English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For September 11/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.september11.22.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
God, has chosen you, because our message of the gospel that came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction
First Letter to the Thessalonians 01/01-10/:"Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of people we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place where your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming."

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 10-11/2022
Lebanese Caution after Hochstein Lauds ‘Very Good Progress’ in Maritime Border Talks
Reports: Hochstein says deal in 3 weeks if Lebanon agrees to 'maritime Blue Line'
Geagea says opposition camp to agree on presidential candidate within weeks
Riachi reveals close meeting to take place soon between Geagea, Change MPs
Health Ministry: 275 new Corona infections, one death
Change Deputies' Bloc to begin first round of meetings upcoming Monday over presidential elections
"Project Watan" to those concerned: If they are aware, it's a calamity; if not, it's a greater calamity
Atallah warns against projects to keep the displaced on Lebanese territory through civil society associations
Kreidieh: Malfunction on IMEWI submarine cable between Alexandria & Marseille causes it to stop functioning
Al-Ahdab: We warn against creating any sectarian strife in Tripoli to resume the cycle of violence
Change MPs: For adopting Line 29 immediately
Clashes break out in Ain Al-Helweh Camp
Lebanon: Purge Targets Bassil’s Rivals within FPM
Lebanon’s Maronites: Mercantile Non-Identity and Feudalism/Joseph Hitti/August 29/2022
Rise in break-ups and divorce in Lebanon mirrors socio-economic changes across the Arab world/Najia Houssari/Arab News/September 10/ 2022

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 10-11/2022
Charles Officially Announced as Britain's King at Royal Ceremony
US Secretary Says Iran’s Response ‘Takes Us Backwards’
Iran-Backed Militias Run 7 Narcotic-Manufacturing Laboratories in Syria's Deir Ezzor
Iran Strongly Condemns US Sanctions Over Albania Hacking
Iran Guards Seize ‘Foreign’ Ship in Gulf for Smuggling Diesel
West Says Iran's Stance on IAEA Probe Jeopardizes Nuclear Talks
Iran greets queen's death with official silence
Explosions Everywhere’ as Ukraine Forces Recapture Village
Russia announces troop pullback from Ukraine's Kharkiv area
Ukraine's stunning counteroffensive in Kharkiv and Donbas
Iraq: Sadr’s Request Met with Sunni Silence, Kurdish Conditions
Syria's Aleppo Airport Reopens after Israeli Strikes
Pentagon combines sea drones, AI to police Gulf region

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 10-11/2022
Iran Deal - Reportedly "Off the Table" - Would Not Have Prevented a War/Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/September 10/2022
The Woman who Embodied the Myth of the Good Monarch/Serge Schmemann//The New York Times/September 10/2022
Does Biden Really Believe We Are in a Crisis of Democracy?/Ross Douthat/The New York Times/September 10/2022
Egypt, Jordan and Iraq — a promising alliance/Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/September 10/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 10-11/2022
Lebanese Caution after Hochstein Lauds ‘Very Good Progress’ in Maritime Border Talks
Beirut - Nazeer Rida/Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 10 September, 2022
The US mediator arbitrating negotiations of the maritime border between Lebanon and Israel, Amos Hochstein, reported “very good progress” towards arranging for a deal that benefits the Lebanese economy. Hochstein’s optimism followed his meetings with several Lebanese officials in Beirut. Many in Lebanon remain “cautious” as the results of talks suggest a delay in time before completing a deal, a matter which adds to rising tensions considering threats made by Hezbollah. Lebanon and Israel are engaged in US-brokered negotiations to demarcate maritime borders, which would help define each party’s share of oil and gas resources and pave the way for further exploration. Hochstein arrived in Beirut on Friday. The US mediator held rounds of talks with senior officials, and met with President Michel Aoun, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, in addition to Deputy Speaker of Parliament Elias Bou Saab, Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah Bou Habib and Director of General Security, Major General Abbas Ibrahim. Hochstein updated Lebanese officials on his contacts during the past weeks following a prior visit to Beirut. Besides discussing his contacts with the Israeli side, Hochstein also reviewed the results of his visit to France, including talks with the French energy company “Total,” which is in charge of drilling in Lebanese territorial waters, accompanying sources told Asharq Al-Awsat. Sources said that the US mediator “did not carry a decisive Israeli response to Lebanese demands,” stressing that the delay in reaching an agreement, “is something that does not satisfy the Lebanese who insist on achieving it as soon as possible.”Moreover, Lebanon categorically rejects establishing joint fields with Israel. Hochstein, after concluding his trip to Lebanon, travelled to Doha, sources revealed. Lebanon and Israel, formally at war since 1948, have no diplomatic ties and are negotiating over an area measuring more than 860 square kilometers of the Mediterranean Sea that is believed to contain significant offshore gas reserves. Both countries have made claims to the territory.

Reports: Hochstein says deal in 3 weeks if Lebanon agrees to 'maritime Blue Line'
Naharnet/September 10/2022
U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein told Lebanese officials in his meetings with them on Friday that a point of contention needs to be resolved in order for the negotiations to move towards a quick agreement, media reports said. “The issue is related to fixing the ‘maritime Blue Line,’ which is marked by the line of buoys on the surface of the sea off the coasts of Lebanon and occupied Palestine,” al-Akhbar newspaper reported. “Hochstein said that Israel cannot be lenient over this line due to security reasons, promising to send the coordinates to Lebanon within a few days,” the daily added.
And as official sources who took part in the meetings noted the presence of “positivity and progress,” the U.S. mediator reportedly said that Lebanon’s demands will be met and that his government wants the agreement to be signed within three weeks. Quoting one of the sources, al-Akhbar said that Hochstein pointed out that there would be an agreement this month if Lebanon agreed to addressing the file of the sea Blue Line, warning that the negotiations would stop if Lebanon refused to do so. Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab meanwhile told the daily that “the points of disagreement have narrowed and things are very positive.”“The discussion is about sea points linked to floating Israeli devices. Lebanon has requested the coordinates of those points, seeing as they move all the time, in order to settle all matters related to Line 23, which Lebanon will get it in full,” Bou Saab added.“During next week, Hochstein will present a written draft of the agreement, after specifying the coordinates related to the buoys, and then things will happen accordingly,” Bou Saab went on to say.

Geagea says opposition camp to agree on presidential candidate within weeks
Naharnet/September 10/2022
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has said that the LF does not want a presidential vacuum, noting that it is Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil who "does not want to endorse any president but himself." "Hezbollah does not want to lose Bassil but it does not want him as president, that's why Hezbollah is stuck with this riddle, because it does not want to abandon Bassil in order not to lose the cover that the FPM provides for it," Geagea added, in an interview with MTV. "Hezbollah is confined in the presidential file because the 'defiance camp' has an essential problem, which is Jebran Bassil's nomination," the LF leader said. He added that the other camp, which brings together "the LF, the group of Sunni MPs, the change and independent MPs, the Pogressive Socialist Party and the Kataeb Party," has held a series of contacts and meetings over the past ten days.
"We are supposed to reach within the coming weeks to a candidate after discussing several names, and we're on a positive course and the indications are good," Geagea added. Revealing that two to three candidates are being considered, Geagea said MP Michel Mouawad is eligible to become president but that the opposition camp is "not proposing names at the moment.""I have sensed an intention by the opposition parties to reach unity over a single candidate and efforts are not concentrated on this issue," Geagea said. As for the possibility that President Michel Aoun might stay in the Baabda Palace after the end of his term, Geagea said that, according to his information, Aoun will not stay in the palace post Oct. 31. "If he stays in the palace, he will become a citizen who is violating the law," Geagea added, while noting that his party would not engage in street protests should such a scenario materialize. As for his meeting with Tracy Chamoun, Geagea said that she informed him of her intention to run for president and that she is "among the names" that are being mulled by the opposition camp.

Riachi reveals close meeting to take place soon between Geagea, Change MPs
NNA/September 10/2022
MP Melhem Riachy revealed today, in an interview with "Voice of All Lebanon" Radio Station, that a meeting will take place next week between the head of the Lebanese Forces Party, Samir Geagea, with the "MPs of Change". Riachy indicated that the "MPs of Change" presented a "positive" initiative to unite ranks in the upcoming presidential elections. He considered that "the Sunni meeting is necessary, because the Sunnis have the right to choose a president of the republic."

Health Ministry: 275 new Corona infections, one death
NNA/September 10/2022
The Ministry of Public Health announced in its daily report on COVID-19 developments, that 275 new Coronavirus infections were registered on Saturday, thus raising the cumulative number of confirmed cases to-date to 1,212,497.
The report added that one death case was recorded during the past 24 hours.

Change Deputies' Bloc to begin first round of meetings upcoming Monday over presidential elections
NNA/September 10/2022
The “Forces of Change" parliamentary bloc issued Saturday the following statement: "To complement the presidential initiative that we launched as 'Forces of Change' MPs, we will start next Monday the first round of meetings that includes all parliamentary blocs and independent deputies to explain the initiative’s goals and listen to their point of view with the aim of reaching the Lebanonization of the presidential entitlement, by showing national responsibility and agreeing on a rescue path that begins with the presidential election through a rescue president who is able to reach Baabda according to national specifications and in implementation of the constitution." The statement indicated that the round of meetings will be concluded next Saturday before moving on to the second round of meetings the following week.

"Project Watan" to those concerned: If they are aware, it's a calamity; if not, it's a greater calamity
NNA/September 10/2022
“Project Watan" said today on Twitter: "The proposed solution is not a solution, but rather an injustice that adds to the darkness in which people have lived since the Beirut Port explosion. A fair and equitable trial is required, one that does not exclude any of those concerned. The greater danger is that the state is disintegrating at the hands of its officials...If they are aware, that is a calamity, and if not, then that is a greater calamity!”

Atallah warns against projects to keep the displaced on Lebanese territory through civil society associations
NNA/September 10/2022
In an issued statement on Saturday, the media office of MP George Atallah warned against "deceptive projects” aiming to keep the displaced in Lebanon through civil society bodies. As a follow-up to a previous statement on July 14, 2022, in which Atallah underlined total rejection of the international deception against Lebanon by aiming to maintain the presence of the displaced Syrians on its territory, he again cautioned against certain civil society associations that are funded from abroad under hidden projects that clearly aim to integrate the displaced into their host communities.
Atallah referred to a recently circulated project by the “GIZ Association” aiming to displace the Lebanese from their villages and settle the Syrian refugees in their place under the headline of “peaceful coexistence in refugee-hosting communities”, through the formation of a joint committee in each town that includes representatives from the municipality, the host community and the refugee community in exchange for financial or development incentives. "Therefore, it is important for us to reiterate our rejection of any form of international deceit against Lebanon that aims to keep or integrate the displaced and refugees on Lebanese territory under whatever pretext or reason,” the MP asserted. He added that the “camouflaged and veiled projects” do not deceive the Lebanese and will not be allowed to pass “because their goal is to eliminate our Lebanese identity, and hence will be totally confronted.”
“We call on the Lebanese who work in associations funded from abroad to pay attention to what is being plotted against their country,” Atallah underscored.

Kreidieh: Malfunction on IMEWI submarine cable between Alexandria & Marseille causes it to stop functioning
NNA/September 10/2022
Ogero Director General, Imad Kreidieh, announced in a tweet this evening that a malfunction has occurred on the IMEWI submarine cable between Alexandria and Marseille, causing its suspension. He pointed out that traffic has been transferred to the CADMOS cable and coordination with outside parties is being conducted to address the issue, as work is underway to avoid network congestion.

Al-Ahdab: We warn against creating any sectarian strife in Tripoli to resume the cycle of violence
NNA/September 10/2022
Former MP Misbah al-Ahdab wrote a series of tweets on Saturday, in which he said: “The security chaos in the city of Tripoli is increasing daily, covered by some state politicians and apparatuses...The policy of treating a city in which 700,000 citizens of different sects reside as if it were a hotbed for terrorists, and implicating its youth with security files after flooding them with license weapons, and using them for dirty work to strike the city has become a scandalous policy that must cease immediately...”He added: "Instead of the security services protecting the political system that has led the country to bankruptcy and brought the pensions of security personnel and employees to less than $100, they must protect the lives and livelihoods of citizens, and put an end to this security chaos hitting Tripoli and claiming the lives of its youth...."Al-Ahdab wondered about the absent role of the prime minister, the interior minister and the deputies of Tripoli in rising to the rescue of the city and its people. He stressed that "all necessary measures must immediately be taken to seize the state of loose weapons prevailing in the city and put an end to the security chaos that is destroying Tripoli." He also warned all political and security parties that previously played the blood game in Tripoli to stay away from any sectarian strife that would return the cycle of violence to the city in implementation of their foreign agendas."The country is on the verge of a huge collapse and playing with fire will burn the whole country," cautioned al-Ahdab.

Change MPs: For adopting Line 29 immediately
NNA/September 10/2022
Representatives of the "Forces of Change" said today on Twitter: "Negotiations without legal foundations! Negotiations without technical considerations! A fatal descent into secret losing bazaars...and they are trying to convince us of their positivity! Aopted Line 29.immediately... otherwise, you will force Lebanon to lose everything!""Forces of Change" Deputies: Ibrahim Mneimneh, Elias Jaradi, Paula Yacoubian, Halima Kaakour, Rami Feng, Cynthia Zarazir, Firas Hamdan, Mark Daou, Melhem Khalaf, Michel Douaihy, Najat Aoun, Wadah Al-Sadiq and Yassin Yassin.

Clashes break out in Ain Al-Helweh Camp
NNA/September 10/2022
Sidon – The Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp is currently witnessing security tension, as clashes with automatic weapons are taking place in the lower street inside the camp, the causes of which are not yet known, NNA correspondent indicated.

Lebanon: Purge Targets Bassil’s Rivals within FPM
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 10 September, 2022
Leadership ranks of Lebanon’s Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) have been shaken after its chief, Gebran Bassil, has apparently started an internal “purge” to clear out his opponents within the movement. After reports on the FPM dismissing former lawmaker Ziad Aswad, ex-MP Mario Aoun announced his resignation from the movement and launched a direct attack on Bassil. FPM sources opposed to Bassil told Asharq Al-Awsat that the movement's leader was testing the waters by expelling Aswad to see the reaction of the party base. Sources revealed that a decision to expel Aswad, Aoun and several other leaders has already been issued.“The cooks in the movement, including Bassil, planned to oust me,” Aoun said against the backdrop of tensions rising between Bassil and several FPM leaders after recent parliamentary elections.Aoun was one of the most prominent FPM leaders. Despite his distinction, Aoun was excluded from the FPM lists of candidates in the recent elections. Aoun’s resignation has exposed internal strife within the FPM. “No one thinks the page will turn that easily,” Aoun told Lebanon Debate. Aoun said that he is voluntarily withdrawing from the media. “I temporarily suspended my political career because the conditions were not appropriate in this situation,” he told the local news website. Despite his differences with Bassil, Aoun denied that he was banned by the FPM. He said that he did not want to run for the parliamentary elections in 2022, but he was challenged and undermined by people who monopolized the process in the movement. The FPM’s Council of Elders has taken the decision to try Aoun, but he submitted his resignation beforehand in anticipation, sources said. Nevertheless, Bassil has yet to accept Aoun’s resignation with sources hinting that the FPM leader is insisting that he faces trial by the Council of Elders.

جوزيف حتي/موارنة لبنان: فقدان هوية وثقافة تجارية وإقطاعية
Lebanon’s Maronites: Mercantile Non-Identity and Feudalism
Joseph Hitti/August 29/2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/111529/joseph-hitti-lebanons-maronites-mercantile-non-identity-and-feudalism-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%b2%d9%8a%d9%81-%d8%ad%d8%aa%d9%8a-%d9%85%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%86%d8%a9-%d9%84%d8%a8%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%81/
In Lebanon, there are four major Maronite political clusters pretending to be parties, based on geography and opportunistic alliances with foreign countries, in addition to a smattering of smaller and insignificant parties, mostly residuals of ancient and otherwise defunct clans or parties that remain alive like ghosts of their former more significant selves. They generally are divided along regional and clannish lines but not on any serious ideological differences. The only thing common to all of them is their blind allegiance to their Maronite Patriarch who is to them what the Pope is to Roman Catholics. Still, just like the Sicilian crime families are Catholic in name only, the Maronites are Christian also in name only. Their ultra-religiosity is superficial – statues, shrines, miracles, saints…. – while daily living is a jungle of violence and intolerance. Lebanon’s Maronites are a highly productive factory of saints, and the Vatican with whom they are affiliated continues to beatify or sanctify numerous saints year after year.
Politically, they are illiberal ultra-conservative. There are no progressive, socialist, or democrat or any left-leaning Maronite party, something that makes them incompatible with the social-political trends in the West. In Lebanon, you can’t be Hindu, Bahai, Shinto, Buddhist or simply a non-believer. Yet, the Maronites think that the West likes them because they are Christian, when in fact it hates them because of their religious conservatism. The Maronites think that beach parties and alcohol make them more western than Arabs, when in fact many of them are more pagan in their daily lives as they do not practice the substance of their religion, only the superficial and ostentatious aspects of Christianity like erecting gigantic statues of Mary and saints on every hilltop. Indeed, some have inched closer to what I call Christian Daesh, as I personally experienced when I once asked a bookstore manager (educated in the West) to print me a poster about science, which he refused saying that this stuff was against God.
The Maronite Church has an enormous sway over the education of the Maronite herd, as it fights public education with its teeth. Yes, it teaches its children French, English, and Arabic, but only because these languages are useful to make money in the West and in the Arab Gulf. But it also teaches them not to believe in science, as the Maronite Patriarch once said that “science without morals” is meaningless, meaning science must be grounded in religion. The Maronite Church rejects Darwinian science, making it closer in thought to the neanderthal creationists of the American south.
Whereas the Irish became Catholic (St. Patrick, 4th century AD), and later adopted the language of their English oppressors, they managed to keep their Celtic language and traditions alive. Catholicism and Anglicization did not displace the Celtic identity and language. In contrast, in Lebanon, the Maronites who were the famed Phoenicians became Catholic (St. Maron, 4th century AD) and later adopted the Arabic language of their Muslim oppressors, yet they abandoned their Phoenician identity and their Aramaic language. I blame the Maronite Church for its mercantile money-centered objectives, always to the detriment of their community’s true identity. Why doesn’t the Maronite Church teach Aramaic in its schools? Why was the Jewish people able to resuscitate Hebrew from the dusty bible and make it a modern spoken language? Why can’t the Maronites resuscitate the Aramaic language and use it in their daily lives, instead of that bastard Lebanese language that is a hodge-podge of residual Aramaic, Arabic, French, Turkish and increasingly more English?
From the perspective of the Maronite herd in general, there is no separation between “pure” Lebanese nationalism or patriotism, and the religious identity of a Christian. You can’t be a patriot if you do not go to church on Sundays, hang multiple pictures of saints and Mary, build shrines at every bend of garbage-laden roads, and of course go kneel and kiss the hand of the Maronite Patriarch. As an example of the idiotic unfounded assumptions the Maronites have in their relationship with the West, some of the best news outlets within the Lebanese Christian community continue to support Donald Trump and the Republicans in the US. For example, Alain Dargham, the MTV television station’s US reporter interviews only extremist right-wing republican figures every evening like Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and other numskull Lebanese American Republicans likes of Atef (Tom) Harb and Walid Phares under the umbrella of the “In Defense of Christians” organization (https://indefenseofchristians.org/)
Maronites do not understand America or the West in general, just as America and the West never really understand what Middle East Christians in general, and Maronites in particular, are all about. Dumb Americans generally think that Jesus came to them first and tasked them with converting others, including Middle East Christians. They call it their “Manifest Destiny”. Really, Americans think that any Christian around the world was somehow converted by them; they believe that there are no more authentic Christians around the world than American Christians. The Mormons are one example of this abduction of the Christian religion by American moronic peasants: They added a book to the Gospels, and more confusion to the galaxy of conflicting Christian sects and denominations. For example, see what that idiot from Texas, Ted Cruz, did one time when he attended a conference on Middle East Christians (https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/09/19/ted-cruz-pokes-persecuted-middle-eastern-christians-in-the-eye-delivers-hidden-lesson/?sh=78c3076578fa), or (https://www.thedailybeast.com/ted-cruz-demonized-arab-christians-before-he-liked-them).
That is why the Maronites have been in decline since the 1960s. I believe this is the greatest handicap of this last free Christian community in the East. Unless the Maronites begin to adopt more liberal attitudes when it comes to women’s rights, the freedoms of conscience, speech and opinion, gay rights, separation of Church from State, environmental protections, science and scientific literacy, all issues that are more in line with Western trends, the Maronites are doomed to end up as a tiny backward minority in a Lebanon that has been slowly and insidiously Arabicized and Islamized beginning with the Muslim Conquest of the 600s, with the interlude of the Crusaders (circa 1100 – 1300 AD), then the Mamelukes of the 1300s and 1400s, and the Ottoman Turks from the 1500s through the 1900s. Nowadays, the insidious Arabization and Islamization has continued to creep since the 1960s under the pretense of tolerance and coexistence.
The Maronite clans referred to in the introduction are:
– The Frangiyeh clan in Zghorta District with the facade of a “Marada Party”.
– The Geagea clan in Bsharreh District with the veneer of the “Lebanese Forces Party”.
– The Aoun clan in Rabiyeh (Matn District) and its subsidiary Bassil clan (Batroun District) parading themselves as the “Free Patriotic Movement”.
– The Gemayel clan in Bickfaya (Matn District) trying to remain relevant as the “Kataeb Party”.
– The smaller parties include the Chamoun clan of the Ahrar (National Liberal Party) based in Deit El-Kamar (Shouf District), the Eddeh clan of the Kitli (National Bloc) Party historically centered around the Byblos district, etc.
There are other Christian, non-Maronite, political clusters like the Skaffs of Zahle (Greek-Catholic), or the Greek Orthodox of Dhour Shweir (Upper Matn District) and the Koura District. But for the sake of this writing, I focus on the Maronites because they are authorized by custom and constitution to claim the presidential seat in Baabda.
Unlike the Shiites, for example, who are massively herded like sheep around the Amal Movement of Nabih Berri (Syrian proxy) and the Hezbollah militia of Hassan Nasrallah (Iranian proxy), the apparent political diversity within the Maronite community is in fact meaningless and certainly unhealthy because there are no ideological differences between the Maronite clans/parties. These different parties are solely based on a Mafia-Feudal-like clusters around a family in which political power is genetically transmitted vertically from father to son or laterally across siblings, or occasionally every which way by matrimonial alliances of medieval vintage.
Maronites are ultra-conservative, rural rather than urban, as those who migrated during the 20th century from the highlands to the city became “urbanized villagers”. They are obedient to the Maronite Patriarch and the Church, and the only liberalism they embrace is unrestrained economic liberalism – the Maronites being almost strictly money-driven – while rejecting social liberalism, secularism, and the separation of religion from matters of state. There are no left-wing, progressive, socialist, communist, democrat, or green political parties within the Maronite community. This silly ideological rigidity makes any evolution of the social and political outlook virtually impossible because the Maronite clans are built around a family, a boss, a name, and a region, and never around an idea or a principle.
Just as feudal lords of Middle Ages vintage used to live in a castle around which small villages cluster seeking protection from the lord in exchange for serving the lord, modern-day Maronites continue to live according to this model: A prominent family nestled in a castle on a hill overlooking a few dozen villages of peasant folks who swear allegiance to the lord, vote for him in elections, and comprise the vast majority of the lord’s political party. This of course encourages clientelism, cronyism, and Mafia-like relationships and a sense of being victims of everyone else (the other rival Maronites and of course the Muslims).
The Sunni Muslims tend to be mostly urban dwellers of the coastal cities of Sidon, Beirut, and Tripoli, clustered around a few feudal families like Hariri, Salam, Karami, Bizri, Solh etc. When the Muslim armies invaded Lebanon in the 7th century AD, the Lebanese were relatively recent Christian converts from their Phoenician creed by the Romans. The Muslims managed to convert those Christians living on the coast, but not those who sheltered in the mountain highlands and who thus kept their Christian identity. The Shiite Muslims used to follow a similar pattern with family names like As’aad, Osseiran, Husseini, etc. but with the advent of the Iranian theocracy in Iran, some of the Shiites seem to have dropped the genetic in favor the religious and power is transmitted between clergymen, although Nabih Berri (aging Amal Movement leader, based in Nabatiyeh in the south) is at least on the surface more secular than the ultra-religious Hezbollah and is likely to transfer political power to his male progeny.
Back to the Maronite community. The constant bickering and infighting over political power between otherwise identical parties creates a disunity that has plagued the community forever it seems, from Ottoman occupation times to French mandate times and into current independence. With the rising assertiveness of the Muslims who keep challenging the historically acquired rights and privileges of the Maronites, the disunity of the Maronites has become a handicap and an existential threat. They fought the 1975 War against the Sunnis (who hid behind the Sunni Palestinian refugees as their fighting force like the PLO and others), but the Maronites lost that war because of the hatred of a clueless, oil-thirsty West, but also because of disunity and incompetence. The Maronite president of the Lebanese Republic is today a castrated head of the executive, thanks to the Taef Agreement of 1989 which transferred powers from the Maronite President to the Sunni Muslim Prime Minister.
Today the threat to the existence of the Maronites comes from the Shiites whose turn it is to claim supreme rule over the country by opposing not only the Maronites but also the Sunnis. These tectonic shifts in the Lebanese political system are driving untold numbers of Christians to flee and emigrate, thus slowly eroding any semblance of Christian significance in a country the Christians built 100 years ago. In the face of Muslim unity against the divided Christians, the Christian community runs the risk of losing any role in the affairs of the country. The Christians are already in a precarious situation on account of the Taef Agreement which still grants them 50% of every post in the administration, even though they are estimated at about 30% of the population, an untenable and unsustainable posture.
The question many Maronites and Christians are asking themselves these days, given that the political parties are unable to agree on a common platform, is: Can the Maronite Patriarch ensure the survival of the Christian community? Can his moral authority impose itself over the mercantile interests of the clans and force them to unite? Why doesn’t the Patriarch exercise his moral authority by for example excommunicating those who refuse to join a united Christian front? An excommunicated Maronite can no longer become President.
Right now, the Patriarch is calling for an internationally sponsored neutrality of the country (à la Switzerland) as an indirect way to protect his herd against encroachments by the Muslims. But what if the Muslims reject neutrality? The Muslims have always been drawn to Saudi Arabia (Sunni Muslim) or to Iran (Shiite Muslim) and have a serious problem separating religious identity from national identity. The Christians – being more in tune with Western values, not only because of a tenuous religious affinity but more because the vast majority of Lebanese who fled over the past 5 decades are Christians and have incorporated some Western values during their lives in the West. While their attachment to Lebanon continues, what “good” (gender equality, non-discrimination, individual freedoms, environmental concerns, etc…) they bring back to their homeland is sadly negligible, as the latest elections brought only 12 reformers out of a total 128 MPs in Parliament. Most of what they bring back is “bad” junky Western stuff that is already stale in the West (fast food, stupid mercantilism, abrasive marketing, me-monkey-imitate-you…). In Lebanon, social norms generally are 20-30 years behind the West. What the Lebanese deem unacceptable today (e.g., women’s rights, gay rights, environment…) will become acceptable two or three decades down the line.
The Muslim and Christian communities are rapidly growing apart, and the chasm may lead to a breakup, what with the Christians remembering their semi-independent autonomy between 1840 and 1914, when the West (then France, Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia) forced the occupier Ottomans to withdraw from Mount Lebanon after endless pogroms and massacres. Having created Greater Lebanon and incorporated a large contingent of (formerly Syrian) Muslims, the latter have continued to reject the notion of a sovereign Lebanon, alternately preferring Arab nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s (Nasser of Egypt), Syrian nationalism during the 1960s and 1970s (Baath Party), and nowadays Islamic nationalism (Hezbollah and others). In other words, Lebanese Muslims reluctantly joined Greater Lebanon and have continued to challenge it and threaten the formula of coexistence on which it is based. The Sunnis raised hell in the 1960s and 1970s to strip the Christians of their power (using the Palestinian guerillas as their own militia to fight the Christians), and now the Shiites (1980s to date) are doing the same.
If the Maronites have any chance of survival as the last free Christian community in the East, they must align themselves with Western trends, turn politically to the left, rid themselves of their feudal lords and their clans, and become a genuine democracy centered around “individual”, and not “community”, rights. Right now, Lebanese institutions have no respect for the individual. They only respect the religious sectarian community to which that individual belongs. We are far from being a western-like democracy. We are more like a federation of 18 religious sects. The Lebanese Parliament is unicameral but is more like an upper chamber or Senate representing the religious sects, but not the people as individual human beings. Individual liberty is the pillar of Western democracies. Lebanon and its Christians have yet to understand that fact.

Rise in break-ups and divorce in Lebanon mirrors socio-economic changes across the Arab world
Najia Houssari/Arab News/September 10/ 2022
BEIRUT: As globalization transforms most aspects of modern life, the nature of family and family life is no longer what it was even 10 years ago. The usual stresses and strains on marriage have been compounded by the growing trend of people moving away from their families and countries of origin in search of a livelihood. That the Arab world is not insulated from these socio-economic changes is evident from the rise in the number of couples choosing to separate in several Middle Eastern and North African countries. A recent study by the Egyptian Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center found that Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan and Qatar are the Arab countries with the highest divorce rates.
In Kuwait, 48 percent of all marriages end in divorce, 40 percent in Egypt, 37.2 percent in Jordan, 37 percent in Qatar, and 34 percent in both the UAE and Lebanon.
“On some days, we have up to 16 divorce cases in this court alone,” Sheikh Wassim Yousef Al-Falah, a Shariah judge at Beirut’s religious court, told Arab News.
“The increasing divorce rate is a phenomenon that we have not seen before, although we do not favor divorce and focus on reconciliation.”Experts believe this trend has been driven by a combination of economic pressures, evolving societal norms, legal reforms and, above all, the changing role of women. “Women no longer feel that they need men,” said Al-Falah. “Many wives have stood before my court, rejecting any settlement with their men because they feel that they are capable of being independent and do not want men to control their lives.”Through much of history, especially among the more conservative cultures of the Arab world, a woman’s place was long considered to be in the home, handling the needs of the family, while male relatives studied and went to work. Now, as Arab nations modernize their economies and reform their legal systems, women are becoming more independent, increasingly pursuing higher education, progressing in their careers, and choosing to marry and have children later in life.
As a result, Arab women have developed a keener awareness of their civil rights, personal ambitions and self-respect. They increasingly refuse to tolerate domestic violence and are capable of supporting themselves financially.
“In the past, women used to hesitate before taking the decision to ask for a divorce, keeping in mind that this option is not available within all of Lebanon’s sects and is hard to reach within some sects,” Manal Nahas, a researcher whose postgraduate diploma focused on the issue of divorce in Lebanon, told Arab News. “However, the current statistics compiled by the religious courts that handle the personal status of Lebanese citizens and foreigners residing in Lebanon reflect an increase in divorce requests, especially those submitted by women.” The rise is viewed as a byproduct of wider changes in social attitudes. “This generation of women look at divorce differently,” said Nahas. “Women are no longer obliged to tolerate abuse like their mothers and grandmothers used to. “Today’s women are educated, they work and they occupy high positions in their areas of work. There is now equality between men and women. The average age of marriage for women in the decades after the war was 24 years old, and today it has risen to 32 years as a result of social progressiveness, economic conditions and women’s participation in the labor market."
Nahas added: “In addition, women are cherished in their parent’s home before they get married. Therefore, getting a divorce is easier for them than continuing to live in an unbearable marriage. Divorce in Lebanese society is no longer considered a stigma.
"Most parents now re-embrace their divorced daughter instead of rejecting her. There has been a societal change. Almost everyone experiences divorce, as this is no longer considered a hard decision to take.”
In Lebanon, where a large segment of the population has moved abroad to find jobs with better salaries, the difficulty of maintaining a long-distance relationships also appears to play a part in marriage breakdown.
“My husband has been working in Africa for many years and I live with my children in Lebanon,” Neemat, 34, told Arab News at the religious court in Beirut, where she was seeking a divorce. “We decided to separate in a friendly way after our life together became unbearable. He will be covering the child support and has fully paid his dues to me through the deferred marital payment.”Al-Falah said this kind of relationship breakdown is common. “The most unsuccessful marriages are those in which the husband migrates abroad to work and the wife remains in Lebanon,” he said. “When the spouses meet up, they discover that they are unable to live with each other. Such marriages do not last in general. “However, if this marriage produces children, we try to repair the relationship between them because we do not want to harm the children.”
Not all divorce proceedings are as amicable as Neemat’s, however. Al-Falah said he has handled several extremely acrimonious marital disputes. “I have started receiving couples in my office where the wife or the husband was subjected to domestic violence at the hands of their spouse, although domestic violence targeting women is more common,” he said.“The further we go from the city, the more domestic violence becomes one of the reasons for divorce, especially in remote areas. We do not try to repair this type of marriage because we do not want to partner in a crime.”
Reforms to the legal status of women in Lebanon have drawn particular attention in recent years, with the introduction of a slew of legislation designed to protect them from sexual harassment and domestic abuse. However, human rights monitors say the reforms do not go far enough. In December 2020, for example, the Lebanese parliament passed a law that criminalized sexual harassment and outlined measures to protect whistleblowers, but failed to meet international standards for tackling harassment at work through labor laws.
Parliament also amended a domestic violence law to expand its scope to include violence related to — but not necessarily committed during — marriage, enabling women to seek protection from their ex-husbands. However, it did not criminalize marital rape. Lebanon’s 2019 financial collapse and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic appear to have piled further pressure on relationships as living standards plummeted, people lost their jobs and households were forced into long periods of constant close proximity under lockdown.
“After the quarantine caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we witnessed an increase in divorce requests,” said Al-Falah. “Some couples discovered that they could not tolerate each other and the rift between them became apparent.
“The rate of divorce requests increased after the economic crisis intensified; husbands stopped working, the banks stopped cashing out deposits, and soft housing loans were no longer given out. “We are witnessing cases of divorce requests for couples who have lived together for 13 or 20 years, which was not the case before. We can say that divorce rates increased by 35 to 40 percent in Beirut’s religious court during this year.”
Each religion chooses the rights that suit its program, so wide recognition of women's equality is difficult, says Claudine Aoun, president of the National Commission for Lebanese Women. (Supplied)
Several countries around the world reported spikes in domestic violence during the pandemic and Lebanon is no exception. The nation’s economic woes and disruption to court procedures during the health crisis appear to be making matters worse.
KAFA, a Lebanese nongovernmental organization established in 2005 to campaign against domestic abuse, recently warned of “the dangerous repercussions of the institutional collapse in Lebanon of social and family security.”
“The suspension of the judges’ services in Lebanon will have a negative impact on women and children suffering from domestic violence,” it said.
The organization highlighted “the exacerbation of domestic violence and the increasing rates of violent incidents targeting women, which have led to the killing of three women in a single week.”The figures for divorce in Lebanon might be somewhat skewed by the growing use of marriage as a means of gaining citizenship in another country, as waves of young people move abroad in search of better opportunities.
“There is a divorce for those whose marriage was based on convenience,” said Al-Falah. “For example, husbands who move abroad and want to marry a foreign woman must prove that they are not married back home for them to marry and then obtain the nationality of their new wife’s country. “After obtaining the new nationality, they remarry their original wife, whom they divorced back in their home country.”
In Lebanon, where a large segment of the population has moved abroad to find jobs with better salaries, the difficulty of maintaining a long-distance relationships also appears to play a part in marriage breakdown.
Lebanon is a multi-confessional country. Following the 1975-1990 civil war, the nation’s religious communities agreed to share power through a complex division of authorities and separate institutions governing community matters, including marriage and divorce. Lebanese citizens will often move between sects to facilitate a divorce. Couples from the Maronite sect, for instance, the courts of which forbid the annulment of marriage in all but the most extreme circumstances, might turn instead to the Catholic or Orthodox sects, which allow the annulment of marriages.
They might even turn to the Sunni sect to access divorce procedures before converting back to their original sect. According to Shariah, divorce — known as khula — has been permitted since the time of Prophet Muhammad.
Obtaining a divorce in a Sunni religious court is considered easier than in a Shiite religious court, after these courts developed new rules that raised the age for child custody, amended the dowry and banned underage marriage.
Civil society groups have called for an optional civil personal-status law in Lebanon. Currently, many young Lebanese from all sects travel to Cyprus or Turkey for civil marriages. The civil courts in Lebanon agree to register such marriages but religious authorities continue to reject them.
Family values are cherished in Arab culture, and authorities — both religious and secular — tend to prefer that parents stay together for the sake of their children. Experts believe marriage counseling, better education for young couples, more open discussions about relationships, and even a relaxation of the social taboos surrounding premarital social interaction between men and women could help reduce overall divorce rates. Al-Falah said many divorces are “a result of disputes caused by the fact that the marriage was not built on solid foundations. The rate of this type of divorce is high because the education that young people receive does not include proper decision-making or family guidance.”

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 10-11/2022
Charles Officially Announced as Britain's King at Royal Ceremony
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 10 September, 2022
King Charles III was officially announced as Britain’s monarch Saturday, in a ceremony broadcast live for the first time. Charles automatically became king when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, died on Thursday, but the accession ceremony is a key constitutional and ceremonial step in introducing the new monarch to the country. The ceremony at St. James’s Palace, a royal residence in London, was attended by the Accession Council, made up of senior politicians and officials who advise the monarch. They met without Charles, officially confirming his title, King Charles III. The king then joined them to make a series of oaths and declarations."My Mother’s reign was unequalled in its duration, its dedication and its devotion. Even as we grieve, we give thanks for this most faithful life," the king said in his personal declaration at the historic ceremony. "I am deeply aware of this great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of Sovereignty which have now passed to me.""In taking up these responsibilities, I shall strive to follow the inspiring example I have been set in upholding constitutional government and to seek the peace, harmony and prosperity of the peoples of these Islands and of the Commonwealth Realms and Territories throughout the world," he added. It’s the first time the ceremony has been held since 1952, when Queen Elizabeth II took the throne. Charles, 73, was accompanied at the ceremony by his wife Camilla, the Queen Consort, and his eldest son Prince William. William is now heir to the throne and known by the title Charles long held, Prince of Wales. Two days after the 96-year-old queen died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland following an unprecedented 70 years on the throne, people still came in their thousands to pay their respects outside Buckingham Palace in London. The scene was repeated at other royal residences across the UK and at British embassies around the world. The monarch set the tone for his reign on Friday, vowing in a televised address to carry on the queen's “lifelong service,” with his own modernizing stamp. Britain has declared a period of mourning until the state funeral for Elizabeth. The date for that has not been announced but it is expected in a little over a week's time. King Charles III declared Saturday that the day of his mother’s funeral will be a public holiday.

US Secretary Says Iran’s Response ‘Takes Us Backwards’
London - Adil al-Salmi/Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 10 September, 2022
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Friday that Iran's response to reviving the agreement on its nuclear program is a step "backward,” asserting that Washington will not agree to a deal that doesn’t meet its bottom-line requirements. European negotiators appeared to be progressing toward reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement after EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell put forward the text of the final proposal. However, the level of optimism declined, and Iran requested amendments to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) draft, which the US rejected. "In the past weeks, we closed some gaps. Iran had moved away from some extraneous demands, demands unrelated to the JCPOA itself," the secretary told reporters in Brussels. "However, the latest response takes us backward, and we are not about to agree to a deal that doesn't meet our bottom-line requirements."Blinken held online meetings with his British, French, and German counterparts, who are still party to the agreement. National security spokesman John Kirby told reporters Thursday night that President Joe Biden wants to ensure that the US has “other available options" to ensure that Iran does not achieve nuclear weapons capability if efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal fail. Kirby reiterated that Washington would remain active in pushing for the reimplementation of the agreement, but its patience was "not eternal.”
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a telephone conversation with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi that the US must “stay away from the ambiguous language in this regard so that a deal will be finalized in the shortest possible time,” according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry statement. “Iran is always committed to reaching the agreement, but will not accept the US attempt to achieve its own goals through bullying,” Chinese media quoted Abdollahian saying. Wang said that China would continue to support Iran in safeguarding its legitimate rights and interests, expressing his belief that Iran has the wisdom to properly cope with the changes, firmly protect its fair and lawful rights and interests, and continue to occupy the international moral high ground. Furthermore, the adviser to the Iranian nuclear negotiating team, Mohammad Marandi, tweeted that "the text [of the agreement] is almost ready," accusing the US of seeking to “buy time."“The problem has always been the US. Obama violated the deal, Trump tore up the deal & Biden continued with Trump's policies,” he said.
- Recommendations
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sounded the alarm Wednesday over an increase in Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium by 60 percent, warning that the level is a technical step away from weapons-grade levels. The latest IAEA report said the agency “is not in a position to assure that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.”In addition, IAEA officials said they are “increasingly concerned” that Iran has not engaged in the agency’s probe into man-made uranium particles found at three undeclared sites in the country, which has become a key sticking point in the talks for a renewed deal. IAEA’s Board of Governors is scheduled to hold its quarterly meeting, attended by 35 members, in Vienna the following Monday. Meanwhile, experts from the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security recommended continuing the IAEA’s investigation of Iran’s violations of nuclear safeguards under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The Institute also recommended the IAEA Board of Governors pass a resolution condemning Iran’s non-cooperation and then refer the issue to the UN Security Council. Experts urged The United States and Europe should refuse Iran’s demands to end the ongoing IAEA investigation as a condition for a revived nuclear deal under the JCPOA framework. “The West should instead pressure Iran to cooperate with the IAEA by strengthening sanctions, including enacting the so-called snapback of UN sanctions, allowed in case of Iranian non-compliance with the JCPOA.”At the same time, Iranian lawmaker Jalil Rahimi Jahanabadi explained his country's insistence on linking outstanding issues with the IAEA and the nuclear agreement negotiations, saying that resolving these issues would guarantee lifting anti-Iran sanctions.Jahanabadi told the official IRNA news agency that the West claims the nuclear issues are solely related to the IAEA and Iran, and the problems between the Western powers and Tehran are only associated with those two, but it is incorrect. He said that Vienna talks are for finding a solution for the nuclear issue, adding that the West may resort to the IAEA Boards of Governors or the UN Security Council to open a new file to start the negotiations from scratch.
Europe’s Winter and the Chinese model
Jahanabadi reiterated the US wants to conclude the nuclear talks to be able to focus on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The lawmaker believes that approaching the cold season and experiencing the West-Russia severance of ties, Washington does not have any other alternative than reaching a deal with Iran over its nuclear program to focus on the Ukraine war. He noted that the US seeks to show the positive effects of the revival of the nuclear deal to public opinion because the prolongation of the current energy crisis can have a destructive impact on the upcoming congressional elections.
Jahanabadi believes it is natural that Tehran wants to get assurances in the current round of negotiations for lifting sanctions and reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, especially after experiencing the US’s withdrawal from the agreement in 2018 and Europeans’ inaction to abide by their commitments under the accord.
The lawmaker indicated that a part of the assurances could be securing the continuation of the presence of companies that will come to Iran to invest, especially in the US, which should avoid putting pressure on the companies to pull out their investments.
Tehran will abide by its commitments under the JCPOA, but the West might resort to making up stories to dissuade foreign companies from investing in Iran, according to Jahanabadi. Nuclear negotiations began in April 2021 and lasted six rounds before stopping in June due to the Iranian presidential elections.
It took Iran six more months to return to the negotiating table with a new group of negotiators representing the government of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi. Negotiations stumbled in March due to obstacles, including Iran's request to remove the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) from the US foreign terrorist organization list. Iran wants US guarantees to lift sanctions, end the IAEA investigation, and ensure that no US president will withdraw from the nuclear agreement in the future. Tehran also wants to assert that the sanctions will not target companies investing in Iran.

Iran-Backed Militias Run 7 Narcotic-Manufacturing Laboratories in Syria's Deir Ezzor
Deir Ezzor - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 10 September, 2022
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) issued a report on narcotic manufacturing and cannabis cultivation in areas under Iran-backed militias' influence in Deir Ezzor. Through ongoing monitoring of the manufacture of narcotics, SOHR identified the locations of seven illicit drug-manufacturing laboratories in areas under the control of Iranian-backed militias in Deir Ezzor. The Observatory said there is no doubt that Iran continues exerting tenacious efforts to embed its presence in Syria, and increase its resources. "Drug business" has become the primary source of income for Iranian-backed militias in Syria, especially in areas under their control in the Deir Ezzor countryside, namely the west Euphrates region. SOHR sources identified the locations of seven illicit drug-manufacturing laboratories in areas under the control of Iranian-backed militias. The militias affiliated with Iran introduced drugs to their areas of influence in Deir Ezzor, coming from the places of their manufacture in al-Qusayr in the southeastern countryside of Homs, or the border areas with Lebanon. Both locations are under the full supervision of the Lebanese Hezbollah. However, the increased spread of drugs in Deir Ezzor, their promotion, and smuggling to other areas of control and outside Syrian territory through Iraq prompted the Iranian militias during the past months to manufacture drugs by establishing primitive laboratories in separate regions of the governorate. They wanted to avoid the risks of transporting drug shipments to other provinces, fearing attacks and armed robberies, and seeking to reduce the expenses of transporting these shipments.
The seven locations for illicit drug-manufacturing laboratories in Deir Ezzor include a villa in the al-Qusayr neighborhood and six primitive plants as follows: near Bahrat Afrah, a building near the headquarters of the electrical and mechanical engineering institution in "Port Said" street, a plant near the al-Mualimeen park, a plant in the al-Khanat area on the outskirts of the al-Mayadeen city, a plant in al-Hezam area in al-Bokamal, and a plant in al-Villa street. The Observatory estimated the number of plants and laboratories where narcotics are manufactured to be much higher. However, activists could not detect them because of the strict security measures imposed by Iranian-backed militias and the extreme secrecy shrouding laboratories in different areas across Deir Ezzor. Furthermore, the militias affiliated with Iran have been planting cannabis (hashish), for many months, on lands owned by displaced people in Salu and- Zabari, east of Deir Ezzor well. The report said a number of militias were involved in these activities, including Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi Hezbollah, Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq and al-Abdal movement affiliated with the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the National Defense Forces (NDF), the Fourth Division, and the Army of Tribes. According to the report, the tasks assigned to these militias vary, from protection, securing raw materials, securing roads, supervision, providing logistical support, promotion, and smuggling operations. The Lebanese Hezbollah brings compressors from al-Qusayr to the plants in Deir Ezzor and shares with the IRGC the securing of raw materials needed for manufacturing tablets of captagon. Reliable sources told the Observatory that Lebanese and Iranian experts supervise the manufacture of narcotics and the plantation of hashish in areas under the control of Iranian-backed militias in Deir Ezzor. The role of the remaining militias is limited to promoting drug trafficking, protection, and smuggling operations to SDF-controlled areas and other countries through Iraq.

Iran Strongly Condemns US Sanctions Over Albania Hacking
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 10 September, 2022
Iran on Saturday strongly condemned a US decision to impose sanctions on its intelligence ministry, blamed for a major cyber attack on NATO ally Albania. Albania severed diplomatic ties with Iran on Wednesday after accusing it of the July 15 cyber attack that sought, but failed, to paralyze public services and access data and government communications systems. In response on Friday, the United States slapped sanctions on Iran's intelligence ministry and its minister Esmail Khatib, saying the attack "disregards norms of responsible peacetime state behavior in cyberspace". On Saturday, AFP quoted Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani as saying: "The ministry of foreign affairs strongly condemns the action of the US treasury department in repeatedly sanctioning the ministry of intelligence of the Islamic republic. "America's immediate support for the false accusation of the Albanian government... shows that the designer of this scenario is not the latter, but the American government," he added in a statement. Kanani accused the US of "giving full support to a terrorist sect", referring to the opposition People's Mujahedeen of Iran, or Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), members of which are hosted by Albania. Albania agreed in 2013 to take in members of the MEK from Iraq at the request of Washington and the United Nations, with thousands settling in the Balkan country over the years. "This criminal organization continues to play a role as one of America's tools in perpetrating terrorist acts, cyber attacks" against Iran, the statement added. The MEK backed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the 1979 revolution that ousted the shah but rapidly fell out with the new Islamic authorities and embarked on a campaign to overthrow the regime. The MEK then sided with Iraq under Saddam Hussein in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

Iran Guards Seize ‘Foreign’ Ship in Gulf for Smuggling Diesel
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 10 September, 2022
Iran's Revolutionary Guards have seized a foreign vessel in the Gulf for allegedly smuggling 757,000 liters of diesel out of the country, the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday. The unnamed vessel's seven crew members, who are foreign nationals, have been handed over to legal authorities, IRNA reported without elaborating on the nationalities of the ship or its crew. The Guards have detained several ships in the past few months for smuggling fuel in the Gulf.

West Says Iran's Stance on IAEA Probe Jeopardizes Nuclear Talks
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 10 September, 2022
France, Britain and Germany on Saturday vented their frustration at Iran's demand in talks to revive its 2015 nuclear deal that the UN nuclear watchdog close a probe into uranium particles found at three sites, adding that it was jeopardizing the talks. "This latest demand raises serious doubts as to Iran's intentions and commitment to a successful outcome on the JCPoA," the three countries said in a statement, referring to the deal's full name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. "Iran's position contradicts its legally binding obligations and jeopardizes prospects of restoring the JCPoA."The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sounded the alarm Wednesday over an increase in Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium by 60 percent, warning that the level is a technical step away from weapons-grade levels. The latest IAEA report said the agency “is not in a position to assure that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.”In addition, IAEA officials said they are “increasingly concerned” that Iran has not engaged in the agency’s probe into man-made uranium particles found at the three undeclared sites in the country.

Iran greets queen's death with official silence
Agence France Presse/Saturday, 10 September, 2022
Tehran has avoided official comment on the death of Queen Elizabeth II, but some Iranians expressed outright hostility, accusing Britain of having supported the late shah's regime. Unlike many countries with wall-to-wall coverage, state television in the Islamic republic reported the bare minimum on the death Thursday of the woman who had been the world's longest reigning monarch, with just a brief announcement along with archive footage and photographs. Haniyeh, a student, told AFP she had learned of the queen's death from social media. "I saw the news of her death on Instagram. I felt nothing, and frankly I couldn't care less," she said. Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953 aged just 27, and died in Scotland on Thursday at the age of 96. Broadcasters around the world interrupted normal programming to announce her death, but young north Tehran market trader Faraz said he hadn't even heard of her. "I don't have a television at home and I've no interest in politics. I didn't know her," he said. Many Iranians are interested in politics, both domestic and international. But most remain indifferent to the world's royal families ever since the Islamic revolution of 1979 toppled the country's own monarchy.
Faezeh, a 26-year-old nurse, told AFP: "I knew nothing about her, and her death means nothing to me." Queen Elizabeth visited Iran in 1961, staying in the magnificent Golestan Palace in Tehran. She also visited Isfahan, Shiraz and Persepolis, ccompanied by Farah Pahlavi, the then empress. Elizabeth's son Charles -- now Britain's King Charles III -- visited Iran on a humanitarian mission following the devastating 2003 earthquake in Bam in the southeast that cost tens of thousands of lives.
- A complex history -
UK-Iran relations have always been complex. British and Soviet forces invaded Iran in 1941 to secure British oilfields at Abadan. During the occupation, the pro-Axis Shah Reza Pahlavi was forced into exile and replaced by his young son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Britain also supported Pahlavi's army during the 1946 crushing of the Kurdish republic of Mahabad. But what Iranians remember most is the overthrow in August 1953 by the British and American secret services of prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh who had nationalised the oil industry. "Queen Elizabeth II was one of those who orchestrated the coup that overthrew Dr Mossadegh's government" to restore the shah, wrote Twitter user Helma. Another Twitter user, Majid, was more forthright. "Don't make a saint of the queen of England," he wrote. "Among her crimes were helping Iraq's Baathist regime against Iran (in the 1980-1988 war), the coup against Mossadegh, the killing of Princess Diana, helping the U.S. attack Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, and murdering the people of Northern Ireland." However, a passage in the recent book "The Secret Royals" by Richard J. Aldrich and Rory Cormac gives a rather different view.
The authors write that the late queen "considered the shah a crushing bore and hated his company as he only talked of administrative matters."But they also say that in 1979 after the Islamic revolution she was "angry about letting the shah down" when the government in London baulked at suggestions that he be offered asylum in Britain. However, Britain's royals were remembered by supporters of Mohammad Khatami, Iran's fifth president between 1997 and 2005. The "@Khatamy" Instagram account, with nearly a million followers, shared photographs of the queen, as well as pictures of her son Charles with Khatami. Khatami, considered a moderate in Iranian politics, had said the English should be appreciated for "having established democracy."

Explosions Everywhere’ as Ukraine Forces Recapture Village
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 10 September, 2022
Electric pylons toppled, cables strewn across the ground; gutted houses and roads dotted with craters -- the village of Grakove in eastern Ukraine bears the scars of Ukraine's bitter counter-offensive. "It was frightening," said 61-year-old Anatoli Vasiliev, recalling this week's battle when Ukrainian troops recaptured Grakove from the Russians. "There were bombings and explosions everywhere."Vasiliev stood in front of the local church, whose bell had been damaged by a projectile. Some of the Russian soldiers "took phones, but I managed to keep mine by hiding it so I could communicate with my family," he said. Ukrainians have announced significant territorial gains in the eastern Kharkiv region. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday 30 towns and cities had been recaptured there. Among the debris scattered through Grakove -- and in front of houses still inhabited -- dogs and cats search for scraps of food. Only about 30 of the village's 800 pre-war inhabitants remain. The road leading to Grakove from Ukraine's second city Kharkiv, a regional hub, is lined with the skeletons of cars destroyed in explosions or crushed by tanks, AFP reported.
'I was scared'
Disarmed mines are scattered around the side of the road, waiting to be picked up. A tow truck carries off a captured Russian military vehicle. Travelling in the opposition direction are two armored cars taking troops to the front. Artillery fire echoes in the distance. In the village, police and a team from the Kharkiv region's prosecutors office exhume the bodies of two men aged in their thirties. The officials here suspect a war crime: the remains show signs of torture and execution. Village resident Sergiy Lutsay told AFP Russian soldiers had forced him to bury the bodies at gunpoint. "They came to my house. I was with my 70-year-old father," he said. "I was scared they would threaten him. They told me to come to dig a hole."This, he said, was soon after the Russian invasion began on February 24. An official from the prosecutors' office said the bodies would be sent for an medical examination to determine the cause of death.
'Evidence of atrocities' -
Sergiy Bolvinov, deputy chief of police for the Kharkiv region, said Lutsay had told them that the victims "had wounds on the back of the head and their ears had been cut off". Lutsay did not confirm the details to journalists. Ukraine has accused Russian forces of a string of war crimes in towns and villages outside Kyiv that its forces recaptured in March. Ukraine reoccupied the territory when Moscow pulled back its forces after a failed bid to capture the capital at the start of the invasion. "This is not the only evidence of atrocities committed by the Russians," said Bolvinov. "There are two other sites like this one in the village. We will be investigating them."Police warned journalists warned from straying off roads or investigating abandoned buildings because demining work was still under way.

Russia announces troop pullback from Ukraine's Kharkiv area
KYIV, Ukraine (AP)/September 10, 2022
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that it is pulling back forces from two areas in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region where a Ukrainian counter offensive has made significant advances in the past week. Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the troops would be regrouped from the Balakliya and Izyum areas to the Donetsk region. Izyum was a major base for Russian forces in the Kharkiv region. Konashenkov said the move is being made “in order to achieve the stated goals of the special military operation to liberate Donbas,’” one of the eastern Ukraine regions that Russia has declared sovereign. The claim of pullback to concentrate on Donetsk is similiar to the justification Russia gave for pulling back its forces from the Kyiv region earlier this year.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian officials on Saturday claimed major gains in a counteroffensive against Russian forces in the country's northeast, saying Ukrainian troops had cut off vital supplies to front-line hotspot. The reports followed several days of apparent advances by Ukraine south of Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, in what could become the biggest battlefield success for Ukrainian forces since they thwarted a Russian attempt to seize the capital of Kyiv at the start of the nearly seven-month war. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko suggested the Ukrainian troops had retaken Kupiansk, a town along the main supply route to Izyum, long a focus on the Russian front line and the site of heavy artillery and other fighting. Nikolenko tweeted a photo showing soldiers of the 92nd Separate Mechanized Battalion of Ukraine in front of what he said was a government building in Kupiansk, 73 kilometers (45 miles) north of Izyum.
The Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, hours later posted a message which it said showed its forces in Kupiansk, further suggesting it had been seized by Ukrainian troops. The Ukrainian military didn't immediately confirm entering the town, a railway hub which Russia seized in February, when its mayor surrendered to avoid civilian casualties. Later Saturday, videos on social media began to circulate also appearing to show Ukrainian forces on the rural outskirts of Izyum at a roadside checkpoint. A large statue bearing the city’s name could be seen in the footage. Ukrainian forces did not acknowledge holding the city. Earlier Saturday, the British Defense Ministry told reporters it believed the Ukrainians had advanced as much as 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Kharkiv, and described Russian forces around Izyum as “increasingly isolated.”
“Russian forces were likely taken by surprise. The sector was only lightly held and Ukrainian units have captured or surrounded several towns,” the British military said, adding that the loss of Kupiansk would greatly affect Russian supply lines in the area.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, likewise referenced sweeping Ukrainian gains, estimating that Kyiv has seized around 2,500 square kilometers (965 square miles) in its northeastern breakthrough. The institute said it appeared that “disorganized Russian forces (were) caught in the rapid Ukrainian advance.” They cited social media images of apparent Russian prisoners seized in the advance around Izyum and surrounding towns.
The same report said Ukrainian forces “may collapse Russian positions around Izyum if they sever Russian ground lines of communication” north and south of the town.
Moscow did not immediately acknowledge or comment on the claims by Ukraine and its Western allies. However, Vladislav Sokolov, the head of the Russian-appointed local administration, said on social media that authorities in Izyum have started evacuating residents to Russia. The fighting in eastern Ukraine comes amid an ongoing offensive around Kherson in the south. Analysts suggest Russia may have taken soldiers from the east to reinforce around Kherson, offering the Ukrainians the opportunity to strike a weakened front line. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told the television channel Ukraina that the Russians had no food or fuel for their troops in the area as Kyiv had cut off their supply lines. “It will be like an avalanche,” he said, predicting a Russian fallback. “One line of defense will shake and it will fall.”
The Ukrainian military was more circumspect about the reported gains, claiming in its regular update Saturday to have taken “more than 1,000 square kilometers” (386 square miles) from pro-Kremlin forces this week. It said “in some areas, units of the Defense Forces have penetrated the enemy’s defenses to a depth of 50 kilometers,” matching the British assessment, but did not disclose geographical details.
Officials in Kyiv have for weeks been tight-lipped about plans for a counteroffensive to retake territory overrun by Russia early in the war, calling on residents to refrain from sharing information on social media. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a nightly video address Friday that Ukrainian troops had reclaimed more than 30 settlements in the Kharkiv region since the start of the counteroffensive. “We are gradually taking control over more settlements, returning the Ukrainian flag and protection for our people,” Zelenskyy said. He spoke after the Ukrainian governor of Kharkiv reported that the national flag had been raised over Balakliia, a town recaptured by Ukrainian troops on Thursday following six months of Russian occupation. “Balakliia is Ukraine! Today, together with the military, led by the commander of the Ground Forces Oleksandr Syrskyy, we raised the Ukrainian flag,” governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram. Elsewhere, Ukrainian emergency services reported that a 62-year-old woman was killed in a Russian missile strike in the Kharkiv region overnight. It said her body was found buried in the rubble of her home, which was flattened by the strike.
Syniehubov also accused Moscow of pummeling settlements retaken by Kyiv in its recent advances, along with other residential areas in the region. He said in a Telegram post that five civilians were hospitalized in the Izyum district, while nine others suffered injuries elsewhere in the region.
In the embattled Donbas region south of Kharkiv, the Ukrainian governor said civilians were killed and wounded overnight by Russian shelling near the city of Bakhmut, a key target of the stalled Russian offensive there. Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram that two people died and two more suffered injuries in Bakhmut and the neighboring village of Yahidne. Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock arrived in Kyiv on an unannounced visit Saturday, saying that Europe would not tire of helping Ukraine despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to raise the pressure by withholding energy supplies from European Union nations.Baerbock said Germany will assist Ukraine in finding and removing mines and other unexploded ordnance left by Russian troops in areas where they have been pushed back by Ukrainian forces. Despite the gains made by Ukraine’s armed forces, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the head of NATO warned Friday that Ukraine's fight against Russia appears set to drag on for months. Blinken said the war was entering a critical period and he urged Ukraine's Western backers to keep up their support through what could be a difficult winter.
*Kozlowska reported from London. Associated Press writer Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.

Ukraine's stunning counteroffensive in Kharkiv and Donbas
Michael Weiss and James Rushton/Yahooo/September 10, 2022
Ukraine’s stunning counteroffensive in Kharkiv is the type of military action that will be written about and analyzed for decades, maybe centuries. With rapid speed, the defenders have cut through Russian-occupied positions over the past four days, recapturing as many as 2,500 square kilometers of terrain, according to the Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War. Ukraine has also claimed to have killed upward of 1,000 Russian soldiers in as many days, although that figure cannot be independently verified.But both Russian and Ukrainian sources are in rare agreement about a number of developments.Both acknowledge that the Russian occupiers have fled Izyum, a strategically important city that the Russian army had been using as its headquarters for operations in the area for months. Ukrainian troops have been visually confirmed to be in the center of Kupyansk, another city in Kharkiv, and Russian forces are said to be retreating from the third of it that they still hold. Kupyansk is a key railway hub and a strategically important location for the Russian army, at the intersection of several railway lines. Unlike NATO nations, Russia's logistical model is based mainly on moving materiel by train, with motorized transport responsible only for a small distance, at the end of the journey.
The town of Balakliya has also been completely liberated, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, which posted a video of Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukrainian Land Forces, standing in the center of the town as soldiers raise Ukraine's gold-and-blue flag. Other videos show emotional Ukrainian residents greeting their army in Balakliya.
Igor Konashenkov, the spokesman for Russia’s Ministry of Defense, confirmed Russian troops’ withdrawal from Balakliya and Izyum, describing what certainly looks like a rout as a decision to “regroup in order to boost efforts in the Donetsk area.”
Ukraine’s campaign has, remarkably, pressed beyond Kharkiv into occupied Donbas.
Denis Pushilin, the head of the Russian proxy known as the Donetsk People’s Republic, recorded a video of himself fleeing the fighting by car and admitting that the situation around the city of Lyman in Donetsk was “difficult.” There are also unconfirmed reports of fighting around Lysychansk, a city in Luhansk that Russia captured at the beginning of July after weeks of heavy shelling. Ukrainian forces have advanced to the outskirts of Lysychansk, according to the oblast’s governor, Serhiy Haidai.
Taken as a whole, Ukraine’s offensive has decisively shown that it has the manpower, resolve and weapons to prosecute the next phase of a war that many analysts and politicians warned would devolve into a prolonged statement or war of attrition. And it comes at a time when Russia has threatened to “freeze” Europe by cutting off gas supplies for the coming winter, as cracks in European Union unity on sanctions have apparently widened. On Sept. 8, the United States announced another security package for Ukraine worth $675 million, much of it ammunition for weapons platforms that have already been provided, including the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). Ukraine spent months telegraphing its intent to mount a major counteroffensive in the southern region of Kherson. That campaign got underway on Aug. 29, and has made consistent but unspectacular progress. The Kharkiv operation, however, was totally unannounced — not even hinted at. “Basically, the Russians thinned all their troops out to protect Kherson,” said Dr. Mike Martin, a visiting fellow in the Department of War Studies at King's College London. “The Ukrainians spotted this, fixed the Russians in Kherson, and kept a reserve that they used to strike through the Russian line east of Kharkiv, and then managed to capture their two main logistics hubs supplying the Russian effort in the northeast and east of the country.”
As a result, Russian frontlines are now collapsing. One video taken somewhere in Kharkiv and posted to Twitter shows retreating Russian soldiers riding on top of a T-72 tank as it runs into an advance party of Ukrainian special forces. The tank immediately starts shedding soldiers before it finally skids around a sharp bend and careens into a tree. An excavator covers coffins containing one of 15 unidentified people killed by Russian forces amid Russia's ongoing assault on Ukraine
An excavator covers coffins containing one of 15 unidentified people killed by Russian forces amid Russia's ongoing assault on Ukraine. (Vladislav Musienko/Reuters)
Pro-Russian Telegram channels, which in the past have resorted to denial or rationalization to account for Russian losses, are through coping. They are now in a state of panic or full of violent recriminations for what they see as the Kremlin’s incompetence, if not treachery. Ultranationalists are demanding a mobilization and a declaration of martial law in Russia. Some have even called for nuclear strikes on Western Ukraine to force a capitulation.
Russia’s military bloggers, meanwhile, are clear-eyed about what has transpired in less than a week — and unusually deferential to the enemy. As a British military strategist, Sir Lawrence Freedman, has noted, “At times, it can seem as if the bloggers (in sharp contrast to the propagandists) are talking up the Ukrainians to make their own troops look less bad.”
It is difficult to know where the Russians will decide to make their stand, given that they seem to have little in the way of an operational or strategic reserve and that the Ukrainians have broken through all their pre-prepared lines of defense. More critically, Western-supplied weaponry, particularly the HIMARS, has been pounding Russian ammunition and fuel depots and supply lines around Kharkiv, making any future effort to recapture lost land far more arduous. The Ukrainians have even been pushing up the HIMARS’ bigger, more heavily armored cousin, the M270 MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System), to positions close to the frontline, as the Ukrainian advance brings new targets into range.
Ukrainian servicemen fire from a BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle during a training exercise.
Ukrainian servicemen fire from a BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle as part of a training exercise not far from the frontlines of the war. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)
The rapid withdrawal from the north and northeast at such short notice is likely to cause the Russians problems in other areas of occupied Ukraine. Russian propaganda is being torn down all across Kharkiv and collaborators are forming long queues to leave the area and enter Belgorod, the Russian oblast on the other side of the border.
Even Russian state journalists have taken notice of the evisceration. “Well, brothers and sisters. Have you become depressed? Have you screamed? Have you argued? Have you lost heart?” Andrey Medvedev, a television reporter, posted to Telegram.
“I understand, I agree, it’s been a very difficult day.”
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Iraq: Sadr’s Request Met with Sunni Silence, Kurdish Conditions
Baghdad - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 10 September, 2022
Sunni and Kurdish allies of Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric who is the leader of one of Iraq’s most powerful parties, are yet to respond to his request to leave parliament. Sadr on Thursday has asked each of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Sunni Sovereignty Alliance to finally take a stance on dissolving the parliament or withdrawing from it. While the Sovereignty Alliance, led by Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi, has not issued a formal position on Sadr’s request, the KDP said that a joint decision must be taken on the matter. KDP Spokesman Mahmoud Mohammed said that dissolving the Iraqi Parliament is a joint decision that should be taken by the political forces and parties in Iraq. Speaking to reporters about Sadr’s call for his Kurdish and Sunni allies to work to dissolve parliament and hold early elections, Mohammed said that no dialogue has been conducted on this issue yet.
“We prefer that such problems be solved through dialogue to reach a joint decision,” said Mohammed. He pointed out that forming the next federal government and addressing the problems is the way to “end the current situation.”“We have a special committee which plays its role. Such topics should be addressed through meetings so that decisions are made unanimously,” he said. Mohammed reiterated his party’s position that they are ready for snap elections, as requested by Sadr, “but with a consensus and its results should be accepted.”Earlier, Salih Mohammad al-Iraqi, who runs a Twitter account named "the leader's advisor" and is widely believed to be Sadr's mouthpiece, had announced that the Sadrist Movement categorically rejects returning to parliament. Sadrists have held dozens of protests since the results of the vote were announced in October. Recently, they stormed the parliament building and staged sit-ins there, and later they stormed the Republican Palace. The protests turned violent late last month after the Sadrist Movement’s militia group clashed with armed groups close to the Coordination Framework.

Syria's Aleppo Airport Reopens after Israeli Strikes
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 10 September, 2022
Syria's Aleppo airport reopened on Friday, with the first civilian flight landing in more than 72 hours, after repairs following an Israeli airstrike earlier this week. Damage to the main runway in Tuesday's raid had put the airport -- the country's second-largest -- out of service, but the transport ministry said Friday repairs had been completed. The first incoming flight landed at 8:30 pm local time (1730 GMT), according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. Earlier, a transport ministry statement carried by state news agency SANA said air traffic would resume from midday, AFP reported. The Israeli strike, which the Britain-based Observatory said targeted a warehouse used by Iran-backed militias, was the second to hit the airport in just a week.

Pentagon combines sea drones, AI to police Gulf region
Agence France Presse/Saturday, 10 September, 2022
Iran's recent seizure of unmanned U.S. Navy boats shined a light on a pioneering Pentagon program to develop networks of air, surface and underwater drones for patrolling large regions, meshing their surveillance with artificial intelligence.
The year-old program operates numerous unmanned surface vessels, or USVs, in the waters around the Arabian peninsula, gathering data and images to be beamed back to collection centers in the Gulf. The program operated without incident until Iranian forces tried to grab three seven-meter Saildrone Explorer USVs in two incidents, on August 29-30 and September 1. In the first, a ship of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hooked a line to a Saildrone in the Gulf and began towing it away, only releasing it when a U.S. Navy Patrol boat and helicopter sped to the scene. In the second, an Iranian destroyer picked up two Saildrones in the Red Sea, hoisting them aboard. Two U.S. Navy destroyers and helicopters quickly descended, and persuaded the Iranians to give them up the next day, but only after stripping cameras from them, according to the U.S. military. The Iranians said the USVs were in international shipping lanes and were picked up "to prevent possible accidents."The U.S. Navy said the USVs were operating well out of shipping lanes and unarmed. Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, called the Iranian actions "flagrant, unwarranted and inconsistent with the behavior of a professional maritime force." U.S. forces "will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows," he added.
One year at sea -
The drones are operated by the Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet's Task Force 59, created last year to integrate unmanned systems and artificial intelligence into Middle East operations. Airborne and subsea drones are pretty well developed and proven, but unmanned surface boats are much newer and yet essential for the future, 5th Fleet spokesman Commander Tim Hawkins told AFP. Since starting last year, the U.S. Navy and regional partners have deployed both slow USVs like Saildrones and battery-powered speedboats like the Mantas T-12. Equipped with solar panels and sail wings, the Saildrones carry multiple sensors and cameras, and are designed to spend up to a year at sea transmitting data by satellite. San Francisco-based Saildrone operates around 100 vessels around the world for clients including the Pentagon, major oceanographic institutes, meteorological agencies, and groups studying fisheries and pollution. "Having circumnavigated Antarctica in 2019 and then having sailed through the eye of a category-four hurricane last year, there really isn’t any maritime environment our drones cannot operate," said Saildrone spokeswoman Susan Ryan.
- Focus on Iranian activities -
In the Gulf, Hawkins would only say that they collect information for "enhancing our vigilance of the surrounding seas and strengthening our regional deterrence posture." But Iranian activities are likely the main target. Iran also patrols the region and has accosted and seized foreign commercial vessels and harassed U.S. Navy ships in several tense confrontations in recent years. The U.S. Navy has sought to prevent Iran from shipping weapons to Yemen's Houthi rebels and other groups, and also helps enforce sanctions on Iran. The key, Hawkins said, is taking the information collected from all sorts of unmanned sources, in the air, on the ground and on the sea, and making sense of it quickly. Artificial intelligence helps identify unusual activity, like unnoticed vessels, in the USV data that human observers might miss."You need artificial intelligence to pick out what warrants more attention," he said.
No secret
Hawkins said it was unclear why only after a year into the program that the Iranians suddenly decide to try to retrieve some Saildrones. None of what the U.S. is doing is secret, he noted. The program was announced last September, and in February the 5th Fleet hosted International Maritime Exercise 2022, which brought together 10 countries and more than 80 USVs to try out in the Gulf. Even so, the U.S. chose to place Task Force 59 in the tension-filled Gulf instead of another less challenging region, and the activities apparently have Tehran bothered. The U.S. military says the program is in part about developing tactics and doctrines for operating USVs, including learning how to deal with a country like Iran trying to grab them off the sea. Right now the U.S. operates them with manned surface vessels nearby to deal with interference.
"You can't just go pick up stuff out of the ocean that has a country's flag on it," said one U.S. official. "If it's the sovereign property of our nation, they have to give it over," the official said.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 10-11/2022
د. ماجد رفي زاده من معهد جيتستون: الصفقة النووية مع إيران التي يقال إنها وضعت جانبا لو تمت ما كانت ستمنع الحرب
ماجد رفي زاده / معهد جيتستون / 10/10/2022
Iran Deal - Reportedly "Off the Table" - Would Not Have Prevented a War
Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/September 10/2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/111828/dr-majid-rafizadeh-gatestone-institute-iran-deal-reportedly-off-the-table-would-not-have-prevented-a-war-%d8%af-%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%ac%d8%af-%d8%b1%d9%81%d9%8a-%d8%b2%d8%a7%d8%af%d9%87-%d9%85/
In spite of the opposition from US allies in the Middle East as well as many US Congressman -- both Democrats and Republicans -- the Biden administration appeared determined to reward the ruling mullahs of Iran whose policies and ideology are anchored in "Death to America" and "Death to Israel".
The Biden administration seemed to hope that if they could just "contain" Iran with a "deal" -- put Iran "in a box" even for a few years -- it would "free up" the US to deal other problems, such as China, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela and the Indo-Pacific, with one less distraction. If only.
"If the regime in Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of terror, has proven anything, it's that it can't be trusted. The IRGC has directly, or through its proxies, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Ansar Allah (Houthis), Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and scores of Shiite militias in Iraq, killed hundreds of Americans, and attacked our bases and our allies in the region." — Congressional bipartisan letter to US President Joe Biden, September 1, 2022.
It is estimated that the Biden administration's new nuclear deal would have provided $1 trillion to the Iranian regime over a decade, making the IRGC and its militia and terror groups vastly wealthier and a far more savage threat to the national security of the Iranian people, the US, its allies, and American people everywhere.
It is also mind-boggling that the Biden administration was trusting Russia to be the sole country to oversee the compliance of the nuclear deal and to keep Iran's highly enriched uranium -- and able to return it to Iran if the mullahs requested it.
Fifty bipartisan US lawmakers had asked the Biden administration "not to permit Russia to be the recipient of Iran's enriched uranium nor to have the right to conduct nuclear work with the Islamic Republic, including a $10 billion contract to expand Iran's nuclear infrastructure. We should not let war criminal Vladimir Putin be the guarantor of the deal or the keeper of massive amounts of Iran's enriched uranium."
If the Biden administration believed that a deal with the Iranians would "free up" America to focus on China, and that the Middle East would just have sat quietly while Iran kept enriching uranium, they were living in a dreamworld. The Americans would instead have found themselves with hot wars on three fronts: Ukraine, China and the Middle East.
If the report is true, kudos to the Biden administration for a most wise decision.
It is also mind-boggling that the Biden administration was trusting Russia to be the sole country to oversee the compliance of the nuclear deal and to keep Iran's highly enriched uranium -- and able to return it to Iran if the mullahs requested it. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi hold a meeting in Tehran on July 19, 2022. (Photo by Sergei Savostyanov/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
The new "Iran nuclear deal," it appears, is "off the table for the time being." Let us hope that the report is accurate.
In spite of the opposition from US allies in the Middle East as well as many US Congressman, both Democrats and Republicans, the Biden administration appeared determined to reward the ruling mullahs of Iran, whose policies and ideology are anchored in "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."
The Biden administration seemed to hope that if they could just "contain" Iran with a "deal" -- put Iran "in a box" even for a few years -- it would "free up" the US to deal other problems, such as China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran's growing influence in Venezuela and the Indo-Pacific, with one less distraction. If only.Like the Obama administration, the Biden administration kept the US Congress, the American people and US allies in the Middle East in the dark about what was being negotiated with the ruling mullahs of Iran. A group of 50 US House Representatives, mostly Democrats, were urging the Biden administration to release the nuclear deal text:
"We are writing to respectfully request that your Administration provide Congress with the full text of any proposal to rejoin the Iran nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), including any side agreements, and consult with Congress prior to reentering that agreement."
The congressmen were right to be concerned. When President Joe Biden was vice president, and the Obama administration was all too eager to grant concessions to the Iranian regime, it turned out that they had made multiple secret deals with the mullahs. One of the secret deals consisted of permitting the Iranian regime to have access to US dollars by sidestepping sanctions. "The Obama administration misled the American people and Congress because they were desperate to get a deal with Iran", said Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), who chaired the Senate panel conducting the investigation at the time.
In addition, the Obama-Biden administration had secretly agreed to lift sanctions on several Iranian banks, including Bank Sepah and Sepah International. Another major concession was that the deal had paved the way for Iran legally to become a full-blown nuclear state. The sunset clauses, which enshrined that commitment, had set a firm expiration date for restricting Iran's nuclear program, after which the country's leaders would be free to have, legitimately, as many nuclear weapons as they liked.
Another critical concern was the Biden administration's concession to allow non-US persons to do business with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department. It was leaked that:
"Non-U.S. persons doing business with Iranian persons that are not on the [U.S. sanctions list] will not be exposed to sanctions merely as a result of those Iranian persons engaging in separate transactions involving Iranian persons on the [U.S. sanctions list] (including Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), its officials, or its subsidiaries or affiliates)."
Such a provision would have empowered the IRGC financially and allowed it to carry out even more terrorism abroad and suppress the Iranian people even more savagely at home. As the letter by the Congressmen accurately noted:
"[T]he aforementioned reported provision creates a troubling precedent. We are concerned that it could significantly dilute the effectiveness of terrorism-related sanctions on the IRGC, Iran's paramilitary terror arm and provides the organization with a pathway for sanctions evasion.
"If the regime in Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of terror, has proven anything, it's that it can't be trusted. The IRGC has directly, or through its proxies, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Ansar Allah (Houthis), Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and scores of Shiite militias in Iraq, killed hundreds of Americans, and attacked our bases and our allies in the region."
It is estimated that the Biden administration's new nuclear deal would have provided $1 trillion to the Iranian regime over a decade, making the IRGC and its militia and terror groups vastly wealthier and a far more savage threat to the national security of the Iranian people, the US, its allies, and American people everywhere.It is also mind-boggling that the Biden administration was trusting Russia to be the sole country to oversee the compliance of the nuclear deal and to keep Iran's highly enriched uranium -- and able to return it to Iran if the mullahs requested it.
The 50 bipartisan US lawmakers added:
"Additionally, we strongly urge your Administration not to permit Russia to be the recipient of Iran's enriched uranium nor to have the right to conduct nuclear work with the Islamic Republic, including a $10 billion contract to expand Iran's nuclear infrastructure. We should not let war criminal Vladimir Putin be the guarantor of the deal or the keeper of massive amounts of Iran's enriched uranium. Iran supports the illegal war in Ukraine and has been supplying Russia with drones used to kill Ukrainians."
The Biden administration seemed committed to leaving a legacy that included a nuclear-armed Iran, an empowered Russia, the flow of a trillion US dollars to the mullahs, strengthening the IRGC and its terror and militia groups, and endangering the lives not only of the Iranian people who have been suffering for decades under this brutal dictatorship, but also of the entire Middle East, and not least -- from bases in Venezuela -- all Americans.
If the Biden administration believed that a deal with the Iranians would "free up" America to focus on China, and that the Middle East would just have sat quietly while Iran kept enriching uranium, they were living in a dreamworld. The Americans would, instead, have found themselves with hot wars on three fronts: Ukraine, China and the Middle East. If the report is true, kudos to the Biden administration for a most wise decision.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
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The Woman who Embodied the Myth of the Good Monarch
Serge Schmemann//The New York Times/September 10/2022
To function in an otherwise normal democracy, a hereditary monarchy requires that the citizenry accept a bit of fiction — namely that one family, standing above politics, can represent the nation and its values.
That takes a bit of doing, especially with that most scrutinized royal house of them all, the Windsors, who reign over the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms. Few families have had as many public scandals and as much tabloid scrutiny. The disgrace of Prince Andrew, owing to allegations of rape and sexual abuse, and the rift between the British royals and Prince Harry and his wife, the American Meghan Markle, are only the latest of the blows the Windsors have endured.
Yet it is the measure of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning queen ever, that she will be remembered less for any of that than for playing her part so well, with such dignity and for so long. As her country’s greatest playwright once wrote of the finale of another queen: “It is well done, and fitting for a princess/Descended of so many royal kings.”
In a curious way, the many peccadilloes of “the firm,” as the royal clan has been facetiously called, seemed only to bolster the queen’s royal standing. However greatly she must have suffered from the escapades of her kith and kin, she never dropped the stoicism and fortitude that the British like to think of as their trademark stiff upper lip. About the only public utterance that ever betrayed any inner turmoil was her reference to 1992, a year in which three royal marriages collapsed and Windsor Castle burned, as her “annus horribilis.”
For the most part, while tabloids around the world mucked gleefully around through the dramas of her sister, children and grandchildren, the queen seemed to hover above it all. Her popularity rose over the years, as did popular support for maintaining the royal family. It is telling that Prince Harry and Ms. Markle, in their explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey last year about their decision to part ways with the firm, were careful not to accuse the queen of callousness or racism.
In many ways, through her demeanor, propriety, steadfastness and unwavering service — and simply by being there for so many years — Queen Elizabeth came to define the constitutional monarch for Europe and for much of the world. She was the most-traveled monarch in the world: The British newspaper The Telegraph calculated that by her 90th birthday, she had covered at least 1,032,513 miles and 117 countries. The 13 American presidents she met all tried hard to behave properly in her presence.
Part of her appeal was the extravagant — some might say excessive — pomp and ceremony that accompanied her every royal appearance. While Scandinavian countries deliberately decontented their monarchies until their kings and queens could barely be distinguished from normal citizens, Britain proudly maintained the full medieval monty: gilded carriages, bearskin helmets, liveried footmen and volumes of tradition.
It was marketing, to be sure; the royals are central to Britain’s brand and identity. But Queen Elizabeth was prepared to treat it all, from wearing a five-pound crown while reading a canned message in Parliament to feigning delight in some tropical ceremony, as the service to which she dedicated her life. As she said in a touching speech on her 21st birthday, “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.” Though democracy left her no real governing power, she was ahead of her time in championing equality and diversity in the Commonwealth and, by most accounts, she made her views discreetly known to successive prime ministers, whom she met weekly. The queen’s relations with another powerful woman, Margaret Thatcher, the long-serving prime minister who was roughly the same age as Elizabeth, are the best-known example. Thatcher’s labor policies and reluctance to impose sanctions on South Africa put her in direct conflict with the queen’s views, and at one point the royal press secretary, Michael Shea, told journalists that the queen regarded the prime minister’s policies as “uncaring, confrontational and socially divisive.”
Much has been made of this moment in films and the hugely popular television series “The Crown.” But as with so many things attributed to the queen in print and film, the reality is not known. The queen reportedly denied that these were her real sentiments, and Thatcher never publicly discussed her relations with the queen.
That public reserve has also set the queen apart from other members of her family, including her late husband, Prince Philip, and her heir, Prince Charles, who have been far less reticent about sharing their views far and wide. Which raises a critical question: Can the monarchy survive Elizabeth? Or, to borrow again from Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra,” shall “golden Phoebus never be beheld/Of eyes again so royal!”
Prince Charles waited so long that, at 73, he should be retiring rather than starting the job for which he was trained, and he is not particularly popular. British polling has suggested that many would just as soon jump as quickly as possible to Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, who with his charming duchess and adorable children has demonstrated a knack for royal work. Charles, Prince of Wales, by contrast, has allowed that realizing what lay ahead was a “ghastly, inexorable” experience.
A reluctant Charles on the throne will certainly raise the volume on questions about the cost and value of having a pampered and tainted family as the face of Britain. Commonwealth countries would likely share in these doubts — some might well follow the example set by Barbados in 2021 when it removed the queen as head of state, announcing, “The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind,” or Jamaica, whose prime minister said his country was “moving on” from the British monarchy after a disastrous royal tour by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge this year.
Perhaps beyond all such questions of popularity, usefulness and propriety is the question of whether anyone else can ever again share Queen Elizabeth’s innate appreciation of the mystique of the monarch, her natural royal dignity. Those were traits inherited from an era when the dignity and role of the throne were still self-evident to many, when Winston Churchill, an early mentor of the young Queen Elizabeth, extolled the sovereign as the “splendor of our political and moral inheritance.” It is hard to name any reigning royal in the world who still personifies that power, and none do it as graciously and convincingly as Queen Elizabeth did.
A lot will depend on younger generations. Chances are they’ll keep it going. One of the mysteries of life is that so many children’s stories stubbornly focus on kings and queens who are either good rulers beloved of their people or, if not, supplanted by a good prince or princess. Our first childhood encounter with the notion of government is often that of the good monarch rising above the tawdry mess of politics.
Queen Elizabeth demonstrated that it need not be fiction.

Does Biden Really Believe We Are in a Crisis of Democracy?
Ross Douthat/The New York Times/September 10/2022
Strip away the weird semi-fascist optics, the creepy crimson lighting and the Marines standing sentinel, and the speech Joe Biden gave on Thursday night outside Philadelphia’s Independence Hall could have been given by other prominent Democrats throughout the Trump era.
The song is always the same: On the one hand, dire warnings about Trumpian authoritarianism and the need for all patriotic Republicans and independents to join the defense of American democracy; on the other, a strictly partisan agenda that offers few grounds for ideological truce, few real concessions to beliefs outside the liberal tent.
In this case, Biden’s speech conflated the refusal to accept election outcomes with opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage — implying that the positions of his own Catholic Church are part of a “MAGA Republican” threat to democracy itself — while touting a State of the Union‌-style list of policy achievements, a cascade of liberal self-praise.
The speech’s warning against eroding democratic norms was delivered a week after Biden’s semi-Caesarist announcement of a $500 billion student-loan forgiveness plan without consulting Congress. And it was immediately succeeded by the news that Democrats would be pouring millions in advertising into New Hampshire’s Republican Senate primary, in the hopes of making sure that the Trumpiest candidate wins — the latest example of liberal strategists deliberately elevating figures their party and president officially consider an existential threat to the ‌Republic.
The ultimate blame for nominating those unfit candidates lies with the G.O.P. electorate, not Democrats. But in the debate about the risks of Republican extremism, the debate the president just joined, it’s still important to judge the leaders of the Democratic Party by their behavior. You may believe that American democracy is threatened as at no other point since the Civil War, dear reader, but they do not. They are running a political operation in which the threat to democracy is leverage, used to keep swing voters onside without having to make difficult concessions to the center or the right.
It’s easy to imagine a Biden speech that offered such concessions without giving an inch in its critique of Donald Trump. The president could have acknowledged, for instance, that his own party has played some role in undermining faith in American elections, that the Republicans challenging the 2020 result were making a more dangerous use of tactics deployed by Democrats in 2004 and 2016.
Or his condemnations of political violence could have encompassed the worst of the May and June 2020 rioting, the recent wave of vandalism at crisis pregnancy centers or the assassination plot against Brett Kavanaugh as well as MAGA threats.
Or instead of trying to simply exploit the opportunities that the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision has created for his party, he could have played the statesman, invoked his Catholic faith and moderate past, praised the sincerity of abortion opponents and called for a national compromise on abortion — a culture war truce, if you will, for the greater good of saving democracy itself. You can make a case for Biden refusing these gestures (or a different set pegged to different nonliberal concerns). But that case requires private beliefs that diverge from Biden’s public statements: In particular, a belief that Trumpism is actually too weak to credibly threaten the democratic order and that it’s therefore safe to accept a small risk of, say, a Trump-instigated crisis around the vote count in 2024 if elevating Trumpists increases the odds of liberal victories overall.
For actual evidence supporting such a belief, I recommend reading Julian G. Waller’s essay “Authoritarianism Here?” in the spring 2022 issue of the journal American Affairs. Surveying the literature on so-called democratic backsliding toward authoritarianism around the world, Waller argues that the models almost always involve a popular leader and a dominant party winning sweeping majorities in multiple elections, gaining the ground required to entrench their position and capture cultural institutions, all the while claiming the mantle of practicality and common sense.
As you may note, this does not sound like a description of the current Republican Party — a minority coalition led by an unpopular chancer that consistently passes up opportunities to seize the political center, a party that enjoys structural advantages in the Senate and the Electoral College but consistently self-sabotages by nominating zany or incompetent candidates, a movement whose influence in most cultural institutions collapsed in the Trump era.
If Jan. 6 and its aftermath made it easier to imagine a Trumpian G.O.P. precipitating a constitutional crisis, they did not make it more imaginable that it could consolidate power thereafter, in the style of Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan or Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez or any other example. Which in turn makes it relatively safe for the Democratic Party to continue using crisis-of-democracy rhetoric instrumentally, and even tacitly boost Trump within the G.O.P., instead of making the moves toward conciliation and cultural truce that a real crisis would require.
Such is an implication, at least, of Waller’s analysis, and it’s my own longstanding read on Trumpism as well. That reading may well be too sanguine. But in their hearts, Joe Biden and the leaders of his party clearly think I’m right.

Egypt, Jordan and Iraq — a promising alliance
Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/September 10/2022
There is no doubt about the innumerable benefits that could arise from the pursuit of greater cooperation and a deeper integration of societies across the Arab world.
Multilateral regional cooperation can catalyze change, mitigate conflicts and relieve tensions by developing cooperative (not collective) security architecture, as well as by attracting external capital, creating jobs and promoting growth across markets, to list but a few.
However, despite the obvious, demonstrable upsides of closer cooperation built on cultural and linguistic homogeneity, most of the Arab region remains deeply fragmented.
In fact, an incomprehensible resistance to a convergence of interests as part of formal regional processes or cooperative frameworks has now become a driver of persistent fragility and explains why the region remains so prone to conflict.
From a pessimistic viewpoint, it is a hopeless situation that can only be navigated now by adopting policies aimed at managing chaos rather than rehashing stale arguments urging for a pursuit of the seemingly impossible.
On the other hand, a number of Arab countries in recent years have stepped up as intermediaries between age-old rivals, as mediators for warring factions and competing interests, while seeking regional partnerships of their own.
This suggests new possibilities and a turning tide, signaling a prelude to a different kind of Arab region in the coming years — not necessarily a re-creation of the immense success that is the Gulf Cooperation Council, but the nurturing of a landscape in which such feats are no longer improbable.
A changed and changing geopolitical landscape is mostly responsible for this shift, sparked by the certainty of the US deprioritizing its “policing” of this part of the world and exacerbated by the spillovers from intensifying multipolar competition.
Essentially, the region is being left to its own devices as the vacuum left by Washington increasingly attracts elements and actors that would sooner exploit regional divisions for their own self interests, rather than help to bridge them to shore up the Arab community’s resilience to malignant, metastatic disruptions.
Of course, if we are to repeat the success of the GCC and enhance the reliability and resilience of future GCC-like forums for cooperation across the Middle East and North Africa, the foundations upon which they are built must be rooted in much more than being proximal countries that possess some level of homogeneity. After all, the pursuit of deeper levels of cooperation will demand difficult compromises on, or re-interpretations of, the ways in which nation-states exercise their sovereignty — suffocating hurdles that always whittle away any political will to integrate people, markets, economies and societies.
The Amman-Baghdad-Cairo agreement is a step in the right direction and has a lot of coherence to it.
Naturally, most efforts to craft multilateral arrangements between Arab countries are thus narrowly focused on simply creating common markets and broadening access to them to net tangible, practical benefits for their signatories.
Sadly, unlike in other parts of the world where common markets are often a preamble to closer cooperation in other areas, leaders across the Arab world only ever have an appetite for the former, if at all. Most attempts at the latter tend to be just another way of exercising hegemony over perceived spheres of influence.
Thus, rather than adopting forward-thinking strategies to expand regional cooperation and access potential solutions to domestic challenges, particularly youth unemployment, Arab leaders historically have failed to rise to the moment.
It can only be hoped that in this multipolar world of strategic competition and regionalization, Arab countries seize the opportunity to attempt the unprecedented — as Egypt, Jordan and Iraq have been trying to do.
Although it is still a work in progress, the Amman-Baghdad-Cairo — or the ABC — agreement seeks to forge a trilateral regional partnership of sorts, spanning North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia. The ABC is an ambitious undertaking that aims to connect an area that is home to an estimated 162 million people and will have a combined gross domestic product of $628 billion by the end of this year.
It builds on more than three decades of on-off cooperative ties, beginning with Iraq’s reliance on Jordan as a conduit for its imports and exports during the Iran-Iraq war while Egypt supplied labor to replace conscripted Iraqi men. In return, Jordan received cheap oil and Iraq became the largest source of remittances to Egypt.
Even during and after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 trade relations persisted among all three countries, though they were interrupted briefly by the subsequent civil war and intermittent violence following the Iraq war in 2003.
Fast-forward to a few years ago and several plans were outlined not only to connect the electricity grids of the three countries but also to develop oil pipelines. In addition, Iraq anticipated Egyptian or Jordanian assistance for its post-war reconstruction and reemergence after four decades of conflict and biting sanctions. The ongoing efforts have so far remained immune to Iraq’s tumultuous political environment and, despite constrained finances, all three countries remain eager to forge ahead and deliver on the boundless economic promise of enhanced trilateral cooperation. A flurry of diplomatic activity is underway to build on recent progress, capped by three trilateral summits to date, with more set to follow.
To some observers, this trilateral grouping is an alliance of “odd fellows” indeed. However, the Amman-Baghdad-Cairo agreement is a step in the right direction and has a lot of coherence to it. For instance, all three countries have broadly similar market economies that are seeking or undergoing reforms in pursuit of diversification, private sector growth, the enhancing of safety nets, and attracting foreign investment, even in the face of disruptive political crises that Egypt has faced and Iraq is still experiencing.
Additionally, Jordan and Egypt are already members of the World Trade Organization and Iraq is likely to join soon. This creates a solid base for any trilateral agreement since it will have to be consistent with the principles of the WTO.
Lastly, all three countries are members of the Greater Arab Free Trade Agreement, which provides a road map for the integration of Arab markets and trade in goods and services.
However, like most of the optimistic proclamations in the region, while there is plenty of history, momentum, goodwill and upsides to support the ABC, or other partnerships like it, the realities of implementation remain highly complex and, ultimately, discouraging.
After all, the Egypt-Jordan-Iraq axis has been a project three decades in the making that initially peaked with the short-lived Arab Cooperation Council. It is now seeking rebirth — firstly to encourage much-needed economic cooperation and, eventually, to rehabilitate war-torn Syria, while also positioning itself to embrace a “rescued” Lebanon as part of what the leaders of the three countries envision as their Al-Sham Al-Jadid (“New Levant”) project.
It can only be hoped that a rekindled North African-Levantine-West Asian axis will not succumb to the usual pitfalls that historically have imperiled Arab cooperation. Its leaders must also resist a framing of the ABC as a counter to the GCC, because such divisive rhetoric will diminish the prospects for the two well intentioned cooperative frameworks to work together based on their obvious synergies and shared interests.
This can, and should, be a crucial spark for a region deeply in need of a new vision and alternative frameworks to help it navigate mounting challenges and manage crises in a changing world.
Hafed Al-Ghwell is a non-resident senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He is also a senior adviser at the international economic consultancy Maxwell Stamp and the geopolitical risk advisory firm Oxford Analytica, a member of the Strategic Advisory Solutions International Group in Washington, and a former adviser to the board of the World Bank Group. Twitter: @HafedAlGhwell