English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For February 03/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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Bible Quotations For today
Prophet, Anna, Blesses The Child Jesus In The Temple
Luke 02/36-40/There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter
of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her
husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was
eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and
praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke
about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they
returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became
strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on February 02-03/2023
France to host international meet on crisis-hit Lebanon
UN experts slam slow progress in Lebanese activist murder probe
Lebanon army chief emerges as potential candidate for president
Lebanon: Hezbollah, Amal Undecided About Nominating Army Chief for Presidency
Hezbollah delegation meets Aoun, urges relation without 'noise and clamor'
Duquesne meets Mikati over energy sector
Lebanese Army chief meets Saudi Ambassador in Yarze
Bassil: Spiritual leaders' statement opens door to resolving presidential crisis
Dozens of port case lawsuits to be filed in Europe
Jumblat 'searching for president', his picks not final
Two illegal money changers arrested in Baalbek
Federal system would allow Lebanese to steer clear of scorpions/Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab
News/February 02, 2023
Criticism In Lebanon Following Iranian FM's Visit: His Statements Are False;
Visit Is Meant To Clarify That No Lebanese President Will Be Elected And No
Regional Agreements Will Be Made Without Iran's Involvement/MEMRI/February
02/2023
Titles For The
Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February
02-03/2023
Netanyahu in Paris to press Macron on Iran
Israeli Air Strikes Hit Gaza Strip
Israel's pioneering drones use free-falling bombs, can carry a tonne
Israeli police: American arrested for vandalizing church
Israeli foreign minister heads delegation to discuss Sudan normalization
First US ambassador to Sudan in 25 years arrives in Khartoum
Biden underlines support for Jordan in meeting with king
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister discusses strengthening relations with Iraq
Iran blames Israel for drone attack, threatens retaliation
Iran Accuses Kurdish Opposition of Isfahan Attack
Türkiye Welcomes Iran’s Engagement in Normalization Path with Syria
France seizes Iran assault rifles, missiles heading to Yemen
Putin says Russia faces German tanks, just like at Stalingrad, but hints that
this time Moscow has nukes
Top Russian Official Teases ‘the Next Ukraine’ in New Threat
US to send Ukraine longer-range bombs in latest turnaround
Even North Korea Just Noticed Russia’s War in Ukraine ‘Isn’t Going So Well’
Russia’s Shadow Army Accused in Mysterious Teen Abductions
US secures deal on Philippines bases to complete arc around China
Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources published on February 02-03/2023
Is Washington’s arms control theology finally on the verge of
collapse?/John Bolton/The Hill/February 02/2023
The Never-Ending ‘Pandemic’: 360 Million Christians Persecuted Worldwide/Raymond
Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/February 02/2023
The Endangered Assyrians and the Language of Jesus Seek International Support/Uzay
Bulut/Gatestone Institute/February 02/2023
GCC’s Iran nuclear talks proposal should be taken seriously/Dr. Abdel Aziz
Aluwaisheg/Arab News/February 02, 2023
Iran protests: Isolating the Iran regime is not the same as interfering in its
affairs/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/February 02, 2023
The Latest
English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February
02-03/2023
France to host international meet on
crisis-hit Lebanon
AFP/February 02, 2023
PARIS: France will host an international meeting on Monday on how to end months
of political deadlock in cash-strapped Lebanon, the foreign ministry said. The
Paris gathering is to be attended by representatives from France, the United
States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt, foreign ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire
Legendre said Thursday. Lebanon is being run by a caretaker government and is
also without a president as lawmakers have repeatedly failed to elect a
successor to Michel Aoun, whose mandate expired at the end of October. The
political impasse has hampered efforts to lift the Mediterranean country out of
its worst-ever financial crisis. The currency has lost more than 95 percent of
its market value to the dollar since 2019, and more than 80 percent of the
population lives in poverty, according to the United Nations. French Foreign
Minister Catherine Colonna, “has expressed her very serious concern on Lebanon’s
political deadlock,” Legendre said. Colonna was visiting Saudi Arabia on
Thursday. France and regional partners have been discussing means “to encourage
the Lebanese political class to assume its responsibilities and foster a way out
of the crisis,” Legendre added. “This approach will be the subject of a
follow-up meeting with the French, US, Saudi, Qatari and Egyptian
administrations on Monday to continue coordinating with our partners and find
ways to move forward.”It was not immediately clear if any Lebanese
representatives had been invited. No meeting at ministerial level has been
planned for now, Legendre said. French President Emmanuel Macron in December
urged Lebanon to “change its leadership” following months of deadlock that have
impeded reforms vital to unlocking billions of dollars in foreign aid.
UN experts slam slow progress in Lebanese
activist murder probe
AFP/February 02, 2023
GENEVA:UN rights experts voiced deep concern Thursday at the slow pace of an
investigation into the killing of Lebanese intellectual Lokman Slim two years
ago, demanding that Beirut ensure accountability. “It is incumbent on the
Lebanese authorities to fully investigate and bring to justice the perpetrators
of this heinous crime,” the four independent experts said. “Failing to carry out
a prompt and effective investigation may in itself constitute a violation of the
right to life.” A secular activist from a Shiite family, 58-year-old Slim was
found dead in his car on February 4, 2021, a day after his family reported him
missing. His bullet-riddled body was found in southern Lebanon — a stronghold of
the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement of which he was heavily critical. In their
statement, the UN special rapporteurs on extrajudicial executions, the
independence of judges and lawyers, the right to freedom of opinion and
expression and the situation of human rights defenders voiced outrage that no
one responsible for his assassination had been identified. “Shedding light on
the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Lokman Slim and bringing those
responsible to justice is also part of the State’s obligation to protect freedom
of opinion and expression,” said the experts, who are appointed by the UN Human
Rights Council but who do not speak on behalf of the world body. “A culture of
impunity not only emboldens the killers of Mr. Slim, it will also have a
chilling effect on civil society as it sends a chilling message to other
activists to self-censor,” they said. The experts stressed that investigations
into unlawful killings must be “independent, impartial, prompt, thorough,
effective, credible and transparent.” “Thus far, national authorities have shown
no indication that the ongoing investigations are in line with relevant
international standards,” they warned, demanding that the authorities speed up
the probe and “ensure that those responsible are held accountable without
delay.”“Mr. Slim’s family must have access to justice, truth and adequate
reparation expeditiously.”
Lebanon army chief emerges as potential
candidate for president
Najia Houssari/Arab News/February 02, 2023
BEIRUT: Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid Al-Bukhari held talks with Lebanese
Army Commander Gen. Joseph Aoun on Thursday. The meeting coincided with
intensified discussions between Lebanese parties to come to an agreement on a
new presidential candidate, and Gen. Aoun could be a promising option. The
Aoun-Bukhari meeting anticipated the Paris international meeting to discuss the
situation in Lebanon, scheduled for next Monday. Foreign ministers, ambassadors
and advisers from the US, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt are expected to
attend the meeting. Lebanon plunged into a presidential vacuum four months ago,
and Parliament has since failed to elect a new president, even after 11 voting
sessions. A caretaker government headed by Najib Mikati is running the country’s
affairs.mThe Lebanese are counting on the possibility of the Paris meeting
offering a solution to the current political crisis, as the division of the
parliamentary blocs between Hezbollah and its allies on one hand and opponents
of the party on the other does not give a majority of votes to any candidate.
The political crisis has been accompanied by a suffocating economic one that has
exhausted Lebanese citizens who have become increasingly disillusioned by the
sectarian political system. A summit for Christian religious authorities was
held on Wednesday evening, authorizing the Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros
Al-Rahi to invite the 64 Christian MPs to meet at the patriarchate’s
headquarters and to urge the rest of the MPs not to leave the voting sessions
until a new president is elected. Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Forces
Party, said he does not mind electing Gen. Aoun as president if this ends the
stalemate. However, the Free Patriotic Movement still rejects this option, with
the movement’s head, MP Gebran Bassil, having fiercely criticized Gen. Aoun in a
speech on Sunday.MP Hagop Pakradounian, secretary-general of the Armenian
Tashnaq Party, welcomed the call for a Christian dialogue as a way to solve the
crisis. “We will be the first to attend the dialogue, as an effort to save our
homeland, Lebanon,” he said. Meanwhile, Pierre Dukan, the coordinator for
international aid for Lebanon, held talks on Thursday in Beirut with Mikati,
stressing that his visit was part of a regional tour, which included Egypt and
Jordan, in search of support for Lebanon in the field of energy. Dukan said: “I
will visit the US in the next couple of weeks to discuss with US officials ways
to neutralize the electricity file from (the) Caesar Act in terms of drawing gas
from Egypt and electricity from Jordan via Syria, in order to help Lebanon solve
the energy crisis.”He stressed the need to implement the two conditions
requested by the World Bank for assistance in the energy sector, which are
auditing the accounts of Electricite du Liban and forming the electricity
regulatory authority, according to the law in effect. He pointed out the
significance of completing the required steps to sign the final agreement with
the International Monetary Fund, which represents for France and the
international community the critical factor to initiating economic recovery in
Lebanon. “This agreement enhances international confidence in Lebanon, its
institutions and government action,” Dukan said. The French Embassy stressed
France’s strong commitment to Lebanon for the advancement of the energy sector,
not only by keeping pace with the necessary reforms but also through the work of
French companies such as EDF, TotalEnergies and Nexans.
Lebanon: Hezbollah, Amal Undecided About
Nominating Army Chief for Presidency
Beirut - Caroline Akoum/Thursday, 2 February, 2023
Lebanon’s Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, has been recenlty topping the
list of potential candidates for the presidency. While Aoun has gained the
support of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), the head of the Lebanese
Forces, Samir Geagea, announced on Wednesday that he would not object the Army
chief’s election, provided that his election would solve the ongoing
presidential crisis. On the other hand, the head of the Free Patriotic Movement
(FPM), MP Gebran Bassil, lashed out at the Army Commander during a press
conference on Sunday, in an explicit rejection of his potential nomination. But
Hezbollah and Amal Movement, the two main Shiite parties in the country, have so
far maintained their support to the head of the Marada Movement, former Minister
Suleiman Franjieh. While the supporters of MP Michel Moawad hinted that they had
reached a dead end regarding his election, the Shiite duo has not yet announced
a clear position, but only emphasized the importance of dialogue and the need to
reach consensus among the different blocs. Parliamentary sources in the
Development and Liberation Bloc, headed by Speaker Nabih Berri, refused to give
names, specifically about Berri’s position on Aoun’s nomination. Reaffirming
openness to dialogue and consensus, Berri’s sources, on the other hand, pointed
to the problem related to amending the constitution, as the Army Commander is
supposed to resign from his position six months before his election, a move that
hasn’t materialized. For his part, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general, Naim
Qassem, stressed that the party was open for discussions. Qassem Kassir, a
political analyst close to Hezbollah, said: “The party still supports Franjieh’s
candidacy, but is open to dialogue and ready for all possibilities.”Asked
whether Hezbollah would accept the election of the army commander, Kassir said:
“The party has no problem with this option if it is consensual, which was
previously announced by the head of [Hezbollah’s] political council, Ibrahim
Amin Al-Sayed.”
Hezbollah delegation meets Aoun, urges
relation without 'noise and clamor'
Naharnet/February 02, 2023
A Hezbollah parliamentary delegation led by MP Mohammed Raad on Thursday held
talks in Rabieh with ex-president and Free Patriotic Movement founder Michel
Aoun. During the meeting, Aoun stressed “the importance of national partnership,
the continuation of the state building project, the fight against corruption and
the protection of citizens’ rights,” the National News Agency said. Raad for his
part described the meeting as “very cordial,” saying he relayed “warm greetings”
to Aoun from Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and the party’s leadership.
“We reiterated our major appreciation of the firm and substantial relation
between us, which strengthened national partnership, protected civil peace and
immunized national sovereignty through serious and real deterrence provided by
the commitment to the army-people-resistance equation, which fended off Lebanon
the threats of the unruly, terrorist takfiri onslaught as well as the threats of
Zionist attacks and violations,” Raad added, reciting a written statement. “We
stress our determination and keenness on continuing this relation with the FPM
upon the bases to which president Michel Aoun contributed, which are founded on
honesty, clarity and courage in addressing differences with a serious and
patriotic spirit and mutual understanding, away from noise and clamor,” the
lawmaker said. He also called for unifying the efforts of all parties to exit
“the current crisis and resume the state building course.”
Duquesne meets Mikati over energy sector
Naharnet/February 02, 2023
French presidential envoy Pierre Duquesne met Thursday at the Grand Serail with
caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati. Duquesne is in a two-day visit to Lebanon
in a French mission aimed at supporting the energy sector in Lebanon. The French
envoy visited Egypt and Jordan and will visit the U.S. in two weeks to discuss
with the American authorities an energy deal that would provide gas and
electricity to Lebanon from Egypt and Jordan via Syria to seek waivers from
sanctions against Syria. Washington had offered reassurances to Lebanon and
waivers from sanctions to companies sending gas and electricity through Syria.
But there has been some push back from Congress against offering what seems to
be a relief for the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Duquesne
stressed the importance of auditing the energy sector accounts and forming the
electricity regulatory commission, two major prerequisites for the country to
access a bail-out from the International Monetary Fund.
Lebanese Army chief meets Saudi Ambassador in
Yarze
Naharnet/February 02, 2023
Army chief Gen. Joseph Aoun met Thursday with Saudi Ambassador in Lebanon Walid
Boukhari in Yarze. Aoun, 58, is on good terms with all sides of the political
spectrum, although Hezbollah has criticized him for his close ties to
Washington. Naming him would require a constitutional amendment because of his
position. The commander, who bears no relation to former president Michel Aoun,
is widely seen as a compromise candidate that lawmakers could elect if they fail
to reach a consensus on their preferred choice. Should he become president, Aoun
would be the fourth former army commander to lead the country since the end of
the civil war. Aoun is the first in a list of three nominees suggested by
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat. Lebanese Forces leader Samir
Geagea has said he does not mind his election but Jumblat failed to convince
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri of electing Aoun and the Free Patriotic Movement
has frequently criticized the army chief. Berri, for his part, has advised
Jumblat to disregard the Army chief's name during a meeting between the two
leaders in Ain el-Tineh, al-Akhbar newspaper reported Thursday. The daily added
that during a meeting between MP Taymour Jumblat and Maronite Patriarch Beshara
al-Rahi, the Democratic Gathering Bloc lawmaker sensed positivity from al-Rahi
regarding the nomination of Aoun. Fellow MP Raji Saad, who also attended the
meeting, said in a statement after the talks that the name of Aoun is in the
lead.
Bassil: Spiritual leaders' statement opens
door to resolving presidential crisis
Naharnet/February 02, 2023
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Thursday hailed a statement
issued by the Christian spiritual leaders in Lebanon, saying “it delineates a
promising course and opens the door to resolving the presidential crisis on the
basis of partnership and national balance.”
“Since last summer, we have been the first to respond to this existential appeal
and we will still be the first. This is what I stressed to Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi
in my latest visit to him and I hope everyone will respond to this call,” Bassil
added. In their statement on Wednesday, the Christian spiritual leaders had
called on parliament to “hurry up in carrying out its national duty and electing
a president.”“We entrust Patriarch al-Rahi with meeting with whomever he finds
suitable to achieve the statement’s content, including inviting Christian MPs to
meet in Bkirki and urging them to take initiative together, along with the
Muslim MPs, to elect a president for the Lebanese republic as soon as possible,”
the leaders added.
Dozens of port case lawsuits to be filed in
Europe
Naharnet/February 02, 2023
Dozens of lawsuits are being prepared to be filed in several European countries
on behalf of the victims of the Beirut port explosion, a media report said. The
Nidaa al-Watan newspaper quoted a source from Accountability Now – which
identifies itself as a Swiss foundation whose mission is to support the Lebanese
civil society in its desire to put an end to the impunity of leaders – as saying
that the lawsuits will be filed in Germany, France, Belgium, Croatia and the
United Kingdom. Accountability Now had on January 25 called on victims who have
European passports to file lawsuits in Europe amid the obstruction of the
Lebanese probe and the attempt to remove lead investigator Judge Tarek Bitar
from the case. A source from the foundation meanwhile confirmed that
Accountability Now has received “dozens” of requests from individuals who want
legal representation in European countries.
Jumblat 'searching for president', his picks
not final
Naharnet/February 02, 2023
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat is searching for a president,
he told Annahar newspaper in remarks published Wednesday. "I am trying to find
common ground and to break through the impasse in order to elect a president,
until an Arab-international initiative crystallizes," Jumblat said. Jumblat went
on to say that not only Hezbollah but all parties are not clear when it comes to
the presidential file, and that he is trying to find common ground between all
parties. He added that the three names he has nominated for presidency are not
final and that there are many other names. Jumblat had named Army chief Gen.
Joseph Aoun, former MP Salah Honein and former minister Jihad Azour. A local
media report said Wednesday that Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who had met
with Jumblat on Tuesday, has no veto against Gen. Aoun, while sources close to
the Democratic Gathering bloc reportedly said that it is not confirmed whether
Berri is convinced with nominating the army chief. Meanwhile, sources close to
Berri told al-Joumhouria, in remarks published also Wednesday, that despite the
differences between Berri and Jumblat, Berri is convinced that he and Jumblat
will always meet on the major junctures.Jumblat considered MP and presidential
candidate Michel Mouawad a confrontational president for some parties, and urged
him to cooperate in order to find a consensual president.
Two illegal money changers arrested in Baalbek
Naharnet/February 02, 2023
A patrol from the judicial police on Wednesday raided money changers in the
markets of the city of Baalbek and arrested two individuals who were practicing
illegal money exchange operations, the state-run National News Agency reported.
The development comes a few days after State Prosecutor Judge Ghassan Oueidat
sent a memo to Financial Prosecutor Judge Ali Ibrahim asking him to
“immediately” order the arrest of the money changers and speculators who are
contributing to “the collapse of the national currency.”Arab Tawhid Party leader
Wiam Wahhab meanwhile tweeted that Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh has
informed caretaker PM Najib Mikati that “three money changers – one in Beirut,
another in Sidon and a third in Tyre – are leading the dollar game and that they
are yet to be interrogated.”“Why haven’t then been questions? Are they
protected?” Wahhab wondered, noting that the aforementioned money changers are
“buying all the dollars that are being pumped” into the market.
Federal system would allow Lebanese to steer
clear of scorpions
Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/February 02, 2023
Do you know the story of the scorpion and the frog? The two animals are facing a
wildfire and need to cross a river to survive. The scorpion tells the frog:
“Carry me on your back and help me cross the river and I will protect you from
any aggressor in the future.” The frog swiftly answers: “Never. You will sting
me and I will die.” The scorpion then says: “Why would I do that? In that case,
I would also drown and die.” It is enough to convince the frog, who hopes for
future protection. As the fire gets closer, it jumps into the river with its new
scorpion friend on its back. As it reaches the middle of the river, the
inevitable happens and the scorpion stings the frog. As they are both sinking to
their death, the frog asks: “But why?” And the scorpion answers: “It is my
nature.”
I see many similarities between this story and the relationship between the
people of Lebanon and their political leaders. Each confession lets its own
leaders climb on their back in the hope of protection against the others. And so
these leaders are blindly empowered by their own people. They promise to get
them out of chaos but in fact they are bringing everyone to their death. It is
the nature of the Lebanese politicians to sting their own people and destroy the
country. It has hence become clear that they can no longer be trusted or
empowered to bring Lebanon to the safe side of the river.
The reality is that Lebanese politicians have no incentive for change. They have
no incentive to build a new system that would bring stability, security and
prosperity to all. Their endgame is to use and control their own confessional
base and to trade on it. Moreover, there is no accountability for any of their
actions. They have perfected the exploitation of the political system for their
own benefit. They are undoubtedly still giving protection to the current
occupation of Lebanon by Hezbollah and Iran, just like they did with Syria
before that.
It is quite surprising that, despite years of collaboration with the Syrian
occupier, none have been judged for high treason. This might have been a mistake
following the withdrawal of the Syrian troops. There should have been an
equivalent of the Vichy trials after the Second World War, which judged all
those responsible for collaborating with the enemy. This historical lack of
accountability and the capacity to elude justice has given superpowers to
politicians. Many should be barred from political activities for life. Yet, this
cannot change as long as Hezbollah controls the decaying state and keeps
stinging any free Lebanese voice.
Lebanon’s political leaders have no incentive to build a new system that would
bring stability, security and prosperity to all.
This is the reason Lebanon needs a new political leadership to build a new
political system. The confessional system has been tried and tried again and it
is a complete failure. Moreover, it has invited occupation after occupation and
killed any independent thinking or honorable politician and corrupted the rest.
There is no saving it or its current representatives. But then, what is the
solution that could work? How does Lebanon survive the repeated scorpion stings?
There is absolutely no doubt that federal political systems make for better
outcomes in countries with large diversity such as Lebanon. A simple example is
Switzerland, with its many ethnicities and languages. The canton system solves
everything, simply because the lower level of decision-making allows for each
community to solve its own problems and make things work, especially on issues
that matter: school, security, health. More importantly, political
representatives are accountable and cannot trade off with other leaders. A
recent social media clip shared by a friend proved this point by stating that
nobody knows the names of Swiss politicians because they do not create political
issues, but rather work on making a better life for their people, unlike some of
their neighboring countries. I would agree to a large extent.
Yet, the road to this new political system will not be built overnight. It also
needs architects: A new breed of politician that understands the changing world
and is willing to bring this new system to life is badly needed. Voices to
inspire and enlighten. And, here I repeat over and over again: Lebanon does not
need technocrats. They are as much responsible for the current situation as the
politicians that brought them in to cover up their dealings. They have benefited
from the system and collaborated with the enemy while absolving themselves of
any wrongdoing. As if stating, “I was in a technocratic government,” serves as
an absolute clearance. They knew exactly what they were doing. When the
occupation has murdered politicians, officers, judges, journalists and free
thinkers, you know exactly what accepting to participate means.
Lebanon cannot survive as long as it keeps a pyramidal decision-making system.
It is not suited to the country and even a decentralized system will not be
enough. There is a need to allow the country to move forward without being
consistently blocked by Hezbollah. The Iranian proxy’s status on top of the
state or within the state — depending how you look at it — comes to an end with
federalism. This system would allow for the people to decide their own fate and
never again have to beg for the protection of any scorpion.
*Khaled Abou Zahr is the founder of Barbicane, a space-focused investment
syndication platform. He is the CEO of EurabiaMedia and editor of Al-Watan Al-Arabi.
Criticism In Lebanon Following Iranian FM's
Visit: His Statements Are False; Visit Is Meant To Clarify That No Lebanese
President Will Be Elected And No Regional Agreements Will Be Made Without Iran's
Involvement
MEMRI/February 2, 2023
https://www.memri.org/reports/criticism-lebanon-following-iranian-fms-visit-his-statements-are-false-visit-meant-clarify
On January 12, 2023, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian arrived
in Lebanon for a three-day visit during which he met with senior Lebanese
officials, including caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Foreign Minister 'Abdallah
Bou Habib, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan
Nasrallah.[1] While in Beirut, Abdollahian also met with the Secretary-General
of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziad Al-Nakhalah, and reaffirmed Iran's
continued support for the Palestinian resistance.[2] In statements he made upon
arrival at the airport, Abdollahian urged Lebanon's political forces to hold a
dialogue to agree on a new president, and added: "I have complete confidence
that the Lebanese [political] forces possess independence and wisdom which
enable them to manage their affairs themselves, far from [any] dictates and from
any external interference." He added that Iran would continue to support "[our]
sister, the Lebanese republic, it people, its army and its resistance."[3]
Abdollahian repeated his remarks at a press conference held with Lebanese
Foreign Minister Bou Habib, and stated: "We spoke about the best ways to
strengthen the bilateral ties in the economic and commercial sphere so as to
further the interests of both peoples. Iran," he added, "will always remain a
sincere and faithful friend of Lebanon, in good times and bad." He also repeated
Iran's proposal to supply oil to Lebanon and help it build power stations in
order to alleviate its energy crisis. He also said that "Lebanon's security and
development are part of Iran's security and development." Regarding the crisis
surrounding the election of a new Lebanese president, Abdollahian stated that
Iran "does not interfere in the internal affairs of its sister Lebanon" and
called on the political forces in the country "to meet and to hold a dialogue in
order to fill the vacuum in the presidency," and expressed confidence that the
Lebanese "have sufficient awareness, understanding and experience to find a
solution to [this] crisis."[4]
Abdollahian's statements, and particularly his remarks that Iran does not
interfere in the internal affairs of the "sister" country Lebanon and is willing
to help resolve Lebanon's energy crisis, drew extensive criticism from Lebanese
politicians and journalists who characterized them as nothing more than
hypocritical and false political discourse. Former justice minister Ashraf Rifi
tweeted, "We say to Minister Abdollahian that he can tone down his diplomatic
humility, which is a fraud. Iran does not interfere in Lebanese affairs. It
occupies it and controls its destiny and the decisions [made] within it. History
will yet show that your regime, [which is] hegemonic and arrogant towards our
countries [sic][5], is about to collapse, so heed our advice."[6]
Similar statements appeared in Lebanese press articles which claimed that
Abdollahian's "sugary diplomatic discourse," his expressed hope for the quick
election of a new president and his remarks in praise of "sister" Lebanon are
nothing but "outright lies" and an attempt to deceive the public. Even his offer
of Iranian oil and Iranian help in the construction of power stations are false,
they added. They concluded that Abdollahian's visit was meant to convey a
message to Lebanon and to other regional and international players, namely that
no president will be elected in Lebanon and no regional agreements will be made
without Iranian involvement.
The following are translated excerpts from these articles.
Editor Of Lebanese Daily: We Are Not So Naïve As To Believe The Lies Of The
Iranian Foreign Minister
In a recent article, Bechara Charbel, editor-in-chief of the Lebanese Nidaa Al-Watan
daily, claimed that Abdollahian's statements about Iran's willingness to help
Lebanon with its energy crisis were outright lies, and that his visit was
intended to convey that any arrangement regarding to the election of a president
must be approved by Iran. He wrote: "[Even] Hossein Amir-Abdollahian himself,
who has been visiting our country for the past three days, doesn't believe in
what he is peddling, [namely the statements about] his country's willingness to
help Lebanon with oil and with power stations to generate electricity. We do not
believe this broken record either, which is intended to provide its allies in
Lebanon with a rationale to continue selling illusions to their public.
"With all due respect to the Iranian foreign minister, we are not so naïve as to
put our faith in promises which are part of a charade, [an attempt] to embarrass
[Lebanon] and create trouble for it with respect to the sanctions [on Iran].
Moreover, his country is in no position to bestow gifts when 60 percent of its
population is living below the poverty line, and when the data indicates a
shortage of cash which is reflected in a terrible deterioration in Yemen and in
Syria [where Iranian militias are present] and in a drop in the funds provided
to the 'jihadi organizations' in Palestine and to [Iran's] proxies in other
locations.
"The most conspicuous aspect of the statements made by this unexpected guest was
not his sugary diplomatic talk or his expressed hope for the election of a [new
Lebanese] president – which is an outright lie. Rather, it was his description
of Lebanon as a 'sister country.' For the rules dictate that he refer to us as
'friends,' because the only thing that we and his country have in common is the
armed political party [i.e. Hizbullah]… In any case, 'it's possible to have a
brother who wasn't born to your mother,' [as the saying goes,] but brotherhood
has its demands. The most important of them is [not to utter] 'true things when
the intention behind them is false,' and that is what Abdollahian did in his
conversation with our foreign minister when he expressed opposition to all
external interference in Lebanon's affairs! One might think… that the enchanting
presence of our sister Iran in the land of the cedars is confined to the
composition of verse and the sale of Persian tobacco and saffron…
"Abdollahian did not come [to Lebanon] only to visit his allies. He came to tell
the Lebanese, and the regional and international political forces which are
trying to help with the election of [a new Lebanese] president, that 'we
[Iranians] are here,' and that any arrangement must be vetted by Iran. This is a
card that Iran has invested in for years, and it will not relinquish the
smallest piece of it without recompense, whether on or under the table. This is
a known fact that does not require a surprise visit and [the creation of]
tension… nor does it require [the utterance of] the usual theoretical statements
that any recording device could have broadcast.
"If we had a real government and a courageous foreign minister, he would have
asked his Iranian counterpart about the violations of human rights, and
particularly women's [rights], that are currently being perpetrated in Iran, and
about the executions of [Iranians] who are demanding freedom and challenging
tyranny. Later, just before saying farewell, our head of diplomacy should have
asked our distinguished guest a brief question: When will your republic [Iran]
free the tormented hostage whose name is Lebanon?"[7]
Lebanese Journalist: The Visit Was Intended To Clarify That No Regional
Arrangements Can Be Made Without Iran
Lebanese journalist Mounir Al-Rabih also claimed that the visit of the Iranian
foreign minister was intended to convey messages to regional and international
forces. He wrote: "[Abdollahian's] visit is part of [Iran's efforts] to buttress
its position, especially since it took place during a significant political
phase in the region, when Iran is striving to assert its presence in Lebanon and
in the region. The purpose of the visit was to assert the [Iranian] presence and
to unite its allies, whether within the Lebanese arena or in the Lebanese and
the Palestinian [arenas]. The point is to convey an Iranian message to the
region as a whole against the backdrop of two important moves. The first is the
Russian-Syrian-Turkish meetings [that took place until recently] without the
participation of Iran; the second is the preparations underway in Paris, the
capital of France, for meetings on the issue of Lebanon [and the election of a
new president], also without Iranian participation. Therefore, Iran is signaling
that it has a presence [in Lebanon] and that it is inconceivable that any
arrangement should be made without it.
"It is known that Iran has empowered Hizbullah [to handle] everything related to
Lebanon's internal affairs and that it is the element that decides on any
arrangement [in Lebanon] as it sees fit. Abdollahian's visit was meant to
confirm this and to reaffirm the fact that the [Lebanon] portfolio is held by
Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah… [This was reflected by the
declarations of] Iran's support for Hizbullah's positions as stated by Nasrallah…
"Sources claim that in conversations held by Abdollahian, all the regional
topics and developments were discussed and it was stressed that Iran has a
[regional] presence and that meetings with external [forces] will not yield
results in its absence or in the absence of its allies in Lebanon [i.e.
Hizbullah]. In this context one should note the renewal of tension in
France-Iran relations, in light of Paris' positions on the protests in Iran.
Therefore, it is impossible to ignore [the connection between] the timing of the
visit and the efforts to convene a meeting in Paris in late January or early
February [to discuss the issue of the Lebanese presidency]…
"[Furthermore,] one should recall the remarks made by [the now retired] Israeli
Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, who said that over the past year the Israel army
prepared three plans for attacking Iran, in addition to the ongoing Israeli
discourse about how [Israel] continuously prevents Iran from establishing a
force similar to Hizbullah in southern Syria. This necessitates continuous
Iranian readiness along with its allies, [which is another reason for the visit
of the Iranian foreign minister]."[8]
Lebanese Journalist: Iran Is Neither A Sister Country Nor A Friend
Journalist 'Ali Hamada wrote in a similar vein in his column in the Al-Nahar
daily: "It is possible that the visit of the Iranian Foreign Minister, Hossein
Amir-Abdollahian, comes in the context of Iran's desire to consolidate its
holdings in the region, at a time when all the players in the area intend [to do
so]. [There are several indications of this,] from the meeting of the Negev
Forum Steering Committee [which opened on January 9, 2023] in Abu Dhabi, though
the growing activity to [advance] relations between Turkey and the Syrian regime
via Russian mediation…, to the Arab rush, albeit a reluctant one, to [embrace]
Iraq[9] … Another matter, no less important, is Hizbullah's failure… to impose
its own candidate for the presidency in Lebanon, as occurred in 2016…
"Even if Abdollahian, who was originally aligned with elements connected to the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), [is the one who] visited Lebanon and
included some general headlines in his speeches, the Lebanese people know that
the [decision regarding] the Lebanon portfolio is not in his hands. Nor is it in
the hands of the [Iranian] government or even in the hands of the Iranian
president, Ebrahim Raisi… For the Lebanon portfolio doesn't leave the hands of
the source of authority of the IRGC, the leader Ali Khamenei, personally. It is
also known that it is the leadership of the Qods Force that directs the
oversight of regional issues…
"Therefore, it may be said that even if Abdollahian's visit to Lebanon included
allusions to the presidential [crisis there], it is meaningless in this respect,
and was [more] likely meant to convey messages to the region. The talk of the
electricity [crisis in Lebanon] and of Iranian assistance to resolve it will
also remain theoretical, for Iran is unlikely to grant Lebanon gifts of fuel to
operate its power stations, and it cannot do this commercially [i.e., sell the
oil to Lebanon] due to the American sanctions on Iranian oil. It is also hard
[to believe] that Iran will occupy itself [bestowing] gifts of oil on Lebanon
when the Iranian public is incensed and opposes the regime's spending hundreds
of billions of dollars from the national coffers on weapons, armament and
militias within and beyond the region, and on external political parties and
external bodies, while the [Iranian] people are suffering from a suffocating
economic crisis. And this is in addition to the large protests which erupted
last autumn following the killing of Mahsa Amini by the 'morality police'…
"Hence, not many [in Lebanon] are pinning their hopes on the visit of the
Iranian foreign minister. But one issue, which is a sore point with many
Lebanese, should be noted, namely Abdollahian's puzzling insistence on
repeatedly describing Lebanon as a 'sister.' Iran is neither a sister country
nor a friend [to Lebanon]. In the best case it's half a friend to a [certain]
Lebanese group which it is leading astray."[10]
[1] Al-Nahar, (Lebanon), January 13, 2023.
[2] Alahednews.com.lb, January 13, 2023.
[3] Alahednews.com.lb, January 12, 2023; January 13, 2023.
[4] Al-Nahar, (Lebanon), January 13, 2023; Alahednews.com.lb, January 13, 2023.
[5] Apparently a reference to all the countries under Iranian hegemony.
[6] Twitter.com/Ashraf_Rifi, January 13, 2023.
[7] Nidaa Al-Watan (Lebanon), January 14, 2023.
[8] Almodon.com, January 14, 2023
[9] The reference is to the 25th Arabian Gulf Cup soccer tournament that opened
in Iraq on January 6, 2023, during which there was an atmosphere of closeness
between Iraq and the Arab Gulf countries, which sparked significant public
discourse about the rise of Arab nationalism in Iraq.
[10] Al-Nahar, (Lebanon), January 14, 2023.
The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on February 02-03/2023
Netanyahu in Paris to press Macron on
Iran
Agence France Presse/Thursday, 2 February, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold talks with French President
Emmanuel Macron Thursday, hoping to gain support against Iran's nuclear program
but shadowed by an upsurge of violence in the region. Israel's Paris embassy
said the pair would discuss "the international effort to stop the Iranian
nuclear program". Netanyahu hopes that Iran's role supplying drones to Russian
invaders in Ukraine as well as the crackdown on protests at home will prompt
Western allies to drop any pursuit of a revival of the 2015 deal over its atomic
drive. The prime minister has also said Israel is considering sending military
aid to Ukraine, apparently dropping its previously more neutral stance over the
conflict. France agrees that "firmness" is needed in dealings with Iran, a
diplomatic source told AFP, calling its nuclear program "dangerous" and
highlighting its role in the Ukraine war. Tehran also holds several foreign
nationals who Western governments see as political hostages. But Macron's office
said the French leader would "reiterate (to Netanyahu) the need for all sides to
avoid measures likely to feed the cycle of violence" between Israelis and
Palestinians -- while offering "France's solidarity with Israel in the face of
terrorism". Netanyahu visits as Israelis and Palestinians exchanged rockets and
missiles over Gaza, the latest violent episode as the conflict intensifies. A
week ago, seven were killed in a mass shooting by a Palestinian at a synagogue
in annexed east Jerusalem -- one day after an Israeli raid in the West Bank
killed 10 Palestinians. No press conference is planned around the
Macron-Netanyahu dinner starting at 1900 GMT at the French president's Elysee
Palace office. In France until Saturday, Netanyahu is also set to meet French
business chiefs and leaders of the country's Jewish community, the Israeli
embassy said.
Israeli Air Strikes Hit Gaza Strip
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 2 February, 2023
Israel launched air strikes on the Gaza Strip early Thursday, which Palestinian
fighters reacted to by firing rockets in the latest bout of unrest in the
region. The overnight attacks -- which Israel's army confirmed in a statement at
02:41 am (0041 GMT) -- come hours after the army intercepted a rocket fired from
the Palestinian territory. Emergency services reported no immediate casualties
on either side. According to local security sources and witnesses, the first
round of strikes -- at least seven -- hit a training centre of the Ezzedine al-Qassam
Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. The center is in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp
in the central Gaza Strip. A statement by the Israeli army said fighter jets had
"struck a production site for raw chemical material production, preservation and
storage along with a weapon manufacturing site" belonging to Hamas. The strikes
came "in response to the rocket launch from the Gaza Strip into Israel earlier"
Wednesday. After the strikes, AFP reporters and witnesses saw new rounds of
rockets fired from Gaza, and fresh explosions could be heard from Gaza City
around 3:15 am (0115 GMT). Warning sirens sounded in Sderot, a town in southern
Israel close to the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli army.
Israel's pioneering drones use free-falling
bombs, can carry a tonne
Dan Williams/TEL AVIV (Reuters)/Thu, February 2, 2023
Israeli armed drones use gravity bombs that produce no noise or smoke as they
fall, making them hard for enemies to anticipate or evade, and the largest model
of the aircraft can carry up to a tonne of munitions, its military says.
After more than two decades of secrecy, Israel in July went public about its
pioneering armed drones developed as part of an array of stand-off surveillance
and striking options since it was blindsided by tank incursions during a 1973
war. In November, an Israeli general detailed the two corps - air force and
artillery - that operate the drones, both against Palestinian foes close to home
and possibly targets as far away as Iran or Sudan. Such drones are
remote-piloted, relaying video or dropping bombs before returning to base. They
are distinct from the kamikaze drones that Iran said were used in a weekend
attack on a defence plant in Isfahan, an incident on which Israel has declined
to comment. Briefing Reuters, a senior Israeli military officer said the armed
drone fleet includes the passenger plane-sized Heron TP, made by state-owned
Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd, and Elbit Systems Ltd's smaller Hermes. The
former, the officer said, "is the heaviest drone that the IDF (Israel Defence
Forces) has, which can carry munitions, with an effective payload of around a
tonne". But, in an apparent allusion to the need to balance out payloads carried
under the drones' wings, the officer added: "This does not necessarily mean they
can carry a one-tonne bomb. It very much depends on the positioning of the
munitions."Israeli manufacturers do not publicise the armed capabilities of the
drones, under what industry sources have described as a Defence Ministry secrecy
policy.
MAJOR DRONE OPERATOR
With its capabilities closely tracked by the global defence industry, Israel has
become one of the largest drone operators in the Middle East and a net exporter,
according to the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank. The
Israeli officer, not identified in line with military requirements given the
sensitivity of the subject, said any sales of bomb-capable drones would be
government-to-government, negating the need for publicity. All the drone
munitions are Israeli-made, the officer said, and "come down in free-fall, and
can reach the speed of sound". Such bombs, unlike the Hellfire missiles
sometimes fired by U.S. drones, would not have propulsion systems that generate
the tell-tale noise and smoke of fuel afterburners. The officer declined to give
further details on the munitions, saying only that, by design, when an armed
drone attacks "no one will hear it, no one will see it coming".
An example of a drone target could be fast-moving guerrillas, spotted and
attacked before they can launch a rocket, other Israeli officials have said. Yet
this would assume enough altitude so that the drones' propeller engines cannot
be clearly heard on the ground. In winter wars, like Israel's in Gaza in
2008-2009, the drones have to be flown below the clouds for their targeting
cameras to work, meaning they might be audible. "You lose the element of
surprise," the officer said. Despite deploying sophisticated armed drones, the
majority of Israel's UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) inventory is unarmed given
the main function of intelligence for ground forces, the RUSI think tank said in
an online report.
Israeli police: American arrested for vandalizing church
JERUSALEM (AP)/Thu, February 2, 2023
Israeli police on Thursday arrested an American tourist after he allegedly
knocked down and broke a statue of Jesus in a church in Jerusalem's Old City.
Images on social media showed the statue laying horizontally on the floor after
apparently being pulled down from a stand at the church. The incident occurred
in the Church of the Flagellation, which is located on the Via Dolorosa, the
route believed to have been walked by Jesus to his crucifixion. Police said they
made the arrest with the assistance of a church security guard. Video on social
media showed a man sitting atop the alleged vandal who is heard saying “you
can't have idols in Jerusalem, this is the holy city.”Police said the man's
mental health was being assessed. The American Embassy declined to comment. The
incident came as tensions run high in Jerusalem and the region following a
bloody week. An Israeli military raid in the West Bank killed 10 Palestinians,
mostly militants but also a 61-year-old woman. A Palestinian shooting attack
outside a synagogue in east Jerusalem killed seven people, including a
14-year-old. The unrest comes in the first weeks of Israel's new, far-right
government, some of whose ultranationalist, religious members have used
inflammatory, anti-Arab rhetoric. In a statement, the Custodia Terrae Sanctae,
the Catholic Church's custodians of holy sites in the Holy Land, said “this hate
crime joins a list of attacks all of which targeted the Christian community in
Israel in the past month.”“It is not a coincidence that the violent dialogue in
Israeli society is translated also into these grave acts,” it said, calling on
Israeli law enforcement to take action to halt such incidents. Father Nikodemus
Schnabel of the Dormition Abbey just outside the Old City linked the incident to
the government's character. “Welcome to the new Christian-hating Israel,
encouraged and supported by the current government!” he tweeted. Police said
they view damage to religious institutions as serious.
Israeli foreign minister heads delegation to
discuss Sudan normalization
AFP/February 02, 2023
KHARTOUM: Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen was in Sudan on Thursday to discuss
deeper cooperation between the two countries, including in security and military
matters, with Sudan’s sovereign council head General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan.
Burhan’s office confirmed the visit, which took place in the capital Khartoum,
in a statement. It was the first official acknowledgement of such a visit by
Sudan, although there have been a series of exchanges between officials from the
two countries in recent years. Two Sudanese sources told Reuters that reaching
agreement on the normalization of ties between the two countries was on the
agenda. Sudan agreed to take steps to normalize ties with Israel in a 2020 deal
brokered by former US President Donald Trump’s administration, alongside
normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain
and Morocco, known as the “Abraham Accords.”
In January 2021, Sudan said that its justice minister at the time, Nasredeen
Abdulbari, had signed the Abraham Accords during a visit by US Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin. There was no immediate comment from Israeli officials,
but Cohen’s office said he would convene a news conference in the evening “upon
his return from a historic state visit.” It did not elaborate. Cooperation on
agriculture, energy, health, water, and education were also discussed during the
meeting, Sudan’s sovereign council said. As intelligence minister in 2021, Cohen
made a ground-breaking visit to Sudan. Sudan’s military, which has been in
charge of the country since an October 2021 coup but says it intends to hand
over power to a civilian government, is seen as having led the move toward
establishing relations with Israel. Civilian groups have been more reluctant and
have previously said any deal must be ratified by a transitional parliament that
is yet to be formed.
First US ambassador to Sudan in 25 years
arrives in Khartoum
AFP/August 24, 2022
KHARTOUM: The first US ambassador to Sudan in 25 years took up his post
Wednesday in the latest easing of ties since Washington removed Khartoum from it
state sponsors of terrorism list. Ties between the United States and Sudan were
severely strained under the three-decade rule of ousted president Omar Al-Bashir,
with Washington slapping crippling economic sanctions on Khartoum. In 1993, the
US blacklisted Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism as Bashir’s regime hosted
Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, who resided in the country between 1992-1996.
“Ambassador John Godfrey arrived today in Khartoum, the first US Ambassador to
Sudan in nearly 25 years,” the US embassy said in a statement. The ambassador’s
arrival comes as Sudan reels from deepening unrest and a spiralling economy
since last year’s military coup led by army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan. The
military power grab, Sudan’s latest, upended a fragile transition installed
following the 2019 toppling of Bashir. “Godfrey will work to strengthen
relations between the American and Sudanese people and to support their
aspirations to freedom, peace, justice, and a transition to democracy,” it
added. “He also looks forward to advancing priorities related to peace and
security, economic development, and food security.”Relations with Washington
eased under Sudan’s now-ousted transitional government led by former prime
minister Abdalla Hamdok, who took office following Bashir’s 2019 ouster on the
back of mass protests against his rule. In December 2019, former Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo said the United States would appoint an ambassador to
Khartoum. In May 2020, Sudan named an ambassador to the US. Later that year,
Washington removed Khartoum from its blacklist.
Biden underlines support for Jordan in meeting
with king
AFP/February 02, 2023
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Thursday underlined his support for the legal
“status quo” of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound in a meeting at the White
House with Jordanian King Abdullah II. Biden, the king and Crown Prince Hussein
had a private lunch in which the US president “reaffirmed the close, enduring
nature of the friendship between the United States and Jordan,” the White House
said. Referring to growing tensions around the Al-Aqsa mosque — located on a
site venerated both by Muslims and Jews inside Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem —
Biden reaffirmed “the critical need to preserve the historic status quo.”Biden
also recognized Jordan’s “crucial role as the custodian of Muslim holy places in
Jerusalem,” the White House said in a statement. On the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, Biden reiterated the US position of “strong support for a two-state
solution,” also thanking King Abdullah “for his close partnership and the role
he and Jordan play as a force for stability in the Middle East.”Al-Aqsa mosque
is the third-holiest place in Islam and the most sacred site to Jews, who refer
to the compound as the Temple Mount. Under a longstanding status quo,
non-Muslims can visit the site at specific times but are not allowed to pray
there. In recent years, a growing number of Jews, most of them Israeli
nationalists, have covertly prayed at the compound, angering Palestinians. In
January, the national security minister in Israel’s new far-right government
made his own visit to the site, sparking a torrent of international
condemnation.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister discusses
strengthening relations with Iraq
Arab News/February 02, 2023
DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud,
affirmed on Thursday that economic relations with Iraq were developing
significantly. Al-Saud made the statement during a press conference held in Iraq
with the country’s Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein. Hussein said ‘security
cooperation continues with Saudi Arabia’ and added they were ‘working to reduce
tensions in the region.’ Al-Saud also highlighted the depth of relations with
Iraq, which he stated had ‘witnessed great momentum recently.’ “We support the
Iraqi government’s effort to enhance stability,” he said. Al-Saud added that
stability was crucial in order for opportunities for prosperity to rise.
Iran blames Israel for drone attack, threatens retaliation
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)/Thu, February 2, 2023
Iran on Thursday blamed Israel for a drone attack that targeted a military
workshop in its central city of Isfahan over the weekend, warning it “reserves
its legitimate and inherent right” to retaliate.
Iran's mission to the United Nations, in a letter it published on its website,
attributed the attack late Saturday to Israel. “Early investigations suggest
that the Israeli regime was responsible for this attempted act of aggression,”
the letter signed by Iranian ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said. The letter did
not elaborate on what evidence supported Iran's suspicion. Israeli officials
declined to comment. However, Israel has carried out a series of attacks
targeting Iran's nuclear program and other sites since the collapse of its 2015
nuclear deal with world powers as part of a yearslong shadow war between the
Mideast rivals. Details on the Isfahan attack, which happened around 11:30 p.m.
Saturday, still remain scarce days after the assault. A Defense Ministry
statement described three drones being launched at the facility, with two of
them successfully shot down. A third apparently made it through to strike the
building, causing “minor damage” to its roof and wounding no one, the ministry
said. Iran's state-run IRNA news agency later described the drones as
“quadcopters equipped with bomblets.” Quadcopters, which get their name from
having four rotors, typically operate from short ranges by remote control.
Iranian state television later aired footage of debris from the drones, which
resembled commercially available quadcopters.It remains unclear what the
workshop produced. Iravani referred to it only as a "a workshop complex of the
Iranian Defense Ministry" in his letter. Israel had been initially suspected as
possibly being behind the attack. Iran’s Intelligence Ministry in July claimed
to have broken up a plot to target sensitive sites around Isfahan. A segment
aired on Iranian state television in October included purported confessions by
alleged members of Komala, a Kurdish opposition party that is exiled from Iran
and now lives in Iraq, that they planned to target a military aerospace facility
in Isfahan after being trained by Israel’s Mossad intelligence service. However,
activists say Iran has aired hundreds of coerced confession on state TV over the
last decade. Iravani's letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the
Security Council warned Tehran could respond to the attack. “The Islamic
Republic of Iran reserves its legitimate and inherent right ... to defend its
national security and respond resolutely to any threats or wrongful actions by
the Israeli regime, wherever and whenever deemed necessary,” the letter read.
Israeli officials rarely acknowledge operations carried out by the country’s
secret military units or its Mossad intelligence agency. However, Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently re-entered the premiership, long has
considered Iran to be the biggest threat his nation faces. Iravani’s letter
separately complained about Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, tweeting after the drone attack:
"Explosive night in Iran ... Ukraine had warned you.” Iran has supplied Russia
with bomb-carrying drones that Moscow has used to target power plants and
civilian sites in Ukraine in its war on the country.
Iran Accuses Kurdish Opposition of Isfahan
Attack
London, Tehran/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 2 February, 2023 -
The Iranian Supreme National Security Council accused Kurdish opposition
factions based in Iraq of being "involved" in a drone attack that targeted a
military facility in Isfahan. Nournews, a news agency affiliated with the
Council, reported that parts of the drones that were used to carry out the
hostile action against the defense workshop in Isfahan and explosive materials
all entered Iran with the participation and guidance of the Kurdish opposition
groups stationed in the Kurdistan region of Iraq on the orders of a foreign
security apparatus. The Iranian authorities reported a "failed" drone attack
last Saturday targeting a "military complex" of the Ministry of Defense in
Isfahan, which includes the "Natanz" nuclear facility. The Israeli newspaper
Jerusalem Post quoted intelligence sources saying the attack "was a phenomenal
success." The Iranian Ministry of Defense said that an anti-aircraft system
destroyed a drone while two others exploded, which confirmed that the attack did
not cause any injuries but only caused minor damage to the building. AFP cited
Nournews as saying that Kurdish groups brought the drone parts and explosives
into Iran from "one of the hardly accessible routes in the northwest" upon "the
order of a foreign security service."The Iranian news agency indicated that
Baghdad was repeatedly reminded of the necessity of confrontation with these
Kurdish groups. The agency did not name the foreign security service behind the
attack but reported that the parts were delivered to "service's liaison in a
border city."It said that the parts and materials had been assembled and used
for sabotage in an advanced workshop by trained forces. On Monday, Iran summoned
the Ukrainian Charge d'Affaires, Sergei Bordeliak, following a recent statement
by the senior presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak.
Podolyak took to Twitter to mock the recent attack, saying, "Ukraine did warn
you" against the consequences of supplying the drones to Russia. Moscow
announced its willingness to participate in the authorities' investigation of
the Isfahan attack. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report an Israeli
role in the attack, quoting several unnamed sources, and a US official, speaking
anonymously, told Reuters on Sunday that Israel appeared to be involved in the
attack. In turn, the New York Times quoted senior intelligence officials
familiar with the dialogue between Israel and the US as saying that the attack
was the work of Mossad. Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region hosts camps and rear
bases operated by several Iranian Kurdish rebel groups, which Iran has accused
of serving Western or Israeli interests in the past. In July, the Iranian
Ministry of Intelligence said it had stopped a sabotage network affiliated with
Mossad and arrested a Kurdish opposition Komala party group planning to attack a
sensitive center in Isfahan. On May 11, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
said that its forces arrested a "terrorist cell" in the Kurdish regions of Iran,
consisting of five people. Later that month, it announced that it contained a
network operating under the direction of Israeli intelligence. The statement
came hours after the assassination of the Quds Force commander, Sayad Khodaei,
who was described by the Israeli media as the commander of Unit 840, a
relatively secret unit that builds terrorist infrastructure and plans to launch
attacks against Western targets. Last April, Israel revealed operations carried
out by the Mossad and Shin Bet deep in Iranian territory. Iran announced in
December that it had executed four men for cooperating with Israeli
intelligence, carrying out kidnappings, and forcing false confessions. In
November, Iran launched cross-border missile and drone strikes against several
of the groups in Iraq, accusing them of stoking the nationwide protests
triggered by the death in custody in September of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa
Amini. The IRGC sent troops and reinforcements to the borders of the Kurdistan
region and threatened a ground operation against the headquarters of the Kurdish
parties. Iran bombed a villa near Erbil airport in March with 12 ballistic
missiles, saying it was an Israeli conspiracy center. The Kurdistan Region
authorities denied the claims, and several reports linked the attack to Iran's
annoyance with the region's aspirations to export gas to Europe. Israel, which
Iran does not recognize, threatened military action against Tehran if talks
between it and world powers to curb nuclear activities fail.
Türkiye Welcomes Iran’s Engagement in Normalization Path
with Syria
Ankara - Saeed Abdulrazek/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 2 February, 2023
Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said that his country welcomed
Iran’s participation in the ongoing talks with Syria under Russian mediation. He
added that Tehran’s presence in the talks would facilitate the elimination of
terrorist threats from Syrian territory, secure his country’s borders, and
guarantee the safe and voluntary return of Syrian refugees to their homeland.
Kalin’s remarks, which he made in Ankara on Wednesday, came hours after Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that Moscow supported Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s interest in settling and normalizing the situation
between the two neighbors, Türkiye and Syria. During a press conference with his
Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry, in Moscow on Tuesday, Lavrov announced that
an agreement was reached over Iran’s participation in the normalization process.
“It is logical that the upcoming contacts be dedicated to the normalization of
Turkish-Syrian relations, with the mediation of Russia and Iran (the two
guarantors with Türkiye of the Astana process),” he said. Lavrov and Shoukry
stressed the need to preserve the unity, integrity and sovereignty of Syria,
resolve its political crisis, and respect the rights of its citizens to
determine their own destiny and the fate of their state. Earlier this week,
Erdogan emphasized the necessity to maintain meetings between his country,
Russia and Syria, with the possibility of Iran joining, in order to achieve
stability in northern Syria.
He added that his country’s relations with Russia were “based on mutual
respect.”“Although we have not been able to obtain at the present time the
result we desire, with regard to developments in northern Syria, we call for
holding tripartite meetings between Türkiye, Russia and Syria,” the Turkish
president said during a meeting with a group of youth on Sunday, as part of his
campaign for the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for May 14.
France seizes Iran assault rifles, missiles heading to
Yemen
JON GAMBRELL/DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)/February 2, 2023
French naval forces in January seized thousands of assault rifles, machine guns
and anti-tank missiles in the Gulf of Oman coming from Iran and heading to
Yemen's Houthi rebels, officials said Thursday. While Iran denied being
involved, images of the weapons released by the U.S. military's Central Command
showed them to be similar to others captured by American forces in other
shipments tied to Tehran. The announcement comes as Iran faces increasing
Western pressure over its shipment of drones to arm Russia during its war on
Ukraine, as well as for its violent monthslong crackdown targeting protesters.
Regional tensions also have heightened after a suspected Israeli drone attack on
a military workshop in the central Iranian city of Isfahan on Saturday. Previous
cycles of violence since the collapse of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers
have seen the Islamic Republic launch retaliatory attacks at sea.
The seizure occurred Jan. 15 in the Gulf of Oman, a body of water that stretches
from the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, through to the
Arabian Sea and onto the Indian Ocean. CENTCOM described the interdiction as
happening “along routes historically used to traffic weapons unlawfully from
Iran to Yemen.”A United Nations resolution bans arms transfers to Yemen's
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who took the country's capital in late 2014 and
have been at war with a Saudi-led coalition backing the country's
internationally recognized government since March 2015.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the seizure, identifying the forces
involved as elite French special forces. Two officials with knowledge of the
interdiction, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity
because they did not have permission to speak publicly on the operation's
details, similarly identified the French as carrying out the seizure. The French
military did not respond to requests for comment about capturing the weapons.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani in an online message rejected
the assessment Tehran supplied the weapons on the vessel and described the
accusations as "politically motivated.”While France maintains a naval base in
Abu Dhabi, it typically takes a quieter approach in the region while maintaining
a diplomatic presence in Iran. Iran has long denied arming the Houthis, though
Western nations, U.N. experts and others have traced weaponry ranging from
night-vision scopes, rifles and missiles back to Tehran. In November, the U.S.
Navy said it found 70 tons of a missile fuel component hidden among bags of
fertilizer aboard a ship bound to Yemen from Iran. Houthi ballistic missile fire
has targeted Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the past. Images taken
Wednesday by CENTCOM and analyzed by the AP, showed a variety of weapons on
board an unidentified ship apparently docked at a port. The weapons appeared to
include Chinese-made Type 56 rifles, Russian-made Molot AKS20Us and PKM-pattern
machine guns. All have appeared in other seizures of weapons attributed to Iran.
CENTCOM said the seizure included more than 3,000 rifles and 578,000 rounds of
ammunition. The released images also showed 23 container-launched anti-tank
missiles, which also have turned up in other shipments tied to Iran.
The war in Yemen has deteriorated largely into a stalemate and spawned one of
the world’s worst humanitarian crises. However, Saudi-led airstrikes haven't
been recorded in Yemen since the kingdom began a cease-fire at the end of March
2022, according to the Yemen Data Project. That cease-fire expired in October
despite diplomatic efforts to renew it. That has led to fears the war could
again escalate. More than 150,000 people have been killed in Yemen during the
fighting, including over 14,500 civilians.
Putin says Russia faces German tanks, just
like at Stalingrad, but hints that this time Moscow has nukes
John Haltiwanger/Business Insider/February 2, 2023
Putin made another veiled nuclear threat on Thursday as the Ukraine war rages
on. This came as the Russian leader likened the war to the battle of Stalingrad
during WWII. But in the case of Stalingrad, Russia (then part of the USSR) was
being invaded — not doing the invading.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday leveled another veiled nuclear
threat in relation to the war in Ukraine as he ripped into Germany for providing
battle tanks to Kyiv, while comparing Russia's unprovoked invasion of its
next-door neighbor to the Soviet Union's fight against the Nazis during World
War II."Unfortunately we see that the ideology of Nazism in its modern form and
manifestation again directly threatens the security of our country," Putin said
during a speech in Volgograd, per Reuters. Volgograd, formerly known as
Stalingrad after the Soviet dictator, was the site of the World War II battle
that put Nazi Germany on the path to defeat at an estimated cost of 750,000
Soviet lives. "Again and again we have to repel the aggression of the collective
West. It's incredible but it's a fact: we are again being threatened with German
Leopard tanks with crosses on them," Putin added.
The Russian leader left out some key facts, however. The Leopard tanks will be
operated by Ukrainians, and Germany joined the US and the UK in offering battle
tanks to aid Ukraine in regaining territory it has lost since Russia invaded
almost a year ago. The US and other Western powers have avoided providing
longer-range missiles and fighter jets that Ukraine could use to strike inside
Russia. Putin said that the battle of Stalingrad was indicative of "the
indestructible nature of our people," adding that those who draw European
countries into a new war with Moscow and "expect to win a victory over Russia on
the battlefield, apparently don't understand that a modern war with Russia will
be quite different for them.""We don't send our tanks to their borders but we
have the means to respond, and it won't end with the use of armored vehicles,
everyone must understand that," Putin said, in an apparent reference to Russia's
nuclear arsenal. The Russian leader has repeatedly made nuclear threats since
the war began, and has been condemned across the world as a result. Russian
lawmakers have reportedly been urged to make comparisons between Stalingrad — a
battle against Nazi invaders — and the present-day fight in Ukraine, despite the
fact Russia is now the aggressor. Putin has frequently harkened to WWII — which
Russians remember as the Great Patriotic War — to seek greater support as the
country faces economic hardships and well over 100,000 casualties from Ukraine.
Putin has offered a series of justifications for launching the invasion,
including the bogus assertion that Ukraine is led by neo-Nazis. Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost family in the Holocaust, but
the Kremlin has continued to make references to Nazism in an effort to justify
the ongoing war. Top Russia experts say Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine
because he has been preoccupied with subjugating it for years and wants to
restore the power and prestige enjoyed by Moscow during the Soviet era. Putin,
who has repeatedly suggested that Ukraine is not a real country, once described
the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of
the 20th century.
Top Russian Official Teases ‘the Next Ukraine’ in New
Threat
Shannon Vavra/The Daily Beast./February 2, 2023
Russia’s top diplomat said the actions of Western nations could soon turn
Moldova into the “next Ukraine,” according to TASS.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Moldovan President Maia Sandu of
being “eager to join NATO.” Sandu, Lavrov said, is “ready to unite with Romania
and in fact, to do almost anything.”Romania is a member of North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), which was created to provide collective security against
Russia. Lavrov’s comments appeared to echo complaints Russian President Vladimir
Putin made about Ukraine and NATO when announcing Russia’s invasion into Ukraine
last year. Putin cited the expansion of the alliance and Ukraine’s interest in
joining NATO as “fundamental threats” against Russia in his speech justifying
invasion. “Further expansion of the NATO infrastructure... are unacceptable for
us,” Putin said at the time. Lavrov’s comments come as western officials warn
that Russia may be gearing up for a new offensive nearly one year into the war
in Ukraine. It’s not the first time tensions have flared over whether Russia
might be eyeing Moldova as an extension of the conflict in Ukraine. Moldova’s
Intelligence and Security Services (SIS) has previously warned that Russia may
seek to connect Russian-controlled areas in Ukraine by conducting a new
offensive, and then creating a land corridor with the Russian-backed breakaway
region of Transnistria in Moldova. Russian General Lets Slip a Secret Plan to
Invade Another Country and Seize Ukraine’s Entire Coastline
The head of SIS, Alexandru Musteata, warned in December that a campaign to go
after Moldova appeared inevitable. “The question is not whether the Russian
Federation will launch a new offensive in the direction of Moldovan territory,
but when it will happen: either at the beginning of the year, in January,
February, or later, in March, (or) April,” Musteata told TVR Moldova. “This is a
real and very high risk.”Moldova declared independence from the Soviet Union in
1991. One year later, Russian-backed separatists started a conflict in
Transnistria and now control the region, which borders Ukraine. “Judging by the
information we have… Russia can go further to create a corridor with the
Transnistrian region, which is the territory of Moldova,” Musteata said. The
agency later issued a statement reaffirming that an offensive was possible. “A
new offensive of the Russian Federation in this direction could take place in
2023,” the agency said.
Moldova is still not a member of NATO, which maintains a collective defense
agreement. When Moldova gained European Union candidate status last year, Lavrov
suggested that Moldova wanted to "annul everything Russian, just like in
Ukraine."Lavrov warned Thursday that Moscow thinks that Moldovan officials “are
prepared to resolve the Transnistria issue by force.”Moldova’s Ministry of
Foreign Affairs lambasted Lavrov for his threats Thursday. “We reject the
statements with regard to Moldova of the Russian FM Sergey Lavrov,” a ministry
spokesperson, Daniel Vodă, said. “Moldovans regardless of political or
geopolitical preferences want Peace, Freedom, and Democracy.”There are some
signs coming from Transnistria that could indicate trouble ahead from Russia,
according to Ukrainian authorities. Approximately 1,000 young and middle-aged
men in recent months have flocked to Transnistria, which has raised suspicions
about whether they are waiting for orders, Ukraine’s Armed Forces told VOA News
in December. Lavrov has previously warned Moldova about retaliation if Russia
perceives that its troops in Transnistria are threatened. “Any action that would
threaten the security of our troops would be considered under international law
as an attack on Russia,” Lavrov said in September. Russia’s efforts to subvert
Moldovan rule and destabilize Moldova from within run deep, according to the
U.S. Treasury Department. Last year, the Treasury Department sanctioned
oligarchs and other entities linked to the Russian government for running
influence operations in Moldova and “acting as instruments of Russia’s global
influence campaign.”Moldova has already fallen in the crosshairs of Russia’s
invasion into Ukraine. Debris from Russia missile strikes against Ukraine has
fallen into Moldova at least three times, according to Moldovan authorities. The
country is incredibly vulnerable to Russia’s energy dominance as well; 70
percent of Moldova’s electricity supplies has historically come from
Russian-occupied Transnistria, with approximately 20 percent coming from
Ukraine. When Russia struck Ukrainian energy infrastructure during the war,
Moldova had its lights cut as well. Making matters worse, Gazprom also decreased
gas supplies to Moldova by one-third in October. According to the Moldovan
government, Russia’s effort to control its energy supplies are aimed at
influencing Moldova out of the EU orbit and back into Russia’s. “They don't want
us to keep going on the European Union path ... they want to keep Moldova under
their zone of interest,” Moldovan Infrastructure Minister and Deputy Prime
Minister Andrei Spînu told Politico in November.
US to send Ukraine longer-range bombs in latest turnaround
TARA COPP, MATTHEW LEE and LOLITA C. BALDOR/WASHINGTON (AP)/February 2, 2023
After months of agonizing, the U.S has agreed to send longer-range bombs to
Ukraine as it prepares to launch a spring offensive to retake territory Russia
captured last year, U.S. officials said Thursday, confirming that the new
weapons will have roughly double the range of any other offensive weapon
provided by America. The U.S. will provide ground-launched small diameter bombs
as part of a $2.17 billion aid package it is expected to announce Friday,
several U.S. officials said. The package also for the first time includes
equipment to connect all the different air defense systems Western allies have
rushed to the battlefield and integrate them into Kviv's own air defenses, to
help them better defend against Russia's continued missile attacks. For months,
U.S. officials have hesitated to send longer-range systems to Ukraine out of
concern that they would be used to target inside Russia, escalating the conflict
and drawing the U.S. deeper in. The longer-range bombs are the latest advanced
system, such as Abrams tanks and the Patriot missile defense system, that the
U.S. has eventually agreed to provide Ukraine after initially saying no. U.S.
officials, though, have continued to reject Ukraine’s requests for fighter jets.
Ukrainian leaders have urgently pressed for longer-range munitions and on
Thursday, officials said the U.S. will send an undisclosed number of the
ground-launched, small diameter bombs, which have a range of about 95 miles (150
kilometers). The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of
the aid package not yet made public.
To date, the longest-range missile provided by the U.S. is about 50 miles (80
kilometers). The funding in the aid package is for longer-term purchases, so it
wasn't clear Thursday how long it will take to get the bomb to the battlefield
in Ukraine.
Ukraine's defense minister Oleskii Reznikov said Thursday the country is
prepared to offer guarantees to its Western partners that their weapons won’t be
used to strike inside Russian territory, adding that Kyiv needs weapons with the
range of up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) to expel the Russian forces.
“If we could strike at a distance of up to 300 kilometers, the Russian army
wouldn’t be able to mount a defense and will have to withdraw,” Reznikov said at
a meeting with EU officials. “Ukraine is ready to provide any guarantees that
your weapons will not be involved in attacks on the Russian territory. We have
enough targets in the occupied areas of Ukraine, and we’re prepared to
coordinate on (these) targets with our partners,” the minister said. The U.S.
aid package includes $425 million in ammunition and support equipment that will
be pulled from existing Pentagon stockpiles and $1.75 billion in new funding
through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which is used to purchase
new weapons from industry. The USAI, which will pay for the longer-range bombs
and the air defense system integration, also funds two HAWK air defense systems,
anti-aircraft guns and ammunition, and counter-drone systems. Since Russia's
invasion last February, Western allies have pledged a myriad of air defense
systems to Ukraine to bolster Kyiv's own Soviet-made S-300 surface-to-air
missile defense systems, and the latest aid package aims to provide the
capability to integrate them all, which could improve Ukraine's ability to
protect itself against incoming Russian attacks. The U.S. has pledged medium- to
long-range National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or NASAMS, and
truck-launched short-range Avenger air defense systems; the Netherlands, Germany
and the U.S. are sending Patriot missile defense systems; Germany is sending
medium-range IRIS-T air defense systems; and Spain is sending Aspide
anti-aircraft air defense systems. The addition of longer-range bombs into the
latest aid package was first reported by Reuters. Ukraine is still seeking F-16
fighter jets, which U.S. President Joe Biden has opposed sending since the
beginning of the war. Asked Monday if his administration was considering sending
F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, Biden responded, “No.”On Tuesday, Ukraine’s
defense minister Oleksii Reznikov was asked if Biden’s ’’no” to F-16s was the
final word.
“All types of help first passed through the ‘no’ stage,” Reznikov said. “Which
only means ‘no’ at today’s given moment. The second stage is, ‘Let’s talk and
study technical possibilities.’ The third stage is, ‘Let’s get your personnel
trained.’ And the fourth stage is the transfer (of equipment).”
*Associated Press writer Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to
this report.
Even North Korea Just Noticed Russia’s War in Ukraine
‘Isn’t Going So Well’
Allison Quinn/The Daily Beast/February 2, 2023
Less than a week after North Korea promised to “always stand in the same trench”
with Russia, it seems even Pyongyang is losing faith in Vladimir Putin’s war
machine. After promising last November to help Russia rebuild bombed out parts
of occupied eastern Ukraine, North Korean authorities picked out laborers to
send and then even recruited some more—but they have now thought better of
sending them, according to Daily NK. “This is because they were going to rush
the workers over if Russia quickly ended the war and expanded its liberated
zones, but the war isn’t going as well as they thought,” a source in North Korea
was quoted telling the newspaper.
“I think even our country [North Korea] can’t make its people run around a
danger zone to earn money, no matter how important the cash is,” the source
added, noting that the situation “isn’t good enough now” to invest human
capital. Instead, Pyongyang has reportedly decided to appease Russia by sending
military and security personnel to eastern Ukraine. A source cited by Daily NK
on Thursday said the North Korean government on Jan. 20 ordered several of its
trading companies located in Russia to pick out personnel to be sent to the
occupied territories. Between 300 and 500 Korean men aged 19 to 27 are expected
to be tossed into eastern Ukraine, though the tasks they will be assigned are
not entirely clear.
The move comes just a few days after North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s sister
bizarrely praised Russia’s military prowess and blasted the “vile” U.S. decision
to send Ukraine battle tanks. “I have no doubt that any weapons that the United
States and the West are proud of will burn to dust and turn into scrap metal in
the face of the relentless combat spirit and might of the heroic army and people
of Russia,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement released to North Korean state
media, adding that Pyongyang would “always stand in the same trench with the
army and the people of Russia.”While Ukrainian defense officials warn that
Moscow may launch a renewed offensive in the next few weeks, Russian President
Vladimir Putin reportedly has a whole team of minions drafting a highly
anticipated speech he is expected to deliver to the upper house of parliament in
late February.
According to sources cited by Meduza, Putin will use the speech to double down
on his provably false claim that the war against Ukraine enjoys “unconditional
support” from Russian society.
But even the officials preparing the speech are said to be aware that they may
be forced to drastically rewrite it if Russia suffers new setbacks on the
battlefield.
If Ukraine conducts successful counter-offensives in the next couple weeks, two
sources said, Putin’s speech will have “more aggressive” rhetoric. “Everything
will depend on the moment.”
Russia’s Shadow Army Accused in Mysterious Teen Abductions
Philip Obaji Jr./The Daily Beast./February 2, 2023
KENZOU, Cameroon—It was the middle of the night when armed men from the local
wing of Russia’s Wagner Group, commonly referred to as “Black Russians,”
allegedly arrived at Ali’s home. “They looked straight into my eyes and said,
‘If you don’t come back to us, you and your family will be killed,’” Ali, who
had spent close to a year working closely with the Wagner Group, told The Daily
Beast. “They left without saying anything else.”Ali’s wife, his three adolescent
daughters and three adult brothers were allegedly at their three-bedroom home in
the outskirts of Berbérati—a city in the southwest of the Central African
Republic (CAR)—when the men arrived armed with machine guns. “As they stepped
out of the house, one of them looked at me and said ‘Tell your husband to do
what is right or else all of you will suffer,’” Fatou*, Ali’s wife, told The
Daily Beast.Minutes later, the armed men allegedly stormed the nearby home of
Hassan* and issued him a similar warning, but with a more severe punishment for
allegedly masterminding the exit of several Black Russians from the Wagner
Group. “They said if I don’t return to the [Black Russians] group they’ll seize
me and my family and torture us for days before they eventually kill us,” Hassan,
a former Black Russian who was living in a two-bedroom home with his mother and
two teenage sons when the armed men arrived, told The Daily Beast. “They believe
I have been the one encouraging other members to leave the group because I was
among the first to quit.”
Russia’s Secret Recruits Allegedly Abandoned, Starving, and Missing in Action
The Wagner Group, which showed up in the war-torn Central African Republic
around 2018, has relied heavily on local recruits since last year, after
hundreds of its Russian mercenaries were pulled from Central Africa and sent to
Ukraine to fight Vladimir Putin's war. But poor welfare for Black Russians—and
fear that they could be deployed to fight overseas without compensation or
insurance—has forced many to abandon the group. The threats to their families
weren’t enough to force Ali and Hassan back to the group. Both men subsequently
stayed away from their homes to avoid being captured and killed—the kind of
punishment the Wagner Group is known to hand out to fighters who disobey orders
or desert the organization. “We didn’t take their threat of harming our families
seriously because that is not how they [Wagner mercenaries and local recruits]
are known to act,” said Ali, who—along with Hassan—had to squat in a faraway
unfinished building, where construction work had long been abandoned, to hide
from their former colleagues. “Throughout the time we worked with them, no one
targeted anyone’s family. When you commit an offense, you face the consequences
on your own.”
Ali and Hassan would later realize that they misjudged the group they had been
part of—and that their refusal to rejoin the Black Russians could prove costly.
According to Hassan’s family, the same men who visited the previous week
returned to his home and seized his two sons, who are 15 and 13 years old,
vowing not to release them until their father returns to the Wagner unit to face
discipline. Hassan and his mother, who was the only one at home with the boys
when they were taken away, fled to Cameroon the following day as they feared
their lives were in danger.
“They dragged my grandsons from the house and threw them into a [pickup] truck
and then drove them away,” Hassan’s mother Bintou* told The Daily Beast in the
Cameroonian border town of Kenzou, where she and her son live in a single-room
mud house. “We don't even know whether he is dead or alive.”
On the same day Hassan’s sons were seized, Ali’s three younger brothers, who are
27, 24, and 23 years old, left home in the morning to attend a music festival at
a playground just outside Berbérati. But they never returned home and no one has
seen them since then, according to family members who believe the Wagner Group
is responsible for their disappearances.
“It must be the same people who came to our home to threaten us that kidnapped
them,” said Ali, who also fled Berbérati to Kenzou along with his wife and
daughters. “They want me to meet face to face with them, that’s why they are
holding my brothers.”
Three years ago, Ali and Hassan joined the Union for Peace (UPC), a Central
African rebel group fighting for control of the Ouaka central province, located
at the border between the mainly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian
south. Their involvement with the UPC, whose leader Ali Darassa was sanctioned
over a year ago by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign
Assets Control (OFAC) “for serious human rights abuses”, lasted only a few
months. It was cut short by an enticing offer from Wagner Group, run by Putin's
close friend and ally Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Ali and Hassan were among hundreds of UPC rebels who surrendered to the CAR
military in December 2021 after both men said they were promised a chance to
work with the Wagner Group and earn a monthly pay of about $1,000.
But when Wagner stopped paying some Black Russians after a few months, and many
local recruits mysteriously disappeared towards the end of 2022, both Ali and
Hassan decided to leave the group and move away from their base in the capital
Bangui to Berbérati.
“The main reason some of us left the [Black Russians] group is because we feared
they could send us to war in Ukraine without giving us the chance to inform our
families,” said Ali, who has been in touch with some of his colleagues deployed
to Ukraine in the early months of Russia's invasion and allegedly abandoned
thereafter. “If we die on the battlefield, no one would know anything about it.”
Ali and Hassan believe the Wagner Group’s decision to not reveal the whereabouts
of Black Russians deployed to Ukraine's Donbas region is based on financial
reasoning.
“They don’t want to pay the death benefit they promised they will pay to
families of fighters who died while in active service,” said Hassan. “If
families don’t know their sons are fighting in Ukraine, they won’t also know
when they are killed in combat and can’t demand death benefit as a result.”
For years, and especially since a brutal civil war broke out in CAR in 2013, the
Cameroonian border town of Kenzou has welcomed thousands of refugees fleeing the
conflict in their country. Now, the commercial town has a new type of guests:
ex-Wagner recruits running away from imminent attacks from their former
employers. “We know for sure that there are former CAR rebels now living in this
town with us,” Vincent Olembe, a local chief in Kenzou, told The Daily Beast.
“Luckily, they’ve assured us that they aren’t here for trouble but were forced
from their country because their lives were in danger.”
Putin’s Prison Recruiting Scheme Takes a Big, Desperate Turn
The CAR government and Prigozhin did not respond to a series of requests for
comment on the allegations made by Ali and Hassan. The Daily Beast sent emails
to the spokesperson of the CAR government and to Concord Management, a company
majority-owned by Prigozhin, but did not receive a reply.
In Kenzou, Ali and Hassan are confident that their family members wouldn’t be
hurt by the Wagner Group or those working closely with them. They believe the
Russians will use them as leverage.“If they [the seized family members] were
women, I would have been worried,” said Hassan, who—like Ali—turns 40 this year.
“But from the way I know them to operate, anyone who is arrested or captured is
offered a chance to join the Black Russians and be forgiven or punished if he
refuses.”
One day, said Hassan, “I’ll reunite with my boys.”
*The names of these sources have been changed for fear of retribution.
US secures deal on Philippines bases to complete arc around
China
Rupert Wingfield-Hayes - BBC News, Manila
The US has secured access to four additional military bases in the Philippines -
a key bit of real estate which would offer a front seat to monitor the Chinese
in the South China Sea and around Taiwan.
With the deal, Washington has stitched the gap in the arc of US alliances
stretching from South Korea and Japan in the north to Australia in the south.
The missing link had been the Philippines, which borders two of the biggest
potential flashpoints - Taiwan and the South China Sea.
The deal, which in part reverses the US' departure from their former colony more
than 30 years ago, is no small matter.
"There is no contingency in the South China Sea that does not require access to
the Philippines," says Gregory B Poling, director of the Southeast Asia
programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"The US is not looking for permanent bases. It's about places, not bases."The US
already had limited access to five sites under the Enhanced Defence Cooperation
Agreement (EDCA) - the new additions and expanded access, according to a
statement from Washington, will "allow more rapid support for humanitarian and
climate-related disasters in the Philippines, and respond to other shared
challenges", likely a veiled reference to countering China in the region.
The statement came after US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin met Philippine
President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr in Manila on Thursday. The US hasn't
said where the new bases are but three of them could be on Luzon, an island on
the northern edge of the Philippines, the only large piece of land close to
Taiwan - if you don't count China. China criticised the agreement, saying "US
actions escalate regional tension and undermine regional peace and stability".
"The United States, out of its self interests and zero-sum game mentality,
continues to step up military posture in this region," its embassy said in a
statement.
These days the US is seeking access to places where "light and flexible"
operations involving supplies and surveillance can be run as and when needed,
rather than bases where large numbers of troops will be stationed. In other
words, this is not a return to the 1980s, when the Philippines was home to
15,000 US troops and two of the largest American military bases in Asia, at
Clark Field and nearby Subic Bay.
Then in 1991 the Philippine government called time. The Filipinos had recently
overthrown the hated dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, and sending the old
colonial masters home would further cement both democracy and independence.
The Vietnam war was long over, the Cold War was winding down, and China was as
yet a military weakling. So, in 1992, the Americans went home - or at least most
of them did.
US reopens Pacific embassy in push to counter China
How US Marines are being reshaped for China threat
The US wants to play in China's backyard
Roll forward 30-odd years and another Marcos is back in the Malacañang Palace.
More important, China is no longer a military weakling, and it's knocking on the
Philippines' front door. Manila has watched - horrified but powerless to
intervene - as Beijing has set about redrawing the map of the South China Sea,
or the West Philippine Sea as Manila insists on calling it. Since 2014 China has
built 10 artificial island bases, including one at Mischief Reef, deep inside
the Philippines' own exclusive economic zone or EEZ.
Up to then relations between Manila and Beijing had been free of major problems,
says Herman Kraft, a political science professor at University of the
Philippines.
"We had a live and let live situation in the South China Sea. But in 2012 they
tried to seize control of Scarborough Shoal. Then in 2014 they began building
the islands. The land grab by China changed the relationship.""We have very
limited capability against the threat from China," says former Philippine
Ambassador to the US Jose Cuisia Jr.
He says the Chinese have repeatedly broken promises not to militarise their new
South China Sea bases.
"The Chinese have militarised those features and that puts more of our territory
under threat. Only the US has the power to stop them. The Philippines cannot do
it alone."
But this time there will not be thousands of US marines and airmen filling the
red-light districts of Olongapo or Angeles city again.
Olongapo, close to a US naval base, was a hub for the illegal sex trade in the
1970s
The history of violence and abuse by US troops in the Philippines is still a
sensitive subject. There are an estimated 15,000 children left with their
Filipino mothers when their American fathers went home.
"We have a long history of inequality in our relationship," says Renato Reyes,
secretary general of New Patriotic Alliance, a left-wing group. "The Philippines
has been forced to shoulder the social costs. There's a history of rape, child
abuse, and of toxic waste."
The US' return to the Philippines is strongly opposed by the country's left-wing
groups.
While there won't be as many troops as earlier, Washington is now asking for
access to several new locations, some facing the South China Sea, others facing
north towards Taiwan. Unofficial reports point to options in Cagayan, Zambales,
Palawan and Isabela.
The first one faces Taiwan, the second the Scarborough shoal, and the third the
Spratly Islands. Any new US facilities will be inside existing Philippine bases.
US troops will come in small groups and on rotation.
The aim, says Mr Poling, will be to deter further territorial expansion by China
in the South China Sea, while also providing a place for the US to watch Chinese
military movements around Taiwan.
"The Philippines has no way to deter China outside this alliance," he says.
"It's buying BrahMos missiles from India. The US would like to deploy Tomahawk
cruise missiles. Together they can hold Chinese vessels."With increasing concern
about a conflict over Taiwan, the Philippines could offer a "rear access area"
for US military operations, or even a place to evacuate refugees.
"People forget there are between 150,000-200,000 Filipinos living in Taiwan," Mr
Poling says.
US placards during a rally in front of the military headquarters in Quezon City,
suburban Manila on February 2, 2023,
Left-wing groups oppose a US military presence in the Philippines
But Manila is not about to become a full-blown member of an American alliance to
challenge or resist China's rise, Professor Kraft cautions. "The Philippines is
not doing those things like Australia and Japan, directly challenging Chinese
interests in the South China Sea or East China Sea. President Marcos wants good
relations with the US. But he also wants good relations with China for economic
advantage."
Beijing too has indicated that it does not intend to allow a new base agreement
between Manila and Washington to disrupt its relations with its neighbour. In an
editorial published to coincide with the arrival of the US defence secretary in
Manila, China's state-run Global Times accused the US of "setting a trap for the
Philippines" and "trying to push the Philippines to the frontline of
confrontation with China".
"We are once again being caught in the middle," says Mr Reyes, who believes
China is just as much a capitalist imperialist power as the US.
"The Philippines still has a colonial mentality - it looks to the United States
as its big brother."
The Latest LCCC English analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on February 02-03/2023
جون بولتون/ذا هيل: ترى هل عقيدة واشنطن الهادفة للحد من التسلح توشك أخيرًا
على الانهيار؟
Is Washington’s arms control theology finally on the verge of collapse?
John Bolton/The Hill/February 02/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/115462/115462/
Three freshly installed Republican House chairmen of key national security
committees are raising potentially fatal issues for the New START arms-control
treaty between the U.S. and Russia. In letters to Biden Cabinet officials, the
chairmen ask whether Russia is in material breach of the agreement. Along with
the administration’s failing, misguided effort to rejoin the flawed 2015 Iran
nuclear deal, one could ask whether Washington’s arms control theology is
finally verging on collapse.
The House chairmen of the Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Intelligence
Committees (Reps. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and Michael
Turner (R-Ohio), respectively) are men to be reckoned with. Although the Senate
has constitutional power to ratify treaties, for the next two years, House
Republicans can require extensive scrutiny of Russia’s New START performance.
One of President Biden’s first official acts (and a badly mistaken one) was
extending the treaty until Feb. 4, 2026, after America’s 2024 presidential
election. With no end in sight to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the odds Moscow and
Washington can agree on a successor deal under Biden diminish every day, further
reason to ensure the White House fully describes Russia’s potential treaty
violations.
The House chairmen should also scrutinize White House efforts to make enough
concessions to Tehran for Washington to revive the Iran nuclear deal. Despite
administration assurances that Iran’s ongoing uprising against the ayatollahs
has halted its diplomacy, the obsession to rejoin remains.
New START has always been a bad deal. Its warhead limits and “counting rules”
for attributing nuclear devices to delivery vehicles, Cold War-era
methodologies, are outdated and ineffective. Moreover, New START’s ceilings,
even in their day, failed to reflect the different status of Russia and the
United States, as President George W. Bush’s 2002 Treaty of Moscow did, namely
that Washington needs different upper limits than Moscow because it faces more
threats than just a bipolar face-off with Russia.
Finally, New START’s verification provisions do not afford nearly the level of
certainty necessary to satisfy U.S. concerns, given decades of cheating on
similar agreements by Russia and other authoritarian states, which all have
problems with the truth.
In today’s world, New START is even more dangerous, which is why Biden’s 2021
decision to extend its terms for five years without any modifications leaves
America in an ever-more-precarious position.
Added to these pre-existing concerns, the questions raised by Chairmen McCaul,
Rogers and Turner underscore legitimate concerns about the treaty even if Russia
were fully compliant.
The State Department has reportedly sent Congress a report that finds that
Russian violated the treaty’s verification and consultation provisions, which
State says are repairable. Desperate to save New START, the more serious
violations of concern to the three chairmen are not addressed. Congressional
oversight is clearly warranted.
Even beyond the failures of New START itself and the prospect that Russia is
violating it, the agreement is fatally outdated for additional reasons. Here,
the three Republican chairmen and their Senate counterparts can do important
work over the next two years to elaborate on these new issues and to prepare a
successor administration to address the dangers ahead.
First, the days of meaningful bilateral U.S.-Russian strategic weapons treaties
have ended. During the Cold War, we lived in essentially a bipolar nuclear
world, the arsenals of other nuclear states, legitimate or illegitimate, being
insignificant for our purposes.
Today, however, China is rapidly manufacturing and deploying nuclear warheads in
significant numbers, likely approaching the New START limits applicable to
Russia and the U.S. imminently. The U.S. simply cannot accept bilateral limits
on its nuclear stockpiles or delivery systems when it will soon face two peer or
near-peer nuclear adversaries, a dramatically dangerous new environment.
Whether Moscow and Beijing combine against Washington, or we face one
confrontation with the risk of another following, we are in a tri-polar nuclear
world, and must plan and act accordingly. Thus far, China has flatly refused to
engage in diplomacy, saying its current warhead stockpile is too low to join
U.S.-Russia talks. Beijing is essentially asking for a pass until it comes close
to our existing ceilings, and only then talk, an approach in which Russia has
acquiesced. We should tell Moscow sooner rather than later that there will be no
talks on extending or modifying New START until China sits at our negotiating
table.
Second, a basic New START flaw is its failure to limit tactical nuclear weapons,
which Moscow possesses in far greater numbers than Washington. With Russian
President Vladimir Putin threatening to use tactical strikes in Ukraine, there
is no longer a serious argument to allow this issue to remain outside the
overall nuclear-arms negotiations. If Russia disagrees, we should not resume
talks, and should make our own plans at both the strategic and tactical levels
accordingly. The potential for substantially broader coverage of nuclear
warheads also raises new, difficult verification issues beyond the existing
treaty’s failings.
Third, New START fails to deal satisfactorily with new technologies that have
matured since 2010, especially advanced hypersonic capabilities. Biden’s failure
to address these new developments before extending the treaty in 2021 was a
grave mistake, and it would be diplomatic malpractice to repeat it in discussing
a successor deal.
While we consider our post-New START options, we are also, hopefully, witnessing
the last throes of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. For any number of compelling
reasons, the White House should do far more to support the Iranian opposition
and its struggle to overthrow the ayatollahs.
One benefit of regime change in Tehran would likely be a new government that
renounces the pursuit of nuclear weapons and opens the files of Iran’s
Revolutionary Guards and other actors in its nuclear-weapons program. We will
undoubtedly learn far more about how the mullahs led western governments by the
nose during the negotiation and implementation of the 2015 nuclear deal, and
especially how Iran repeatedly violated it. This new information might even
shake the faith of the arms-control priesthood, but at a minimum it would
enlighten those determined to prevent nuclear proliferation.
These are all issues for the 2024 campaign. Chairmen McCaul, Rogers and Turner
have done the country a great service by getting us started.
*John Bolton was national security adviser to President Trump from 2018 to 2019,
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006 and held senior State
Department posts in 2001-2005 and 1985-1989. His most recent book is “The Room
Where It Happened” (2020). He is the founder of John Bolton Super PAC, a
political action committee supporting candidates who believe in a strong U.S.
foreign policy.
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3838556-is-washingtons-arms-control-theology-finally-on-the-verge-of-collapse/
ريمون إبراهيم/معهد جيتستون: مسلسل الظلم الذي
لا ينتهي: 360 مليون مسيحي مضطهدون في جميع أنحاء العالم
The Never-Ending ‘Pandemic’: 360 Million Christians Persecuted Worldwide
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/February 02/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/115480/raymond-ibrahim-gatestone-institute-the-never-ending-pandemic-360-million-christians-persecuted-worldwide-%d8%b1%d9%8a%d9%85%d9%88%d9%86-%d8%a5%d8%a8%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%87%d9%8a%d9%85-%d9%85%d8%b3/
Overall, the global persecution of Christians remains higher than ever, with 360
million believers suffering high levels of discrimination and violence.
These are among some of the findings of the World Watch List 2023, recently
published by the international humanitarian organization, Open Doors.
The worst nations and their rankings are: 1) North Korea, 2) Somalia, 3) Yemen,
4) Eritrea, 5) Libya, 6) Nigeria, 7) Pakistan, 8) Iran, 9) Afghanistan, 10)
Sudan, 11) India.
” [A]pproximately 80% of the worst persecution around the globe takes place in
the name of Islam…
Although the persecution in North Korea is worse, there is at least hope for the
Christians there: their ill treatment is entirely connected to the regime of Kim
Jong-un. Once he is gone, North Korea may well become like South Korea, where
Christianity is flourishing. Conversely, the Muslim persecution of Christians is
perennial, existential, and far transcends this or that regime or ruler. It is
part of the history, doctrines and socio-political makeup of Islam — hence its
tenacity and ubiquity.
In Somalia, “Christians from Muslim backgrounds are regarded as high-value
targets and may be killed on the spot if discovered.”
In most Muslim nations on the list, all three sectors of society — Muslim
authorities, Muslim mobs and Muslim terrorists — persecute Christians to varying
degrees.
In Afghanistan, “More than a year after the Taliban’s takeover, any promises
they made about recognising freedoms have proved to be false. Following Jesus
remains a death sentence, if discovered.”
In Pakistan, “roughly a quarter of all blasphemy accusations target Christians,
who only make up 1.8% of the population.”
In Egypt, “President al-Sisi regularly speaks positively about Egypt’s Christian
community. However, the lack of serious law enforcement and the unwillingness of
local authorities to protect Christians leave them vulnerable to all kinds of
attacks….”
In the worst of these Sub-Saharan nations, Nigeria, “Christians are experiencing
a genocide.”
“China’s model of oppression is spreading…. The apparent success of China,
especially in economic terms, is appealing to many leaders around the world. The
promise of growth and prosperity, while being able to control all groups and
individuals perceived as deviant, has triggered the interest of leaders from all
over the world, no matter their ideological background.”
Perhaps the most disturbing trend is that, since 1993, the persecution of
Christians has nearly doubled… and has already increased by nearly 70% over the
last six years, with no signs of abating.
How long before this seemingly irreversible trend metastasizes into even those
nations currently celebrated for their religious freedom?
The global persecution of Christians remains higher than ever, with 360 million
believers suffering high levels of discrimination and violence. (Image source:
iStock)
In 2022, 5,621 Christian around the world were “killed for faith related
reasons.” Another 4,542 Christians were illegally detained or arrested, and
2,110 churches were attacked, many destroyed. Overall, the global persecution of
Christians remains higher than ever, with 360 million believers suffering high
levels of discrimination and violence.
These are among some of the findings of the World Watch List 2023, recently
published by the international humanitarian organization, Open Doors. Each year,
the World Watch List ranks the top 50 nations where Christians are most
persecuted for their faith by using data from approximately 4,000 field workers
and external experts to analyze the persecution worldwide.
The report finds that around the world, on average, one in seven Christians
(14%) are persecuted. In Africa, that number grows to one in five (20%), while
in Asia it is as much as two in five — meaning 40% of all Christians are
persecuted there.
Christians suffer “extreme levels of persecution” in the top 11 of the 50
nations. This persecution ranges from being assaulted, raped, imprisoned or
murdered on being identified as a Christian or attending (usually underground)
churches.
The worst nations and their rankings are: 1) North Korea, 2) Somalia, 3) Yemen,
4) Eritrea, 5) Libya, 6) Nigeria, 7) Pakistan, 8) Iran, 9) Afghanistan, 10)
Sudan, 11) India.
Coming in at #1, North Korea has “the highest levels of persecution ever seen,”
says the report:
“If discovered by the authorities, believers are either sent to labour camps as
political prisoners where the conditions are atrocious, or killed on the
spot—and their families will share their fate as well. Christians have
absolutely no freedom…. A new ‘anti-reactionary thought law’ makes it amply
clear that being a Christian or possessing a Bible is a serious crime and will
be severely punished.”
Most of the “extreme persecution” meted out to Christians in nine of the top 11
worst nations continues to come either from Islamic oppression, or takes place
in Muslim-majority nations. This means that approximately 80% of the worst
persecution around the globe takes place in the name of Islam.
This trend affects the entire list, not just the top 11: the persecution that
Christians experience in 39 of the 50 nations also comes either from Islamic
oppression or occurs in Muslim-majority nations. The overwhelming majority of
these nations are governed by some form of shari’a (Islamic law). It can either
be directly enforced by government or society or, more frequently, both,
although societies — family members outraged in particular by relatives who have
converted — tend to be more zealous in its application.
Although the persecution in North Korea is worse, there is at least hope for the
Christians there: their ill treatment is entirely connected to the regime of Kim
Jong-un. Once he is gone, North Korea may well become like South Korea, where
Christianity is flourishing. Conversely, the Muslim persecution of Christians is
perennial, existential, and far transcends this or that regime or ruler. It is
part of the history, doctrines and socio-political makeup of Islam — hence its
tenacity and ubiquity.
In the worst of the Muslim nations, Christianity has been so stamped out over
the years that there are no indigenous Christians to persecute, only converts —
apostates, who, according to most interpretations of Islamic law, deserve death.
The wildly popular late Sunni cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi noted on television that
if not for the apostasy law, Islam would have died out long ago.
In Somalia (#2), the report says:
“Imams in mosques and madrassas state publicly that there is no room for
Christianity, Christians or churches. The violent insurgent group al-Shabaab has
repeatedly expressed its desire to eradicate Christians from the country.
Christians from Muslim backgrounds are regarded as high-value targets and may be
killed on the spot if discovered.”
Similarly, in Yemen (#3), “The population is overwhelmingly Muslim and it is
illegal to convert from Islam to Christianity.”
“Yemeni Christian converts are at great risk of being killed, not just
ostracised or expelled, by their families, clans and tribes. Islamic extremist
groups such as al-Qaeda and so-called Islamic State threaten so-called
‘apostates’ with death if they do not return to Islam. In other areas, including
those controlled by Houthis, converts risk imprisonment. In detention centres,
Christian detainees have reportedly suffered physical and mental torture.”
In most Muslim nations on the list, all three sectors of society — Muslim
authorities, Muslim mobs and Muslim terrorists — persecute Christians to varying
degrees.
In Libya (#5), jihadists are chiefly responsible.
“Libya is effectively a lawless land where both native Christians and those
passing through from other countries face extreme violence. With no central
government to maintain law and order, militant Islamic extremist groups and
organised crime groups both wield power. They target and kidnap Christians, and
some believers have been killed.”
On the other hand, in Iran (#8), which is “ruled by an increasingly strict
Islamic regime,” the authorities are chiefly responsible.
“Iranian house church leaders and members have received long prison sentences
involving physical and mental abuse. Iranian Christians may be banned from
education, lose their jobs and find it very difficult to get back into
employment. For women, the situation is even more precarious because Iranian law
grants women few rights. For trusting in Jesus, they are likely to be violently
punished or divorced by their husbands and have their children taken away from
them, if their faith is discovered.”
In Afghanistan (#9), Islamic terrorists — who also happen to be the authorities
— are chiefly responsible.
“The Taliban’s takeover of power in August 2021 has forced most Christians
either further underground or away from the country entirely. Many (if not all)
house groups closed, with believers forced to leave behind everything they own.
More than a year after the Taliban’s takeover, any promises they made about
recognising freedoms have proved to be false. Following Jesus remains a death
sentence, if discovered.”
In Pakistan (#7), every rung of society is responsible for the persecution.
“Christians in Pakistan are considered second-class citizens and face
discrimination in every aspect of life. Jobs that are seen as low, dirty and
degrading are reserved for Christians by the authorities, who continue to push
them to the margins of society. They lack proper representation in politics …
[and] there are almost constant attacks against individuals. Many do not feel
safe to worship freely…. [R]oughly a quarter of all blasphemy accusations target
Christians, who only make up 1.8% of the population. The number of blasphemy
cases is increasing, as is the number of Christian (and other minority religion)
girls being abducted, abused and forcibly converted to Islam.”
Similarly, in Egypt (#35), which is “very high” in persecution, Christians
“report that freedom of religion violations are mostly experienced in the
community.”
“Incidents vary from Christian women being harassed while walking in the street,
to a mob of angry Muslims forcing a whole community of Christians to move out,
leaving their houses and belongings to be confiscated…. President al-Sisi
regularly speaks positively about Egypt’s Christian community. However, the lack
of serious law enforcement and the unwillingness of local authorities to protect
Christians leave them vulnerable to all kinds of attacks, especially in Upper
Egypt. Communal hostility and mob violence, in particular, continue to cause
difficulties.”
Among some of the notable trends, the report asserts that Christians in the
Middle East have experienced little if any improvement since the disempowerment
of the Islamic State (ISIS).
“The church [in the Middle East] has not been able to recover after the upsurge
of Islamic State and the attempts of extremists to wipe out Christianity
entirely. Discrimination and oppression coupled with crippling economic decline
means the church is losing hope, particularly for young people. In the Levant
region of the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Israel/Palestinian Territories
and Jordan), the Christian community is shrinking due to deprivation,
discrimination and persecution. Ever since the Islamic State group (IS) arrived
on the scene, Christians in those areas of Iraq and Syria have been struggling
to earn a living; young Christians in particular face high unemployment and
continual hostility…”
In Sub-Saharan Africa, “Violence against Christians … has reached new heights.”
“Jihadists are destabilizing countries in West and Central Africa. Entire
countries are at risk of collapse into extremist violence. 26 countries in
Sub-Saharan Africa face high levels of persecution…. The jihadist movement,
which seeks to expand Sharia across the continent, has forced Christians into
constant motion, from their homes to displacement camps, or to other countries.
The insecurity stemming from this experience of forced displacement makes
Christians even more vulnerable to further violence. Christian women, in
particular, can be easily targeted for sexual attack, while men are more likely
to lose their lives.”
In the worst of these Sub-Saharan nations, Nigeria (#6), where “an ingrained
agenda of enforced Islamisation” exists, Christians are experiencing a genocide.
“The violence is most pervasive in the north, where [Muslim] militant groups
such as Boko Haram, ISWAP and Fulani militants inflict murder, physical injury,
abduction and sexual violence on their victims. Christians are dispossessed of
their land and their means of livelihood. Many live as internally displaced
people or refugees. In the Sharia states of northern Nigeria, Christians face
discrimination and exclusion as second-class citizens. Christians from a Muslim
background also face rejection from their own families, pressure to give up
Christianity, and often physical violence.”
Although Islam continues to have the lions’ share of persecution, the rise of
religious nationalism in non-Muslim nations—such as Myanmar (#14) — has also
caused a number of nations normally unassociated with persecution to rise in the
ranks. Most notable among these is the second most populous nation in the world,
India (#11).
“In recent years there has been a big increase in Hindutva, an ideology that
believes only Hindus are true Indians…. Increasing numbers of [Indian] states
are implementing anti-conversion laws, supposedly to stop Hindus being forcibly
converted to other religions, but in reality they are often used as an excuse to
harass and intimidate Christians who are just doing things like distributing aid
or having a private church meeting. These laws do not seem to protect Christians
from being coerced back into Hinduism. Christians increasingly experience social
exclusion in their communities, discrimination in the workplace, and have false
accusations and rumours spread about them.”
As for the world’s most populous nation, China (#16), Open Doors reports:
“In China, the use of digital surveillance technology is spreading, adding to
persecution and intimidation. Armed with sweeping new rules on church use of the
internet, implemented in March 2022, authorities employed censorship,
disinformation, and unblinking surveillance to tighten their control of
religious groups.”
Rather ominously, Open Doors also notes that:
“China’s model of oppression is spreading throughout authoritarian states. The
apparent success of China, especially in economic terms, is appealing to many
leaders around the world. The promise of growth and prosperity, while being able
to control all groups and individuals perceived as deviant, has triggered the
interest of leaders from all over the world, no matter their ideological
background.
Perhaps the most disturbing trend is that, since 1993, the persecution of
Christians has nearly doubled:
“Since 1993, the World Watch List has revealed the scale and severity of the
persecution of Christians. In the last 30 years, the number of countries where
Christians suffer high and extreme levels of persecution has almost doubled to
76 countries. Today, more than 360m Christians suffer high levels of persecution
and discrimination for their faith. In Open Doors’ World Watch List top 50
alone, 312m Christians face very high or extreme levels.”
Last year, 360 million Christians around the world also experienced “high levels
of persecution and discrimination.” That number represented a 6% increase from
2021, when 340 million Christians experienced the same degree of persecution;
and that number represented a 31 % increase from 2020, when 260 million
Christians experienced the same level of persecution; and that number
represented a 6% increase from 2019, when 245 million experienced the same level
of persecution; and that number represented a 14% increase from 2018, when 215
million was the number.
Worst of all, the persecution of Christians, which was already horrific, has
already increased by nearly 70% over the last six years, with no signs of
abating. For the first time since the inception of the World Watch List 30 years
ago, Nicaragua (#50) has now made the list.
How long before this seemingly irreversible trend metastasizes into even those
nations currently celebrated for their religious freedom?
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West, Sword and Scimitar, Crucified
Again, and The Al Qaeda Reader, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at
the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East
Forum.
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19365/christians-persecuted
أوزاي بولوتمن معهد جيتستون: الآشوريون ولغة
السيد المسيح مهددون بالانقراض/الأشوريون يسعون للحصول على الدعم الدولي
The Endangered Assyrians and the Language of Jesus Seek International Support
Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/February 02/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/115477/uzay-bulut-gatestone-institute-the-endangered-assyrians-and-the-language-of-jesus-seek-international-support-%d8%a3%d9%88%d8%b2%d8%a7%d9%8a-%d8%a8%d9%88%d9%84%d9%88%d8%aa%d9%85%d9%86-%d9%85%d8%b9/
Most Assyrians are Christian and speak Assyrian (also known as Syriac, Aramaic,
or neo-Aramaic), one of the world’s oldest languages and the language of Jesus.
Assyrians are an indigenous people of what are today Turkey, Iran, Syria and
Iraq…. As a result of Muslim persecutions and massacres, Assyrians are now a
non-sovereign minority in their native lands. Their situation is also the
consequence of the absence of support and protection from the West.
“The refusal to support the Assyrian language in Iraq and Turkey stems from the
history of persecution against indigenous minority communities in those
countries. Whereas Canada, the USA, and Australia are essentially multicultural
nations, they try to embrace and encourage the plurality of their societies. The
opposite is the case in Iraq and Turkey where the ruling groups tend to dominate
all aspects of society, including education…. There is also a historical element
of eliminating the indigenous link of Assyrians with their homelands through
erasure of the ancient language, thus cementing the dominant non-indigenous
language as the only linguistic group.” — Evon Sworesho, an Assyrian teacher and
rights advocate, born in Iraq, and now in Canada.
It is high time Turkey recognized the same rights it demands for the Turkish
migrants in Europe for the oppressed indigenous peoples of Anatolia, especially
the Assyrians, their culture and “the language of Jesus.”
Assyrians are an indigenous people of what are today Turkey, Iran, Syria and
Iraq. As a result of Muslim persecutions and massacres, Assyrians are now a
non-sovereign minority in their native lands. Their situation is also the
consequence of the absence of support and protection from the West. Pictured:
The Midyat Virgin Mary Monastery in Mardin, Turkey, originally built in the
6th-century.
The Assyrian people, who suffered from many crimes including a genocide in their
ancestral lands in the Middle East, won a significant victory in the United
States regarding their linguistic rights.
Beginning with the 2023-24 school year, Niles North High School and Niles West
High School in Illinois will add Assyrian as an accredited option to fulfill the
“World Language” requirements for graduation. Also, in November of last year,
Assyrian was recognized by the Illinois State Board of Education as an
accredited World Language, paving the way for the historic vote of the Niles
Township District 219 Board of Education.
Thousands of Assyrians reside in Illinois. Assyrian language courses are also
taught at some schools in Canada, Europe and Australia.
Sadly, the Assyrian/neo-Aramaic language is still not officially recognized in
Turkey, where Assyrians/Syriacs have lived for millennia. Assyrians in Iraq,
Iran and Syria also face severe challenges to their right to education in their
mother tongue.
Most Assyrians are Christian and speak Assyrian (also known as Syriac, Aramaic,
or neo-Aramaic), one of the world’s oldest languages and the language of Jesus.
Assyrians are an indigenous people of what are today Turkey, Iran, Syria and
Iraq. Tur Abdin, which is the southeast part of Turkey, a name derived from
Assyrian, means “mountain of the servants [of God],” and is an ancestral
religious and cultural heartland of the Assyrians.
For 300 years, from 900 B.C. to 600 B.C., Assyrian kings ruled the largest
empire in northern Mesopotamia that the world had known. The Apostle Thomas
converted the Assyrians to Christianity, and by the third century A.D., they
became a Christian nation.
Until the Ottoman Turkish genocide on the Assyrians in 1915-23, the Assyrian
population formed a significant presence in the region, despite Turkish rule
that began in the eleventh century after the Turkish invasion. In the eighth
century, Arabs had invaded Assyrian areas in the Middle East, and for centuries
the Assyrian community has also been subjected to Kurdish aggressions. According
to the Assyrian International News Agency, every 50 years on average there has
been a massacre of Assyrians.
As a result of Muslim persecutions and massacres, Assyrians are now a
non-sovereign minority in their native lands. Their situation is also the
consequence of the absence of support and protection from the West.
The near-eradication of Assyrians — including their language and cultural
heritage — took place during the 1915-1923 genocide. Assyrians call the genocide
“seyfo”, meaning “sword” in their language: swords were often used to murder
them. (For further details on the genocidal crimes committed against Assyrians,
see Professor Joseph Yacoub’s meticulously researched book, Year of the Sword:
The Assyrian Christian Genocide.)
A century after the genocide, the remaining Assyrian community in Turkey is
still struggling to open an Assyrian primary school in Istanbul and,
unsurprisingly, receiving no support from the Turkish government. The last
Assyrian school in the country, according to the newspaper Agos, was closed in
1928.
Since the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, its governments have
refused to fully recognize and respect the linguistic and cultural rights of its
non-Turkish citizens. Restrictions remain on the use of languages other than
Turkish in political and public sector spheres such as in political debates or
political campaigning. The Turkish government also does not allow political
parties to promote Assyrian, Armenian, Kurdish, Yazidi, Greek or any other
minority culture within Turkey. Similarly, school or teachers’ unions can be
dissolved under Turkish law for promoting minority languages because the Turkish
Constitution rules that Turkish is “the” language. The legislation thus
continues to unduly limit freedom of expression in languages other than Turkish.
Today Assyrian has many endangered dialects even where it previously existed
more strongly, as in Iraq, pre-revolutionary Iran and Syria.
Almost 50 years ago, the renowned scholar of neo-Aramaic, Otto Jastrow, wrote
that Turoyo, or the neo-Aramaic or Assyrian dialect of Tur Abdin, would die out
in the 21st century. He blamed the decline on migration to Europe: refugees
fleeing what he called Kurdish aggression against Christians seeking asylum
there, as well the lack of protection of Christian properties in Turkey.
Professor Hannibal Travis, who has written several articles and books about the
Assyrian genocide, told Gatestone about to the vulnerable state of the Assyrian
language in the Middle East:
“In Iraq, there used to be Assyrian language teaching thanks to a 1972 order,
and Assyrian cultural clubs as well as churches. Many of these institutions have
been lost due to al Qaeda and Islamic State (IS) activity in the country.
“There is language teaching and church construction — churches sometimes host
classes of various kinds — but they cannot compare with the scale of Kurdish
language and cultural institutions and mosque construction in the Kurdistan
Regional Government or their Arab counterparts in other areas of the country. In
addition, many smaller Assyrian towns and villages have lost their role as sites
of cultural transmission by being declared prohibited, or by being demolished or
abandoned in the areas of Kurdish rebel activity or during the fighting with
Iran or Turkey over the past 50 years. Other villages were probably Kurdified
after 3,000-6,000 Assyrians were massacred in 1933. In 1998, Kurds attempted to
close some Assyrian schools in Iraq, in areas under their control.
“In 2018, Kurdish forces in Syria also attempted to close Assyrian schools that
had operated for decades under Syrian government oversight, and to impose a
Kurdish curriculum on Assyrians. In Iran, there used to be schools where
Assyrian was taught; but after the 1979 revolution, many such schools were
closed.
“All of this is intensified by Iraq being declared a bi-national country with
‘other components’ — who are an afterthought — as well as Turkey’s insistence on
its culture, educational foundations, religion, political parties and laws, and
demanding the same of their counterparts in Kurdish-controlled Iraq and Syria.”
Dr. Nicholas Al-Jeloo, a prominent expert of Assyrian descent on the Assyrian/Syriac
language and literature, and born in Australia, told Gatestone:
“Assyrian migrants who are teaching their language now in the diaspora will find
it difficult maintaining a critical mass of proficient speakers in the long run.
Diaspora communities, as much as they try to preserve their heritage, eventually
assimilate and fade away — unless they form parallel communities and isolate
themselves, as do ultra-Orthodox Jews, or Christian groups such as the Amish and
Mennonites (who all speak various archaic dialects of German).
“In the best-case scenario, some people a few hundred years from now might
remotely remember some vague Middle Eastern or Assyrian ancestry, preserve some
traditions or foods, and maybe have a symbolic knowledge of some ceremonial
words in the language. The first generations of migrants that preceded them a
century ago are now completely assimilated.
“Diaspora communities rely on their homeland communities to supply fresh
migrants to replenish them, however, if the Middle East empties of Assyrians, as
current trends show, this may lead to an eventual death of the community in the
diaspora as well, despite teaching the language. Languages survive in compact,
homogenous communities. In their homelands, Assyrians live in such communities
and are naturally segregated from the rest of society due to the majority of
them being Christians. This isolation is precisely what has preserved them and
their language, not some kind of official education program.
“Assyrians neither have their own nation state which can preserve their own
language and culture, nor is there a country that is willing to recognise them
and protect their rights as an indigenous people, and support them to work on
developing and preserving their language and culture. As such, the burden
unfairly falls upon those in the diaspora who, in the long run, and unless they
isolate themselves from their host societies, will eventually be unable to do
so. Languages need homelands and tightly-knit communities to exist, otherwise
they are superseded by other languages and die.”
The government of Turkey does not recognize the right of any native minority to
education in its own language — except for those recognized by the 1923 Lausanne
Treaty, the internationally recognized document which accompanied the Republic
of Turkey’s founding, and recognized only three ethnic groups — Greeks,
Armenians and Jews — as official minorities. Any others, including the Christian
Assyrians, and all non-Turkish Muslim ethnic groups such as the Laz and the
Kurds, are excluded.
This does not, however, mean that the Assyrian language is dying in Turkey.
The Syriac Orthodox Church, Al-Jeloo said, has stepped in to attend to this need
through its grassroots initiatives teaching in unofficial schools attached to
monasteries and village churches. He remains optimistic:
“The Syriac Orthodox Church, to which the majority of Assyrians in the country
adhere to, run clandestine language schools which teach Classical Syriac at
monasteries and village churches (as well as certain parishes in Istanbul) with
enough children to attend. In fact, in Assyrian villages which had previously
become completely Kurdish-speaking, such as Hah (Anitli), one can now freely
speak Aramaic with the locals because many Kurds have intermarried with
Aramaic-speaking Assyrian villages and their children have been educated in the
monastery schools. This in itself is a small victory.
“Another good sign is the opening of an Assyrian language and literature
department at Mardin Artuklu University, and the kindergarten you mentioned in
Istanbul, as well as other places.
“In Iraq, according to the constitution, ‘Syriac’ is an official language, and
there are Syriac Language departments at the universities of Baghdad and
Salahaddin (Erbil), and a number of government and private schools.”
Larissa Petrus Al Bazi, the Chairwoman of the Assyrian Federation in the
Netherlands, who has family roots in Turkey, said:
“In the Netherlands, some churches offer language courses for children to learn
how to read and write in Assyrian. We hope the Netherlands will one day
officially recognize the Assyrian language as well.
“I believe Turkey should allow Assyrian language courses within the curriculum
of their schools. In addition to the advantages of learning another language,
officially implementing it within the curriculum would be a step forward towards
recognition, accepting and respecting the Assyrians as an indigenous community.”
Evon Sworesho, an Assyrian teacher and rights advocate, born in Iraq, and now
teaching university-level Assyrian language courses in Canada, told Gatestone:
“The refusal to support the Assyrian language in Iraq and Turkey stems from the
history of persecution against indigenous minority communities in those
countries. Whereas Canada, the USA, and Australia are essentially multicultural
nations, they try to embrace and encourage the plurality of their societies. The
opposite is the case in Iraq and Turkey where the ruling groups tend to dominate
all aspects of society, including education, thus they limit linguistic rights
and opportunities for many minority groups. There is also a historical element
of eliminating the indigenous link of Assyrians with their homelands through
erasure of the ancient language, thus cementing the dominant non-indigenous
language as the only linguistic group.
When it was merely suggested that Turkish migrants living in Germany should
integrate and adopt German culture, this proposal was condemned by Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as “a crime against humanity” in 2008. Deutsche
Welle reported:
“Erdogan shocked Germans when he warned Turks against losing their culture
during a political speech to 20,000 Turks in Cologne… ‘Assimilation is
tantamount to a crime against humanity,’ Erdogan said. Erdogan encouraged Turks
living in Germany to teach their children to speak German, but he warned against
giving up their Turkish ethnicity.”
The government of Turkey, however, has persecuted its non-Turkish, Christian
indigenous peoples to the point that those peoples have almost become extinct in
Turkey. It is high time Turkey recognized the same rights it demands for the
Turkish migrants in Europe for the oppressed indigenous peoples of Anatolia,
especially the Assyrians, their culture and “the language of Jesus.”
*Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the
Gatestone Institute. She is also a research fellow for the Philos Project.
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
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part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19350/assyrian-language
GCC’s Iran nuclear talks proposal should be
taken seriously
Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg/Arab News/February 02, 2023
International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi last week
warned that “every limit that existed in the JCPOA (nuclear deal) has been
violated several times” by Iran. The deal has become an “empty shell” and
diplomatic activity to revive it is almost nonexistent, he said, adding that:
“Nobody has declared it dead, but no obligation is being pursued.”
One of those violations relates to uranium enrichment. Iran has amassed enough
material for “several nuclear weapons,” Grossi told a European Parliament
subcommittee in Brussels. He pointed out that Iran has 70 kg of uranium enriched
to 60 percent purity and 1,000 kg to 20 percent purity, meaning that Iran is
only a short distance away from reaching the critical level of 90 percent, when
it can be weaponized.
Hard-liners in Tehran appear to be in no hurry to reach a deal. The talks offer
breathing space for Iran as it advances its nuclear program and brings it closer
to making nuclear weapons. The talks as such buy time for Iran, giving it space
and cover.
Tehran is also getting a free ride from continuing the talks without having to
provide concessions. After Iran accepted the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
agreement in 2015, nuclear-related sanctions were lifted and they remain that
way even as Iran breaches “every limit” imposed by the deal, according to the
IAEA chief. The exception has been the US, which reinstated sanctions in 2018.
Following Iran’s harsh crackdown on popular protests since last September, the
EU and a number of countries have imposed new sanctions, to be added to earlier
human rights and terrorism-related sanctions, which were not affected by the
JCPOA.
The failure of the JCPOA to so far prevent Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon
calls for a reassessment of the approach to the crisis
The failure of the JCPOA to so far prevent Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon
calls for a reassessment of the international community’s approach to the
crisis. Previously, P5+1 negotiators expressed hope that concluding the deal in
2015 would lead to moderation in Iran’s conduct in the region, but what happened
was the opposite, as we witnessed in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere.
There is no doubt Iran’s nuclear program poses a serious threat to the region
and beyond and diplomatic efforts need to continue to prevent Iran from
developing nuclear weapons. Although a nuclear program in a rogue state is a
serious threat, it is not the only one. The rapidly expanding production of
drones and ballistic and cruise missiles is a major cause of rising concerns.
Tehran-supported terrorist and sectarian groups have wreaked havoc in the region
and destabilized neighbors.
The protests sweeping Iran have demonstrated widespread dissatisfaction with the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-dominated government’s policies. They have
brought to light the grim realities on the ground, economically and politically,
and restrictions on women are outdone only by the Taliban next door. The future
appears even grimmer. The IRGC’s priorities are bankrupting Iran. Its economy
has been in a shambles for decades because of its singular focus on military
spending.
Iran’s gross domestic product today is not commensurate with that of a country
of more than 80 million people, a youthful population and plentiful natural
resources, including massive oil and gas reserves. The prospect of Iran
destabilizing further under the weight of its economic and political challenges
worries its neighbors.
While the status quo could hold for a while, several other scenarios are
possible, requiring prudent planning for the future in the region and beyond.
The first scenario is that of a regional nuclear arms race. Nuclear talks could
plod along without achieving results but moving enough for Iran to continue
weaponizing its nuclear program under the smokescreen of engaging in diplomatic
efforts. A nuclear arms race could ensue if Iran’s progress toward a nuclear
weapon is not checked. It is important to prevent such an eventuality in the
region, which could happen if Iran reaches that critical stage. A nuclear arms
race would divert badly needed development funds to fueling the arms race and
would immiserate Iran the most.
The second scenario is for Iran to become another North Korea, i.e., a nuclear
military dictatorship, heavily sanctioned and isolated. Its population would be
cut off from the rest of the world, impoverished.
A third scenario is of Iran, or big chunks of it, descending into chaos and
becoming ungoverned, similar to the fate of so-called Arab Spring states, such
as Syria, Libya and Yemen.
The failure of the nuclear talks to so far produce the desired results has shown
the wisdom of the GCC’s position regarding the narrow remit of these
negotiations and the exclusion of the region from participating in them. GCC
states are not just geographically proximate to Iran, but they have also been on
the receiving end of its ballistic missiles, drones and malign activities. They
also have the most to lose from its nuclear program.
Some have questioned the value of GCC participation in the talks, asking what it
could bring to the table. In fact, GCC negotiators could bring plenty of what
any other participant could — sticks and carrots. They could help advance the
talks by providing the prospect of normalizing Iran’s relations with the region
and integrating its economy with those of its neighbors. They could also add
pressure when needed to induce Iran to be more flexible. A GCC ownership stake
in the talks would contribute to their success by addressing all the important
threats and providing the Iranian people with what they most need: A prosperous
economy and normal relations with the country’s neighbors. This offer from the
GCC has been on the table for some time and it is about time it was taken
seriously, as the JCPOA talks appear to be heading toward oblivion.
*Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg is the GCC assistant secretary-general for political
affairs and negotiation, and a columnist for Arab News. The views expressed in
this piece are personal and do not necessarily represent GCC views. Twitter:
@abuhamad1
Iran protests: Isolating the Iran regime is not the same as
interfering in its affairs
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/February 02, 2023
It has been said that history never repeats itself but it does often rhyme. The
year 2023 may provide a significant example of that phenomenon, with events in
the Islamic Republic of Iran running parallel to those that took place in the
country 44 years ago and which brought an end to the era of the shah. There is
now good reason to believe that the mullahs’ era will soon come to an end as
well. Although the revolution that now threatens the theocratic regime is not
identical to the one that brought it to power in the first place, there is much
that the international community can learn from the relevant history.
In advance of the 1979 revolution, the shah’s international supporters simply
could not conceive of his regime being overthrown by a civilian uprising. It was
not until November 1978 that US Ambassador to Iran William Sullivan sent the
first cable to Washington that entertained this possibility. It described this
as “thinking the unthinkable” and urged the US to develop a contingency plan for
the day when the shah exhausted his capacity to maintain his grip on power.
In light of this, it is ironic that, once the mullahs’ regime became established
in the years following the revolution, many Western policymakers fell right back
into the habit of assuming that the status quo was unshakeable. This assumption
has persisted right up to the present day and appears to have guided American
and European foreign policy toward outcomes that are often counterproductive, if
not outright destructive.
It is a remarkable example of history’s imperfect parallels when the same
mistakes take hold in one’s dealings with both allies and adversaries. In the
case of Iran, the US refused to recognize the depth of its citizens’
anti-government sentiment when it was in the interest of US foreign policy
objectives to keep the shah in power. Then, when Ayatollah Khomeini co-opted the
popular revolution to establish a system of absolute rule by Shiite clerics, the
US proceeded to disregard growing public outrage toward the new government, even
though its interests and American interests were diametrically opposed.
To support the Iranian resistance movement would be to exhibit simple common
sense
That opposition has also endured for more than four decades, through both
hard-line and “reformist” Iranian presidential administrations. At various
moments during that time, the US and its allies have thrown away extraordinary
opportunities to help the Iranian people reshape their own country and the
entire region in ways that would have made the 1979 revolution pale in
comparison.
During the 2009 uprising, for instance, the Obama White House declined to offer
any meaningful support to the Iranians who had flooded the streets. The excuse
given at the time was that interference in Iran’s domestic affairs would have
allowed the regime to more easily dismiss the popular unrest as a product of
foreign meddling. But, of course, Tehran leveled that accusation against the US
and Britain anyway and has continued to do so in response to every subsequent
uprising, including the current one.
Since breaking out in mid-September following the death of Mahsa Amini at the
hands of Tehran’s “morality police,” the latest nationwide protests have come to
be widely recognized as one of the greatest challenges to the theocratic system
since the years immediately following the revolution. That perception has been
encouraged by reports of the prominent role played by a network of resistance
units affiliated with the opposition group the National Council of Resistance of
Iran.
This current uprising, much like several others dating back to at least the
resistance units’ formation in 2014, demonstrates a remarkable diversity of
participation among ethnic and socioeconomic groups, thereby setting it apart
from the Green Movement and fueling the perception that this represents the
entire country rejecting the regime in its entirety. That perception is further
encouraged by the defining slogans of this and other recent uprisings, including
the chant “Down with the oppressor, be it the shah or the leader (Supreme Leader
Ali Khamenei).”
In keeping with the well-established platform of the opposition, this slogan
conveys a rejection of all forms of dictatorship and a commitment to
establishing a truly democratic system whose interests would naturally be in
line with those of all Western democracies. In fact, the opposition established
itself as an entity that is in favor of a democratic system of governance and of
free and fair elections.
To support the Iranian resistance movement would be to exhibit simple common
sense. Conversely, to remain on the sidelines would be to play directly into the
mullahs’ hands, while ignoring the lessons of history. The regime will continue
accusing the US and its allies of interference, regardless of what happens in
the weeks to come. But siding with the Iranian people in this unfolding conflict
is not the same thing as interfering in their affairs. There is much that can be
done to support the people — and the US ought to press all of its allies to
participate in a multilateral campaign aimed at isolating the regime
diplomatically and crippling it economically. This is perfectly in line with
Western interests and it also happens to be unmistakably the right thing to do.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist.
Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh