of the country. Unprecedented economic and financial sanctions were imposed on Russia; then came the decision to ban its airplanes from the Western skies and its ships from Western ports. Its sports teams and athletes were expelled from European and global sporting competitions, like European countries, the US, and Canada rushed to send the Ukrainians weapons to enable them to hold off the Russians and stand their ground, as well as opening the door to millions of Ukrainians.
All of that is reminiscent of the decades of the Cold War, which began after World WarII ended and finished with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union (1990). However, this version of the Cold War is different in that it lacks the ideological dimension that had been extremely strong in the previous struggle between the Liberal and Communist camps. The ruling elite in Moscow has abandoned Communism and become part of the capitalist world. This fact does not bear on the criticisms of its record on democracy and human rights, how it clamps down on the opposition, or use of force to impose its will. The camp facing NATO, led by China and Russia with Iran and Venezuela orbiting around them- after the Warsaw Pact collapsed- is also different. The utilization of financial and economic sanctions, as well as cyber warfare, also distinguishes this version. The most crucial distinction is the project President Vladimir Putin, who had been in power since 2000, harbors. The crux of this project is reviving the Soviet Union by enhancing Russia’s presence on the world stage, which manifested in his repeated attempts to expand his country’s influence and control outside its borders: Georgia in 2008, and Ukraine itself in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea and the imposition of the Minsk Agreement to pro-Russian forces in its East, Syria in 2015, and months ago, in Kazakhstan, where Putin sent troops to put down popular mobilizations.
True, the Kremlin is annoyed at having lost its role as a global power, and it is overwhelmed with desire to retrieve its old stature and position and is not happy to see the West dominate the world alone. It is true its biggest grievance stems from the approach that NATO has taken on its borders and the alliance’s ability to install missile defense systems in European countries that, until very recently, had been part of the Russian orbit.
However, it is also true that this leadership- which had been flexible in dealing with the West given their intertwined economic interests and seemed to shape its policies in accordance with diligently considered competition, choosing safe battles over shares of control and influence- wants to change the rules of the game today, expand the scope of the conflict, and push this competition to a higher level, perhaps to the maximum level.
Those are right who believe that Moscow would not have launched its war in Ukraine if it had not been for the steep decline in Washington’s role in the world (as its humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan made clear), as well as NATO’s fragility and the laxity and weakness of the European Union (which became more vulnerable after Britain’s exit). Also right are those who believe that the success of Russia’s military intervention in Syria has tempted the Russian leadership to resort to force to strengthen its influence and impose its terms.
However, does Russia really have the economic capacity to play its old role and occupy the position it had held as a global power? Is it right to restore the Soviet’s past through pure military force and the threat of nuclear weapons? To what extent can Moscow build its stature after its bet on severing ties between Europe and the US failed and its war on Ukraine reinforced solidarity among NATO members? Can the Kremlin leadership win in Ukraine? Or will it find itself in a position similar to that which it had been in when it invaded Afghanistan and even Syria, where it had the capacity to wage war and wreak havoc but not to rebuild? Moreover, how is it in the interest of the government in Moscow or its people to turn back on the strategy of coexistence and give up on the interdependence of Russian and Western economic and financial interests, which has developed over the past three decades? What fruits does it intend to reap from pushing its conflict with the West and the arms race to the end? This path has been tried for a long time and has yielded nothing but hindered development and the suffering of the Russian people.
Some tyrannical regimes began rubbing their hands with joy at the emergence of a Cold War atmosphere and the renewal of the rupture and the arms race, as well as the return of the logic of resorting to force or the threat of force to manage relations between peoples and states. At the forefront of these regimes is the one in Iran, which is still enchanted by violent and divisive rhetoric and seeks to revive the Persian Empire. Instead of addressing its exacerbating domestic crises- spurred by delusions that its Islamic Republic has the capacity to dominate the region and subjugate its states and peoples- it is deepening its military involvement in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
Regardless of the outcomes of Russia’s war on Ukraine, it will have deep implications for the European continent beyond the grave suffering and pain that the Russian and Ukrainian people will endure. It will affect the climate of the global conflict, unfairly imposing a new Cold War to revive the old world order that will have drastic implications for humanity as a whole, a world of empires and dominance, even if it is multipolar! A war much more dangerous than those that preceded it, and it raises the specter of slipping into a hot war that could squander everything humanity had accumulated over hundreds of years.
We don’t know if there is hope for using what is happening to make public opinion besiege this violence and unfettered selfishness and foster solidarity among the powers that share humanitarian values and have a real interest in a world without oppression or discrimination. We don’t know if they will seek to restructure the United Nations and the Security Council to preserve peace and coexistence instead of leaving a few countries with the power to veto, which goes against the principles of collective representation and decision-making.

The Impact of the Ukraine War on Turkey
Omer Onhon/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 04/2022
The world is watching in horror what Putin and his people still call a “special military operation” and what the vast majority of the world rightly calls military intervention and invasion of an independent and sovereign state. An extraordinary virtual summit of NATO Heads of State and Government Summit on February 25, came up with a strong statement. A few hours before the summit, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticized the European Union for doing nothing other than giving advice and making statements. He said that it was not possible to achieve anything like that. He expressed his hope that the NATO summit would take a more determined position.
The European Union on the other hand, has come up with tough sanctions and has taken steps well beyond expectations.
President Zelensky delivered at the European Parliament a dramatic speech, appealing for more support and he was applauded for several minutes. His speech was as could be expected, but what struck me was what EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said next. He said the European Union was no longer the sidelined organization that everyone was accustomed to. He said the Union is sending arms to Ukraine and half of Russia’s reserves are unusable because of sanctions. He made it sound as if the European Union made an entrance into the stage as a superhero who was asleep for a long time.
Turkey is not a party to the Ukraine conflict but due to its geographic proximity and relations with both Russia and Ukraine, it is destined to be one of the most affected countries.
There is centuries old history between Turkey and Russia starting from when Russia was the Czardom and Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, which were frequently at war with each other. Later on, their relations passed through the Cold War era and then from the 1990’s onto the present day.
In present day, Turkey has extensive relations with Russia and also Ukraine. Turkey imports around 35 percent of its natural gas from Russia. Trade volume with Russia stands at 32.5 billion dollars and with Ukraine at 7.5 billion dollars. Turkey is heavily engaged in construction projects in Russia and increasingly so in Ukraine. In agriculture, Turkey’s major source for grains are Russia and then Ukraine. Turkey imported 6.7 million tons of wheat from Russia in 2021. Some of this wheat is used for flour exports (Turkey is the number one flour exporter in the world) and some for local bread production. Shortage of wheat would cause losses in exports and rise in bread prices.
In tourism, in 2021, in league of countries sending most visitors to Turkey, Russia took first place with 4.7 million and Ukraine third with 2 million. In 2016 Turkey suffered serious losses in trade, tourism and other fields as a result of the downing of a Russian fighter plane. This was a major trauma. Now, for different reasons, Turkey is once again faced with a situation of suffering losses. This is not good news for Turkey’s president, who is facing some serious difficulties in the economic field and probably, the most challenging elections which are expected to take place in a few months.
Fully aware of the negative impact on Turkey of a crisis turning into war, Erdoğan made an attempt to mediate between Russia and Ukraine. He could not. On the other hand, French President Emmanuel Macron was able to meet with Putin and then Zelensky. But obviously, his mission was a failure, as Russian troops started pouring into Ukraine.
The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs on February 24, issued a clear statement where it expressed its opposition to the military operation launched by Russia. The statement said the incursion is unacceptable and called upon Russia to immediately stop this unjust and unlawful act.
On February 28, the Turkish cabinet met and one of the issues on its agenda was Ukraine. At the press conference following the meeting, Erdoğan summarized Turkey’s position on the crisis as follows:
- "We respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity. We regard Russia’s attack as unacceptable and respect Ukraine people’s struggle.
- "We will not compromise on our national security, but we will also not overlook regional and international balances.
- "We will neither give up on Russia nor Ukraine.
- "We will use the authority that we have been given by the Montreux Convention."
Regarding this last point, passage through the Turkish straits is regulated by the 1936 Montreux Convention. As stipulated in the convention, Turkey is responsible for the supervision of all the provisions of the convention, which includes their interpretation and implementation. The convention’s purpose is basically to provide for Turkey’s security, security of Black Sea States and interests of non-Black Sea States.
Turkish Minister of Defense announced that the Montreux Convention will be implemented as stipulated in articles 19, 20 and 21 (passage of warships through the Straits at times of war).
So, the Montreux Convention is being applied, there is no ambiguity on this issue and no complaints from any side.
Presidential spokesman İbrahim Kalın’s description of Turkey’s position was that Turkey was trying to navigate through the crisis without burning bridges with Russia, supporting Ukraine and keeping channels open with the West. He emphasized that Turkey has disagreements with Russia on a number of issues, including Syria and Libya, and does not recognize the annexation of Crimea. Despite that, Turkey has been able to conduct good use of diplomacy with Russia, he added.
Most recently, Kalın tweeted President Erdoğan’s call that the Russian attack has to stop and ceasefire negotiations must start. He went on to say that Turkey will continue its efforts to bring an end the suffering of the Ukranian people which is caused by this unjust and unlawful war.
As for international organizations, Turkey joined its allies in adopting the statement issued at the end of the NATO Heads of State and Government Summit on February 26. The statement condemned in the strongest possible terms Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Russia has been suspended from European Council with 42 votes. Turkey abstained. The Turkish foreign minister said that in this particular case his decision to abstain was because he believed dialogue with Russia would not be helpful.
At the recent UN General Assembly Turkey voted in favor with other 141 states and its representative delivered a tough statement on Russia’s invasion. The Ukraine crisis comes at a time when Turkey’s relations with the West are not at their best. One of the causes for that was relations with Russia. After the coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016, Erdoğan was upset with the West and moved closer to Russia.
The purchase of the S-400 air defense systems from Russia was another test for relations. At one point, Turkey’s NATO loyalties were even questioned. The US Congress slapped sanctions against Turkey, the so-called Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA.
In recent months, Turkey was making attempts to mend ties with several countries and the West. In this regard, the Ukraine crisis may present Turkey with an opportunity.
In fact, the Turkish and American foreign ministers have recently spoken with each other several times, nearly more than they ever have in past months. However, Presidents Biden and Erdoğan have not spoken to each other, not even once, on this crisis. This is odd, given Turkey’s important place in almost every sense in the ongoing developments and the role it could play.
In Syria, Turkey and Russia have supported opposing sides. They still do. In November 2014 Turkey shot down a Russian plane, which violated its airspace along the Turkish-Syrian border. It was the beginning of a terrible year in relations. Russia imposed its own sanctions on Turkey and made life very difficult in Syria. A year or so later, pragmatism prevailed. Since then, Turkey and Russia have become Astana Process partners and their cooperation has been instrumental in ceasefire agreements.
But the relations of these two countries in Syria are not without their problems. That is more so in the case of Idlib, where around 3.5 million people live. Russia frequently bombs this area, raising concerns of a fresh wave of Syrian refugees into Turkey.
Turkey says its policy in the Ukraine crisis is based on internationally recognized principles. It is careful not to take sides between two countries with which it enjoys good relations.
The best outcome for everyone, including Turkey, would be an immediate cessation of hostilities, resumption of talks and resolving the problem through diplomacy. If this is not the case, Turkey would be among the countries likely to suffer the most.

The US and Russia Still Need to Get Along in Space
Adam Minter/Bloomberg/March 04/2022
The first batch of US sanctions targeting Russia last week included several designed to hamstring the country's space program. The move did not please Dmitry Rogozin, director of the Russian space program.
For three decades, the US and Russia have collaborated on the International Space Station, or ISS, a 462-ton behemoth orbiting 250 miles above the Earth. In a string of tweets (translated by Rob Mitchell for Ars Technica), Rogozin suggested that the collaboration could soon come to a fiery end:
If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from an unguided de-orbit to impact on the territory of the US or Europe? There's also the chance of impact of the 500-ton construction in India or China. Do you want to threaten them with such a prospect?
It's an intimidating suggestion, but not a serious one. Over the last decade, the ISS has been buffeted by political crises and worsening tensions between the US and Russia. Yet in each case, practical and political considerations have kept the collaboration in orbit. The invasion of Ukraine is far more serious than these previous conflicts, but despite the bluster, the ISS will remain among the resilient components of the deteriorating US-Russian relationship.
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan announced the development of Space Station Freedom, a massive orbital outpost. Over the next decade, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and its contractors spent billions failing to develop it. In 1993, after narrowly avoiding cancellation in Congress, the station project was transformed into a collaboration between five space agencies representing 15 countries.
Russia's space program was the most important partner. It had extensive experience building and operating space stations, and was already working on a successor to its in-orbit Mir station. Both the Russians and their Western partners viewed the ISS as an excellent symbol of post-Cold War collaboration.
Under the terms of the collaboration, the station is split between a Russian-operated segment, and a US-operated segment shared with the other partners. The two sides are heavily integrated and dependent upon each other. Most notably, the US provides electricity to the entire complex via huge (recently updated) solar arrays, while Russia provides the rockets that steer, re-orient (in order to avoid space junk, for example), or simply maintain the station in its 250-mile-high orbit.
That's the capability to which Dimitry Rogozin was referring when he tweeted threats to crash the space station into populated areas. In January, NASA released a report on the future of the ISS. As soon as 2026, it determined, those same Russian rockets could be asked to begin the process of gently de-orbiting the space station so that it safely crashes into a remote part of the Pacific Ocean, probably in 2031. Rogozin, in his pique, seemed to suggest that Russia could disrupt those plans in the most catastrophic way possible.
But as a practical matter, it's highly unlikely that Russia would ever follow through with that course of action. The reasons are several, starting with the simple fact that the International Space Station is the highest-profile civilian space initiative still operated by the Russia's once-proud space program. In recent years, Russia has threatened to leave the ISS collaboration and form its own space station. But prospects for that seem slim. Over the next three years, Russia's total space budget will be cut by an average of 16% annually, and in 2022 it will be roughly $2.9 billion. By contrast, the annual US contribution to operating the ISS is around $4 billion. For now, at least, this allows Russia to maintain its storied space presence on the cheap.
It's not just Russia that needs the space station, either. For the US, the ISS is now entering its most productive decade after years of underuse. Losing that science would affect other US human exploration programs, such as longer-term plans for the moon and Mars.
Just as important, the US is scrambling to develop and deploy private space stations to replace the ISS at the end of the decade. If the current collaboration were, for some reason, to stop functioning, China's Tiangong space station would become humanity's only orbital outpost. American policy makers are keen to avoid such an outcome.
To do so, they'll need to ensure that Earth-bound arguments don't make their way into orbit. Over the last decade, the US and Russia managed do just that, keeping the ISS running through tensions surrounding the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and even accusations of onboard sabotage. Indeed, hours after Rogozin's Twitter outburst, NASA issued a statement noting that the sanctions make room for continued US-Russian civil space collaboration. On Monday, a NASA spokesperson pointedly noted that the American and Russian space agencies are still talking, working and training together on the ISS.
But both countries are preparing for a future without the other. The US is investigating new ways to de-orbit the ISS; Russia is beginning to collaborate with China. In a few years, this last vestige of post-Cold War diplomacy will be obsolete relic of a more optimistic time.

Ukraine war challenges Israel's relationship with world Jews
Joseph Dana/The Arab Weekly/March 04/2022
As Ukraine remains consumed by fierce fighting, fresh geopolitical calculations are taking shape worldwide. Jolted into action, European nations led by Germany have promised to increase their military budgets and impose harsh sanctions on Russia. Few countries have remained neutral about this conflict.
Given its “special friendship” with the United States, Israel’s tepid response to the crisis has surprised some analysts. While the Israeli foreign minister has condemned Russian aggression towards Ukraine, the official line from Tel Aviv has been remarkably muted. This ambiguity is all the more shocking considering Ukraine’s sizable Jewish population because it pits Israel’s understanding of the national interests of the Jewish people against the narrow interests of the Israeli state. The Ukrainian crisis demonstrates the limited extent to which Israel will place the interests of Jewish people above that of statecraft.
Since its founding, Israel has used the threat of global anti-Semitism as its raison d’état. After the horrors of the genocide against Jews in Europe, the Jewish people cannot exist without a state and army of their own. This line of argument has proven to be remarkably useful for the Israeli government in defending its own aggression against Palestinians and other nations in the Middle East. Israel regularly invokes the interests of the Jewish people to explain its actions such as the occupation of East Jerusalem and the settlement of the biblical lands of the West Bank.
For millions of Jews living outside of Israel, their support for the country stems from a deep-seated feeling that Israel is their only refuge. If an outbreak of anti-Semitism forced them to flee, Israel would be there to protect them. Powerful pro-Israel advocacy groups such as the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) play on these emotions in order to drum up support for Israel’s political objectives and silence critics of Tel Aviv’s aggressive treatment of the Palestinians.
The Ukrainian crisis presents a fascinating challenge to this core tenet of Israeli propaganda because Ukraine is home to one of the largest Jewish populations in Eastern Europe. There are an estimated 50,000 practicing Jews in the country and Jewish life is visible from places of worship to cultural centers. The number of Ukrainians with Jewish ancestry and eligibility to immigrate to Israel is estimated at between 200,000 and 400,000. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky and some of his key ministers are also Jewish. Outside of Israel, Zelensky is one of the world’s only Jewish heads of state.
Given the sheer scale and visibility of Jewish life in Ukraine, one would think that Israel would be on the front lines of finding a solution to the conflict and aiding the Jewish community there. That has not been the case.
As the conflict drags on, Israel’s approach will become increasingly difficult to sustain. A Russian attack on Kyiv’s main TV tower on Tuesday apparently damaged the Babi Yar Holocaust memorial site nearby and killed five people. The site marks one of the biggest single massacres of Jews during World War II. Zelensky said Russia’s attack showed history was repeating itself. Israel denounced the strike but did not single out Russia as the perpetrators.
It is easy for Israel’s leaders to express concern about the well-being of Jews around the world but when push comes to shove, Israel is a country like any other with its own geopolitical concerns. In this case, Tel Aviv does not want to disturb its relationship with Russia. Not only does Russia play an important role in regional politics (most notably in Syria) but it is a vital trading partner for Israel. “It is so important for us that Russia turns a blind eye to what we have been doing in Syria, acting against the transfer of weapons, the entrenchment of the Iranians,” Orna Mizrahi, a former deputy national-security adviser for Israel, told the New Yorker. In the early days of the conflict in Ukraine, Israel rejected a request from the US to co-sponsor a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s assault. Tel Aviv walked this position back, saying that it would join a resolution but would not support sanctions against Russia. It would seem that Realpolitik trumps Israel’s hollow rhetoric about protecting the Jewish people around the world. For its part, Israel has reiterated its support for any Ukrainian Jew wishing to immigrate to Israel but it has stopped short of offering support to Jewish Ukrainians who wish to remain at home and fend off Russian aggression. What is remarkable about this position is that it does not make any attempt to protect Jews where they are. As a Jew living in Ukraine, Israel seems to be saying, you are basically on your own. Let us be clear; Israel has no binding duty to protect Jewish people (or any people) outside of its borders. Many Jewish people actually have a moral problem with Israel claiming to represent them since they have made a conscious decision not to immigrate to the country. Israel will continue to speak in the name of the Jewish people when it finds it convenient. That is what this crisis is revealing in obvious detail. Because it is not in Israel’s interest to challenge Russia, the Jews of Ukraine have been left to essentially fend for themselves. The next time Israel invokes worldwide Jewry in explaining its own actions, it will be instructive to remember the battle for Ukraine’s sovereignty. Joseph Dana is a writer based in South Africa and the Middle East. He has reported from Jerusalem, Ramallah, Cairo, Istanbul, and Abu Dhabi. He was formerly editor-in-chief of emerge85, a media project based in the UAE exploring change in emerging markets.