English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For September 01/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.september01.22.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 14/12-15/:"He said also to the one who had invited him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, ‘Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!’".

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 31-September 01/2022
UN Security Council votes unanimously to renew peacekeeping force in Lebanon
President Aoun on commemoration of disappearance of Imam al-Sadr and his comrades: Al Sadr stances remain a source of inspiration for Lebanon’s...
Aoun returns law on bank secrecy law amendment to parliament
President discusses ongoing contacts to form the government with Mikati, meets Tourism Minister
Mikati meets Al-Aliya, discusses prison dossier with Moussa, chairs meeting of committee addressing repercussions of crisis on public facilities
Report: Maritime border deal 'close', 'on right track'
Hochstein to resume talks within days, dismisses report of 'emerging agreement'
Berri hits out at Aoun and FPM over demarcation, presidency, electricity
Report: Berri dismayed by Mikati's 'unwillingness to form govt.'
MPs agree to protect both depositors and banks as Bassil decries capital control 'failure'
Lebanon President, amid Financial Meltdown, Returns Amended Bank Secrecy Law to Parliament
Internet shutdowns hit cash-strapped Lebanon due to strike
Jumblat favors Mikati's line-up, says caretaker govt. can fill possible vacuum
Makary at launching of “Echo Watan” platform: Promising by all standards
UNIFIL leadership hosts Editors’ Syndicate
Bou Habib meets representatives of UNICEF and UNESCO, Egypt's Ambassador
Ambassador Okubo attends inauguration Ceremony of Japanese funded project at Karagheusian Primary Health Care Center
Gray Mackenzie Retail Lebanon begins its journey to ESG by joining USAID’s Lebanon ESG Stewardship Program
Nuclear Deal with Iran Would Further Empower Hezbollah
Lessons from Lebanon: Why it is too early to announce Iran’s defeat in Iraq/Nadim Shehadi/Arab News/August 31/2022
Who Are The Traitors?/Colonel Fayez Karam/January 12/2000/Translated freely: By Elias Bejjani
Hezbollah's cautious approach to the Lebanese presidential election/Michael Young/The National/August 31/2022
New Saudi-Lebanese crisis likely over request for activist’s extradition as Hezbollah continues to fuel tensions

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 31-September 01/2022
Biden, Israel's Lapid Speak amid Discussions on Possible Iran Nuclear Deal
Iran Enriching Uranium with More IR-6 Centrifuges at Natanz, Says IAEA
Iran Seeks Stronger US Guarantees for Revival of 2015 Nuclear Deal
Iran Jails 21 over Deadly Building Collapse
UN Mission Says Ukraine Nuclear Plant Inspection to Last ‘A Few Days’
New Russia Gas Halt Tightens Energy Screws on Europe
EU to Tighten Travel Rules for Russians, but No Visa Ban
US Must Dispel Pelosi’s ‘Negative Influence’ before Climate Talks, Says China
Iraq political gridlock persists after bloody unrest
World hails 'one-of-a-kind' ex-Soviet leader Gorbachev

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 31-September 01/2022
Giulio Meotti/Gatstone Institute:Europe’s Twilight: Christianity Declines, Islam Rises/by Giulio Meotti/Gatstone Institute/
A New Iran Deal Would Empower Palestinian Islamic Jihad/Flash Brief/FDD/August 31/2022
Turkey’s Latest Move to Undermine NATO/Bradley Bowman and Sinan Ciddi/The Dispatch/August 31/2022
What Should Israel’s Strategy Be for the Day After a Nuke Deal With Iran?/David Isaac/Israel Today/August 31/022
From Baghdad to Tripoli/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/August 31/2022
Iraq… A Game of Mistakes/Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al Awsat/August 31/2022
The Muslim Warlord Still Haunting Spain/Alberto M. Fernandez/The European Conservative/August 31/022
Iraq and the Bankruptcy of Shiite Politics /Charles Elias Chartouni/August 31/022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 31-September 01/2022
UN Security Council votes unanimously to renew peacekeeping force in Lebanon
Arab News/August 31/2022
NEW YORK: The UN Security Council on Wednesday voted unanimously in favor of a resolution to renew the mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon for another year. The provisional agenda was the situation in the Middle East, with the council considering a draft resolution submitted by France to renew the mandate. The unanimous vote in favor of UNSC resolution 2650 followed a month of negotiations. The US said it welcomed the renewal of UNIFIL’s mandate, and thanked France for its “constructive engagement.” The force can now operate in Lebanon until Aug. 31, 2023, retaining its core mandate and tasks, as set out most recently in resolution 2591 of Aug. 30, 2021. The US said it was grateful for the international community’s logistical support to Lebanon and its military. It said the resolution will ensure that UNIFIL can act independently and conduct “announced and unannounced patrols,” noting an “important reminder that UNIFIL peacekeepers are blocked with increasing frequency from conducting their tasks.” The US said it was concerned about blocks to UNIFIL access by a group called Green Without Borders, which was “heightening tensions in the area.” This suggests, the US added, that this “so-called environmental group was acting on Hezbollah’s behalf.” Washington’s representative said ensuring UNIFIL’s peacekeepers are able to move freely is vital for mitigating risks to UN personnel and assets. The UAE said it “strongly welcomes the renewal, noting the request for renewal from the government of Lebanon.” The Emirati representative said UNIFIL had a “vital role” in supporting Lebanon, and thanked countries that have contributed troops and police. During the protracted negotiations surrounding the UNIFIL mandate, the UAE and the UK said stronger language was needed to condemn the presence of weapons outside Lebanese state control, specifically in the south. After the vote, the UAE said it “particularly welcomed strengthened language” surrounding condemnation of the maintenance of weapons by armed groups “outside the state’s control.” It added that the maintenance of weapons by these armed groups is a major threat to Lebanese sovereignty, and that it is “vitally important” for UNIFIL to carry out its operations to reduce these threats and enhance the country’s independence and territorial integrity.

President Aoun on commemoration of disappearance of Imam al-Sadr and his comrades: Al Sadr stances remain a source of inspiration for Lebanon’s...
NNA/August 31/2022
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, asserted that the stances of Imam Sayed Musa Al-Sadr remain a source of inspiration to work for the salvation of Lebanon and its people, especially since he is still present among us in his thought and belief in Lebanon, the homeland of coexistence.
The President’s positions came in a tweet on his personal account on the occasion of the forty-fourth memorial of the disappearance of Imam al-Sadr and his two companions.
Tweet:
“On the 44th memorial of the disappearance of Imam Musa Al-Sadr, he is still present among us with his thought and belief in Lebanon, the homeland of coexistence, and his quest for the unity of the Lebanese family. While the Lebanese lack this national and spiritual stature in these difficult circumstances, his stances remain a source of inspiration to work for the salvation of Lebanon and its people”.
National Defense Minister:
The President met National Defense Minister, Maurice Sleem, and deliberated with him current security affairs, in addition to government developments and the needs of the military and institutions affiliated with the Ministry of Defense.
The extension of the international forces operating in the south, their working conditions and other issues of concern to the army establishment were also addressed.
MP Salloum:
President Aoun received MP Firas Al-Salloum, and discussed with general issues, especially the path of forming the new government. Demarcating the southern maritime borders and current political positions were also deliberated.
MP Salloum also stated that he discussed the representation of the Alawite sect in the government and in public jobs, in addition to a number of rights of Alawites. -- Presidency Press Office

Aoun returns law on bank secrecy law amendment to parliament
NNA/August 31/2022 
President Michel Aoun on Wednesday returned to the parliament the bill on the amendment of the bank secrecy law, and demanded its re-examination

President discusses ongoing contacts to form the government with Mikati, meets Tourism Minister
NNA/August 31/2022 
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, met Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati, today at Baabda Palace. Latest developments and ongoing contacts to form the government were deliberated. After the meeting, Premier Mikati left Baabda Palace without making any statement.
Minister Nassar:
The President met Tourism Minister Walid Nassar and was briefed on the record of the tourist season in the summer, especially in terms of the numbers of those who came to Lebanon and the figures recorded.
Minister Nassar also briefed the President on the ministry's plan for the coming fall and winter seasons.
Statement:
After the meeting, Minister Nassar said: “I was honored to visit of the President of the Republic and I briefed him on the results of the summer tourist season, and of the numbers of arrivals to Lebanon, who exceeded one and a half million, in addition to the economic wheel that was recorded according to the statistics and figures of economists, 4.5 billion dollars. A plan was also discussed for the Ministry of Tourism for the upcoming fall and winter seasons and the projects that the ministry will launch soon, in addition to local political issues”.
Questions & Answers:
Question: Are there any promising tourist data for the next season?
Answer: “Of course, in the winter there are sports and basic tourism projects in Lebanon, including skiing, for example. Therefore, the ministry has developed a plan and will start adopting some projects in the framework of sports and leisure tourism. Sports tourism is very important, especially as the State of Qatar will witness the hosting of the major sporting event represented by the Fifa World Football Championship. We are working to ensure that Lebanon has an important role in this tournament so as to attract a large number of Lebanese wishing to go to Qatar to attend the match”.
About hotel establishments dealing with tourists in the summer, Minister Nassar said: “The work of tourism establishments, especially hotels and guest houses, was very active. We also know that some 5-star hotels are closed due to the explosion of the Beirut port, but what compensated for the absence of these hotels is the presence of guest houses. We have conducted statistics and very soon there will be a syndicate for guest houses in Lebanon after the number of homes exceeded 130. The summer season was very prosperous and the number of reservations was relatively high”. -----Presidency Press Office

Mikati meets Al-Aliya, discusses prison dossier with Moussa, chairs meeting of committee addressing repercussions of crisis on public facilities
NNA/August 31/2022
Caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, on Wednesday chaired at the Grand Serail a meeting by the Ministerial Committee tasked to address the repercussions of the financial crisis on the activity of public facilities in Lebanon.
The Prime Minister had earlier met with Caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigrants, Abdullah Bu Habib, with whom he discussed a number of ministerial affairs. Mikati had also met with Head of the Tenders Department, Jean Al-Aliya, who briefed him on the implementation process of the Public Procurement Law, which has been in effect since the 29th of July, 2022. Moreover, Mikati separately welcomed head of the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee, MP Michel Moussa, who said after the meeting that “the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee will hold a meeting tomorrow.”
“In preparation for this meeting, I’ve discussed with the PM the issue of Lebanese prisons, most importantly the living and health conditions of prisoners,” Moussa added. It is to note that Mikati also had an audience with former MP Bahia Hariri.

Report: Maritime border deal 'close', 'on right track'
Naharnet/August 31/2022 
The maritime border negotiations between Lebanon and Israel are in their final weeks and are on "a positive trajectory," an Israeli newspaper said, as Israel and Lebanon are close to reach an agreement on how to divide gas between them. The Jerusalem Port reported that the negotiations have "shifted to compensation and gas quantities on each side of the maritime border."The daily added that U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein is expected to travel to France in the coming weeks "to meet with the leadership of Total Energies, which owns the gas exploration rights in Lebanon’s territorial waters."
"Jerusalem has moved the demarcation portfolio from the Energy Ministry to the Prime Minister’s Office," the report said. Earlier this week, Israeli TV channel Keshet 12 said that "Israel and Lebanon will establish their own gas rigs five kilometers from each other on opposite sides of the border" and that "part of the Lebanese natural-gas field will cross into Israeli territory, and Jerusalem will be compensated for it." Lebanon is waiting for a response from Israel after having relayed its maritime border position to Hochstein. Lebanon and Israel, who have no diplomatic relations and are separated by a U.N.-patrolled border, had resumed negotiations over their maritime border in 2020 but the process was stalled. In June, Israel moved a production vessel into a disputed gas field, parts of which are claimed by Lebanon. The move forced the Lebanese government to call for the resumption of U.S.-mediated negotiations.

Hochstein to resume talks within days, dismisses report of 'emerging agreement'
Naharnet/August 31/2022 
U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein has informed Lebanese officials that he will resume his meetings over the sea border demarcation file in the next few days, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Wednesday. He also told them that he “will not be able to give an answer regarding the Lebanese proposal before the end of this week.”Quoting official sources, the daily said that Hochstein met over the past hours with an adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss “the role that the TotalEnergies company is supposed to play in exploration and extraction from Lebanon’s fields.”“Hochstein will communicate with Israeli officials in the coming hours to “reach more specific points,” the sources added. Commenting on Israeli reports about an “emerging agreement” with Lebanon, Hochstein said, according to al-Akhbar, that “these are baseless journalistic remarks that are not supported by any official authority in Israel.” “The same Lebanon witnessed overbidding over lines in a previous period, Israel, which is nearing domestic elections, is witnessing overbidding among the parties over this file,” Hochstein reportedly said. The sources added that during a previous visit, the U.S. mediator had said that “Israel’s national security interest prevents overbidding” and that “the matter is part of the global energy file and the United States and Europe will not allow anyone, including Israel, to put it in danger due to political overbidding.”

Berri hits out at Aoun and FPM over demarcation, presidency, electricity
Naharnet/August 31/2022
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday lashed out at President Michel Aoun and the Free Patriotic Movement over several issues, in a speech marking the 44th anniversary of the disappearance of Amal Movement founder Imam Moussa Sadr. “We remind those trying to take Lebanon back to the pre-Taef era that parliament is the only side entrusted with interpreting the constitution,” Berri said, referring to the controversy over whether or not the caretaker cabinet can assume the president’s powers in the event of a presidential vacuum. “It is unacceptable to manipulate the constitution or rebel against it to meet the ambitions of this or that candidate, and it is illegitimate to surrender to some malicious wills that are seeking to plunge the country into the cycle of vacuum,” the Speaker added. Moreover, he said that his parliamentary bloc “will vote for a figure who would gather and unite rather than divide,” adding that the next president should “believe in nationalist and patriotic principles and should deeply believe that Israel represents a threat to Lebanon’s existence.” “Let no one claim to be more sovereign than us,” Berri added. And noting that he is willing to cooperate for the sake of the formation of a new government, Berri rejected the calls for adding six state ministers to the 24-minister cabinet. “We saw Tammam Salam’s 24-minister cabinet and how every minister in it was a president,” he said. As for the sea border demarcation file, Berri hit back at Aoun’s latest remarks, describing them as an attempt at “showing off.”
Aoun had said Monday that some parties do not want the sea border demarcation file to be finalized during his presidential term, telling reporters that Berri and PM-designate Najib Mikati can be "asked about this matter, seeing as they possess the necessary information about everything that is happening in this file.”“As we wait for U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein’s answer, we stress that our border and sovereignty are like our honor: we do not negotiate over them and we will defend them with all the capabilities that we have,” Berri said. “The ball now is in the U.S. court and we’re not advocates of war, but if our sovereignty gets threatened, we will defend these rights and border,” the Speaker added. Accusing the U.S. mediator of wasting time, Berri said: “Hochstein said that he will be absent for two weeks, but one month has passed and we have not received an answer. If there are Israeli considerations, what prevents TotalEnergies and others to drill in our undisputed areas.”Berri also warned against procrastination and the usurpation of Lebanon’s rights. Hitting out at the FPM over the electricity file, Berri said: “Is there a country in the world that has zero hours of power supply under the excuse of ‘they have not allowed us?’”“Is it rational for Lebanon to be deprived of Jordanian and Egyptian gas due to the failure to form a regulatory commission at the Energy Ministry, which has drained a third of the state’s finances, under the excuse of ‘changing the law instead of implementing it?’” Berri added.

Report: Berri dismayed by Mikati's 'unwillingness to form govt.'
Naharnet /August 31/2022
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri is dismayed by Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati's unwillingness to form a government, sources said. The sources told al-Akhbar newspaper, in remarks published Wednesday, that Mikati's resorting to Dar al-Fatwa and his mobilization of the Sunnis have deepened the disagreement between the PM and President Michel Aoun. Meanwhile, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported that Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil and the president's advisor, former minister Salim Jrayssati, have different opinions regarding withdrawing the premiership designation from Mikati. The daily said it had learned from informed sources that while Bassil supports the designation's withdrawal, Jrayssati considers it constitutionally impossible.

MPs agree to protect both depositors and banks as Bassil decries capital control 'failure'
Naharnet/August 31/2022
The Joint Parliamentary Committees on Tuesday agreed on finding a capital control solution that would both preserve the rights of depositors and the “existence” of banks, Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab said. TV networks meanwhile said that the Committees will ask the government to send the economic recovery plan in order to discuss it along with the capital control law. “Today’s session was fruitful and there are serious efforts to reach a result. The ball today is in the government’s court,” Bou Saab added. He also lamented that “there are banks that are still transferring money to abroad in a selective manner.”Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil for his part decried that “once again after three years,” parliament has “failed to legalize capital control.”“It seems that clinging to selectivity in the transfer of the funds of some privileged depositors and maintaining the financial hemorrhage are still stronger than us,” Bassil said. “There is no political will for reform nor a majority for it in parliament,” Bassil added.

Lebanon President, amid Financial Meltdown, Returns Amended Bank Secrecy Law to Parliament
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 31 August, 2022
Lebanon's president on Wednesday returned to parliament an amended banking secrecy law that lawmakers passed around a month ago, saying it needed further tweaks to strengthen it. Parliament's passage of the legislation on July 26 was considered a modest first step towards reforms required for Lebanon to access $3 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and help ease its financial meltdown. But the passed law was a watered-down version of the original proposal, prompting concerns that the IMF would not consider it robust enough to qualify as a real reform measure. It does not lift banking secrecy as a whole and allows only some government bodies to lift it specifically in cases of criminal investigations. In a written statement on Wednesday, President Michel Aoun said the bank secrecy law "is one of the most important texts to be approved in this context, as it deals with the banking secrecy system". As such, he said, the law required "further clarification in order to ensure its proper and automatic application", including setting out within what time frame it would be applicable and amending which institutions could lift secrecy. Now in its third year, Lebanon's financial meltdown has sunk the currency by more than 90%, spread poverty, paralyzed the financial system and frozen depositors out of their savings in Lebanon's most destabilizing crisis since the 1975-90 civil war. Donor states want Lebanon to enact reforms to address root causes of the crisis, including decades of state waste and corruption, before aid is released. The IMF's staff level agreement had called for a new bank secrecy law "in line with international standards to fight corruption and remove impediments to effective banking sector restructuring and supervision, tax administration, as well as detection and investigation of financial crimes, and asset recovery".

Internet shutdowns hit cash-strapped Lebanon due to strike
Associated Press/August 31/2022
Internet shutdowns rippled through cash-strapped Lebanon on Tuesday after employees of the country's state-owned telecom company went on strike, demanding higher wages. It was the latest reflection of one of the world's worst economic disasters, which has pulled three quarters of Lebanon's 6 million people into poverty. The Lebanese pound in three years has lost over 90 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar. Employees of Ogero and other public sector institutions have not had their wages adjusted to accommodate the pound's depreciation and skyrocketing inflation. "Unfortunately at my level there is very little to do," Ogero Chairman Imad Kreidieh told The Associated Press. "Ogero does not have the funds to deal with the matter."Kreidieh added that the issue is Lebanon's parliament and caretaker government's to resolve. According to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, internet shutdowns have hit several towns across the country, including in several neighborhoods of Beirut. Caretaker Telecommunications Minister Johnny Corm did not immediately respond to the AP when asked if government is working to resolve the internet shutdowns. Legislator Paula Yacoubian told the AP that Parliament's telecommunications committee will meet Monday next week to discuss the issue. Parliament meanwhile has yet to pass a 2022 state budget, as the country scrambles to reform its corrupt and unproductive economy. Thousands of public sector workers have already been on strike for almost two months, ich is struggling to maintain its infrastructure and afford diesel fuel for its generators. Lebanon's already frail infrastructure further deteriorated after the massive Beirut port blast on Aug. 4, 2020, that killed over 200 people, wounded thousands, and destroyed several neighborhoods in the Lebanese capital. Lebanon's economic crisis continues to pulverize public life. The cash-strapped country already struggles with soaring gasoline, electricity, and food prices, as well as rampant power cuts and water shortages. Residents rely almost entirely on expensive private diesel generator subscriptions, as the country's indebted and bloated state electricity company provides no more than about two hours of power daily. Ogero over the past two years has struggled with upkeeping its infrastructure, affording fuel for its generators, and to prevent theft of copper and metal wires. In January, about 26,000 subscribers in Beirut went offline due to diesel fuel shortages, including the Internal Security Forces' operations room.

Jumblat favors Mikati's line-up, says caretaker govt. can fill possible vacuum
Naharnet/August 31/2022 
Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblat considered that the caretaker government can fill the gap in case of a presidential vacuum, although he called for forming a new government and holding timely presidential elections. Jumblat said, in an interview published Wednesday in al-Joumhouriah, that he supports the line-up submitted by Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati and that it can be amended and adopted. "There are disasters in the current government," he added, as he welcomed the changes suggested by Mikati. Concerning the next President, Jumblat said that it is impossible for a "confrontational" candidate to become President and that "political realism and national interest require the election of a consensual president who can communicate with all parties."

Makary at launching of “Echo Watan” platform: Promising by all standards
NNA/August 31/2022 
Renowned Lebanese journalist, Rima Khaddaj Hamadeh, has launched an independent electronic platform "Echo of the Homeland - Sida al-Watan”, which is a political, economic, and environmental platform, at the "Radisson" Hotel, Ain El-Mraiseh, under the patronage of Caretaker Information Minister, Ziad Al-Makary, Caretaker Economy Minister, Amin Salam, and Chairman of the National Media Council, Abdel Hadi Mahfouz. Minister Makary delivered a speech, in which said that the joint sponsorship between the media, environment, and economy renders "Echo Watan" platform “promising by all standards”. “The media responsibility makes it imperative for all of us to preserve and regulate the digital sector,” Makary said, stressing that regulation does not mean control and imposition of censorship. “Everyone knows my position in this field; freedom of expression is preserved and never compromised,” he affirmed. “We live in a digital world par excellence — knowledge, economy, e-governments, and smart applications — thus, journalistic experiences should keep pace with digitization efforts,” Makary added. The Information Minister concluded by wishing of Lebanese nationals to support voting for the Mayas band in their AGT competition.

UNIFIL leadership hosts Editors’ Syndicate
NNA/August 31/2022
The General Command of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on Wednesday welcomed at its headquarters in Naqoura a delegation representing the Council of the Lebanese Editors’ Syndicate headed by Captain Joseph Al-Kosseifi. The long day visit included a meeting with Head of UNIFIL Mission and Force Commander, Major General Aroldo Lazaro, UNIFIL Deputy Head of Mission Jacques Christofides, and the mission’s spokesperson, Andrea Tenenti. The visit included a tour along the Blue Line and detailed explanations of UNIFIL’s mission in Lebanon. Most importantly, Lazaro affirmed to his visiting delegation that UNIFIL “has nothing to do with maritime demarcation.”For his part, Kosseifi deemed UNIFIL “part and parcel” of the Lebanese fabric.

Bou Habib meets representatives of UNICEF and UNESCO, Egypt's Ambassador
NNA/August 31/2022 
Caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib on Wednseday met with the UNICEF Representative in Lebanon, Edouard Beigbeder, and Director of the UNESCO Regional Office in Beirut, Costanza Farina. "The meeting comes within the context of Minister Bou Habib's talks with the representatives of the international organizations aimed to ensure Lebanon's obtaining its share of the aid earmarked for it," a statement by the Foreign Ministry said. Bou Habib later met with Egyptian Ambassador to Lebanon, Yasser Alawi.

Ambassador Okubo attends inauguration Ceremony of Japanese funded project at Karagheusian Primary Health Care Center
NNA/August 31/2022 
Through the Grant Assistance for Grass-roots Human Security Program (GGP), Japan supported Karagheusian Primary Health Care Center in Bourj Hammoud, with a grant of USD 89,948 to provide specialized equipment for its clinical laboratory and dental care. The Karagheusian Primary Health Care Center is the only center, which offers comprehensive medical services in the area at affordable rates. Through this assistance, more than 10,000 vulnerable people will have an access to more diverse and extensive medical tests and treatments.
On 31 August 2022, Ambassador Takeshi Okubo attended the project completion ceremony at Karagheusian Primary Health Care Center, in the presence of the Minister of Public Health H.E. Firas Abiad and the Director of the Center, Mr. Serop Ohanian. The ceremony opened with the national anthems of Japan and Lebanon, followed by a tour in the center, and included congratulatory remarks from
Ambassador Okubo, Minister Abiad and Mr. Ohanian.
In his speech, Ambassador Okubo said promoting sustainable access to primary health care and enhancing the capabilities of the local facilities are critical, and highlighted the Japanese Government’s most recent support to Lebanon’s vital sectors including the provision of renewable energy solutions. Mr. Ohanian, in return, thanked Japan for its generous support to the growing vulnerable communities in the region by securing affordable health care services, and appreciated the long-term partnerships between the Embassy and the center. Minister Abiad, said the strengthening of primary health care centers and the expansion of the range of services provided in them are part of the strategic plan of the Ministry of Health, which considers primary health care as a cornerstone for building a health system capable of providing comprehensive health care to the Lebanese citizen. He added that there is no doubt that the support provided by the Government of Japan, thankfully, to the health sector in Lebanon will help the Ministry achieve its goals in the near future.

Gray Mackenzie Retail Lebanon begins its journey to ESG by joining USAID’s Lebanon ESG Stewardship Program
NNA/August 31/2022 
Gray Mackenzie Retail Lebanon (GMRL) takes the first step towards fulfilling their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals by enrolling in the Lebanon ESG Stewardship Program. This program, led by the United States Agency for International Development’s(USAID)- Trade and Investment Facilitation (TIF) project in partnership with Capital Concept S.A.L., guides businesses in Lebanon on how to develop a robust ESG program, to achieve these milestones in order to reach ESG compliance. This makes GMRL one of the first 100 companies in Lebanon to start their journey of becoming ESG certified under this USAID-supported program. By meeting the ESG criteria and attaining certification, GMRL would be further positioned as a leader in the business space with the opportunity for growth, further innovation, and value. By adopting an improved managementsystem, attaining access to finance and investments, facilitatingtrade through access to new markets, and improving organizational performance and competitiveness, GMRL will be able to create and sustain more jobs, manage teams and serve clients ethically and responsibly, and be better equipped to innovate business practices in the future. This important step for GMRL is a leap for the business world in Lebanon as it is in line with their commitment to supporting Lebanon and building the nation through the services and products, they offer as well as the opportunities they create in the market.

Nuclear Deal with Iran Would Further Empower Hezbollah
Flash Brief/FDD/August 31/2022
Iran would receive up to $275 billion in sanctions relief during the first year of a new nuclear deal and more than $1 trillion by 2030, according to an FDD analysis. If past is prologue, a significant portion of these funds would flow to the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah. In the year after the implementation of the original 2015 nuclear accord, Iran’s military budget increased by 90 percent, enabling the regime to shower its regional proxies, including Hezbollah, with billions of dollars.
Expert Analysis
“Hezbollah is now assessed to have a military that is on par with several European armies. The group is now also amassing precision-guided munitions with help from Tehran. This will enable Hezbollah to carry out attacks against Israeli critical infrastructure. The group’s next war with Israel will therefore unfortunately be a catastrophic one. The international community has stood by and watched amidst a massive arms build-up. This is a significant threat to the stability of the region.” – Jonathan Schanzer, FDD Senior Vice President for Research
“Back in 2015, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gloated that Iran would use the original deal’s windfall ‘to stand by its allies and friends … more than in any time in the past.’ That is indeed what happened and what will transpire again. Cash from a new deal would quickly move to Hezbollah, enabling the group to increase its arms buildup, especially precision-guided munitions and unmanned aerial vehicles. Hezbollah has already used the latter to threaten Israeli offshore gas rigs.” – Tony Badran, FDD Research Fellow
Hezbollah is the World’s Most Heavily Armed Non-State Actor
Hezbollah possesses military capabilities on par with many professional state armies. It relies heavily on Iranian as well as Russian weapon systems, boasting land, naval, and air capabilities. According to a 2020 State Department report, Iran provides Hezbollah with around $700 million per year. Hezbollah uses much of this money to acquire materiel and deploy forces.
ROCKET AND MISSILE ARSENAL
Thanks to Iranian support, Hezbollah possesses a vast array of surface-to-surface missiles and rockets, including 45,000 short-range (up to 40 km) rockets and 80,000 medium- and long-range rockets and missiles. Based on these numbers, the Israeli army assesses that in a future war, Hezbollah would launch an average of at least 1,500 rockets per day into Israel. Iran also boasts hundreds of precise missiles that can hit targets within a 10-meter radius from a distance of 200 to 300 km.
ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSILE SYSTEMS
Hezbollah uses a variety of anti-aircraft missile systems, mostly of Russian or Iranian origin. Tehran has also deployed these systems to Syria, where Israel subsequently bombed them. In addition, Hezbollah has numerous anti-aircraft guns such as the Russian ZSU-23, as well as man-portable air-defense systems such as the Russian SA-7, SA-14, SA-16, and SA-18 and the Iranian Misagh-1 and Misagh-2.
UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES
Hezbollah has as many as 2,000 drones of local or Iranian origin, which it deploys in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Gaza. The terrorist group uses many of them for reconnaissance, while others carry munitions or a payload of several kilograms of explosives. Earlier this summer, Israel shot down three drones launched by Hezbollah toward one of Israel’s offshore rigs at the Karish gas field.
NAVAL AND ANTI-SHIP CAPABILITIES
Hezbollah has a naval unit that it tasks with protecting the Lebanese shore. The unit employs elite commandos to attack targets at sea or on the shore. It uses Iranian-made Zulfiqar attack boats and likely has Iranian Ghadir mini-submarines.

Lessons from Lebanon: Why it is too early to announce Iran’s defeat in Iraq
Nadim Shehadi/Arab News/August 31/2022
Iraq is unraveling and it could lead to civil war; one that is too complex for me to understand. What matters is not so much how these conflicts start as much as how they end and through what mediation. The principal actor is the enigmatic Muqtada Al-Sadr and the focus is on inter-Shiite rivalries for now. This is reminiscent of the War of Brothers between Amal and Hezbollah in late 1980s Lebanon and there are lessons that can be drawn from it. The final outcome is as important as the war in Ukraine in terms of its long-term impact both on Iraq and the region.
Iraq is not Lebanon and Lebanon is not Iraq. No matter how many times I repeat this to myself, I cannot help but make comparisons between the two. As a Lebanese, I sympathize and identify with the vocabulary used in the conflict — the same words and concepts are repeated in different accents. Code words such as “change” can mean different things to different people. Just like the Lebanese, Iraqis complain about militias, the corruption of the political class, the erosion of institutions, sectarianism, the division of spoils, foreign interference and the failure of other Arab states to help.
Iraq has also had elections, boycotts, paralyzed government, expatriate votes, a blocking third, assassinations without accountability and calls for national dialogue, all of which are too familiar for the Lebanese. What is certainly common to both Lebanon and Iraq is the loss of confidence in the political class and the quasi-total collapse of state services, with Iran being the most influential external actor.
What looked like a revolt led by the followers of Al-Sadr flared up into violence as he this week announced his withdrawal from politics. This was after his movement had won the most seats in last year’s elections, which was celebrated as a big blow to Iran’s candidates. The anti-Iranian “Tishreen” protesters, with their slogan “Iran out,” are another mainly Shiite movement. They are what you might call ordinary Iraqis with ordinary demands and had boycotted the elections. Although they are not armed, their influence and regional connections to other anti-Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps protests in Lebanon and in Iran itself should not be underestimated.
Until this week, it all seemed like a severe political crisis being handled within a democratic framework. Today, it resembles America’s Jan. 6 on steroids, with the storming of the Green Zone — the seat of government and parliament — and other militias claiming to be prepared to defend it. It looks like an internal conflict within the Shiite community of Iraq, with diverse factions being pro or anti-Iran’s role in the country. The state looks helpless and its institutions weak.
There are too many issues to digest in the last two decades of Iraqi history since the US invasion and the growth of Iranian influence. It is also impossible to predict the consequences of the Iranian factions of the Popular Mobilization Units like Kata’ib Hezbollah entering the scene and clashing with the Sadrists and the Tishreen protesters. The conflict could also spread beyond a mere inter-Shiite civil war.
Al-Sadr remains the principal figure. His family has deep connections with Iran and much to be grateful to the mullahs for. However, he is now seen as a nationalist critical of Iran’s role. In the long run, there will be mediation, winners and losers, but what matters is how the conflict is resolved and which regional power will emerge as having gained more influence as a result.
What matters is how the conflict is resolved and which regional power will emerge as having gained more influence as a result.
The experience of intra-Shiite conflict in Lebanon may help illustrate the dynamics of various local and regional players and give it perspective. Between April 1988 and November 1990, there was an intense conflict that erupted into clashes between Amal and Hezbollah, the two main Shiite parties in Lebanon. The most violent battles fought by the Shiite factions in the Lebanese civil war were against each other. The same goes for the clashes between Christian militias and Palestinian factions at around the same time.
Thousands were killed or injured in the War of Brothers. It started mainly as a battle over territory, with Hezbollah accused of kidnapping UN employees and later Col. William Higgins, an American UN observer, in Amal territory while on his way back from meeting with Amal officials. Battles spread all over the country, from Beirut to the south and the Beqaa. The rivalry deepened, bringing all sorts of problems to the surface within the community. At the time, Nabih Berri, the head of Amal, described Hezbollah as Dracula because it lived on blood.
Peace was eventually restored through an agreement brokered by Iran and Syria, which were effectively the sponsors of both parties. Saudi Arabia was the main broker of the Taif Agreement in 1989. This was an agreement among all the Lebanese factions that brought an end to the 15-year civil war.
The settlement included a pact that combined the political activities of the two parties and gave birth to what became known as the Shiite duo of Amal and Hezbollah. Together they established an almost absolute hegemony over the community. They put forward joint lists in elections that effectively gave them full control of the 27 members of parliament that represent the community in the assembly. That gave them an informal veto power: In a system based on power-sharing, it would be impossible to make any major decisions while excluding the representatives of a major community. Their combined vote also allowed them to guarantee the electoral success of any non-Shiite candidates on their lists.
Later, in 2006, their electoral power allowed them to form a pact with the Free Patriotic Movement of Gen. Michel Aoun. The veto power of the duo was consolidated in the Doha Agreement of 2008, which came after an 18-month occupation of central Beirut and an attack on the city by Hezbollah’s black-shirted militiamen. Armed with that veto power, Hezbollah and its allies could paralyze the country for months on end.
In 2016, after 29 months of paralysis with no parliamentary elections, no government and no president, the duo was able to secure the election of its ally Aoun to the presidency, giving it almost complete control over the state in Lebanon.
Thus, Iran’s de facto control of Lebanon was systematically achieved through a step-by-step process using a combination of violence, assassinations, paralysis and the building of alliances. There are also similarities with Iran, where the IRGC gained control by liquidating all other elements of the 1979 revolution.
The moral of the story is that it may be too early to celebrate the demise of Iranian power in Iraq because of anti-Iranian slogans by protesters and demonstrators. If Tehran can reconcile with Al-Sadr and create a situation similar to the Shiite duo between him and the PMU, it can regain any of the power it may have lost in the last couple of years. The possible mediators for the intra-Shiite conflict are Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, who is based in the holy city of Najaf, and the leaders of the PMU loyal to Iran.
Regional rivalries are not only about the conduct of war, but about who mediates the peace and on what terms.
• Nadim Shehadi is a Lebanese economist.

Who Are The Traitors?
By: Colonel Fayez Karam/January 12/2000
Translated freely: By Elias Bejjani
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/111574/%d9%85%d9%86-%d8%a3%d8%b1%d8%b4%d9%8a%d9%81-%d8%b9%d8%a7%d9%85-2000-%d9%85%d9%82%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a9-%d9%84%d9%84%d8%b9%d9%85%d9%8a%d8%af-%d9%81%d8%a7%d9%8a%d8%b2-%d9%83%d8%b1%d9%85-%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84/
It is easy to haphazardly distribute accusations on people and incriminate them. It is also easy to criticize others when the criticizer is solely an observer or an analyst. It is not right by any criteria to be mouthy, bragging, merely enumerating others' mistakes and judging them without looking seriously into their circumstances, actual stances and the justifications for their actions. It is also not fair to exaggerate in incriminating, threatening and accusing others of being traitors without a full knowledge of their pains, difficulties and hardships.
Meanwhile judging and sentencing others according to ones own interests, ambitions or standards is not a healthy conduct. When officials follow this trend of hypocrisy citizens lose all trust in the regime that is supposed to be a protector and guarantor for their rights. The regime needs its citizen because without their trust loses its legitimacy.
The state of law is the one that unites and not divides,
The state of law is the one that protects the interests of all its citizens equally and uses no double standards,
The state of law is the one that is a sanctuary, to which each citizen could take refugee when in danger,
The state of law is the one that does not deal with citizens in accordance to their political, religious, familial or feudal affiliations,
The State of law is the one that deals with its citizens in accordance to their national and humane affiliations with no discrimination what so ever.
In occupied Lebanon the crime currently has its significant identity. It is classified in accordance to the citizens' affiliations in the domains of politics, religion and even family. The Lebanese-Syrian installed regime, the so-called "state of law" is an expert in breaking laws and in infringing on people's rights. Its main mandate has become merely to execute the foreigners' orders, invent mockeries and rationalize its official's traitorous stances, bizarre conduct and thwarted convictions. No law governs its acts, no understanding restricts its conduct, and no code dictates its behaviour.
The alleged Crime of the Jezzinis is the kind of crime the Lebanese regime and its regional master focus on. The Jezzinis carry the political identity and the religious affiliation that the regime feels comfortable in attacking them, especially after the world, the nation and the international law have abandoned them.
What are the charges of the Jezzinis? Is treason among them, and if this is the case, what kind? Meanwhile the Jezzinis have been proving day after day their love and affiliation to Lebanon and its principles. The Jezzini's new generation is a live witness on the past and current hardships their city and their people have been and are still enduring. The Jezzine soil is another witness on the Jezzini's sacrifices, it is mixed with both their blood and sweat.
Jezzine has been abandoned by the Lebanese successive regimes, but its people never abandoned their solid holy affiliation to Lebanon. They constantly proved this fact by staying in their land and defending it no matter who is the invader or the occupier. They faced numerous invaders and foreign troops, but never betrayed their country and remained loyal to its identity and authorities.
The people of Jezzine became the actual victims after their state, the Lebanese Army, the people and the officials abandoned them. The Jezzinis stayed in their land heroically and endured all kinds of hardships while the state failed to play its role or assume its responsibilities. They lived the actual destruction, the killing the poverty and the war atrocities while the officials were safe and comfortable in their palaces.
Who is judging who?
Is it possible to put the victims and the heroes on trial while the criminals and the traitors are loose and controlling the regime and the judiciary?
It is rational to put on trial those who protected their land instead of fleeing?
Is it right to put on trial those who offered themselves on Lebanon's alter, and jeopardized all their interests, safety and property to maintain their solid loyalty to the Lebanese identity?
While the Jizzinis were suffering and encountering all kinds of grievances the Lebanese State was completely absent from their region with all its institutions. At the same time the international diplomacy failed in achieving any plan to rescue the Jezzinis
It is time the Lebanese officials put an end to their camouflage conduct,
It is time to stop bragging about the alleged State of law,
It is time to stop incriminating the patriots and heroes,
It is time to stop their mockeries and prostitution stances.
The people's memory retains every thing. The Day of Judgment will come soon and history will have no mercy on traitors. Empty slogans will disappear, and occupiers ultimately will leave with shame and humiliation. All those officials who served them shall pay the price for their people and answer for their conduct. In the civilized countries when a trial is needed it has to conducted in accordance to laws that are based on rationalism, equality and not just arguments. Justice must be one for all citizens with no double standards or favouritism.
In occupied Lebanon the installed regime and its regional custodian tailor laws according to their needs for intimidating, torturing, persecuting and murdering the patriots and the innocent. They have their own criminal standards according to which people are on trial. In their dictionary treason and collaboration are the norm while devotion faith, patriotism and sacrifice are the deviation.
Lebanon through its 6000 deeply rooted history has seen hundreds of tyrants and invaders, they all had to retreat and leave with disgrace while the Lebanese remained and were always in the end victorious. The fate of the current occupiers will not be any different.
Long Live Free Lebanon.

Hezbollah's cautious approach to the Lebanese presidential election
Michael Young/The National/August 31/2022
Burnt by its association with Aoun, the party may focus on shaping a consensus around a candidate this time
On Thursday, Lebanon will enter the two-month constitutional period during which parliament must elect a successor to President Michel Aoun. Revealingly, Hezbollah has adopted a different attitude than the one six years ago, when it had provoked a debilitating two-year presidential vacuum as leverage to bring Mr Aoun to office.
As a number of observers have remarked, Hezbollah cannot look back on its support for an Aoun presidency as a success. While this did allow the party to reinforce its alliance with a major Christian partner, strengthening Hezbollah’s leverage in the political system, it also exposed the party to the repercussions of Mr Aoun’s falling popularity. Rightly or wrongly, many Lebanese associate the economic collapse that began in 2019 with the President, even if there is plenty of blame to spread around the country’s corrupt political class.
With economic pain reaching deep into the Shiite community, Hezbollah appears to be more careful in its presidential calculations today. To an extent, conditions have also imposed this. The outcome of the parliamentary election in May led to a legislature in which none of the country’s major political alignments has a majority, making for what is often a hung parliament. Only on rare occasions can Hezbollah impose a majority, as when it compelled its reluctant Aounist allies to help ensure the re-election of Nabih Berri as Speaker.
Rather than naming a presidential candidate, Hezbollah appears to be waiting and seeing if a consensus emerges around a given figure. The problem is that two of its Maronite Christian allies are competing for the presidency – Gebran Bassil, the son-in-law of Mr Aoun and head of the Free Patriotic Movement, and Suleiman Franjieh, the grandson of a former president. However, both men face major problems – Mr Bassil is under US sanctions, while Mr Franjieh provokes little enthusiasm outside a small portion of his own community.
Hezbollah has faced challenges that showed antagonism towards it was growing in potentially dangerous ways
Hezbollah can see that if it were to openly choose between either man, it would risk alienating the other, leading to tensions with an ally. At the same time, the party is also very keen to ensure that the next president does not pose a threat to its strategic interests, and does not represent an obstacle to its agenda in Lebanon. The reason for this is that in the past year, Hezbollah has faced challenges that, if they did not undermine the party, did show that antagonism towards Hezbollah was growing in potentially dangerous ways.
In August 2021, Hezbollah supporters were ambushed by members of a Sunni tribe in Khaldeh, after a tribesman had killed a Hezbollah member in a revenge killing. The incident could have easily spread into a broader Sunni-Shiite armed conflict had the army not intervened immediately to control the situation.
Not long thereafter, Hezbollah members were forcibly prevented by Druze villagers from firing rockets at the contested Shebaa Farms area. The villagers, fearing Israeli retaliation, manhandled the party’s members and detained them, until the issue was resolved. The incident led to tensions between Druze and Shiite, before order was reimposed.
Most significantly, last October, Hezbollah and allied Amal supporters demonstrated against the investigation into the Beirut Port explosion and some entered the Christian neighbourhood of Tayyouneh. Young men from the area fired on them, killing two of the parties’ supporters, while several others were shot when the army intervened. The episode was the most serious breach of civil peace in years, and heightened Christian-Shiite tensions.
While Hezbollah was defiant in all three cases, the message could not have been reassuring: an increasing number of Lebanese sectarian groups appeared willing to challenge the party, even militarily in some instances, and Hezbollah’s options to respond were limited. If the party resorted to its weapons to intimidate its foes, this could have unleashed broader, sectarian-driven conflict, which could well have backfired against Hezbollah.
In a speech last week, Hassan Nasrallah, the party’s secretary general, echoed this unease, when he declared that Hezbollah would not be dragged into a civil war, nor would it allow such an outcome. He stressed that Hezbollah sought a dialogue, stating: “Our prime issue during the next stage is co-operating with various political powers in order to build a just and capable state.”
Activists confront soldiers guarding the entrance of the Lebanese parliament building during a demonstration in Beirut on August 4, 2022, on the day that crisis-hit Lebanon marks two years since a giant explosion ripped through the capital.
If Hezbollah does carry out its threat of war, Lebanon could end up like Gaza
Lebanon's gas has become an extension of Iranian interests
Lebanon's social contract has collapsed, but why is there no move to revive it?
Nasrallah went further, saying Hezbollah was even willing to discuss a national defence strategy, which would ultimately seek to integrate Hezbollah’s weapons into the state.
One might question Nasrallah’s sincerity, but his conciliatory tone was certainly a sign of the party’s more open attitude towards the presidency. With agreement over the nuclear deal with Iran reportedly close, Hezbollah feels this may be a good time to be mollifying, as Tehran and its regional allies are expected to benefit from the outcome.
This brings out a paradox in the party’s behaviour today. On the one hand it remains strong, as it has continued to exploit internal Lebanese divisions to remain dominant, while the regional outlook is also playing in its favour if Iran comes out strengthened.
At the same time, the party is more conscious than ever of its vulnerabilities. This is especially true in a domestic context shaped by Lebanon’s economic collapse, for which Hezbollah offers no remedies. Regionally, even if Iran secures its interests, developments in Iraq and Lebanon reflect increasing resentment of Iranian hegemony.
Unless the region moves towards greater confrontation if the nuclear accord fails, Hezbollah is likely to pursue its facade of conciliation over the Lebanese presidency. That doesn’t mean a candidate will be elected soon, and a vacuum remains highly likely, but Hezbollah will not force the issue. Rather, it will probably focus on helping to shape a consensus around any candidate who doesn’t endanger the party.

New Saudi-Lebanese crisis likely over request for activist’s extradition as Hezbollah continues to fuel tensions
The Arab Weekly/August 31/2022
It is widely believed that Hezbollah has already smuggled the wanted Saudi activist to Syria in order to prevent his arrest.
Saudi-Lebanese relations are facing a new test with Riyadh demanding the extradition of a Saudi opposition activist who has threatened his country’s embassy but is reported to enjoy the protection of Hezbollah.
The activist named as Ali Hashem had threatened the Saudi embassy in Lebanon with a terrorist attack and vowed to exterminate all those working there.
Observers believe that the failure of the Lebanese authorities to extradite Hashem may lead to fresh tensions in bilateral relations and perhaps to a new episode of diplomatic rupture between the two countries, at a time when Lebanon is in most need of the kingdom's backing to help deal with its dire economic and political crises. Analysts believe it is unlikely the Lebanese authorities would be able to satisfy Riyadh’s request as long as the Saudi activist has the protection and blessing of Hezbollah.
The militant Shia party, they say, will block any attempts to extradite Hashem. Hezbollah is instead believed to be intensifying its efforts to recruit Saudi activists to its cause as it seeks to undermine the standing of Saudi Arabia in the region and assail its reputation, even if that means jeopardising already-frayed Saudi-Lebanese relations.
As an Iran proxy, Hezbollah conducts policies in Lebanon and the region that are deeply inimical to Saudi Arabia and Arab Gulf states and serve Tehran’s interests.
Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Lebanon Walid al-Bukhari said the kingdom is seeking the arrest and extradition from Lebanon of the Saudi activist who threatened the kingdom’s embassy in Beirut last week.
“We call upon the competent Lebanese authorities to undertake the necessary legal procedures regarding the terrorist threats,” Bukhari said following a meeting with Lebanon's interior minister.
Lebanese and Saudi authorities say the person behind the recorded threats was a Saudi national named Ali Hashem.
Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi last week asked security forces to probe the recorded death threats out of “concern for Lebanon’s interest and security and good relations with brotherly nations, especially the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
Some Lebanese officials have tried to improve ties with Saudi Arabia, once a major donor, after years of tension over the growing influence in Lebanon of Hezbollah, which is classified by both Riyadh and the United States as a terrorist group. With Hezbollah always in control of much of the decision-making process, any improvement in Saudi-Lebanese relations is perceived by experts as only temporary till the next crisis.
Relations hit a new low last year when Saudi Arabia banned imports of Lebanese goods over drug smuggling concerns and then recalled its ambassador after disparaging remarks about Saudi policy in Yemen made by former minister of information, George Kerdahi, a pro-Hezbollah politician. The Lebanese minister has since left the cabinet and the Saudi ambassador has returned to his post.
Much of the tension between Riyadh and Beirut has been fuelled by Hezbollah’s using its clout in Lebanon to undermine relations with the kingdom. From that perspective, it has sought to co-opt Saudi opposition activists to its side as it still seeks confrontation with Riyadh.
Many in Lebanon itself and in Arab Gulf countries also suspect Hezbollah of involvement in drug smuggling into the kingdom in order to destabilise Saudi society and replenish its own coffers.
Bukhari called on Lebanese security forces to continue cracking down on illicit drug smuggling to Saudi Arabia, noting the kingdom has seized 700 million narcotic pills and hundreds of kilos of hashish smuggled from or via Lebanon since 2015.
It is widely believed that Hezbollah has already smuggled the Saudi activist Ali Hashem to Syria in order to prevent his arrest.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese government fears it will face new frictions with Saudi Arabia, in the light of Beirut’s expected inability to extradite the activist and curtail Hezbollah policies that are deeply hostile to the kingdom.
Indeed, over the past few years, experts say, Hezbollah has set out to damage Saudi-Lebanese relations, through provocative acts and vitriolic attacks by Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah's against the kingdom.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 31-September 01/2022
Biden, Israel's Lapid Speak amid Discussions on Possible Iran Nuclear Deal
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 31 August, 2022
US President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Wednesday, a White House official said, as Tehran seeks stronger guarantees from Washington for the revival of a 2015 nuclear deal that is strongly opposed by Israel. In its own readout of the leaders' call, Lapid's office said they "spoke at length about the negotiations on a nuclear agreement, and their shared commitment to stopping Iran’s progress towards a nuclear weapon." After 16 months of indirect talks between Tehran and Washington, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Aug. 8 the EU had laid down a final offer to overcome an impasse for the revival of the agreement. On Wednesday, Iran's top diplomat, Hossein Amirabdollahian, said Tehran was carefully reviewing Washington's response to the text, which was conveyed to Iran last week by the EU as coordinator of the nuclear talks. "Iran is carefully reviewing the EU-drafted text... We need stronger guarantees from the other party to have a sustainable deal," Amirabdollahian told a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart in Moscow. Amirabdollahian did not elaborate on "stronger guarantees", but during months of talks with Washington in Vienna, Tehran demanded US assurances that no future American president would abandon the deal as former US President Donald Trump did in 2018.

Iran Enriching Uranium with More IR-6 Centrifuges at Natanz, Says IAEA
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 31 August, 2022
Iran has begun enriching uranium with the second of three cascades, or clusters, of advanced IR-6 centrifuges recently installed at an underground plant at Natanz, a report by the UN nuclear watchdog seen by Reuters said on Wednesday.
Like the first of those three cascades of up to 174 machines each, the second is enriching uranium to up to 5% fissile purity and the third has not been fed with nuclear material, the confidential report to member states said. A separate report on Monday said the first cascade had been brought onstream.

Iran Seeks Stronger US Guarantees for Revival of 2015 Nuclear Deal
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 31 August, 2022
Iran needs stronger guarantees from Washington for the revival of a 2015 nuclear deal, its foreign minister said in Moscow on Wednesday, adding that the UN atomic watchdog should drop its "politically motivated probes" of Tehran's nuclear work. After 16 months of indirect talks between Tehran and Washington, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Aug. 8 the EU had laid down a final offer to overcome an impasse for the revival of the agreement. Iran's top diplomat, Hossein Amirabdollahian, said Tehran was carefully reviewing Washington's response to the text, which was conveyed to Iran last week by the EU as coordinator of the nuclear talks. "Iran is carefully reviewing the EU-drafted text... We need stronger guarantees from the other party to have a sustainable deal," Amirabdollahian told a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart in Moscow. Amirabdollahian did not elaborate on "stronger guarantees", but during months of talks with Washington in Vienna, Tehran demanded US assurances that no future American president would abandon the deal as former US President Donald Trump did in 2018. President Joe Biden cannot provide such ironclad assurances because the deal is a political understanding rather than a legally binding treaty. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said he had not seen the Iranian foreign minister's comments.
"So I don't know what guarantees he's talking about," Kirby told reporters. The United States is awaiting a response from the EU and the Iranians. "While we are, as I said earlier, cautiously optimistic, we are also pragmatic and clear-eyed and we realize that there's still gaps, and we’re trying to close those gaps in a good faith way, negotiating through appropriate channels and not through the public," Kirby added. The man who ultimately matters in Iran's nuclear dispute with the West, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has not commented on the nuclear talks in his public speeches for months. It was the bite of US, EU and UN sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program that forced Khamenei to give tentative backing to the 2015 pact between Tehran and major powers that curbed the country's nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions. But three years later, Trump exited the pact and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to violate the pact's nuclear limits, such as rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output. "It will be a massive embarrassment for the supreme leader if Washington pulls out of the deal again," said a former Iranian official. "That is one of the reasons behind Tehran's insistence on this issue." The nuclear deal appeared near revival in March. But indirect talks between Tehran and Washington then broke down over several issues, including Tehran's insistence that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) closed its probes into uranium traces found at three undeclared sites before the nuclear pact is revived. "The agency should close this case... Such politically motivated demands are unacceptable for Iran," said Amirabdollahian. Tehran's demand risks hurting efforts to save the pact. An Iranian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that closure of the IAEA's investigation is "the supreme leader's red line". Kirby said US officials believe the sides are closer now than they have been in months, "due in large part to Iran being willing to drop some of their demands that were not related to the deal at all".

Iran Jails 21 over Deadly Building Collapse
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 31 August, 2022
Iran's judiciary said on Wednesday that 21 people including high-ranking local officials have been jailed after they were convicted over the deadly collapse of a building that triggered widespread anti-corruption protests. The 10-storey Metropol building that was under construction in the city of Abadan in southwestern Khuzestan province collapsed on May 23, leading to the deaths of 43 people. "The 21 defendants were sentenced to three years in prison for manslaughter caused by failing to respect government regulations and building safety, resulting in the deaths of 36 men and 7 women," the Judicial Authority reported on its Mizan Online site. It said the current mayor of Abadan, two former mayors and several city officials were among those convicted. The disaster was one of Iran's deadliest in years. It took emergency services almost two weeks to recover the bodies of those who died.
The tragedy sparked a series of demonstrations across the country against authorities accused of corruption and incompetence.

UN Mission Says Ukraine Nuclear Plant Inspection to Last ‘A Few Days’
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 31 August, 2022
United Nations inspectors arrived at the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Wednesday on a mission to prevent an accident at a nearby Russian-occupied nuclear power plant and to try to stabilize the situation after weeks of shelling in the vicinity. A Reuters reporter following the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team in a convoy from the capital Kyiv said the inspectors arrived in Zaporizhzhia, where they were likely to spend the night before visiting the plant, which is on territory controlled by Russia, on Thursday. Russian-installed officials in the area near the power station suggested the visit might last only one day, while IAEA and Ukrainian officials suggested it would last longer."The mission will take a few days. If we are able to establish a permanent presence, or a continued presence, then it’s going to be prolonged. But this first segment is going to take a few days," IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told reporters at a hotel in Zaporizhzhia. "We have a very important task there to perform - to assess the real situation there, to help stabilize the situation as much as we can," he said, adding the IAEA team had guarantees from both Russia and Ukraine enabling it to enter the war zone. Russia captured the plant, Europe's largest, in early March as part of what Moscow calls its "special military operation", which Kyiv and the West describe as an unprovoked invasion designed to grab land and erase Ukrainian identity.
A Russian military force has been at the plant ever since, as has most of the Ukrainian workforce who have toiled to continue running the facility, which traditionally supplied Ukraine with 20 percent of its electricity needs.
Fighting was reported both near the power station and further afield, with Kyiv and Moscow both claiming battlefield successes as Ukraine mounted a counter-offensive to recapture territory in the south. Reuters could not independently verify such reports. Away from Ukraine, Russia halted gas supplies via Europe's key supply route on Wednesday, intensifying an economic battle between Moscow and Brussels that could lead to recession and energy rationing in some of the region's richest countries. European Union foreign ministers decided on Wednesday to make it more expensive and lengthier for Russians to obtain visas to visit the bloc, but stopped short of agreeing an EU-wide visa ban that some member states had wanted. High risk For weeks now, Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of endangering the plant's safety with artillery or drone strikes and risking a Chernobyl-style radiation disaster. Kyiv says Russia has been using the plant as a shield to hit towns and cities, knowing it will be hard for Ukraine to return fire. It has also accused Russian forces of shelling the plant. "The risk of a radiation disaster due to Russian actions does not decrease for an hour," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on Tuesday. The Russian defense ministry has said that radiation levels at the plant are normal. Russia has denied Ukrainian assertions of reckless behavior, questioning why it would shell a facility where its own troops are garrisoned as what it calls a security detail. Moscow has accused the Ukrainians of shelling the plant to try to generate international outrage that Kyiv hopes will result in a demilitarized zone. Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galuschenko said the IAEA inspection was a step towards "de-occupying and demilitarizing" the site. Russia has said it has no intention of withdrawing its forces for now. Asked about plans for a demilitarized zone at the plant, Grossi said this was a matter of political will involving the countries engaged in the conflict.
"My mission is a technical mission. It’s a mission that seeks to prevent a nuclear accident. And to preserve this important (nuclear power plant)," he said.
Questions and doubts
It was not clear how long the inspectors would be able to remain there, however. Russia said it welcomed the IAEA's stated intention to set up a permanent mission at the plant. But Yevgeny Balitsky, head of the Russian-installed administration in the area, told the Interfax news agency the IAEA inspectors "must see the work of the station in one day".The United States has urged a complete shutdown of the plant and called for a demilitarized zone around it. The plant is close to the frontlines and Ukraine's armed forces on Wednesday accused Russia of shelling in the area and of preparing to resume an offensive there. There was no immediate comment from Moscow. In his late-night address, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces were attacking Russian positions in Ukraine along the entire frontline after Kyiv announced on Monday it had launched an offensive to try to retake the south. Zelenskiy said his forces were also on the offensive in the east. Germany's chief of defense General Eberhard Zorn meanwhile warned that the West must not underestimate Moscow's military strength, saying Russia has the scope to open up a second front should it choose to do so. Russia captured large tracts of southern Ukraine near the Black Sea coast in the early weeks of the six-month-old war, including in the Kherson region, which lies north of the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula. Ukraine sees recapturing the region as crucial to prevent Russian attempts to seize more territory further west that could eventually cut off its access to the Black Sea. Russia has denied reports of Ukrainian progress and said its troops had routed Ukrainian forces.

New Russia Gas Halt Tightens Energy Screws on Europe
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 31 August, 2022
Russia halted gas supplies via a major pipeline to Europe on Wednesday, intensifying an economic battle between Moscow and Brussels and raising the prospects of recession and energy rationing in some of the region's richest countries. The outage for maintenance on Nord Stream 1 means that no gas will flow to Germany between 0100 GMT on Aug. 31 and 0100 GMT on Sept. 3, according to Russian state energy giant Gazprom. Data from the Nord Stream 1 operator's website showed flows at zero for 0600-0700 Central European Time (0400-0500 GMT) on Wednesday, the third hour in a row of no flows.
European governments fear Moscow could extend the outage in retaliation for Western sanctions imposed on it after its invasion of Ukraine and have accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of using energy supplies as a "weapon of war". Moscow denies doing this. Further restrictions to European gas supplies would heighten an energy crunch that has already sent wholesale gas prices soaring over 400% since last August, creating a painful cost-of-living crisis for consumers and businesses and forcing governments to spend billions to ease the burden. In Germany, inflation hit its highest level in almost 50 years in August and consumer sentiment is projected to hit a record low for the third month in a row next month as households brace for higher energy bills. Unlike last month's 10-day maintenance for Nord Stream 1, the upcoming work was announced less than two weeks in advance and is being carried out by Gazprom not Nord Stream AG, focusing on the last operating turbine at the station. Moscow, which slashed supply via Nord Stream 1 to 40% of capacity in June and to 20% in July, blames maintenance issues and sanctions it says prevent the return and installation of equipment.
Gazprom said the latest shutdown is needed to perform maintenance on the pipeline's only remaining compressor. Yet Russia has also cut off supply to Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Poland completely, and reduced flows via other pipelines since launching what Moscow calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine. Gazprom is just using an excuse to switch off natural gas deliveries to its French contractor, the energy minister in Paris said with regard to a separate dispute over payments, but added that the country had anticipated the loss of supply.
‘Element of surprise’
German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, on a mission to replace Russian gas imports by mid-2024, earlier this month said Nord Stream was "fully operational" and there were no technical issues as claimed by Moscow. Klaus Mueller, president of Germany's network regulator, said while a resumption of flows would help Germany's security of supply, no one was able to say what the consequences would be if flows remained at zero. Europe's largest economy is making better progress than expected in filling its gas storage facilities, but it's not enough to get the country through winter, he said.
The reduced flows via Nord Stream have complicated efforts across Europe to fill up vital gas storage facilities, a key strategic goal to make it through the winter months, when governments fear Russia may halt flows altogether. "It is something of a miracle that gas filling levels in Germany have continued to rise nonetheless," Commerzbank analysts wrote, adding Germany had so far been successful at buying sufficient volumes at higher prices elsewhere. In the meantime, however, some Europeans are voluntarily cutting their energy consumption, including limiting their use of electrical appliances and showering at work to save money while companies are bracing for possible rationing. At 83.26%, Germany is already within reach of an 85% target for its national gas storage tanks by Oct. 1, but it has warned reaching 95% by Nov. 1 would be a stretch unless companies and households drastically cut consumption.
For the European Union as a whole, the current storage level is 79.94%, just short of an 80% target by Oct. 1, when the continent's heating season starts. Analysts at Goldman Sachs said their base case assumption was that this outage would not be extended. "If it did, there would be no more element of surprise and reduced revenues, while low (Nord Stream 1) flows and the occasional drop to zero have the potential to keep market volatility and political pressure on Europe higher," they said.

EU to Tighten Travel Rules for Russians, but No Visa Ban
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 31 August, 2022
European Union countries agreed Wednesday to make it harder for Russian citizens to enter the 27-nation bloc, but they failed to find a consensus on imposing an outright tourist ban in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. At talks in the Czech Republic, EU foreign ministers were desperate to put on a show of unity and further punish President Vladimir Putin for launching the war over six months ago. Still, they couldn't bridge differences over whether Russian citizens, some of them possibly opposed to the invasion, should also pay a price. The plan now is to make it more time-consuming and costly for Russian citizens to obtain short-term visas to enter Europe’s passport-free travel zone — a 26-country area made up of most of the EU members plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland known as the Schengen area. The move will be done by freezing a 2007 agreement to ease travel between Russia and Europe. The EU already tightened visa restrictions on Russian officials and businesspeople under the accord in May. Speaking after chairing the meeting in the Czech capital Prague, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that an increasing number of Russians have been arriving in Europe since mid-July, some “for leisure and shopping as if no war is raging in Ukraine.”This, he said, “has become a security risk” for European countries bordering Russia. Borrell said he believed the additional delays will result in fewer visas being issued. Students, journalists and those who fear for their safety in Russia would still be able to acquire visas. The move would have no immediate impact on the estimated 12 million visas already issued to Russian citizens, but EU officials will look into what could be done to freeze them.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba described the move as “a half measure.” He said that visas should only be issued to Russians on humanitarian grounds or to help those who clearly oppose Putin’s war.
“The age of peace in Europe is over, and so is the age of half measures. Half measures are exactly what led to the large-scale invasion,” he said after the meeting. “If I have to choose between half measure and no measure, I will prefer a no measure and continue a discussion until a strong solution is found.”
Calls have mounted from Poland and the Baltic countries — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — but also Denmark for a broader ban on Russian tourists. The foreign ministers of Estonia and Latvia said that they may push ahead with further visa restrictions, citing national security concerns.
“We need to immediately ramp up the price to Putin’s regime,” Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu told reporters. “The loss of time is paid by the blood of Ukrainians.”Uniform rules are supposed to apply across the 26 countries that make up Europe’s passport free travel area, but Reinsalu said that “it’s our national competence, under the principle of national security, to decide the issues of entry to our soil.”Over the years, several countries have reintroduced border controls for security reasons in the Schengen area, in which Europeans and visitors can travel freely without identification checks.
The foreign minister of Finland, which shares the EU’s longest border with Russia, underlined that his country would, as of Thursday, slash the number of visas being delivered to Russian citizens to 10% of normal. They’ll only be able to apply for the travel pass in four Russian cities. “It’s important that we show that at the same time when Ukrainians are suffering, normal tourism shouldn’t continue business as usual,” Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said. “Finland has already made our decision to limit the amount of tourist visas. We hope that the whole European Union will make similar decisions.”Before Wednesday's talks, Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod had expressed hope that a common EU position could be found, pointing to the fact that most Ukrainian men don't have the luxury to choose whether they can leave their war-torn country. “It has to have consequences on all fronts,” Kofod said. “We want to limit visas for Russian tourists, send a clear signal to Putin, to Russia, (that) what he is doing in Ukraine is totally unacceptable.”But European countries further from Russia and Ukraine’s borders are reluctant to go too far. Belgium Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said it is important to avoid creating a patchwork system “where Russians could do a kind of visa shopping among the countries of the European Union.”“It’s very important to target the right people. That is, those who support this unjust war against Ukraine and also those who try to evade the sanctions that we have imposed,” she said.

US Must Dispel Pelosi’s ‘Negative Influence’ before Climate Talks, Says China
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 31 August, 2022
China said on Wednesday that a condition for the resumption of bilateral climate talks with the United States was Washington dispelling the "negative influence" left by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan earlier this month. In response to the visit on Aug. 2-3, China on Aug. 5 suspended bilateral cooperation with the United States in a number of areas, including climate talks and dialogue between senior-level military commanders. US Special Envoy on Climate Change John Kerry, who earlier this month said the suspension of bilateral climate talks punished the entire world, urged Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday, in an interview with the Financial Times, to resume the discussions. The former US Secretary of State, who is currently the Biden administration's top climate diplomat, also told the newspaper he was hopeful the countries could "get back together" ahead of the United Nations' COP27 climate summit in November in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. China, which claims the self-ruled island of Taiwan as its own territory, responded to Kerry's remarks on Wednesday by stating the resumption of climate talks with the United States was dependent on actions taken by Washington to address the "negative influence" of Pelosi's Taiwan visit. "The US side should dispel the negative influence of Pelosi scuttling to Taiwan, this is an indispensable condition of China-US climate change cooperation," China's foreign ministry said in a written statement sent to Reuters.
The statement also said China would continue to actively participate in international forums on climate change. Beijing's response highlights the divergent approaches to global climate change cooperation between the world's two superpowers. While officials in the Biden administration, including Kerry, have repeatedly expressed hope that US-China cooperation on climate change would not be affected by tensions on other fronts, Beijing has rejected any separating of issues in US-China relations. White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters the two countries' militaries could still communicate even at lower levels in "areas where contention can run high," such as in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, but that channels on climate and narcotics were still shut down. "That's really unfortunate because ... particularly on fentanyl and climate, there's a global impact here for the two largest economies in the world to not have an ability to collaborate," Kirby said.

Iraq political gridlock persists after bloody unrest
Agence France Presse/August 31/2022
A months-long political crisis in Iraq showed little sign of abating Wednesday despite a fresh push for negotiations after nearly 24 hours of deadly violence between rival Shiite factions ended. The highly-secured Green Zone in Baghdad returned to normality after 30 people were killed and 570 wounded in the clashes pitting supporters of powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr against factions linked to Iran. Since elections in October last year, political deadlock has left Iraq without a new government, prime minister or president, due to disagreement over the formation of a coalition. The tensions escalated sharply on Monday when Sadr loyalists stormed the government palace inside the Green Zone following their leader's announcement that he was quitting politics. But Sadr's supporters trickled out of the Green Zone in a steady stream on Tuesday afternoon when he appealed for them to withdraw within the hour. A nationwide curfew was lifted, before shops reopened and infamous traffic jams returned to Baghdad's streets on Wednesday as the government announced the resumption of school exams postponed by the unrest. But the hurdles obstructing a solution to Iraq's political crisis remained firmly in place, with rival powers refusing to budge on their demands. Early elections, less than a year after the last polls, and the dissolution of parliament have been a key demand of Sadr. Iraqi President Barham Saleh said on Tuesday night that snap elections could provide "an exit from the stifling crisis".
Snap polls
Parliament can only be dissolved by a majority vote, according to the constitution. Such a vote can take place at the request of a third of lawmakers, or by the prime minster with the president's agreement. Sadr's rivals in the pro-Iran Coordination Framework want a new head of government to be appointed before any new elections are held. On Tuesday, they called for the swift formation of a new government, "to prevent a recurrence of the strife" that paralyzed the Iraqi capital this week. The Framework urged parliament and other state institutions to "return to exercising their constitutional functions and carry out their duties towards citizens." The statement drew the ire of a senior aid of Sadr, Saleh Mohammad al-Iraqi, who said it overlooked the rightful demands of protesters killed in the Green Zone who want parliament dissolved. "Iran should reign in its Iraqi camels, or else there will be little room left for regret," he said on Wednesday, referring to the Coordination Framework. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi, meanwhile, threatened to resign if the political paralysis continues. "If they want to continue to stir up chaos, conflict, discord and rivalry... I will take the moral and patriotic step and vacate my post at the appropriate time," he said in a speech.
'More protests'
Iraqi political analyst Sajad Jiyad said a return to violence was possible in the absence of a longer term solution. "The biggest loser is the state, standing idly by while two powerful armed parties continue to struggle for control," he said. "Unless a proper solution is reached, more protests and violence are possible."Sadr -- a longtime player in the war-torn country's political scene, though he himself has never directly been in government -- announced he was quitting politics two days after he said "all parties" including his own should give up government positions in order to help resolve the political crisis.
Sadr's bloc emerged from last October's election as the biggest in the legislature, with 73 seats, but short of a majority. Since then the country has been mired in political deadlock due to disagreement between Shiite factions over forming a coalition. In June, Sadr's lawmakers quit in a bid to break the logjam, which led to the Coordination Framework becoming the largest. Sadr's supporters had for weeks been staging a sit-in outside Iraq's parliament, after storming the legislature's interior on July 30, demanding fresh elections be held.

World hails 'one-of-a-kind' ex-Soviet leader Gorbachev
Agence France Presse/August 31/2022
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union who played a major role in ending the Cold War, died in Moscow on Tuesday aged 91. World leaders were quick to pay tribute to the man who oversaw the collapse of the USSR, a pivotal turning point in world history.
- Russia -Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his "deep sympathies" over Gorbachev's death, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies. Peskov added that Putin, a former KGB agent who had an ambiguous relationship with Gorbachev, will send a telegram of condolences to the late leader's family and friends on Wednesday morning.
- Germany -"Germany remains bound in gratitude with him for his decisive contribution to German unity, in respect with his courage to open the path to democracy and build bridges between east and west, and in remembrance of his great vision of a peaceful European home," President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement. "Today that dream lies in ruins, destroyed by Russia's brutal attack on Ukraine."
- United Nations -"A one-of-a-kind statesman who changed the course of history" and "did more than any other individual to bring about the peaceful end of the Cold War", Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
- European Union -European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed Gorbachev as a "trusted and respected leader" who "opened the way for a free Europe". His "crucial role" in bringing down the Iron Curtain and ending the Cold War left a legacy "we will not forget", she wrote on Twitter.
- United Kingdom -Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he "always admired the courage and integrity" Gorbachev showed to bring the Cold War to a peaceful conclusion. "In a time of Putin's aggression in Ukraine, his tireless commitment to opening up Soviet society remains an example to us all," he said in a Twitter post.
- France -President Emmanuel Macron described Gorbachev as a "man of peace" on Twitter early Wednesday, saying he "opened a path of liberty for Russians. His commitment to peace in Europe changed our shared history".
- Israel -"Mikhail Gorbachev was one of the 20th century's most extraordinary figures," President Isaac Herzog said in a statement. "He was a brave and visionary leader, who shaped our world in ways previously thought unimaginable."
- Norway - "Upon the passing of Mikhail Gorbachev we remember a courageous leader who left his distinct mark on history by choosing reforms over oppression and by making an important contribution to a peaceful end of the cold war," Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store wrote on Twitter.
- Sweden -"In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev spoke at the World Youth Festival, tens and thousands of young people, including me, heard another tone, a hope for another future away from the repression and Cold War," Foreign Minister Ann Linde wrote on Twitter. "He made a difference. So immensely sad the present leader is taking the opposite way."

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 30-31/2022
Giulio Meotti/Gatstone Institute:Europe’s Twilight: Christianity Declines, Islam Rises/دراسة لجوليو ميوتي من معهد جيتستون: المسيحية في أوروبا في تراجع فيما الإسلام في صعود
August 28, 20222
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/111522/giulio-meotti-gatstone-instituteeuropes-twilight-christianity-declines-islam-rises-%d8%af%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%b3%d8%a9-%d9%84%d8%ac%d9%88%d9%84%d9%8a%d9%88-%d9%85%d9%8a%d9%88%d8%aa%d9%8a-%d9%85%d9%86/
by Giulio Meotti/Gatstone Institute/

A New Iran Deal Would Empower Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Flash Brief/FDD/August 31/2022
Iran would receive approximately $275 billion in sanctions relief during the first year of a new nuclear deal and more than $1 trillion by 2030, according to an FDD analysis. If past is prologue, a significant portion of these funds would likely flow to Iranian-supported terror organizations in the region, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), based in Gaza and the West Bank. In the year after the implementation of the original 2015 nuclear accord, Iran’s military budget increased by 90 percent, enabling the regime to shower its regional proxies, including PIJ, with additional resources.
Expert Analysis
“Palestinian Islamic Jihad is an arm of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Khamenei and the IRGC are fanatically devoted to weaponizing Palestinian terror groups to destroy Israel while brutalizing Iranians at home.” – Mark Dubowitz, FDD Chief Executive
Israel Recently Fought a War With PIJ
In August, the Israel Defense Forces launched Operation Breaking Dawn to preempt attacks by PIJ, which the United States has designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization since 1997. During the 66 hours of fighting, Palestinian militants launched over a thousand rockets at Israeli targets, while millions of Israelis took refuge in bomb shelters.
PIJ Profile
Founded in 1981, PIJ is the second-largest militant group in Gaza after Hamas. Like Hamas, PIJ seeks Israel’s destruction. But unlike Hamas, PIJ does not participate in the Palestinian political process or provide social services to Palestinians in Gaza. In the 1990s and again during the Second Intifada from 2000 to 2005, PIJ targeted Israeli civilians with suicide bombings, including the Netanya mall bombing in 2005, which killed five Israelis and wounded 50.
Although PIJ is Sunni, it took inspiration from the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which the terror group views as a model for the creation of a Palestinian state. PIJ’s founder, Fathi Shikaki, published a book expressing support for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeinei, the founding father and first supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Israel killed Shikaki in 1995.
Iranian Support for PIJ
Since the early 1990s, Iran has provided PIJ with financial and military support, including small arms, rockets, and explosive-laden unmanned aerial vehicles. In 2019, PIJ Secretary General Ziad al-Nakhaleh said, “The resistance is capable of crushing the Zionist cities with over 1,000 rockets a day for months.”
According to the State Department’s 2020 Country Reports on Terrorism, “PIJ receives financial assistance and training primarily from Iran. PIJ has partnered with Iran- and Syria-sponsored Hizballah to carry out joint operations.”
At the onset of the recent fighting between PIJ and Israel, Nakhaleh was visiting Iran, where he met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and General Hossein Salami, the commander of the IRGC.
IRGC-Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani’s Support for PIJ
In 2021, Nakhaleh said Qassem Soleimani—when he was serving as commander of Quds Force, the IRGC’s expeditionary arm—had “traveled to various countries, made plans, and set up guidelines to deliver” missiles and other weapons to the Gaza Strip. “And indeed, these weapons were delivered [to the Gaza Strip]. I can say that the missiles that [Soleimani] delivered to the Gaza Strip were the ones used to attack Tel Aviv.” Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike in January 2020 in Baghdad, Iraq.

Turkey’s Latest Move to Undermine NATO
Bradley Bowman and Sinan Ciddi/The Dispatch/August 31/2022
That it’s considering buying additional missile systems from Russia highlights continued challenges for the United States and its NATO allies.
Turkey is at again, a NATO ally not acting like one. It’s admittedly not exactly new behavior for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, but the actions over the last two weeks have been particularly troubling.
As of publication, Turkey is among a small number of allies that still has not ratified the accession of Finland and Sweden to the alliance. The U.S. Senate voted 95-1 to add the two Nordic countries, but Erdoğan has slow-rolled the process to score domestic political points in advance of elections.
A week ago, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reportedly suggested Ankara would drop its request for new American F-16 fighter aircraft if their provision is contingent on a commitment from Turkey not to employ those aircraft for “unauthorized territorial overflights of Greece,” a key congressional demand. It hardly seems unreasonable to ask one NATO ally to refrain from such acts of aggression targeting another NATO ally.
The previous Friday, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo called his counterpart in Ankara to discuss Turkey’s economic relationship with Russia and how the latter was using Turkey to evade sanctions.
But the most concerning development comes from Russian state news agency TASS, which reported on August 16 that Russia and Turkey had signed “a contract … to deliver a second regiment of the S-400 [surface-to-air] missile system to Turkey,” attributing the claim to the head of Russia’s Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, Dmitry Shugayev.
The S-400 is an advanced mobile, surface-to-air missile system capable of shooting down aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, and many kinds of missiles. As a Russian-developed system, it is specifically designed to target allied aircraft.
Seemingly caught by surprise, Turkish government sources were quick to deny a new deal had been signed. “The purchase of a second batch was included in the original plan and the related contract,” a Turkish defense official said, referring to a 2017 deal under which Turkey purchased one S-400 regiment from Russia, with an option to buy another. Negotiations on the second regiment have dragged on for years, with little apparent progress. “The process is ongoing and there are no new agreements,” the Turkish official said.
Regardless, that NATO ally Turkey is still considering acquiring additional S-400s from Russia, the leading threat to the alliance, is deeply disappointing and highlights the continued challenges for the United States and its NATO allies in developing a prudent policy toward Turkey.
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has killed or injured tens of thousands of Ukrainians and displaced millions more, shows his continued willingness to use military force to redraw international borders in Europe. That sort of might-makes-right model was an essential cause of two world wars on the continent last century. If unchecked, Putin’s impulse presents a serious challenge to American, Turkish, and NATO security interests.
A Turkish decision to acquire more S-400s would sow further division between Turkey and its NATO allies at a time when alliance unity is more important than ever—something surely not lost on the Kremlin. Indeed, Ankara’s purchase of its first S-400 regiment is perhaps the most tangible example of the Erdoğan government’s general drift toward Russia.
But the adverse consequences associated with Ankara’s acquisition of the S-400 extend far beyond geopolitics. The acquisition also creates a host of genuine problems for the United States military and for the broader NATO alliance.
Consider what happened with Turkey and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, a next-generation aircraft that American and allied aviators will fly for decades to come.
The United States plans to eventually procure more than 2,400 F-35s and is actively fielding three variants of the aircraft to the U.S. Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy. Turkey was one of eight allied countries that initially participated in the F-35 program, playing a prominent role in producing parts for the aircraft.
Washington repeatedly warned that purchasing the Russian S-400 missile system would result in Turkey’s expulsion from the F-35 program, since co-locating the two systems would have enabled Moscow to gain valuable intelligence helpful for detecting and shooting down F-35s. Yet Turkey went ahead with the S-400 acquisition anyway, leaving the United States no choice but to evict Turkey from the F-35 program in 2019 before it procured the aircraft.
Unfortunately, the negative military consequences of Ankara’s S-400 deal don’t end there. The S-400 also can’t integrate with NATO air and missile defense systems, so Turkey’s purchase undermined NATO efforts to strengthen its air and missile defenses along the alliance’s eastern flank—a project that has taken on new urgency following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Bolstering the alliance’s defense posture in eastern Europe is a wise and necessary pursuit. But many of the new units and assets in the region lack sufficient air and missile defenses and would be vulnerable in a conflict with Russia. The Pentagon and others understand this problem, but fixing it is easier said than done given finite resources and the time required to procure additional air and missile defense capabilities. “Air and missile defense always was and remains my biggest concern for U.S. capabilities in Europe,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of United States Army Europe, in a recent podcast hosted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
To mitigate those challenges and to strengthen the capabilities of new assets once fielded, the Pentagon is eager to link U.S. air and missile defense “sensors and shooters” with those of allies and partners to systematically strengthen situational awareness and intercept capabilities. Instead of contributing to that architecture, Turkey’s past and potentially future S-400 purchases undercut the integration effort and create additional problems that reduce deterrence and redound to Moscow’s benefit. It could even increase the chances for NATO fratricide in a future conflict.
This helps explain why Putin has been so eager to sell the S-400 abroad, particularly to countries aligned or allied with the United States. It stokes tension and division between Washington and the country purchasing the system, generates revenue for Moscow, strengthens its defense industrial base, constrains U.S. security cooperation with the recipient country, and creates a host of practical military problems for the United States.
Little wonder then that TASS was so eager to suggest Turkey is procuring the second regiment of S-400s.
So, what’s the path forward in dealing with Turkey?
That depends on whether we think Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is an anomaly in Turkey or a sign of the new normal there. Will Turkey return to a more traditional foreign policy vis-à-vis NATO and the United States post-Erdoğan? Or is Turkey durably changed, and must we now accept that Ankara will not be a reliable ally for years to come?
The truth is that no one knows for sure.
What we do know is that an effective policy prescription depends on a good diagnosis of the current reality—and the only diagnosis that facts support is that Erdoğan continues to be an ally who doesn’t act like one.
John Hardie, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, contributed to this article.
Bradley Bowman is the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot and advisor to members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. Twitter: @Brad_L_Bowman.
Dr. Sinan Ciddi is nonresident senior fellow at FDD and an expert on Turkish domestic politics and foreign policy. He serves as an associate professor of security studies at Marine Corps University and an adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Twitter: @SinanCiddi. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

What Should Israel’s Strategy Be for the Day After a Nuke Deal With Iran?
David Isaac/Israel Today/August 31/022
Only one option remains to prevent Tehran from becoming a nuclear power, experts tell JNS — attack, within a year.
(JNS) While Israel has urged the United States not to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran nuclear deal, recent signs point to a revived agreement. This has shifted discussion in Israel from how to prevent a deal to what strategy to adopt the day after one is signed.
Israel has made it clear that it does not consider itself bound by any agreement that might be reached. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid told foreign correspondents on Aug. 24, “If a deal is signed, it does not obligate Israel. We will act to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state.”
Many analysts believe this action must be military.
“If we cannot stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon by other means, we shall have to do it militarily,” Israel Defense Forces Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told JNS.
Kuperwasser is less worried about Israel’s technical capability to conduct a strike than its political ability, noting Israel will have to make the decision in the face of American opposition. “We’re caught in a very difficult tension between our commitment to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear … state and our commitment to our relations with the United States,” he said.
He outlined a four-part action plan for Israel in a post-deal reality:
Israel must continue its covert operations to undermine Iran’s capabilities;
Israel must continue warning the United States that it reserves the right to take action against Iran;
Israel must build up its military capabilities for the time when it’s required to take action
It must work with the Gulf States to make sure they “don’t cross the line,” meaning drift into Iran’s orbit.
Expounding on the last point, Kuperwasser said:
“Israel can always be counted on as a strong opponent of Iran. It’s always going to be seen as the one country that is courageous enough to hit Iran when necessary. The problem is the way these countries are going to look at the United States. If the United States allows Iran to become the hegemonic power in the Middle East, that may affect the attitudes of some of these pragmatic states towards Iran. They will say to themselves, ‘Why should we be living in tension and confrontation with a country on the verge of becoming a nuclear power? We need to have better relations with it.’”
Efraim Inbar, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), goes still further, saying that the Abraham Accords will disintegrate if Israel doesn’t act against Iran.
“The Abraham Accords are basically a deal between Israel and the Gulf States. They will give us peace—a warm peace. They will accept us as partners [under US] Central Command. And we will take care of Iran. They didn’t come for technology or for money. They can buy everything they want,” he said.
Inbar said it appears Israel’s only option is to attack, and the window it has to do so is “within a year.”
Even though he said regime change has not been seriously tried, he doesn’t see that as a likely option given the ruthlessness of the ayatollahs in suppressing dissent. “Also, I don’t think covert operations will do the trick,” he added.
Inbar’s recommendations resemble those of Kuperwasser. He said Israel can’t attack immediately, not until Iran violates the deal. Israel should use the time to “refresh” its attack plans and practice executing them, while continuing its covert actions inside Iran. It should also foster its relations with the Gulf States.
He’s confident that Israel can inflict serious damage to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and weather the criticism from the United States and the world in the aftermath.
“Words don’t hurt. We can live with them,” he said, noting:
“Don’t forget that a part of the American political system favors an attack, particularly the Republican Party, but also within the Democratic Party. The 2015 deal went against the majority of public opinion and against the majority of Congress. And this has not drastically changed.”
The dilemma for Israel is whether to strike soon and do some damage or wait to develop better plans, Inbar said. In the meantime, Iran will strengthen the defenses around its nuclear sites.
Kuperwasser agreed: “The Iranians are going to use this time to increase considerably their air defense systems; their ability to strike back. Every day that passes makes it more difficult and more costly. But we, too, are improving our capabilities.”

From Baghdad to Tripoli
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/August 31/2022
And so it is another one of the ongoing intermittent rounds of civil conflict in Libya. Blood, corpses, and destruction.
Neither the Skhirat Agreements, the Bouznika Understandings, nor the UN envoys could contain this conflict. What began in the summer of 2014 with the war over control over Tripoli International Airport is ongoing and escalating.
True, the belligerent parties are no longer called the Tripoli Islamists, the Misrata Warriors, or the Zintan Militia, as had been the case eight years ago. Their names have changed, as have their slogans and symbols, but the ethnoregional fusion that produces violence and strife has not. Libya is now an imposed frame encompassing the East, West, and South, and in each of these regions, neighboring groups refuse to go from being juxtaposed groups to becoming peacefully coexisting national communities.
We know that, since its independence in 1951, Libya has had two competing capitals, Tripoli in the West and Benghazi in the East, and that some have proposed turning Sirte into the new capital as a compromise because it lies between the two capitals geographically. In light of the sharp regionalist awareness prevalent throughout Libya, the country’s oil wealth, in turn, could only increase the ferocity of the competition over spoils.
The February 2011 revolution and the subsequent killing of Muammar Gaddafi in Sirte were not enough to compel Libyans overcome these divisions or lay the groundwork for overcoming them, especially after the West’s interest in the country waned in the aftermath of the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, on September 11, 2012, and the killing of Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
Civil strife did open the door to foreign “interest” of another kind, especially since its oil wealth makes this kind of “interest” tempting. Thus, the countries of the region and others in Europe, as well as the United States and Russia, became implicated. Their interventions only aggravated the reasons for the conflict and made them more difficult to resolve. Just as civil wars draw foreign covetousness, they allow the warlords’ swollen egos and the corruption that comes with them to run amok.
In contrast to Lebanon, where the state’s menial presence is among the reasons for civil strife, the most significant underlying cause of civil conflict in Libya is the state’s excessive presence, or rather its excessive power. Here, it seems that its similarities to Iraq are sharp and salient. The two scenarios are almost one and the same: A despotic military-security regime like those of Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein collapses, and society implodes altogether. Longevity strengthened this capacity for wreaking havoc: the Gaddafi regime (1969-2011) remained in power for over four decades, while Saddam and the Baath regime (1968-2003) ruled for three and a half decades.
During this long period, society was totally paralyzed, and it was fully subordinated by the state. All initiatives were prohibited, and the population were deprived of even the capacity to launch initiatives. The state stood between citizens and communities and their ability to express their plurality, while the political power identified with one segment, sectarian or regional. That is how, in silence and in the underground, native loyalties and repressed identities grow stronger. Forced pregnancy can only be followed by birth shaped by hatred.
There can be no doubt as to whether foreign actors share some responsibility for what has happened to Libya and Iraq before it. Nonetheless, the legacy of the despotism that went about breaking society apart and expanding the gulf between its segments remains the main factor. The fact is that overstating foreign factors has the practical effect of masking “anti-imperialist” tyrants’ role in this history and justifies it. Actually, those regimes did not satisfy themselves with ruining everything while in power but also made fixing things in the future all but impossible.
However, if this assessment is correct, then re-examining the modern history of our societies has become a pressing duty. In Iraq, as in Libya, conservative regimes emerged after independence, moving forward with modest steps that could be measured in meters in a fast-paced world. Thus, the paths they took were safe but not impressive or exciting. These slow regimes were destroyed under the pretext that progress had to be accelerated, even if it came without freedom: the military men who upended the status quo promised to take steps that would be measured in miles. When the crises that would hit the societies concerned erupted, the hundreds of miles taken backward were likely to become thousands. That happened during the Cold War as Egyptian Nasserism was inciting Iraqis, Libyans and other Arab nations to overthrow the “reactionary regimes of the colonialists.”
It is then that the robust foundation of our lax world began to be laid. Muammar Gaddafi, who reminded Nasser of his youth, stuck his nails into the Libyan body, and the Baath Party that took part in the 1958 coup became, ten years and a round of coups and counter-coups later, a killing machine targeting Iraqis.
As for the second re-establishment effort, at least in Iraq, it was undertaken by another “anti-imperialist” regime, that of Iran, which is simultaneously both a foreign and domestic force as a result of the golden opportunity it had been granted by Iraq’s disintegration. With the solidarity of the fragmentation left by Saddam with Khomeini’s exploitation of this fragmentation, this tormented country is now adding intra-sectarian and intra-ethnic conflicts to the conflicts among sects and ethnicities.
A radical re-examination of this history is now a requisite for several objectives, among them breaking the implicit alliance between critiquing tyrants and sympathizing with their “nationalist” “anti-imperialist” justifications.

Iraq… A Game of Mistakes
Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al Awsat/August 31/2022
What has happened in Iraq so far tells us that we are facing a dangerous game of mistakes. This means that Iraq is open to all options, none of which is good enough to defuse the dangerous conflict there.
Today, all the cards have been used in Iraq. The country has witnessed tension among officials and conflict in the streets. The conflict was coupled with clear and blatant Iranian interference and met with US “naivety,” all to impose complete control over Iraq by Iran and its proxies.
The White House, for example, voiced its concern about what is happening in Iraq by saying: “Now is the time for dialogue, not confrontation.”
This statement does not differ from those calling for “the need for a peaceful solution and consensus,” both of which mean canceling the election results and giving the loser the opportunity to rule. This is exactly what is happening in Lebanon, where it doesn't matter who wins or loses the elections, because the Iran-backed Hezbollah is the party deciding the fate of the political track and who gets to rule the country.
This is not democracy, but a farce. Nowadays in Iraq, there is a real popular rejection of Iran and its groups, and this rejection is on the part of the Shiites, who have made great sacrifices for the sake of Iraq's independence, and to rid it of Iranian influence and political corruption.
This popular rejection is not the yield of the moment, but of years and blood. It is a political and patriotic rejection. Therefore, what is happening in Iraq now tells us that there are no middle ground solutions.
Iraq's uprising, and its independence from Iranian influence, does not mean a victory for the Iraqi state only, but also means a defeat for Iran.
This defeat would be directed at Iran’s subversive project in the region. It would also be considered a danger to the Iranian interior itself.
There are no middle ground solutions in Iraq now. It appears the country is facing a bone-breaking battle, a battle whose patriotic Iraqis are aware that its true motto is “to be or not to be.”This is normal for a country the size of Iraq that was, and still is, rolling from bad to worse.
Eyes in Iraq are now fixed on Iranian militias, the political forces, the elites, even the corrupt ones, as well as religious references. More importantly, eyes are now turned towards the country’s security and military institutions.
Accordingly, we are facing a game of mistakes because each party has its own calculations, and whoever commits a mistake with uncalculated consequences will have Iraq undergo uncalculated transformations, and it may destroy the entire political system there. The story now is not a story of neutrality or taking a position, the story is much bigger.
It is imperative to read what is happening in Iraq seriously, with a cool mind, and with openness to all the national forces in the country. It is crucial to do so because we are at a dangerous crossroads in which I believe that Iraq has passed the stage of dialogue, contrary to everything that is said.
This is not a bleak picture, but a cold-blooded analysis of what is happening, especially as we are facing intra-Shiite conflict over power, and Shiite rejection of Iranian interference and Iran’s groups. This is not a mystery. The story in a nutshell is that this is a battle for Iraq’s independence and the restoration of the state’s prestige. It is not a battle in Iraq, but rather a battle for Iraq. The gates of hell may open. May God protect Iraq and its free patriots.

The Muslim Warlord Still Haunting Spain
Alberto M. Fernandez/The European Conservative/August 31/022
The bronze statue was installed in 2002 in the southern Spanish city of Algeciras. It commemorates a great Spanish historical figure, particularly famed on the battlefield, who was born near the city long ago. But this was not a great conqueror of the New World like Hernan Cortes or Pizarro or a famed commander of Spain’s Golden Age, like Don Juan of Austria or the Great Captain Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba. His name was Abu Amr Muhammad Ibn Abi Amr who took the name Al-Mansur (the Victorious) and who is known in Spanish history as Almanzor. The sculpture was placed in the Archeological Park of the Marinid Walls which preserves what remains of the city’s Islamic walls from the 14th century. The statue installed on the one thousandth anniversary of Almanzor’s death and sculpted by Mariano Roldan, shows the Muslim leader standing and holding a Qur’an in his right hand and a sword in his left.
Almanzor was certainly a great figure in his way, today little remembered outside Spain (there was a Syrian Arabic-language television serial about him in 2003). His controversial career embodies perhaps many of the contradictions and nuances of Islamic rule in Spain which, for very different reasons, are often obscured by both Muslims and Christians.
His was very much a character to be found in history, in both East and West, a man with a will to power who overcomes many obstacles on his way to (near) supreme authority. Born to a family of relatively humble means but claiming an ancient Arab pedigree dating back to the original conquest of Al-Andalus in 711, he had a religious legal training and entered the civil administration in Cordoba, in what was the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba. The Umayyad Emirate of Cordoba had existed for almost two centuries but it was only in 929, in the decade before Almanzor’s birth, that Abdel Rahman III had declared himself a Caliph.
Almanzor proved an able civil servant and maneuvered into increasingly important positions eventually securing the position of Hajib (Chamberlain or Chief Minister, Al-Andalus’s equivalent of Wazir in the East) ruling in the name of a weak boy Caliph, Hisham II, who he controlled. Almanzor plotted and killed his rivals to gain power, supposedly scheming with Hisham’s mother Subh, a Basque slave girl who had become a royal wife. Most of Hisham’s ancestors were the sons of Spanish (originally non-Muslim and often fair-haired) slave girls or concubines. Hisham’s grandfather, the first Umayyad Caliph Abdel Rahman III, dyed his light-colored beard black to make him look less like the Christians of the North whose descendant he was, on his mother’s and grandmother’s side.
For 24 years Almanzor would wield supreme power in Al-Andalus. In a regime whose leadership was composed of Umayyad Arab nobility, with an army made up increasingly of imported Berber tribesmen and Slavic slave soldiers, Almanzor burnished his credentials through war. Muslim chronicles document 56 military campaigns led by Almanzor in person during that quarter century, most of them waged against the warring and divided Christian kingdoms and principalities of the northern Iberian peninsula—Leon, Castile, Navarre/Pamplona and Catalonia.
The Spanish polymath, Professor Ramon Grande del Brio, in his excellent 2016 book Las campañas de Almanzor notes that Almanzor’s military campaign “carried with them a devastation and death never known in the Iberian peninsula since the Islamic invasion.” For the Christians, Almanzor would be known as the “Scourge of God” or the “whip of the wrath of the Lord over the Christians.”
Almanzor’s motivations were multi-faceted. Jihad against the infidel was a source of political and religious legitimacy (assuming one was successful in battle and he was). It is said that he never went into battle without the Qur’an he had transcribed by his own hand with him. There was also considerable loot and wealth to be acquired and distributed. It kept the Caliphate’s army, made up of rival factions, busy. And it weakened the Spanish Christian states of the North, particularly Leon, which had expanded south into the Duero valley after the defeat of the Caliph Abdel Rahman III at Simancas in 939 by King Ramiro II.
Almanzor almost never lost (in 982 he had to retreat from the gates of the city of Leon because of a fierce hail storm). Some of these many campaigns were mere raids, while others demolished cities. They often involved long trains of cavalry, camel caravans, incendiaries and siege weapons traveling long distances, a marvel of military logistics for the age. In his most celebrated (for the Muslims) victory, in 997 he led an army deep behind enemy lines—borders were not fully defended on both sides and so relatively porous—more than 900 kilometers (620 miles) to the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela. He sacked the town and destroyed its cathedral, sparing only the underground crypt containing the relics of Saint James the Great (Santiago). The cathedral’s bronze bells were taken as booty on the backs of Christian captives back to Cordoba.
The act horrified Western Christendom as the church had already become an important medieval European pilgrimage site. Almanzor’s court poet, the celebrated Ibn Darraj al-Qastalli versified the triumph:
Now that you have finished with the Holy Places of the Christians, now is the moment that you accompany, triumphantly, all the Muslims to the Holy Places of the East. Egypt and Kairouan await you and Hejaz longs for your arrival.
So far this narrative could be that of any Muslim conqueror and similar tales could be told of famed medieval rulers like Saladin or Baybars. But beneath the tales of Almanzor’s campaigns is an intriguing subtext which seems to subvert preconceived modern Muslim and Christian notions of what medieval warfare between the two great religions was actually like in Al-Andalus. Almanzor was a champion of Islam and wrapped himself in the mantle of jihad but he also worked with Christians—as subordinates—repeatedly when it suited him, a pattern seen on both sides of the Muslim-Christian divide in Spain for centuries, since the first decades of the Islamic presence in Iberia.
Almanzor also warred against Muslims, including his own rebellious son Abdullah who he put to death after forcing the Christian ruler who had given Abdullah refuge to surrender him. Three of Almanzor’s early campaigns were against the veteran Muslim general, a political rival and Almanzor’s own father-in-law, Ghalib al-Siklabi (of Slavic slave soldier origin). Losing the political struggle in Cordoba, Ghalib had to switch sides and ally himself with the very Christians he had once fought in a common front against his ambitious son-in-law. After Ghalib’s death, his head was taken by Almanzor’s soldiers and nailed to a gate at Cordoba.
Some contemporary Muslims, often nationalists or Islamists, decry a history of Muslims fighting each other rather than fighting their enemies (a 2011 Al-Jazeera television documentary on “Why the Muslims Lost Al-Andalus” made this very modern point) but in Spain both Christians and Muslims fought each other and among themselves early and often. It was in 777—only 66 years after the arrival of the first Muslim army in Al-Andalus—that Muslim envoys from Islamic Zaragoza and Barcelona went to the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne imploring him for help against the Umayyads. In the 13th and 14th centuries, Muslim rulers in what are now Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia regularly hired Spanish Christian knights to use as shock troops and palace guards, using Christians against Muslims.
Almanzor’s celebrated raid on Santiago de Compostela included Christian knights, both client Christians and rebel Leonese nobles, in his ranks. Motivated by fear or greed, or both, these Christian allies accompanied him on other campaigns against their own co-religionists. Emulating the Spanish Caliphs, Almanzor took a Christian wife of noble birth, marrying the daughter of King Sancho II of Pamplona. King Sancho had been defeated in battle several times by Almanzor and despite becoming the Hajib’s father-in-law, he would be the victim of future raids. Both Sancho and his son Gonzalo personally made embassies to Almanzor in Cordoba to desperately secure a truce. Almanzor also made and unmade Christian kings, installing Bermudo II of Leon as ruler in place of his cousin.
One other unappreciated aspect for moderns about Almanzor and Cordoba, the much-lauded fabled Cordoba of coexistence between the three religions, is that in addition to being a great military leader, Almanzor was a slaver on a massive scale. Those fifty raids he led brought back wealth in the form of gold and silver, silk and brocade, looted marble, but especially many slaves. Almanzor’s army traveled with cavalry, 4,000 transport camels, and six catapults; they also traveled with manacles for the many captives taken. Some nobility and persons of note were taken to be held for ransom. But according to the Muslim chronicles, most of the captives were sabaya, women and girls.
The reported numbers are astonishing. The chronicle Dhikr bilad al-Andalus details about 233,000 slaves taken by Almanzor. Some Spanish chroniclers speak of closer to 300,000 taken. While some scholars consider those numbers, like numbers of soldiers given for specific battles in such chronicles, exaggerated there is little doubt that 10th century Umayyad Cordoba was an important slave power. Slavery existed, of course, throughout the medieval world—in Muslim, Christian, and pagan ruled states—but the slave trade was a major source of wealth in Islamic Spain. In Cordoba, there were slaves taken in Africa and also Slavic slaves trafficked by Jewish merchants across Christian Europe from what is now Ukraine. But under Almanzor the principal source of slaves, especially slave girls, was the Christian kingdoms of Northern Spain.
The flood of Christian slave girls had an unexpected but unsurprising knock-on effect on Muslim family life in Almanzor’s Al-Andalus. Men stopped marrying free Muslim women and preferred to purchase an inexpensive Christian captive as a concubine. A beautiful slave girl, from a noble Christian family, who used to cost fifty or sixty dinars now sold for only twenty dinars. If the captive was pleasing, she could be freed and married. Muslim families facing such competition had to offer richer dowries, even real estate, to secure suitable husbands for their daughters. The super abundance of slaves in Cordoba also fueled a trade extending to other parts of the Muslim world.
After two decades of victories, an aging, gouty Almanzor barely defeated a united Christian army at Cervera in 1000 A.D. Some of the Christian nobles opposing him there had once been his allies. Almanzor died two years later. The details of his death, whether or not it was after another battle that he may have lost, are poorly documented. He was succeeded by his son Abdel Malik al-Muzaffar who was succeeded in turn by his brother Abdel Rahman. In the end, the Christians had their revenge. While brave warriors, neither brother was as successful as his father. All the disputed territory regained from the Christians was quickly lost. The Spanish slave girl trade dried up, much to the despair of the flesh merchants of Cordoba.
This younger son Abdel Rahman, dubbed Sanchuelo (little Sancho), was supposedly the spitting image of his Christian grandfather, King Sancho of Pamplona. More ambitious and reckless than his father and brother, the irreligious, wine-swilling Sanchuelo was not content to rule through a puppet Caliph but sought to become Caliph himself, even though he was not of the proper Al-Quraysh lineage. He was overthrown and put to death by partisans of the Umayyads, ushering in years of civil wars among the Muslims who now called upon (and paid) Christians to help them against their Muslim rivals. Cordoba was sacked by both Christians and Muslims, Catalans and Berbers sharing in the spoils.
That statue of Almanzor in Algeciras was removed for restoration in 2013. Not surprisingly in today’s Spain, the statue’s status became part of the domestic political debate. In 2017 Leonor Rodriguez, a city council member for the far-Left Podemos party demanded the return of the statue, accusing the ruling conservative Partido Popular in Algeciras of hiding a statue that “recalls an important part of the history of Algeciras which should form part of the life of all of the city’s inhabitants.” The local Spanish Socialists (PSOE) later claimed to have found the statue in a warehouse covered with a plastic tarp.
One right-wing columnist in 2012 wrote of the left-wing “cult of the criminal Almanzor or the metaphor of a dead people celebrating its executioners instead of its heroes.” Another commented in 2020 that Spain shouldn’t have any statues to slavers and invaders, not just Almanzor but also the several monuments that commemorate Umayyad emirs and caliphs. He contrasted the leftist zeal for Almanzor’s statue with the progressive fervor in the wake of the George Floyd killing seeking the removal of monuments to slave owners in the United States and England. Still others noted sarcastically that the same Podemos advocating for Almanzor’s statue is zealous about trying to remove crosses in Spain and wants Christians to apologize to Muslims for the taking of Granada in 1492. In 2021, Isabel Franco, a Podemos deputy from Seville, received much media scorn when, defending multiculturalism, she called the fall of Al-Andalus, a “genocide” perpetrated by Spain’s Catholic Monarchs. Trending on Twitter, some critics called on her to “read a biography on Almanzor. You’ll be surprised.”
That polemical statue of Almanzor in the place he was born is still under wraps but there is actually a second, less known, bust of the Islamic conqueror in Spain, at a tiny hamlet (2021 population of 49 people) called Calatañazor in central Spain. That is the purported site of a legendary last battle of Almanzor, supposedly a rare defeat, if such a battle ever actually took place.
*Alberto M. Fernandez is a former U.S. diplomat and Vice President of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) in Washington, D.C.

Iraq and the Bankruptcy of Shiite Politics
Charles Elias Chartouni/August 31/022
The endemic political crisis which prevails in Iraq highlights the impasses of Shiite power politics, and more specifically revolutionism, and the role of the Iranian regime as a catalyst of political instability, Iraqi Shiites have failed all along the post Saddam Hussein political era. They have failed National reconciliation, State building and reformation of public policy matrices: the deliberate alienation of Sunnites led to the rise of DAECH, the domination strategy pre-empted the formation of an accomplished Federal State, and the state of pervasive corruption has forged ahead and forestalled developmental politics, tore apart the incipient civic fabric, and favored predatory politics, patrimonialism, tribal spoils politics, and Iraq’s pliability to Muslim power politics. The survival interlude of 1990-2003 didn’t bring about stability, reconciliation and reforms to the forefront of National politics, and the post 9/11, 2001 episode and its 2003 ancillaries have proven to be idle parentheses, which consolidated the disintegrating dynamics that prevented Iraq from developing endogenous national reconstruction dynamics.
Otherwise, the Shiite religious fault-lines between the traditional quietist mainstream and the wilayat faqih militancy, far from being peripheral, are weighing heavily on the due political courses, and demonstrated their negative fallouts on the Iranian control strategy, and its clerical and political agencies. The chronic crisis of Iraqi politics is no hazard, it showcases the religious, cultural, strategic, and geopolitical equivocations of the Iranian subversion strategy throughout the Middle and Near East. The internal resistance to the Iranian domination strategy displays openly Shiite inner contradictions, aggravating conflicts with Sunnites and Kurds, and the overall inability of Iraq to rebuild itself, redefine its consensuses and proceed with steady institutional reforms.
The self defeating strategy of Iranian imperialism likens the Russian plodding imperial inroads, throughout various geopolitical landscapes. Unable to win military battles and consolidate their hold on self decaying failed States, they end up settling for the handy political expediency of frozen conflicts. There are no chances for successful reforms short of an overall strategy of geopolitical stabilization, and the military containment of Iranian imperialism. The Iraqi mayhem intertwines with the Lebanese bedlam, and displays the interlocking dynamics between the ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Palestinian Territories,… and their inability to promote civil peace and rebuild State structures. The containment of Iranian imperialism and its regional competitors is essential, if the course and scope of politics is ever to change in this region.