English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For June 07/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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15 آذار/2023
Bible Quotations For today
I have called you friends, because I have
made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father
John 15/15-21: “I do not call you servants any longer, because
the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you
friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my
Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and
bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you
ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one
another. ‘If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you.
If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you
do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world therefore the
world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, “Servants are not greater
than their master.” If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept
my word, they will keep yours also. But they will do all these things to you on
account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on June 06-07/2023
Lebanese party seeks
Damascus’s approval after rejecting Hezbollah presidential candidate
Former President Aoun's surprise visit to Syria raises questions, sparks
speculation
Assad met Aoun to affirm mutual benefits of the Syria-Lebanon relationship
Fadlallah: We have a range of constitutional options for electoral session, they
are under consultation
Fadlallah says Berri's call for session proves Franjieh camp not afraid
Eight days before the twelfth presidential election round, the picture remains
unclear
Report: PSP, FPM MPs divided over Azour's nomination
Lawyer: Health of Gadhafi's son deteriorating 3 days into hunger strike
Boycott or blank vote: What will Franjieh supporters do in June 14 session?
Azour decries 'disinformation campaign' against him
Judge named to look into Oueidat-Bitar standoff
Free Patriotic Movement reaffirms endorsement of Jihad Azour in presidential
elections
Rahi meets Kanaan in Bkerki
Berri welcomes Chinese delegation, lauds support to Lebanon in all international
forums
Mikati chairs meetings over new electricity tarrifs, discusses housing loans
with Habib
Bassil, Tarraf hold “honest discussion” about Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon
Bou Habib welcomes Australian Assistant Foreign Minister: Syrian refugee crisis
in Lebanon political rather than economic
Rebirth Beirut Presents HOLE: A Bi-personal Exhibition by Micaela Legnaioli and
Franco Losvizzero
Lebanon partakes in 111th Session of the International Labour Conference in
Geneva/June 06/2023
UN Secretary-General appoints Marguerite El Helou Director of United Nations
Information Centre in Cairo
EU rewards journalists from Egypt, Lebanon and Syria at 2023 edition of Samir
Kassir Award
Team Biden Mainstreams Terror Financing in Lebanon/Tony Badran/The Tablet/June
06/2023
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 06-07/2023
Five nations elected to U.N. Security
Council, but Belarus denied
Blinken says US will press ahead with Israel-Saudi normalization
US slaps sanctions on Iranian, Chinese targets in action over Tehran’s missile,
military programs
Iran unveils first hypersonic missile in challenge to Israel and West
Milley says fighting in Ukraine has increased and cautions it will continue for
lengthy time
UN nuclear chief says agency 'very fair but firm' after Israeli criticism on
Iran
Ukraine dam destroyed, transforming front lines
The U.S. Knew Ukraine Was Planning to Attack Russia’s Nord Stream Pipelines:
Report
Blinken visits Saudi Arabia to rebuild strained ties
Sudan conflict: Army accused of killing Congolese in campus bombing
Egypt, Israel pledge cooperation after border bloodshed
Palestinian toddler killed by Israeli forces buried
Kuwaitis elect new parliament in hope of ending stalemate
Egypt's Sisi and Israel's Netanyahu Discuss Border Shooting, Emphasise Joint
Investigation
Pope Francis goes to hospital for check-up - Italian media
Titles For
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News &
Editorials published
on June 06-07/2023
How Saudi Arabia lost control of oil prices/Jeremy Warner/The Telegraph/June
06/2023
China's Space Program: Designed to Defeat the United States/Lawrence A.
Franklin/Gatestone Institute./June 6, 2023
Saint Louis’s Greatest Victory Over Jihad in Egypt/Raymond Ibrahim/June 06/2023
Will OPEC’s cuts stabilize the oil market — and affect gas prices at the
pump?/Simon Henderson/The Washington Institute/June 06/2023
What to Do With Families of Islamic State Foreign Fighters/Martyn Warr, Austin
Doctor, Devorah Margolin/The Washington Institute/June 06/2023
Iraq Is Quietly Falling Apart/Michael Knights/The Foreign Affairs website/June
06/2023
Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on June 06-07/2023
Lebanese party seeks
Damascus’s approval after rejecting Hezbollah presidential candidate
Najia Houssari/Arab News/June 06, 2023
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s former president Michel Aoun has traveled to Syria to shore up
relations with Damascus after his party rejected Hezbollah’s preferred
presidential candidate. The Free Patriotic Movement said Aoun, its leader,
“traveled on Tuesday to Damascus on a visit during which he will meet with
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.”It came days after the FPM announced it backed
opposition candidate Jihad Azour for the Lebanese presidency and rejected
Hezbollah’s preference Suleiman Frangieh, who is a close friend of Assad. Aoun
was accompanied by former minister Pierre Raffoul. A source close to the FPM
stated that Aoun’s goal was “to confirm the continuation of the relationship and
the strategic positioning of the FPM. “In return, Aoun will explain to Assad
that the FPM’s rejection of Frangieh has nothing to do with this positioning,
and he will warn that clinging to Frangieh would pose a danger to Christian
consensus.”Aoun’s presidential term ended on October 31 of last year, and the
presidency has remained vacant since then due to political jostling that led to
the FPM abandoning its alliance with Hezbollah over Frangieh’s nomination. Aoun
was quoted during a meeting of the FPM parliamentary bloc on Monday evening as
saying that Azour, who previously held the position of finance minister, “is a
technocrat and works at the IMF (as Director of the Middle East and Central Asia
Department), which is what Lebanon needs, while the head of the Marada Movement,
Suleiman Frangieh, is an integral part of the ruling system that has brought
Lebanon to where it is."
Political parties are scrambling to secure the votes of MPs for the forthcoming
presidential contest, set down by the Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, for
June 14. So far, more than 30 out of 128 MPs have not yet decided on their
position regarding supporting Azour. Some independent and undecided MPs say they
are yet to make a decision while others will not disclose their choice. The
parliamentary bloc of the Democratic Gathering (the Progressive Socialist Party)
will meet on Thursday to discuss its choice. Others yet to make their choice
public are the National Consensus (Faisal Karami and his allies), National
Moderation (North), and the Independent Parliamentary Gathering which includes
MPs Imad Hawat, Bilal al-Hashimi, Nabil Badr, Neeemat Ferm, and Jamil Abboud.
Armenian MPs, the three MPs of Sidon-Jezzine and about 10 MPs from the Change
bloc plus some other unaffiliated independents, make up the list of those
undecided. MP Hassan Fadlallah from Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc said it would
“exercise its constitutional and legal rights in full, and we are now in a stage
of discussion. We have time until the session date, and we will take a common
position and proceed to implement it at the designated time.”
“We have not imposed our opinion on anyone, nor have we imposed a candidate on
anyone. Instead, we said that there is a candidate, and let’s come to the
discussion. The natural outcome is dialogue.”It is all but guaranteed that 86 or
more MPs will vote in the first round, meaning it will meet the legal threshold
for legitimacy. However, neither candidate is expected to win two-thirds of all
MPs’ votes, meaning a second round will be required where the threshold is
reduced to 65 votes. Supporters of Azour claim that he has secured between 65
and 70 votes. However, the second round of voting remains subject to the
possibility of not reaching the quorum. Previously, a joint-veto was placed on
Frangieh by the Christian parliamentary blocs. There is concern that a joint-Shia
veto will now be placed on Azour, who as yet has no declared support from that
bloc.
The Amal Movement, Hezbollah and their allies previously resorted to obstructing
the quorum of the second round of voting, as happened in the 11 sessions that
were held during the nomination phase of MP Michel Moawad. “The second round of
voting will be an opportunity to reveal the limitations of everyone and to move
from this stage to a more serious stage in the search for a moderate
presidential candidate,” said the political observer. Razi El Hage, a member of
the parliamentary bloc of the Lebanese Forces which supports Azour, said that
the campaign against him by opponents “does not indicate a positive approach to
dealing with the election. “Azour was not previously a candidate of any of the
blocs that now support him, and he is not a candidate of challenge or
maneuvering. Everyone converged around him to achieve the presidential mandate.
“They must respect the choice of the MPs, and let them apply the provisions of
the Constitution and allow the successive rounds of voting, and they will see
that the MPs are capable of electing Azour with an absolute majority.”
Former President Aoun's surprise visit to
Syria raises questions, sparks speculation
LBC/June 06/2023
In a politically intriguing move, former President Michel Aoun, known for his
six-year presidency marked by his absence of visits to Syria and meetings with
President Bashar al-Assad, made a surprise visit to Syria. This unexpected
development, just a week before the parliamentary session to elect a new
president, comes at a time when political tensions have reached their peak
between Hezbollah, who supports the presidential candidacy of Sleiman Frangieh,
the Marada Movement Leader, and the Free Patriotic Movement, which is aligning
with opposition forces to nominate former minister Jihad Azour. During his
visit, Aoun met with President Assad in the presence of former Syrian Ambassador
to Lebanon, Ali Abdul Karim Ali, and former Minister of Presidential Affairs,
Pierre Raffoul. However, while Aoun's sources kept the visit under tight
secrecy, the Syrian presidency issued a statement emphasizing Lebanon's strength
in its political and economic stability. The statement also emphasized that the
Lebanese people have the ability to achieve stability through dialogue,
consensus, and, most importantly, adherence to principles rather than relying on
external influences. This prompts the question: which dialogue was President
Assad referring to? Was he alluding to the dialogue proposed by his ally,
Hezbollah, which urges all parties to agree on Frangieh as the candidate without
a clear plan? Or was he referring to the dialogue advocated by the FPM and
opposition forces to reach a consensus on a candidate other than Frangieh?
President Assad pointed out that Syria and Lebanon cannot address their
challenges separately, highlighting the recent Arab-Arab rapprochement showcased
at the Arab Summit in Jeddah, which he believes will positively impact both
Syria and Lebanon. In response, Aoun affirmed the Lebanese people's commitment
to national unity, despite the prevailing circumstances, and stated that Syria
has successfully navigated through difficult and dangerous stages thanks to its
people's awareness. As Lebanon prepares to elect a new president, the unexpected
meeting between Aoun and Assad has injected a fresh element of uncertainty into
an already tense political climate. But, the coming days will determine whether
this visit was a turning point or merely a fleeting episode in the complex saga
of Lebanese politics.
Assad met Aoun to affirm mutual benefits of the Syria-Lebanon relationship
LBCI/June 06/2023
During his meeting with former Lebanese President Michel Aoun, Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad expressed his belief that Lebanon's strength lies in its
political and economic stability. He emphasized that the Lebanese people have
the ability to create this stability through dialogue, consensus, and, most
importantly, adherence to principles rather than relying on changes. Assad also
noted that Lebanon's stability is in the interest of Syria and the entire
region. However, his speech came during his meeting with former Lebanese
President General Michel Aoun on Tuesday. Assad praised Aoun for preserving the
fraternal relationship between Syria and Lebanon to benefit both countries. He
expressed confidence in the Lebanese people's ability to overcome all problems
and challenges while emphasizing the importance of their national and
constitutional institutions. The Syrian President argued that Syria and Lebanon
could not consider their respective challenges separately. He pointed out that
the recent Arab rapprochement, evident in the Arab League Summit in Jeddah, will
positively impact Syria and Lebanon. For his part, Aoun affirmed that the
Lebanese people remain committed to their national unity despite everything. He
also considered that Syria had overcome the difficult and dangerous phase thanks
to the awareness of its people and their faith in their country, army, and
leadership, stressing that Syria's revival and prosperity will reflect
positively on Lebanon and the Lebanese people.
Fadlallah: We have a range of constitutional options for electoral session, they
are under consultation
LBCI/June 06/2023
Member of the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc, Deputy Hassan Fadlallah, stressed
that the call by the Speaker of Parliament to hold a session to elect a
President invalidates all the promotional and misleading campaigns launched by
the other team, claiming that there will be no session because we cannot
guarantee the success of our candidate."This team is accustomed to launching
such accusations at every stage, which is evidence of their deceptive approach.
As for us, we have a range of constitutional options, and we are discussing
these options with our allies and friends to take the appropriate stance in the
upcoming session," Fadlallah mentioned. He also said these options are diverse
and based on constitutional texts. "Any option we resort to in the next session
or other sessions has sufficient parliamentary support, and these options are
certainly within the framework of the constitution and will not provide those
who want to impose a confrontational and challenging president with what they
desire." Additionally, Fadlallah stressed that "when it was said that Sleiman
Frangieh might receive 65 votes, some threatened to reconsider the Lebanese
entity. Meanwhile, we are committed to our Lebanon, our constitution, and the
implementation of the Taif Accord, and we do not want to reconsider
anything.""Instead, we will fully exercise our constitutional and legal rights.
The constitution grants us the authority to participate or not, how to vote, and
whom to vote for. We are now in the discussion stage and have time until the
session date. We will take the common stance and implement it at the specified
time," Fadlallah highlighted. He went on to say that "this common stance is
based on constitutional texts that grant us a set of powers. It can reject and
prevent the passage of any president carrying the title of confrontation and
challenge, regardless of their name. They changed the first name to a second
one, but this doesn't change anything for us. They are a team that claims the
right to nominate whoever they want, and no one prevents them from doing so.
They claim the right to choose the name that belongs to them politically and
financially, which was part of their system.""In contrast, as a team, we can
take the appropriate stance that does not allow this team to impose the name
they want on the Parliament and the Lebanese people. We will rely on the
constitutional option we are based on, and it will enhance the atmosphere of
dialogue and understanding to reach an agreement on the President."He added,
"When the Lebanese constitution stipulates a two-thirds quorum, it is intended
to ensure broader Lebanese Christian-Muslim participation in the president's
election and to say to the parliamentary blocs, 'You are obliged to reach an
agreement.' It is known that no one has a two-thirds majority, and until now, no
one has reached 65 votes, despite the threats of external sanctions exerted by
the other team, because a lack of agreement leads to the obstruction of the
quorum." In its various blocs, the Challenge and Confrontation team announced
that when Frangieh reaches 65 votes, they will obstruct the quorum. On the other
hand, we proposed supporting a candidate based on engaging in dialogue with
other blocs to get an understanding without imposing our choice on anyone.
He also confirmed that today's available option to overcome the current
situation is a dialogue between the parliamentary blocs or the political forces
that constitute these parliamentary blocs to reach an agreement on a president
who achieves the two-thirds quorum and, if possible, the two-thirds majority.
"We have not closed the doors on anyone and said that dialogue should be without
preconditions or canceling anyone, and we have dealt positively with the envoy
from Baabda. There was a detailed explanation of our position, and we emphasized
that the natural way out is through dialogue. We have not imposed our opinion on
anyone or imposed a candidate on anyone. Instead, we said there is a candidate
available, and let us discuss," Fadlallah clarified.
Moreover, he said, "We deal with the issue of the presidential election with the
highest level of national responsibility, as the presidency holds a position of
status, role, respect, and appreciation. We consider this an absolute position
in the state, and therefore, the presidential process cannot be accomplished
with political grudges or personal considerations. The natural achievement of
the election can only be ensured through genuine partnership. We are committed
to this national partnership and extend our hand to others from a position of
eagerness and effort to solve the country's problems. A president cannot be
imposed through challenge, confrontation, and provocation. Therefore, our
invitation to all of them is not to exhaust yourselves and the country. You know
you are nominating a vacuum with no chance or hope, as it comes from a
unilateral direction and a partisan candidate. On our part, we do not want to
impose a candidate on you, and we respect all groups and components." Fadlallah
concluded by saying, "We will not accept having a president for a specific group
or an imposed or confrontational president because neither exaggeration,
threats, shouting, accusations, nor debates can influence our convictions,
choices, or directions in the Parliament, regardless of the rhetoric. This
matter is crucial for governing the country for six years, and no one can
influence us using any language other than the language of reason, logic,
dialogue, and understanding."
Fadlallah says Berri's call for session proves Franjieh camp not afraid
Naharnet/June 06/2023
MP Hassan Fadlallah of Hezbollah on Tuesday said that Speaker Nabih Berri’s call
for a presidential election session refutes the rival camp’s claims that “there
won’t be a session because we don’t guarantee the success of our candidate.”“We
have a host of constitutional choices and we are discussing these choices with
our allies and friends to take the appropriate stance in the coming session,”
Fadlallah added. “These choices are from within the constitutional texts and are
diverse, and any choice that we will resort to in the coming session or in other
sessions will have a sufficient number of MPs,” the lawmaker went on to say. A
candidate needs two thirds of parliament’s votes to be declared president from
the first electoral round. A candidate can be elected with 65 votes in the
second round but two thirds of parliament’s members need to be present during
that vote. Accordingly, any political camp might strip the second round of the
needed quorum if it senses that its candidate would certainly lose. Fadlallah
noted Tuesday that “when the Lebanese constitution stipulated a two-thirds
quorum, that was aimed at securing the broadest Lebanese Christian-Islamic
participation in the election of the president, and to tell the parliamentary
blocs that they are obliged to reach an understanding.”“No one has the
two-thirds majority and so far no one has 65 votes,” Fadlallah added. “The
available choice today to exit the current situation is dialogue among the
parliamentary blocs of the political forces that form these parliamentary blocs,
in order to reach an understanding over a president who enjoys the two-thirds
quorum and, if possible, the two-thirds majority,” the Hezbollah legislator
said.
Eight days before the twelfth presidential election
round, the picture remains unclear
LBCI/June 06/2023
As the twelfth round of the presidential elections in Lebanon approaches in
eight days, the political landscape remains mired in uncertainty. Both Hezbollah
and the Amal Movement claim to have multiple strategies at their disposal,
hinting at potential last-minute surprises on the election day.
Their options seem to range from backing their candidate, Sleiman Frangieh, with
certain allies, to withdrawing from the second round, or possibly even casting
blank ballots. The most extreme option suggested is not participating in the
session at all. These parties intend to decide on their final strategy next
week, based on the moves of their rivals and the stances of the undecided.
Supporters of candidate Jihad Azour are tirelessly working to rally support,
aiming to bring the uncommitted voters over to their side. They hope to sway
some Change MPs and independent individuals and reach consensus with all MPs of
the Free Patriotic Movement. The Political Council of the Free Patriotic Current
sees voting for Jihad Azour as inevitable and logical, aiming to confirm their
refusal of the imposed candidate who isn't expected to bring about any
significant changes or reforms. The council is opposed to casting blank votes,
as they believe it might prolong the political vacuum, leading to more
drawbacks. The National Consensus Bloc, which includes five Sunni deputies close
to Hezbollah, warns that the current alignments could lead to a division that
Lebanon cannot bear. They suggest national unity as the way forward.
The Democratic Gathering's deputies, not all of whom are party members, will
have to choose a unified stance in their upcoming meeting, likely to be held
after Walid Jumblatt's return from abroad. Their initial position leans towards
Jihad Azour, but with certain reservations.
The undecided deputies are contemplating putting forth a third candidate,
choosing a unified slogan, or endorsing Jihad Azour, especially in the second
round, if there's no quorum disruption. This option is considered by seven
Change MPs who haven't made their decision yet, but are all against the Frangieh
option. It is worth noting that three Change MPs have already declared their
support for Azour, while two others have rejected both Frangieh and Azour. The
Moderation Bloc has yet to finalize its stance, awaiting the outcomes of
negotiations, Arab sentiments, and rumored forthcoming visit of a Qatari envoy.
They affirm that their stance will be unified and coordinated with five other
deputies. It appears that several independent deputies, yet to decide, are
reluctant to cast a blank ballot so as not to be seen as supporting Frangieh, if
his supporters decide to go in this direction. In the coming week, the frequency
of communications is expected to increase, and the stances that remain vague may
become clearer. The apparent outcome is that the twelfth session will not yield
a result, but it may bring about a new political scene.
Report: PSP, FPM MPs divided over Azour's nomination
Naharnet/June 06/2023
Parliament will convene next week to elect a president, amid high tensions
between supporters of Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh and former minister Jihad
Azour. The opposition and the Free Patriotic Movement said they have agreed on
voting for Azour but media reports said Tuesday that at least six FPM MPs will
not vote for Azour, even after FPM chief Jebran Bassil met with them and tried
to convinced them of voting for the former minister of finance. The Democratic
Gathering bloc also still hasn't decided whether to vote for Azour or not, but
PSP outgoing chief walid Jumblat is leaning toward casting blank votes, al-Akhbar
newspaper said. After returning from Paris, Jumblat will meet with the bloc to
discuss the matter. Political sources told al-Akhbar that the bloc's MPs are
divided over Azour's support. "I don't think that Jumblat would get into a
problem with Hezbollah and me for a candidate nominated by Bassil," Ain el-Tineh
visitors quoted Speaker Nabih Berri as saying. Change and independent MPs are
also divided regarding Azour's nomination, while former Prime Minister Saad
Hariri has reportedly advised the Sunni MPs not to ally with Bassil and with
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, the daily said. Meanwhile, opposition
leaders claim that their candidate can garner 65 votes. "Azour is not the
opposition's candidate, he is a consensual candidate between the opposition and
Hezbollah's ally, the FPM," MP and former presidential candidate Michel Mouawad
said Monday, after he withdrew his nomination and announced his support for
Azour."The 'Franjieh or vacuum' approach is a hegemony project," he added.
Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah on Tuesday stated that the Shiite Duo is not
afraid of the electoral session and that no camp has the needed 65 votes. "Berri's
call refutes the rival camps' claims that there won't be a session because we
can't guarantee the success of our candidate," he said. Berri had on Monday
called for a presidential election session on June 14, a day after the
opposition officially endorsed Azour as its presidential candidate.
Lawyer: Health of Gadhafi's son deteriorating 3 days
into hunger strike
Associated Press/June 06/2023
The health of a son of Libya's late leader Moammar Gadhafi was deteriorating
three days into a hunger strike to protest his detention in Lebanon without
trial, his lawyer said Tuesday. Hannibal Gadhafi was suffering from headaches,
muscle pain and difficulties moving around, his lawyer Paul Romanos said. He
started his hunger strike Saturday. He has been detained in Lebanon since 2015
after he was briefly kidnapped from neighboring Syria, where he had been living
as a political refugee. He was abducted by Lebanese militants demanding
information on the whereabouts of prominent Lebanese Shiite cleric Moussa al-Sadr
who went missing in Libya 45 years ago. Lebanese police later announced it had
collected Hannibal from the northeastern city of Baalbek where he was being
held. He has been detained in a Beirut jail without trial since then. Romanos
said Gadhafi was also suffering from back pain due to being held in a small room
where he cannot move freely or exercise. "He is continuing his hunger strike and
his health is deteriorating," Romanos told The Associated Press in a voice
message. A Lebanese security official who spoke on condition of anonymity said
he had no information on Gadhafi's health status.
The disappearance of al-Sadr in 1978 has been a long-standing sore point in
Lebanon. The cleric's family believes he may still be alive in a Libyan prison,
though most Lebanese presume al-Sadr is dead. He would be 94 years old. Al-Sadr
was the founder of the Amal group. The group later fought in Lebanon's 1975-90
civil war. Lebanon's powerful Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri heads the group.
Most of al-Sadr's followers are convinced that Moammar Gadhafi ordered al-Sadr
killed in a dispute over Libyan payments to Lebanese militias. Libya has
maintained that the cleric and his two traveling companions left Tripoli in 1978
on a flight to Rome and suggested he was a victim of a power struggle among
Shiites. Gadhafi was killed by opposition fighters in 2011, ending his
four-decade rule of the north African country. Hannibal Gadhafi was born two
years before al-Sadr disappeared. He fled to Algeria along with his mother and
several other relatives after his father's fall from power. He later ended up in
Syria where he was given political asylum before being kidnapped and brought to
Lebanon.
Boycott or blank vote: What will Franjieh supporters do in June 14 session?
Naharnet/June 06/2023
Hezbollah and Amal are holding ongoing talks to decide on what to do during an
upcoming presidential election session on June 14, al-Akhbar newspaper reported
Tuesday. One of the ideas that supporters of Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh are
discussing is whether to attend the session, the daily said.
It added that the MPs might cast blank ballots during the first round and leave
before the second round to strip the session of its quorum, in order to postpone
the session and win more time. "The Shiite Duo has the right to thwart quorum,
exactly as the opposition camp was publicly declaring that it would block quorum
to prevent Franjieh from becoming president," Ain el-Tineh sources told al-Jadeed
Monday.
Azour decries 'disinformation campaign' against him
Naharnet/June 06/2023
Presidential candidate Jihad Azour has lamented “the false information that is
being circulated about him through media outlets and social networking
websites,” a media report said. “I’m facing a broad disinformation campaign
aimed at tarnishing my image and credibility, which is taking advantage of the
restraints stipulated by my job” at the International Monetary Fund, Azour told
those whom he recently met, according to Al-Arabiya TV. Azour added that, if
elected, he will seek to “unify all Lebanese,” not “challenge any of them.”
Judge named to look into Oueidat-Bitar standoff
Naharnet/June 06/2023
The Higher Judicial Council has appointed Judge Habib Rizkallah to look into the
judicial standoff between State Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat and Beirut port blast
investigator Judge Tarek Bitar. Bitar had on February 6 postponed questioning of
officials over the dispute with Oueidat. Bitar resumed his probe in January
after a 13-month hiatus amid vehement political and legal pushback. Reopening
the case, he had charged several senior former and incumbent officials,
including Oueidat. Oueidat retaliated by charging the judge with "usurping
power" and insubordination, slapping Bitar with a travel ban. Bitar told
reporters that he postponed all interrogations due to the "lack of cooperation"
from the prosecutor's office, without setting new dates. "There are charges
accusing me of usurping power that must be resolved," he said. If these charges
"are proven, then I must be held to account, and if the contrary happens, then I
must continue the investigation," Bitar argued. One of history's biggest
non-nuclear explosions, the blast on August 4, 2020 destroyed much of Beirut
port and surrounding areas, killing more than 215 people and injuring over
6,500. Authorities said the mega-explosion was caused by a fire in a portside
warehouse where a vast stockpile of the industrial chemical ammonium nitrate had
been haphazardly stored for years. Observers had feared the spat over the blast
probe could lead to the outright collapse of the judicial system -- one of the
country's last fully functioning state institutions.
Free Patriotic Movement reaffirms endorsement of Jihad Azour in presidential
elections
LBCI/June 06/2023
The Free Patriotic Movement's (FPM) political council announced its endorsement
of Dr. Jihad Azour as the consensus candidate in the upcoming presidential
elections during their regular monthly meeting on Monday. The meeting was
chaired by MP Gebran Bassil and attended by President Michel Aoun. In his
address, Aoun underscored the ongoing battle against corruption and the systemic
risk of reform stagnation within the current political structure. Bassil
presented the political directions of the FPM and discussed the trajectory of
the presidential election. He outlined the decision to support Dr. Azour, a
decision backed by a group of parliamentary blocs that represent a majority
among Christians and enjoys significant national credibility. The FPM's
political council affirmed its commitment to the decision and called for the FPM
deputies to vote for Dr. Azour in the upcoming electoral session in Parliament.
This endorsement is a strategic move to reject any imposed candidate, from whom
no significant reform or systemic change is expected. The agreement to endorse
Dr. Azour was made in tandem with an agreement on a reformative, sovereign
rescue program. This coordinated approach ensures a united front, providing Dr.
Azour with an increased chance of success in his pursuit of office and execution
of the reform program. These principles and strategies were articulated by the
FPM chairman in his latest speech at the annual FPM dinner in Byblos,
reinforcing the FPM's commitment to meaningful change and the fight against
corruption.
Rahi meets Kanaan in Bkerki
NNA/June 06/2023
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Beshara Boutros Al-Rahi, is currently meeting
in Bkerki with MP Ibrahim Kanaan.
Berri welcomes Chinese delegation, lauds support to Lebanon
in all international forums
NNA/June 06/2023
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Tuesday welcomed at his Ain al-Tineh residence,
President of the Institute of Party History and Literature of the Central
Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Qu Qingshan, who visited him with an
accompanying delegation, in the presence of Chinese Ambassador to Lebanon, Qian
Minjian. The meeting reportedly focused on the general conditions in Lebanon and
the region. The delegation invited Speaker Berri to visit China. During the
meeting, Speaker Berri stressed "the importance of strengthening parliamentary
relations between the two countries in various fields." He also praised "the
People's Republic of China's support to Lebanon in all international forums, as
well as its support for the rights of the Palestinian people." Moreover, Speaker
Berri valued China for "its role in achieving the Saudi-Iranian agreement,
because of its positive repercussions in the region in terms of progress and
stability."Berri also called on the Chinese side to "invest in Lebanon in
various sectors and to contribute to the process of the country’s advancement
and development." The Chinese delegation extended to Speaker Berri a symbolic
gift from the Chinese heritage, which is a map of the "Silk Road".
Mikati chairs meetings over new electricity tarrifs,
discusses housing loans with Habib
NNA/June 06/2023
Caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, on Tuesday chaired a ministerial meeting
at the Grand Serail, in the presence of Finance Minister Youssef Khalil, Energy
Minister Walid Fayyad, EDL Chairman Eng. Kamal Hayek, as well as the Ministry of
Finance’s General Director George Maarawi.
On emerging, Minister Fayyad said that the meeting was held upon his request to
discuss the electricity tariffs. “Everyone has concerns regarding January and
February’s electricity bills, and we have reached some agreements that
Electricité du Liban could actually implement,” Fayyad added.
"We do not want to burden people with the energy consumption bill of public
institutions and ministries, which must carry out their duties and pay their own
bills. The same applies to refugee camps,” Fayyad added, after pledging reduced
bills with better exchange rates, in coordination with the Ministry of Finance
and the Lebanese Central Bank, for bills issued after March 2023. “Prime
Minister Mikati has invited us to participate in a meeting that will be held on
Monday morning in presence of the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian
Coordinator, Imran Riza, to discuss the means by which the UN could cover the
bills of refugee camps, especially that Electricité du Liban has finished
installing the required meters and could now issue proper bills. We can no
longer offer free power supply to refugee camps,” Fayyad explained. "The
Ministry is still in the process of implementing its plan to increase the
electricity supply, which we aspire to reach ten hours per day through the use
of all electricity plants on all Lebanese territories,” Fayyad added. Mikati
separately welcomed the General Manager of the Housing Bank, Antoine Habib, who
said that in light of the decisions that were made during the Council of
Ministers’ session on May 26, 2023, Lebanese individuals with limited income
will be able to obtain a loan of USD 40 thousand and USD 50 thousand for those
with middle income, provided that they do not have any property registered under
their name. “This loan was signed back in 2019 between the Arab Fund and the
Housing Bank and will materialize as soon as possible. There will be a platform
through which any Lebanese citizen can fill out the conditions from his home,
and if he/she fulfills all the requirements, then he/she can obtain the loan
without anyone’s interference,” Habib added.
Bassil, Tarraf hold “honest discussion” about Syrian
refugee crisis in Lebanon
NNA/June 06/2023
Free Patriotic Movement leader, MP Gebran Bassil, on Tuesday met with European
Union Ambassador, Ralph Tarraf. Talks between the pair reportedly touched on the
country’s current political and economic situation. “There was an honest
discussion about the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon,” according to a statement
by the FPM press office. Minister Bassil reminded Ambassador Tarraf of the Free
Patriotic Movement's unwavering positions concerning refugees in Lebanon and
"the need to implement the decisions of the Conference of the Displaced.
Bou Habib welcomes Australian Assistant Foreign Minister:
Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon political rather than economic
NNA/June 06/2023
Caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Dr. Abdullah Bou Habib, on
Tuesday welcomed Australian Assistant Foreign Minister, Member of Parliament,
Tim Watts, with whom he discussed bilateral relations, as well as the situation
in Lebanon and the region. Watts thanked Lebanon for its "close cooperation with
Australia in areas of common interest."During the meeting, Minister Bou Habib
touched on the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon, considering them political
rather than economic refugees, calling for "Australia’s assistance, and that of
other countries, to resolve this crisis." Minister Bou Habib then received an
invitation from the Iraqi Foreign Minister, which was conveyed to him by Iraqi
Embassy’s Head of Mission, Amin Al-Nasrawi, and the Director of Protocol, Dr.
Madian Al-Kalash.
Rebirth Beirut Presents HOLE: A Bi-personal Exhibition by
Micaela Legnaioli and Franco Losvizzero
NNA/June 06/2023
Rebirth Beirut Cultural Space is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition
“HOLE” featuring the works of Micaela Legnaioli and Franco Losvizzero. The
exhibition is under the patronage of the Embassy of Lebanon in Italy and the
Italian Cultural Institute in Beirut and is curated by Samar Hawa.
The opening night will be on June 9th from 6pm to 9pm at Rebirth Beirut
headquarters in Gemmayzeh, Gouraud Street. The exhibition will remain until June
30th from 2pm to 7pm, Monday through Friday. HOLE delves into the concept of an
opening or cavity, whether natural or artificial, deep and fathomless, which
penetrates profoundly or passes through a surface. As Micaela Legnaioli explores
metal sheets using steel tips and acid, Franco Losvizzero digs inside himself to
access deep memories. Losvizzero's journey resembles a hole in the unconscious,
projecting him into a surreal realm of dreams and nightmares. Both artists
explore the collective memories of humanity alongside their own experiences,
revealing the common ground shared by all individuals — a hole that exists
within each of us. Beirut, a city grappling with its own wounds and holes,
serves as a poignant backdrop for this exploration. Mr. Gaby Fernaine, founder
and president of Rebirth Beirut, expressed his views on the new exhibition
saying: “The devastating explosion in 2020 left behind a profound void, a hole,
in the essence of the city's streets. Legnaioli, Losvizzero, and Rebirth Beirut
come together, uniting their efforts in the reconstruction of not only the urban
fabric but also the cultural and inner rebirth of the city”. This exhibition
builds a bridge between Italy and Lebanon, transcending barriers, wars,
pollution, and wounds that Beirut symbolizes. It represents a testimony to the
city's painful history and a beacon of hope for its immense capacity for
rebirth. Fernaine added. Part of the proceeds will go to support Rebirth
Beirut’s initiatives which serve the beautiful capital: Beirut and which aim to
restore life and hope in the city.
Lebanon partakes in 111th Session of the International
Labour Conference in Geneva
NNA/June 06/2023
A Lebanese delegation, headed by Caretaker Minister of Labor, Mustafa Bayram,
and comprising of the General Labor Confederation team headed by Vice President,
Hassan Fakih, Federation of Trade Unions Head in Lebanon, Ali Taher Yassin,
member of the Executive Council Imad Yaghi, and the government’s Permanent
Mission to Geneva took part in the opening session of the International Labour
Organization’s 111th annual Conference in Geneva, which kicked off on June 5 and
lasts till June 16, 2023. Worker, employer and government delegates from the
ILO's 187 Member States are expected to tackle a wide range of issues,
including: a just transition towards sustainable and inclusive economies,
quality apprenticeships, and labour protection.
UN Secretary-General appoints Marguerite El Helou Director
of United Nations Information Centre in Cairo
NNA/June 06/2023
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Marguerite El
Helou (Margo El Helou) of Lebanon as Director of the United Nations Information
Centre (UNIC) in Cairo. She assumed her new duties on 1 June 2023. A field
office of the United Nations Department of Global Communications, the United
Nations Information Centre in Cairo provides services to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Ms. El Helou has 25 years of experience in communications, including eight years
as Director, UNIC Beirut. She also worked for the Economic and Social Commission
for Western Asia. Prior to the United Nations, she was responsible for
communications in the Near East for Procter & Gamble and a marketing manager for
several companies. Ms. El Helou has extensive experience in designing and
implementing communication strategies for the United Nations in the Middle East
and North Africa. She has developed communications campaigns on the Sustainable
Development Goals, climate change, women’s empowerment, migration, racism and
hate speech. She has worked with both traditional and digital media, including
the web and social media platforms. She also has a wide knowledge of the media
scene in the Middle East and North Africa region as well as a deep understanding
of the political, economic and social issues in the region. Ms. El Helou holds a
bachelor’s degree in agriculture from the American University of Beirut as well
as certificates in media, television, external relations, marketing and business
solutions. She is fluent in English, French and Arabic.
EU rewards journalists from Egypt, Lebanon and Syria at
2023 edition of Samir Kassir Award
Naharnet/June 06/2023
The Delegation of the European Union to Lebanon and the Samir Kassir Foundation
have announced the results of the 18th edition of the Samir Kassir Award for
Freedom of the Press, in a ceremony held at the Sursock Palace Gardens, in
Beirut. This Award, established and funded by the European Union, is widely
recognized internationally as a flagship prize for press freedom and the most
prestigious journalism award in the Middle East, North Africa and Gulf region.
Since 2006, the Award ceremony has been held annually to commemorate the
anniversary of Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir’s assassination, on 2 June 2005
in Beirut, and celebrate his life, his values, and his memory. "The civic space
in the region continues to shrink, with many journalists facing threats of
arbitrary detention and politicized legal actions. These developments are taking
place amid global concerns around information manipulation and the role of the
media in providing accurate and reliable information to the public. The Samir
Kassir Award reaffirms the European Union’s commitment to supporting
independent, in-depth journalism as a fundamental contribution to transparency
and accountability. This Award rewards journalists who have distinguished
themselves through the quality of their work and their commitment to human
rights and democracy," an EU statement said. This year, 242 journalists
participated in the competition from Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan,
Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, and
Yemen. 81 candidates competed in the Opinion Piece category, 110 in the
Investigative Article category, and 54 in the Audiovisual News Report category.
The winner in each of the three categories is awarded a prize of €10,000. Each
of the short-listed finalists per category receive a €1,000 prize.
The winners of the 2023 Samir Kassir Award are: - Opinion Piece category: Inas
Hakky (born in 1983), from Syria, for her article entitled “An open letter to
Jackie Chan” published on 25 July 2022 in Raseef22. This article uses an
innovative format in response to actor Jackie Chan’s intended visit to Syria for
filming purposes and highlights the grim reality in many of the country’s
regions that have been destroyed by years of conflict. - Investigative Article
category: Mahmoud Al-Sobky (born in 1984), from Egypt, for his investigation
entitled “Migration with look-alike passports” published on 6 July 2022 on Al
Jazeera’s website. This report dives in the murky waters of smugglers, illegal
migration, and the black mart of European travel documents.
- Audio-visual News Report category: Mohamad Chreyteh (born in 1987), from
Lebanon, for his report entitled “Lebanese drag queens brave social, and
political pressure” aired on Deutsche Welle Arabic on 9 December 2022. The
report focuses on the challenges faced by Lebanon’s LGBTIQ+ community amid
growing governmental and religious restrictions of their freedom of movement and
association. The Ambassador of the European Union to Lebanon, Ralph Tarraf,
said: “While the Samir Kassir Award is about the freedom of the press in
particular, I believe it has become the right platform to defend freedoms in
general in this region. This is especially true when you look at the hundreds of
submissions the Samir Kassir Foundation receives every year, and the topics that
they address. I would like congratulate the finalists for making it to this
stage of the competition. Thank you for being the voices of millions of people
in this region.”Gisèle Khoury, President of the Samir Kassir Foundation,
emphasized that “freedom, the rule of law, and modernity are the three core
values that Samir Kassir and the Award that carries his name have defended.
These values are today under attack in the region.” Adding, “we have to
safeguard journalism, whatever the challenges, because a free press reflects the
true face and role of Lebanon in the region, and this is the mission that the
Samir Kassir Foundation is pursuing on a daily basis.”An independent
seven-member jury from the Arab League and European Union member states selected
the winners. This year’s jury gathered Madi Al-Khamees (Kuwait), Secretary
General of the Arab Media Forum; Monika Lengauer (Germany), lecturer at the
Erich Brost Institute for International Journalism, Technical University
Dortmund; Patrick Leusch (Belgium), Managing Director of the Deutsche Welle
Global Media Forum; Afrah Nasser (Yemen), award-winning journalist and
non-resident fellow at the Arab Center, Washington, D.C.; Nayla Razzouk
(Lebanon), Managing Editor, Middle East and North Africa at Bloomberg News and
Samir Kassir Foundation’s representative in the jury; Eduardo Suárez (Spain),
Head of Editorial at the Reuters Institute – University of Oxford; and Asaad Al-Zalzalee
(Iraq), Investigative journalist and winner of the Samir Kassir Award in 2017
and 2018. For the fourth time, the Award included the Students’ Prize, which
allowed 18 students from Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia,
and Yemen to get advanced access to the finalists’ submissions, interact
virtually with them, and debate the issues that were highlighted in the articles
and reports. Students voted for their favorite submission following the debate
and selected Inas Hakky for her article entitled “An open letter to Jackie
Chan”. More information about the 2023 edition of the Samir Kassir Award for
Freedom of the Press, the winning articles and audio-visual report, as well as
biographies, articles and reports of all previous winners are available on the
website www.samirkassiraward.org.'
Team Biden Mainstreams Terror Financing in Lebanon
Tony Badran/The Tablet/June 06/2023
Fifteen years of U.S. aid to ‘state security’ arms like the LAF and ISF have
cost American taxpayers billions while harming Israel and strengthening
Hezbollah
So obsessed is the Biden administration with the dubious art of using taxpayer
dollars to underwrite the Lebanese pseudo-state run by the terrorist group
Hezbollah that it has spent its two years in office coming up with legally
questionable schemes to pay the salaries of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF),
setting new precedents in the abuse of U.S. foreign security assistance
programs. In January, the administration rolled out its program to provide
direct salary payments, in cash, to both the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the
Internal Security Forces (ISF). This time around, the White House won’t be
delivering the cash on pallets, as Obama did when he bribed Iran. Rather, it
will disburse the crisp dollar bills through the U.N. Development Program. The
result is the same: The U.S. government’s giant cash pump is working overtime to
benefit a terror group that has purposefully maimed and killed hundreds of
Americans.
The scale of U.S. financing of Lebanon’s Hezbollah-dominated military apparatus
cannot be understated: around 100,000 Lebanese are now getting cash stipends
courtesy of the American taxpayer to spend in Hezbollah-land. But a small thing
like the U.S. becoming massively complicit in financing terrorism hardly causes
Team Obama-Biden to bat an eyelid. As the administration’s nominee for the next
ambassador to Lebanon, Lisa Johnson, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
last month, if confirmed she would “continue to advocate for very strong, robust
security assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces and Internal Security Forces.”
And that’s because “they’re doing a great job of bolstering stability and
security in this part of the world.”
No doubt. And as a testament to the exceptional job the LAF is doing, Johnson’s
comments came a couple of weeks after Hezbollah fired or allowed the firing of
34 rockets across the border and dispatched a bomber from Lebanon deep into
Israel, and a few days before the group put on a large military exercise to
which it invited local and international media.
Whereas the LAF’s standing as a U.S.-equipped military support system for
Hezbollah is well-established, the ISF usually doesn’t receive as much
attention. A recent ISF accomplishment, however, did make headlines: “Lebanon
busts suspected Israeli ‘spy networks,’” read an AFP headline last year.
According to the Lebanese authorities, the ISF’s hard-working Information Branch
uncovered no less than 17 networks inside Lebanese territory supposedly spying
for Israel.
The Hezbollah mouthpiece, al-Akhbar, which first reported the story, said the
ISF uncovered a breach within Hezbollah’s ranks, which it shared with the group,
leading to that person’s detention by Hezbollah’s security apparatus. Other
alleged spies were said to be collecting intelligence on Hamas in Lebanon;
another was a Syrian in Damascus who was said to have been providing
intelligence on various locales there. Within a month, the ISF had busted more
individuals in south Lebanon for supposedly spying for Israel. News of this feat
was even carried by Iranian media.
Echoing Lisa Johnson, Hezbollah heaped praise on the ISF for doing a great job
of bolstering stability and security and encouraged further coordination. And no
wonder: If your definition of Lebanese security is for Hezbollah to grow
stronger, then having a U.S.-equipped and trained security service to do your
counterintelligence dirty work is certainly a boon. Although the ISF had
regularly uncovered alleged Israeli spies before, al-Akhbar noted that the bust
of the 17 networks represented one of the largest such operations since 2009.
It was in the spring of that year, shortly after the State Department’s Bureau
of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) launched its
assistance program for the ISF, that the Lebanese counterintelligence force
helpfully uncovered an Israeli infiltration of Hezbollah’s ranks. The then-head
of the ISF shared the intelligence with the group. An article in the Los Angeles
Times, citing Lebanese officials and an unnamed Western diplomat, reported that
the Lebanese redirected for use against Israel signal-detection equipment
provided to them to fight Islamic militants. Israeli national security reporters
likewise reported similar claims. Meanwhile, a Hezbollah intelligence official
told Time that the investigations involved the ISF and Hezbollah exchanging
information.
In other words, the concurrence of the growth of ISF capabilities, thanks to
U.S. support, and the intensification of counterintelligence operations against
Israel was no coincidence. Nor was it an anomaly. Rather, enhancing Hezbollah’s
internal security and its operations against Israel has been a feature of the
U.S. assistance program since its inception all the way to the present.
Enhancing Hezbollah’s internal security and its operations against Israel has
been a feature of the U.S. assistance program since its inception all the way to
the present.
This is hardly an accident. For U.S. policymakers, synergy between the LAF/ISF
and Hezbollah is baked into their policy, which is predicated on fostering and
building up a common anti-Israel posture that joins Lebanon’s so-called “state
institutions” with the country’s dominant terror group. The implicit meaning of
the U.S. bureaucratic mantra that U.S. assistance aims to “undermine Hezbollah’s
narrative that its weapons are necessary to defend Lebanon” is precisely that
the LAF/ISF and the Lebanese terror group are jointly competing to achieve the
same goals—namely, defending Lebanon from Israel. The LAF/ISF using U.S. and
Western assistance to uncover Israeli cells, therefore, is well within bounds of
the stated U.S. policy; in fact, it is proof that the policy is “succeeding.”
It should be emphasized here that the use of U.S. funding, training, and
equipment to target Israel and secure Hezbollah’s interests is not an accidental
byproduct of U.S. Lebanon policy; rather, it is the policy. The U.S. itself has
used the Lebanese security agencies and military either as a backdoor to pass
intelligence to Hezbollah, as it did in the early days of the Syrian war, when
Hezbollah was facing blowback from its military intervention in Syria, or simply
to allow the LAF and the security agencies to protect Hezbollah’s rear inside
Lebanon.
The policy itself is the product of the moment when the Obama administration was
openly talking about partnering with Iran and its IRGC militias (see, Iraq) to
“defeat ISIS.” ISIS, therefore, became perfect cover for the broader regional
realignment and for coordination between Hezbollah and the military and security
agencies. The policy, therefore, puts on display the dividends of realignment
while demonstrating to Iran the U.S. commitment to protecting Iranian “equities”
that Obama directly promised in his letter to Khamenei.
Of course, Hezbollah, as the only power in Beirut, sets the parameters of this
process. When the former head of the ISF’s Information Branch was perceived to
have crossed a line with regard to involvement in the war in Syria against the
Assad regime, he was eliminated in 2012.
With ISIS gone and Assad securely in power, Team Obama-Biden is pushing a new
play to promote its policy of “regional integration”—that is, encouraging Arab
states to invest in Iranian holdings to promote a U.S.-backed, Iranian-dominated
regional order. Today’s excuse is fighting “captagon,” the cheap amphetamine
pill popular throughout the region.
The administration, which has spent the last two-and-a-half years pathologically
pressuring the Saudis to underwrite Lebanon, doubtless will trumpet the
“outstanding effort” the ISF and LAF are making, despite severe economic
challenges, to combat captagon smuggling, in order to prod the Saudis to open
the spigots to finance everything from LAF/ISF salaries to the building of a new
LAF naval base at the Beirut port—or whatever other pet project Team Biden-Obama
dreams up to decorate Hezbollah-land.
Last October, a few months after the ISF uncovered the Israeli cells, the U.S.
Embassy in Beirut celebrated 15 years of U.S. funding for the ISF. The current
nominee for ambassador, who recently served as principal deputy assistant
secretary for INL, and her two predecessors have all endorsed and promoted the
underwriting of the Hezbollah auxiliary forces who run counterintelligence for
the terror group.
Amusingly, former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richard, during whose
tenure LAF-Hezbollah coordination and joint deployment intensified under the
American cover of “defeating ISIS,” and who oversaw the building of U.S.
taxpayer-funded facilities for the ISF academy, is now the administration’s
nominee for coordinator for counterterrorism. The current ambassador, Dorothy
Shea, who pioneered the legally flimsy precedent of making direct cash payments
to the LAF and ISF—a dodge that will probably implicate the U.S. in financing
terrorism—has been nominated to be the deputy representative to the U.N.
Meanwhile, current ambassadorial nominee Lisa Johnson assures us of her
commitment to the policy of financing counterintelligence for Hezbollah.
The 15-year-long effort to fund and strengthen Hezbollah’s terror empire has
cost the American taxpayer billions of dollars while doing untold damage to
Israeli security as well as to the people inside Lebanon condemned to live under
the terror group’s rule. Now it seems that price may pale next to the bizarre
mainstreaming of terror financing as an arm of U.S. foreign policy.
*Tony Badran is Tablet magazine’s Levant analyst and a research fellow at the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He tweets @AcrossTheBay.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/team-biden-mainstreams-terror-financing-lebanon
Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports
And News published on June 06-07/2023
Five nations elected to U.N. Security
Council, but Belarus denied
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters)/Tue, June 6, 2023
The United Nations General Assembly elected Algeria, Guyana, Sierra Leone,
Slovenia and South Korea to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday for two-year
terms starting on Jan. 1, 2024, while Belarus - allied with Russia in its
invasion of Ukraine - was denied a spot. Algeria, Guyana, Sierra Leone and South
Korea ran unopposed for a spot on the 15-member body, which is charged with
maintaining international peace and security. In the only competitive race,
Slovenia beat out Belarus. The five elected nations will replace Albania,
Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates. The Security Council is the
only U.N. body that can make legally binding decisions such as imposing
sanctions and authorizing use of force. It has five permanent veto-wielding
members: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States. To ensure
geographical representation, seats are allocated to regional groups. But even if
candidates are running unopposed in their group, they still need to win the
support of more than two-thirds of the General Assembly. Guyana received 191
votes, Sierra Leone 188, Algeria received 184 votes, South Korea 180. Slovenia
won 153 votes to beat Belarus, which received 38 votes. Belarus had been a
candidate unopposed since 2007 for the 2024/25 Eastern European seat. Slovenia
entered the race in December 2021 after a brutal crackdown by the authorities in
Belarus on protests following a 2020 presidential election. Russia has since
used the territory of Belarus as a launchpad for its invasion of Ukraine in
February 2022. "The Russians have always argued that a lot of states support
Ukraine in public at the U.N., but sympathize with Russia in private. But this
secret ballot does not support that claim at all," International Crisis Group
U.N. Director Richard Gowan said. Russia moved ahead last month with a plan to
deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. It is the Kremlin's first deployment
of such weapons outside Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
Blinken says US will press ahead with
Israel-Saudi normalization
Associated Press/Tue, June 6, 2023
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that the expansion of Israeli
settlements and ongoing demolitions of Palestinian homes in the occupied West
Bank are taking Israel further away from peace with the Palestinians. Yet, he
stressed that the U.S.-Israel relationship remains "iron-clad," lauded American
security commitments to the Jewish state and said the Biden administration will
continue to promote normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors,
particularly with Saudi Arabia. At the same time, he made clear the
administration's displeasure with actions that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu's far-right government has taken in expanding Jewish settlements and
increasing Palestinian home demolitions. "Settlement expansion clearly presents
an obstacle to the horizon of hope we seek," Blinken said in a speech to the
American-Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington. "Likewise, any move
toward annexation of the West Bank, de facto or de jure, disruption of the
historic status quo at the holy sites, the continuing demolitions of homes and
the evictions of families that have lived in their homes for generations damage
prospects for two states," he said. Improving Israeli-Arab relations cannot
replace a two-state solution with the Palestinians, he said. "Integration and
normalization efforts are not a substitute for progress between Israelis and
Palestinians, and they should not come at its expense," Blinken said. "Israel's
deepened relationships with its partners can and should advance the well-being
of the Palestinian people and the prospects of a two-state solution," he added.
Blinken will visit Saudi Arabia this week, in part to discuss prospects for the
Saudis joining the so-called "Abraham Accords" that were completed during the
Trump administration between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and
Morocco. "The United States has a real national security interest in promoting
normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia," he said. "We believe we can and
must play an integral role in advancing it. We have no illusions this could be
done quickly or easily but we remain committed to working toward this outcome."
Blinken also reaffirmed the Biden administration's determination not to allow
Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.
US slaps sanctions on Iranian, Chinese targets
in action over Tehran’s missile, military programs
Reuters/June 06, 2023
WASHINGTON: The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on over a dozen
people and entities in Iran, China and Hong Kong, accusing the procurement
network of supporting Iran’s missile and military programs as Washington ramps
up pressure on Tehran. The US Treasury Department in a statement said the
network conducted transactions and facilitated the procurement of sensitive and
critical parts and technology for key actors in Iran’s ballistic missile
development, including Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics,
which is under US sanctions. Among those hit with sanctions was Iran’s defense
attache in Beijing, Davoud Damghani, whom the Treasury accused of coordinating
military-related procurements from China for Iranian end-users. “The United
States will continue to target illicit transnational procurement networks that
covertly support Iran’s ballistic missile production and other military
programs,” Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence,
Brian Nelson, said in the statement.
Iran unveils first hypersonic missile in
challenge to Israel and West
James Rothwell/The Telegraph/Tue, June 6, 2023
Iran has unveiled a hypersonic missile dubbed the “Fattah” which it claims is
impossible to shoot down, in a potentially major challenge to Israel and Western
leaders. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps revealed the new weapon, which can
allegedly travel at 15 times the speed of sound, at a ceremony attended by
Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president, and the regime’s top military chiefs. “Today we
feel that the deterrent power has been formed ... this power is an anchor of
lasting security and peace for the regional countries,” said Mr Raisi. Iran also
published a video demonstration that purported to show the missile in action,
though much of it appeared to rely on computer-generated imagery. General Amir
Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace programme,
claimed that “there exists no system that can rival or counter this missile”.
The assertion that the missile can both bypass and destroy air defence systems
creates a significant security headache for Israel, Iran’s arch-foe in the
region. It will also cause deep concern among Western leaders, who are
increasingly wary of Iran’s growing military capabilities - in particular its
new security pact with Russia which is assisting the invasion of Ukraine.
An Iranian state television report on the ceremony claimed that the missile can
destroy “the enemy’s advanced anti-missile systems and is a big generational
leap in the field of missiles”. “It can bypass the most advanced anti-ballistic
missile systems of the United States and the Zionist regime, including Israel’s
Iron Dome,” added the report. The Fattah system has a range of 1,400km, can move
in and out of space and, according to one Iranian general, is capable of hitting
targets in Israel in as little as 400 seconds. Israel and Iran are locked in an
escalating shadow war in which they have attacked each others’ ships, along with
other key infrastructure. Israel is also suspected of launching a series of
covert attacks on Tehran’s nuclear programme, which it regards as an existential
threat. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has repeatedly suggested
that he may take decisive military action against the nuclear programme in the
near future, a move that could spiral into open regional warfare. It comes after
Iran announced it had completed work on the hypersonic missile, which according
to some Israeli media reports may have been achieved with technological support
from Russia. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Iran has been providing Vladimir
Putin’s forces with hundreds if not thousands of drones and missiles. In return,
Moscow is to send powerful fighter jets to Tehran and could be assisting the
regime in building up other areas of its military prowess. Broaden your horizons
with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month, then
enjoy 1 year for just $9 with our US-exclusive offer.
Milley says fighting in Ukraine has increased
and cautions it will continue for lengthy time
AMERICAN CEMETERY, Normandy, France (AP)/Tue, June 6, 2023
U.S. Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Mark Milley said Tuesday that fighting in
Ukraine has increased, but he cautioned against reading too much into each day’s
operations. “There’s activity throughout Russian-occupied Ukraine and fighting
has picked up a bit,” Milley said in an exclusive interview with The Associated
Press at the American Cemetery in Normandy, France — the final resting place of
almost 9,400 troops who died 79 years ago during the allied D-Day invasion on
June 6, 1944. Milley said it was up to Ukraine to announce whether its
counteroffensive campaign has formally begun, but he said Ukrainian troops are
ready for this fight. “It’s our estimation that the Ukrainian military is well
prepared for whatever they do — they choose to fight in the offensive fight or
in the defense," he said. "They’re well-prepared.”
But he also warned that as time goes on the fighting will vary. “Like the Battle
of Normandy or any other major battle, warfare is a give and take,” Milley said.
“There will be days you see a lot of activity and there will be days you may see
very little activity. There will be offensive actions and defense actions. So
this will be a back-and-forth fight for a considerable length of time.” The U.S.
and allies and partners have been pouring billions of dollars in military
weapons into Ukraine and have set up a wide range of combat training so Kyiv's
forces can maintain that equipment and prepare for the long-anticipated
counteroffensive. Milley spoke as Ukrainian forces are widely seen to be moving
forward with a new surge of fighting in patches along more than 1,000 kilometers
(600 miles) of front line in the east and south. The troops were moving to end
what has been a winter-long battlefield stalemate and punch through Russian
defensive lines in southeast Ukraine after 15 months of war. Punctuating that
fighting was the stunning collapse Tuesday of a dam in southern Ukraine,
triggering floods, endangering crops in the country’s breadbasket and
threatening drinking water supplies. Both sides blamed the other, as they
scrambled to evacuate residents. The surge in fighting comes after a long winter
of preparation. Nearly weekly at times, the U.S. and allies pumped millions of
rounds of artillery and other ammunition into Ukraine, along with increasingly
lethal air defense systems, including Patriot missile batteries, tanks, drones
and other weapons. Looking back over the past year, Milley said Ukrainian forces
defended their country well from the start of the invasion in February through
the middle of the summer, and then did two successful offensive operations in
Kharkiv and Kherson. Milley said he believes the training and weapons supplied
by the allies over the winter have prepared Ukraine for the coming fight. “A lot
of training went into that, a lot of supplies, a lot of ammunition was provided
by other countries to include the United States,” said Milley. "They’ve been
training now we think pretty well in combined arms operations. So I think
they’re prepared for what they think they need to do, no matter what type of
operation they run.”Standing in front of rows of white crosses at the cemetery,
Milley spoke just a few minutes after he and other top U.S. and allied military
leaders laid wreaths and saluted the gathering of the last surviving World War
II veterans attending the ceremony. The veterans, some of whom had stormed Omaha
Beach, were almost all in their late 90s. But as Taps played, many rose from
their wheelchairs to stand for the tribute.Reflecting on their fight, Milley
said there is a thread of similarity in the wars. “You can’t really compare that
campaign to what’s happening in size and scale and scope ... in Ukraine. But the
purpose is very similar, which is the Ukrainians, obviously, their objective is
to liberate the Russian-occupied Ukraine,” Milley said.
UN nuclear chief says agency 'very fair but
firm' after Israeli criticism on Iran
Associated Press/Tue, June 6, 2023
The International Atomic Energy Agency will "never politicize" its work in Iran,
the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said, insisting after Israel's prime
minister accused it of capitulating to Iranian pressure that his agency has been
"very fair but firm." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's comments came
after a confidential report from the IAEA last week said that its investigators
had closed off their investigation of traces of man-made uranium found at
Marivan, near the city of Abadeh, about 525 kilometers (325 miles) southeast of
Tehran. Analysts had repeatedly linked Marivan to a possible secret Iranian
military nuclear program and accused Iran of conducting high-explosives tests
there in the early 2000s. "Iran is continuing to lie to the International Atomic
Energy Agency. The agency's capitulation to Iranian pressure is a black stain on
its record," Netanyahu told his Cabinet in televised remarks on Sunday. "If the
IAEA becomes a political organization, then its oversight activity in Iran is
without significance, as will be its reports on Iran's nuclear activity,"
Netanyahu said. Asked on Monday about that criticism, IAEA Director-General
Rafael Mariano Grossi said that his agency's work is "neutral, it is impartial,
it is technical." "We will always say things as they are," Grossi told reporters
on the first day of a regular meeting in Vienna of the IAEA board of governors.
Grossi added that he would "never enter into a polemic" with the head of
government of a member of the IAEA. "We never politicize. We have our standards
and apply them always," he said. "The politicization is in the eye of the
beholder," Grossi added. Israel considers Iran to be its greatest enemy, and
Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he wouldn't allow Iran to develop a nuclear
weapon. He has said international diplomacy should be accompanied by a serious
military option, and hinted that Israel would be prepared to strike Iran on its
own if necessary. Before Netanyahu's comments, Israeli Foreign Ministry
spokesperson Lior Haiat said in a statement on Friday that the explanations
provided by Iran for the presence of nuclear material at the Marivan site are
"not reliable or technically possible."But Grossi insisted that the IAEA will
"never, ever" water down its safeguards standards. "We have been strict,
technically impartial and, as I like to say, very fair but firm," he said.
Analysts had repeatedly linked Marivan to a possible clandestine Iranian
military nuclear program that the IAEA, the West and other countries say was
abandoned in 2003. They had accused Iran of conducting high-explosives tests
there in the early 2000s. Last week's IAEA report said that "another member
state" operated a mine at the area in the 1960s and 1970s under the rule of then
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, without elaborating. Iran had argued the uranium
traces could have come from "laboratory instruments and equipment" used by
miners at the site. The IAEA called the answer "a possible explanation." The
IAEA is still seeking explanations on the origin and current location of the
man-made uranium particles found at two other sites in Iran, Varamin and
Turquzabad. Tehran has long denied ever seeking nuclear weapons and continues to
insist that its nuclear program is entirely for peaceful purposes.
Ukraine dam destroyed, transforming front
lines
Reuters/Tue, June 6, 2023
STORY: The dam for a massive reservoir in southern Ukraine has been destroyed on
a river that separates Russian and Ukrainian forces, surging floodwaters onto
the battlefield, forcing villages to evacuate, and transforming the front line
just as Ukraine appears to be carrying out its long-awaited counteroffensive.
Russia has controlled the Nova Kakhovka dam since early in the war although
Ukrainian forces captured the northern side of the river last year. Flooding had
begun in some towns as of Tuesday morning. The dam is 30 meters tall and once
held back a reservoir 150 miles long, which supplies water to Crimea and the
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, both of which are also under Russian control,
although the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog says there's no immediate threat to the
latter, and is monitoring the situation. Both sides are blaming the other for
the breach and neither has offered immediate evidence of their claims. President
Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Russian forces destroyed the dam from the inside in
what he calls a deliberate war crime, and that about 80 settlements are in the
flood zone. The Ukrainian military says the objective was to prevent Ukrainian
forces from attacking Russian troops on the other side of the river.
Russian-installed officials are giving conflicting accounts of what happened.
Some are blaming Ukrainian shelling. Others say the dam burst on its own. This
footage is from the Russian-installed head of the regional government. Russian
state media, quoting the Russian-installed governor, reported that 14
settlements were at risk in the Kherson region and 22,000 people. The Kremlin
says Ukraine sabotaged the plant to distract attention from what it calls its
faltering counteroffensive.
The U.S. Knew Ukraine Was Planning to Attack
Russia’s Nord Stream Pipelines: Report
Ryan Bort/Rolling Stone/Tue, June 6, 2023
Since Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines exploded last year amid Russia’s invasion
of Ukraine, the question of who was behind the attack has largely been a
mystery. But new information from the Discord leaks has provided what could be
an important clue. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the United
States had intelligence ahead of the attack that the Ukrainian military, working
under the direction of the nation’s highest military officer, planned a covert,
underwater attack on the pipelines. The CIA reportedly obtained the intelligence
from an unnamed European ally. The Post obtained it from an online friend of
Jack Teixiera, the Air National Guardsman who was arrested in April for
allegedly leaking classified government documents on the chat platform Discord.
The Nord Stream pipelines are important economic and political chips for Russia,
linking the nation’s natural gas supplies to energy markets in Western Europe
via the Baltic Sea. Those natural gas sales are important to funding Russia’s
war machine. Ukraine has said it wasn’t behind attack, but the Post notes that
there’s been increasing reason to doubt the nation’s denials, and that details
of the intelligence it obtained align with evidence uncovered by German
investigators about the attack. The Post’s report isn’t the first public
indication that Ukraine may have had something to do with the attack. The New
York Times reported in March that intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials
suggested that a pro-Ukrainian group was behind it — but the officials said they
didn’t have any evidence that Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky or any of
the nation’s top officials were involved. President Biden and others suggested
after the attack that it may have been Russia sabotaging both itself and the
rest of Europe — which has a significant financial state in the pipelines — but
there’s no actually evidence they were behind the bombing. It certainly would
have been convenient if Moscow were behind the attack, as the U.S. and Western
Europe have unequivocally condemned the bombing while also backing Ukraine as it
tries to ward off Russia aggressors. The West’s support for Ukraine would be
complicated if it were to emerge that its government orchestrated the Nord
Stream attack.
Blinken visits Saudi Arabia to rebuild
strained ties
Agence France Presse/Tue, June 6, 2023
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to
strengthen strained ties with the long-time ally as the oil-rich kingdom forges
closer relations with America's rivals. Blinken's three-day trip will also focus
on efforts to end conflicts in Sudan and Yemen, the joint battle against the
Islamic State group and the Arab world's relations with Israel. His visit comes
at a time of quickly shifting alliances in the Middle East, centered around a
China-brokered rapprochement in March between regional heavyweights Saudi Arabia
and Iran. Another landmark change saw Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad invited back
to the Arab League last month for the first time since the start of the 12-year
civil war in which his government has been backed by Russia and Iran. "There is
just a tremendous amount of work that we're trying to do," a US State Department
senior official dealing with Arabian Peninsula affairs, Daniel Benaim, said
before Blinken's trip. "We're focused on an affirmative agenda here and the
great deal of work our countries can do together."Blinken was due to land in the
Red Sea city of Jeddah in the evening and is expected to meet Saudi Arabia's de
facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, before heading to Riyadh on
Wednesday for a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting. The visit is Blinken's first
since the kingdom restored diplomatic ties with Iran, which the West considers a
pariah over its contested nuclear activities and involvement in regional
conflicts. The United States offered cautious support for the deal that was
sealed in China, the rising power making inroads in the Middle East.
Israel relations
US-Saudi relations, centered for decades on energy and defense, were badly
strained by the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi
agents. Washington was also upset when Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil
exporter, refused to help bring down skyrocketing energy prices after Russia's
attack on Ukraine in February last year. Prince Mohammed, 37, has steered a more
independent foreign policy course, also hosting Venezuelan President Nicolas
Maduro on Monday. Iran, the arch-enemy of the United States and Israel for
decades, is set to reopen its embassy in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday following a
seven-year hiatus. Still, US-Saudi strategic relations are close especially on
defense: Washington has long provided the Sunni Arab giant security protection
from Shiite Iran, and Riyadh buys cutting-edge US weaponry. US and Saudi
diplomats have closely cooperated on efforts to broker a lasting ceasefire in
Sudan's eight-week-old war, so far unsuccessfully, and Saudi help was crucial in
evacuating thousands of foreigners from the war zone. The two allies are also
engaged in the ongoing battle against IS, the jihadist group that has lost all
its territory in the Middle East but is increasingly active in parts of Africa.
They are also discussing efforts to end the conflict in Yemen, where a Saudi-led
coalition has long provided military support to the government in a fight
against Huthi rebels backed by Iran. The United States also hopes that Saudi
Arabia will eventually agree to normalize relations with Israel, which already
built ties with several other Arab countries under the Abraham Accords brokered
by the Donald Trump administration. On the eve of his Saudi trip, Blinken
reiterated that "the United States has a real national security interest in
promoting normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia".He said Washington has
"no illusions" that this can be done quickly or easily but stressed that "we
remain committed to working toward that outcome".Saudi Arabia has so far
maintained that Israel must first recognize an independent Palestinian state.
Sudan conflict: Army accused of killing
Congolese in campus bombing
Peter Mwai/BBC News/Tue, June 6, 2023
Ten people from the Democratic Republic of Congo have been killed in an army
attack on a university campus in Sudan, the Congolese government says. They died
in bombardments on Sunday afternoon at Khartoum's International University of
Africa, it said. "What hurts us very much is that it was the regular army that
dropped the bombs knowing there were foreigners there," the Congolese foreign
minister said. Rival military forces have been battling in Sudan's capital for
weeks. Paramilitary fighters of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have bases in
many residential areas across the city, which tend to be attacked by the
military from the air. BBC Africa Live: Updates from across the continent. It is
not clear if those caught up in Sunday's bombing were university students. It
may have been an area within or by the university where various foreign
nationals sought refuge. UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi tweeted of his shock
that 10 refugees had died in an attack in Khartoum, without giving further
details. The RSF, which is in a vicious power struggle with the army, said - in
what appears to be a reference to the same attack - that the bombing on Sunday
had happened in an area where African refugees were staying. It put the death
toll of Congolese nationals at 25. It tweeted a video that purported to be from
the scene. It showed smoke rising in the background from the direction where the
International University of Africa is located. People in the video, including a
distressed woman who says her husband died in the attack, speak a mixture of
Arabic and Lingala, the language spoken mainly in the west of DR Congo. One man
says: "We are Congolese… many people here are Congolese. Where is the
international community?"From visual clues in the video, including the minaret
of a mosque in the background and what looks like a shipping container, the BBC
has pinpointed the site to an area of central Khartoum near the university
campus and a sports stadium. Similar shipping containers are visible in a
satellite image of this area from April this year. Foreign Minister Christophe
Lutundula said DR Congo had demanded an explanation from the Sudanese government
and expected the bodies of those killed to be repatriated free of charge. This
would ensure "our compatriots are buried with dignity in accordance with our
traditions", he told journalists on Monday. The Congolese government has also
asked the Sudanese authorities to open up a humanitarian corridor so that those
wounded in the attack and others still stranded in Sudan can be evacuated. The
Sudanese army has not so far responded to a BBC request for comment. The foreign
minister was at pains to say that arrangements had been made since the conflict
erupted on 15 April to evacuate Congolese people living in Sudan. Some buses had
taken students from the International University of Africa to the Egyptian city
of Aswan where they were then flown to the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. Such
efforts would continue, Mr Lutundula said. The humanitarian truce between the
army and the RSF, which began on 22 May, officially expired on Saturday evening
- though it was frequently ignored by both sides. The fighting, now it its
eighth week, has killed hundreds of civilians and forced more than a million
people to flee their homes.
Egypt, Israel pledge cooperation after border
bloodshed
AFP/June 06, 2023
CAIRO: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to boost cooperation Tuesday after an Egyptian
policeman shot dead three Israeli soldiers before being killed, officials said.
El-Sisi received a telephone call from Netanyahu about Saturday’s deadly
violence on the normally calm border, the spokesman for the Egyptian president
said. During the conversation, the two leaders stressed “the importance of
coordination between the two countries to clarify the circumstances,” he said.
Egypt has said the policeman crossed into Israel while chasing drug smugglers,
leading to exchanges of fire with Israeli soldiers. On Saturday, Netanyahu
called the Egyptian shooter a “terrorist” although he has since mostly spoken of
the shootings as an “incident.” El-Sisi offered Netanyahu his “deep
condolences,” the Israeli prime minister’s office said. “The two leaders
expressed their commitment to further strengthening peace and security
cooperation, which is an essential value for both countries,” it added. Israel’s
border with Egypt has been largely quiet since Egypt became the first Arab
country to make peace with Israel following the Camp David accords of 1978. In
recent years, there have been exchanges of fire between smugglers and Israeli
soldiers stationed along the border. Questions have been raised about why the
Egyptian assailant — reported by Egyptian media to have been a 22-year-old
conscript — crossed into Israel and opened fire. Speaking at the opening of a
cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu said his government had sent a “clear
message” to Egypt: “We expect that the joint investigation will be exhaustive
and thorough.”On Tuesday, his office said he had “thanked the Egyptian president
for... his commitment to an exhaustive and joint investigation of the incident.”
Palestinian toddler killed by Israeli forces
buried
Agence France Presse/June 06, 2023
Hundreds of Palestinians gathered Tuesday for the funeral of a three-year-old
boy who died after being shot by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank last
week. Mohammed al-Tamimi died in an Israeli hospital Monday, after Israeli
soldiers shot him and his father on Thursday night in the village of Nabi Saleh,
near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Tamimi's mother, Marwa, wept as she
embraced her son for the final time, his body wrapped in the traditional black
and white Palestinian keffiyeh scarf. Israeli soldiers stood within sight of the
funeral reception, blocking a main entrance into the village of Nabi Saleh near
where last week's shooting took place. Marwa al-Tamimi, 32, told AFP that
soldiers had fired on her husband Haitham, who was also wounded, while he was in
the car with their three-year-old son. She said he had gone out to move his car
because he feared it would be damaged by nearby Israeli soldiers.
"My husband started the car and my son was next to him, and the shots were fired
at him when he turned on the car's lights". "They (Israeli soldiers) fired at
them for a while, and they could not get out of the car... so I hid inside (the
house)," she added. Her son was transferred to the Sheba hospital in Israel,
where he "died... despite extensive efforts of the medical team," a statement
released by the hospital on Monday said. The Israeli army said on Monday that
soldiers had "responded with live fire" following a shooting attack on the
nearby settlement of Neveh Tzuf. The army said that two Palestinians were
wounded adding that it "regrets harm to civilians" and said an investigation was
under way. Marwa al-Tamimi said she had no faith in the Israeli army's
investigation. "I want an international trial. Enough is enough. Every time we
hear of a child who is martyred, a whole family is martyred," she said.
Senior Palestinian official Hussein al-Sheikh on Monday night expressed his
anger in a tweet. "He (Tamimi) died by the bullets of Israeli occupation
soldiers !!! What will the occupation authorities say about him? Are they going
to call him a terrorist?? Is he endangering the lives of their soldiers?."
Al-Tamimi is the youngest person killed in the conflict this year. Since the
start of the year, at least 156 Palestinians, 21 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an
Italian have been killed in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources.
The figures include combatants as well as civilians and, on the Israeli side,
three members of the Arab minority.
Kuwaitis elect new parliament in hope of ending stalemate
Agence France Presse/June 06, 2023
Polls opened on Tuesday in Kuwait's seventh general election in just over a
decade, following repeated political crises that have undermined parliament and
stalled reforms. More than 793,000 eligible voters will have the chance to
determine the make-up of the 50-seat legislature in the only Gulf Arab state to
have an elected parliament with powers to hold government to account. Polling
stations opened at 8:00 am (0500 GMT) and are due to close at 8:00 pm, with the
results to be announced the following day. Voters queued outside in the
sweltering summer heat, many of them dressed in traditional thob gowns. "I came
to perform my patriotic duty and I am hopeful that things will get better,"
Maasoumah Bousafar, 64 told AFP after casting her ballot. Kuwait's emir, Nawaf
al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, called the vote last month after he had again dissolved
parliament amid a persistent deadlock with the executive branch that has
deterred investment and impeded growth. A total of 207 candidates are running
for a four-year term as lawmakers, the lowest number in a general election since
1996. They include opposition figures and 13 women. All but three of the 50
members of parliament who won in 2022 are seeking re-election. Despite
widespread frustration with the political elite, human rights activist Hadeel
Buqrais said it was still important to cast a ballot. "This is the only place
where I have a voice, and boycotting means giving up my right as a citizen," she
told AFP. "I have to participate, even if I do not expect the new parliament to
tackle issues" concerning the country's human rights record, Buqrais said. Since
Kuwait adopted a parliamentary system in 1962, the legislature has been
dissolved around a dozen times.
- 'Failure in leadership' -
In March, the constitutional court annulled the results of last year's elections
-- in which the opposition made significant gains -- and reinstated the previous
parliament elected in 2020. "Many in Kuwait do feel as if they are being asked
to participate in a political process that does not serve them," said Daniel L.
Tavana, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Penn State University. "This
is because the electoral system is broken" he told AFP, arguing that "there are
limits to what we can expect an elected legislature to do". While lawmakers are
elected, Kuwait's cabinet ministers are installed by the ruling Al-Sabah family,
which maintains a strong grip over political life. Continual standoffs between
the branches of government have prevented lawmakers from passing economic
reforms, while repeated budget deficits and low foreign investment have added to
an air of gloom. Oil-rich Kuwait, which borders Saudi Arabia and Iraq, boasts
seven percent of global crude reserves. It has little debt and one of the
strongest sovereign wealth funds in the world. But its lack of stability has
scared off investors and dashed hopes of reform in a wealthy country struggling
to diversify in similar ways to Gulf powerhouse Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the
United Arab Emirates. "Kuwait is not doing well," said Bader al-Saif, assistant
professor of history at Kuwait University. "Elections on steroids... are not the
only solution. "The Kuwaiti political system is in dire need for innovation," he
told AFP, criticizing a "failure in leadership in Kuwait's often recycled
political class, whether in government or parliament".
Egypt's Sisi and Israel's Netanyahu Discuss
Border Shooting, Emphasise Joint Investigation
Reuters/June 06/2023
Egypt's President Abdelfattah al-Sisi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu discussed Saturday's rare border shooting in which three Israeli
soldiers and an Egyptian security officer were killed, the leaders said in
separate statements on Tuesday. Sisi and Netanyahu emphasised the importance of
coordination on investigating the incident, Egypt's presidency said. gypt's
President Sisi expressed his deep condolences over the incident on the Egyptian
border. The Prime Minister thanked the Egyptian president, as well as for his
commitment to a thorough and joint investigation into the incident," the
statement from Netanyahu's office said, adding that the leaders pledged to
continue strengthening peace and security cooperation.--REUTERS
Pope Francis goes to hospital for check-up - Italian media
Reuters/June 06/2023
Pope Francis has gone to Rome's Gemelli hospital for a check-up, news agency
Ansa and several other Italian media outlets reported on Tuesday, quoting what
they said were sources with knowledge of the matter. There was no immediate word
from the Vatican on the condition of the pope, who is 86. The reports said he
had gone to a department of the hospital specialised in treating elderly
patients and arrived at 1040 local time (0840 GMT). Francis spent five days in
hospital at the end of March with a lung infection and last month skipped
audiences on one day due to a fever. Francis, who marked the 10th anniversary of
his pontificate in March, has suffered a number of ailments in recent years and
often uses a wheelchair or a cane to walk because of persistent knee pain. In
July 2021 he had part of his colon removed in an operation aimed at addressing a
painful bowel condition called diverticulitis. He said earlier this year that
the condition had returned.--REUTERS
The Latest LCCC English analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on June 06-07/2023
How Saudi Arabia lost control of oil
prices
Jeremy Warner/The Telegraph/June 06/2023
Time was when Saudi Arabia was so powerful that it could command the future, or
at least the future of the world economy.
People would hang on Sheikh Yamani’s every word as if the legendary Saudi oil
minister were some kind of Pythia, the Oracle of Delphi.
With the merest flick of the eyebrow he could send the oil price either soaring
or plummeting, and with it the fortunes of the West’s advanced economies.
Not any more. The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC),
which has always had Saudi Arabia as its de facto leader, has long since lost
much of its discipline, power, and influence – and judging by the events of last
weekend is these days pretty much a busted flush.
You could tell things were about to go badly wrong when Bloomberg and Reuters
were summarily banned from access to proceedings at last week’s meeting in
Vienna.
To ostracise the press is never a good look and almost invariably signals an
organisation on the back foot or otherwise in terminal decline.
Saudi’s current energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, is said to be
acutely unhappy with the press for not giving sufficient column inches to his
view that the oil price should be much higher.
Maybe the pesky hacks will learn their lesson now that they are frozen out –
not. No doubt there have been other such bans, but in recent decades it is
unheard of. Also virtually unheard of is for Saudi Arabia to go it alone in
cutting production – even as at least one other member of Opec is about to
increase it – and for said cut to have virtually no effect on the oil price.
It’s quite a gamble, because the oil price does indeed need to rise by a
considerable margin to cancel out the negative effect on Saudi’s overall
revenues of the cut in production.
Neom and other such vainglorious plans for castles in the sand are
extraordinarily ambitious – and expensive – endeavours; Saudi needs all the
money it can get.
The kingdom’s actions in committing to a cut in production have therefore left
everyone guessing.
The most widely held view is this. Conscious that its greatest asset, oil, will
as a result of the global response to climate change eventually be on a
declining trajectory, Saudi has determined to exploit it as fully as possible
while it still can, maximising the proceeds for as long as possible.
The higher the price the better, sod the world economy. That there are other
beneficiaries of high oil prices, such as Putin’s Russia, is by the by, and just
an unfortunate side effect of Saudi acting in its own interest.
Also unfortunate is that the higher the oil price, the greater the depressing
effect on Western economies. That’s their lookout.
Opec as a stabilising influence in the world economy, adjusting production to
keep prices on an even keel, has had its day, and it’s everyone for himself.
Who knows what’s really going on; as I say, much of the press was banned.
But I’m not so sure the above narrative is entirely correct. I wouldn’t put too
much store by the headline grabbing news from the International Energy Agency
that global investment in clean energy technologies is now significantly
outpacing new investment spending on fossil fuels.
This has been the case for some years now, but it hasn’t much tempered the flow
of new investment in oil, gas, and coal, which despite the disincentives
continues apace, and is now close to pre-pandemic levels.
In any case, Saudi Arabia has long been of the view that oil has a lot more life
in it than people think, or in other words that net zero is still a very long
way off, with many more decades of profitable runoff in fossil fuels to come.
If that’s your outlook, you don’t cut your production, but instead try to
sustain your market position by making it as cost competitive as possible.
If, on the other hand, the world economy is slowing – and there are lots of
signs of that, particularly in China, where the economic news is increasingly
grim – it’s not going to need today’s levels of production for much longer, and
it therefore makes sense to cut back so as to maintain the present price.
I think that’s probably the best interpretation of what’s going on. Whether it
will work or not is another matter.
What’s for sure is that the geopolitics of oil has shifted dramatically over the
past decade or so. The brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi by a gang of Saudi
agents in Istanbul five years ago was perhaps the defining moment, but Saudi’s
pivot away from the US towards China had in fact begun some years previously
with the advent of the American shale revolution.
This has made the US self-sufficient in hydrocarbons, and therefore no longer
beholden to supplies from the Middle East for affordable energy. So Saudi Arabia
has turned towards Asia instead.
There may admittedly be an element of fellow despots cuddling together for
warmth; Saudi’s refusal to increase production so as to help the West wean
itself off Russian supplies certainly compounds the view that it is being
deliberately unhelpful.
Geopolitically, Saudi Arabia seemed to be repudiating the West and siding with
China and Russia instead.
But this is not primarily a despotic thing. Mainly it’s about a much deeper snub
– that of America not needing Saudi any longer, and therefore feeling free to
freeze the kingdom out of the Western club in punishment for the Khashoggi
affair. Once courted on all sides, Saudi has found itself left out in the cold.
Joe Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, did of course take a rather more
forgiving attitude to Khashoggi’s murder. Like Boris Johnson in the UK, Trump
developed a real rapport with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
Bountiful arms contracts were meant to flow by way of reward. That all went down
the pan with the deep freeze in relations that has prevailed since Biden became
president. Very recently, there’s been a half-hearted attempt by the US to
rebuild bridges, but so far to little effect.
As for Britain, we’ve done the usual thing; half-hearted condemnation in
combination with continued cooperation for security and market access purposes.
Saudi is still an important export market for the UK.
Saudi Arabia will no doubt remain an important player on the world scene for a
long time to come, but its claim to be a stabilising influence in oil markets
and therefore the world economy no longer applies.
Saudi Arabia has modernised at impressive speed in recent years, but
geopolitically, it is just not the force it was, either individually or within
Opec.
China's Space Program: Designed to Defeat the
United States
Lawrence A. Franklin/Gatestone Institute./June 6, 2023
Far more significant than scoring space spectaculars, however, is the question
of which nation will achieve military dominance in the domain of near-earth
space. Chinese international media deceitfully stresses the peaceful,
cooperative, and scientific nature of its national space program. However, the
ambitious nature of China's space program indicates that Beijing's primary
objective is to dominate near earth space.
China's PLA is openly preparing for war, particularly in areas where Beijing's
territorial and maritime claims are illegal and hegemonic.
The aggressive nature of China's space program is particularly obvious in its
anti-satellite projects.
The proximity of these Chinese anti-satellite vehicles clearly reveals the
mission to degrade and/or blind collection and transmission of intelligence data
by US systems. Another Chinese anti-satellite project features a satellite with
a grappling hook, designed to capture US satellites as an immediate prelude to
war. Beijing is planning to win a war in space as part of its reported overall
objective of replacing the US as the dominant power on earth. One assessment
estimates that fully 84% of China's space launches are military in nature --
indicating that the CCP may well be determined to emerge as the only remaining
superpower.
It will also most likely be in the dimension of space, as well as biowarfare,
that mankind will get a tip-off that a major armed conflict is about to breakout
between China and the United States. China at present not only has "killer
satellites," but also reportedly: "Beijing also has rapidly developed an array
of space warfare capabilities, including several types of ground-launched
anti-satellite missiles capable of hitting satellites in different orbits;
ground-based lasers that can blind or damage orbiting satellites; and small
robotic satellites capable of maneuvering and grabbing orbiting satellites."
China will most likely attempt to shut down US intelligence collection, "eyes
and ears in the sky," prior to combat operations on earth. The United States, if
an impending military clash seems unavoidable, may be forced to "preemptively
retaliate" by disabling China's intelligence collection and data transmission
space-based assets – if it can.
"[I]f the U.S. military doesn't change course... we're going to lose fast" — Air
Force Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, the deputy chief of staff for strategy,
integration and requirements, americanmilitarynews.com, March 11, 2021.
It seems high time that the US increased its defense budget instead of cutting
it, prepositioned arms in Taiwan for deterrence, and got serious about
acknowledging the Chinese Communist Party, led by President Xi Jinping, not as a
"competitor," but as an adversary, and an intractable one at that.
More significant than scoring space spectaculars is the question of which nation
will achieve military dominance in the domain of near-earth space. The ambitious
nature of China's space program indicates that Beijing's primary objective is to
dominate near earth space.
The US-China "Space Race" is but one dimension of the ongoing Cold War between
the two superpowers. The national space programs of both countries are
comprehensive in scope, running across the entire scientific spectrum. Both
America and China are focused on scoring space spectaculars to influence the
world as to which superpower will inherit the future. Each rival is seeking to
be the first to land a human on Mars.
Far more significant than scoring space spectaculars, however, is the question
of which nation will achieve military dominance in the domain of near-earth
space. Chinese international media deceitfully stresses the peaceful,
cooperative, and scientific nature of its national space program. However, the
ambitious nature of China's space program indicates that Beijing's primary
objective is to dominate near earth space.
The leaders of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) are acutely aware of the
advantages that US space-based systems give American troops in combat
operations. US collection and data transmission satellites have proven
invaluable to deployed American units in Iraq, Afghanistan, and to Special
Operations forces targeting terrorists throughout the world.
China's People Liberation Army (PLA) has acknowledged the great value that US
space-based intelligence collection has been to Ukrainian forces fighting
Russia's invading troops.
In this vein, one strategic goal of the PLA is to deploy the "Beidou" network of
satellites in space that equivalent to the US "eyes and ears" in the sky. The
PLA commander of China's Western Military Theater will be able to employ the
Beidou satellites to monitor deployments of India's military forces along the
lengthy, tense Sino-Indian border. The Chinese claim large sections of this
border as their sovereign territory, which China threatens to invade like the
PLA did in 1962 and 2020-21.
The Central Military Commission of the CCP also uses its space-based systems to
maintain strict control of China's military assets. Party and PLA leaders in
China's Eastern Military Theater could use space assets to order regional
Chinese Commanders to adopt more aggressive rules of engagement than normal,
against the sovereign rights of several neighboring states, especially in the
waters and islands of the South and East China Seas.
The CCP seemingly intends to employ its space-based assets to win a war with US
in the western Pacific, where clashes between the two superpowers are most
likely to occur. China's PLA is openly preparing for war, particularly in areas
where Beijing's territorial and maritime claims are illegal and hegemonic. The
aggressive nature of China's space program is particularly obvious in its
anti-satellite projects. One of China's anti-satellite programs features a
maneuverable satellite that can be positioned to within striking distance of US
and allied satellites.
The proximity of these Chinese anti-satellite vehicles clearly reveals the
mission to degrade and/or blind collection and transmission of intelligence data
by US systems. Another Chinese anti-satellite project features a satellite with
a grappling hook, designed to capture US satellites as an immediate prelude to
war. Beijing is planning to win a war in space as part of its reported overall
objective of replacing the US as the dominant power on earth. One assessment
estimates that fully 84% of China's space launches are military in nature --
indicating that the CCP may well be determined to emerge as the only remaining
superpower.
Some commentators point to China's plan to catch up and eventually surpass US
space accomplishments. While US space-related budgetary expenditures in 2022 of
about $z dwarf China's budget of approximately $12 billion, the Chinese space
program gets more "bang for the buck." All Chinese space-oriented corporations
are totally controlled by the CCP. Space infrastructure is another measuring
stick to determine the serious commitment by both superpowers to be able to
fight a war using the near-earth space dimension. The US has seven spaceports
and China has four. Yet both nations have detailed plans to expand existing
infrastructure. The number of launches in 2021 is one more clear signal that
China is a determined and gaining adversary. In 2021, the US executed 51
launches from its spaceports, China 55.
Beijing is now constructing a model of a lunar research station in cooperation
with Russia and Venezuela. China is also planning to dispatch a team of
astronauts to the moon by 2030. To accomplish this lunar mission, China's space
agency must create larger rockets, with greater thrust capacity. Accordingly,
work continues on China's creation of the Long March 9 Rocket. Not
coincidentally, China aims to reach parity in space with the US by 2030. Even
the Pentagon muses that China could surpass US capabilities in space by 2045.
Throughout the next few decades, China will doubtless maximize its efforts to
achieve primacy in near-earth space.
It will also most likely be in the dimension of space, as well as biowarfare,
that mankind will get a tip-off that a major armed conflict is about to breakout
between China and the United States. China at present not only has "killer
satellites," but also reportedly:
"Beijing also has rapidly developed an array of space warfare capabilities,
including several types of ground-launched anti-satellite missiles capable of
hitting satellites in different orbits; ground-based lasers that can blind or
damage orbiting satellites; and small robotic satellites capable of maneuvering
and grabbing orbiting satellites."China will most likely attempt to shut down US
intelligence collection, "eyes and ears in the sky," prior to combat operations
on earth. The United States, if an impending military clash seems unavoidable,
may be forced to "preemptively retaliate" by disabling China's intelligence
collection and data transmission space-based assets – if it can. "[I]f the U.S.
military doesn't change course... "Air Force Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, the
deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements, said in 2021,"
we're going to lose fast. In that case, an American president would likely be
presented with almost a fait accompli" – a term "often used in U.S. military
strategy contexts to describe a scenario in which an adversary of the U.S. is
able to defeat a U.S. strategy before it can even be launched." It seems high
time that the US increased its defense budget instead of cutting it,
prepositioned arms in Taiwan for deterrence, and got serious about acknowledging
the Chinese Communist Party, led by President Xi Jinping, not as a "competitor,"
but as an adversary, and an intractable one at that. *Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin
was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on
active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve.
© 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.
Saint Louis’s Greatest Victory Over Jihad in
Egypt
Raymond Ibrahim/June 06/2023
Today in history, on June 6, Louis IX of France—better known to posterity as
Saint Louis—scored a dramatic victory over the Islamic jihad.
It was late May, 1249, and the Seventh Crusade had begun. Louis and his army,
which consisted of some twenty-five thousand Crusaders, set sail from Cyprus.
Their destination, based on the by now standard Crusader logic that Egypt must
be neutralized before Jerusalem could be secured, was the Egyptian port of
Damietta.
Considering that Damietta was also the focus of the Fifth Crusade (1217-1221),
none of this came as a surprise to Egyptian sultan al-Salih Ayyub. He sent men
under Emir Fahreddin to refortify Damietta’s garrison and hold the coast against
any Crusader landing. He also sent a message warning Louis to forfend: “No one
has ever attacked us without feeling our superiority,” the sultan boasted.
“Recollect the conquests we have made from the Christians; we have driven them
from the lands they possessed; their strongest towns have fallen under our
blows.”
The heart of the Muslim world, the Middle East and North Africa—from Iraq in the
east to Morocco in the west—later Turkey, and for centuries Spain and the
Balkans, were originally inhabited by and conquered from Christians. Muslims,
such as al-Salih Ayyub, were well aware of and enjoyed throwing this fact in the
face of Christians.
By June 4, the Christian fleet had anchored on the west bank of the Nile, across
from Damietta. Between it and the city, legions of Muslims lined the shore and
river bank, where they “made a loud and terrible noise with horns and cymbals.”
A council was held in the king’s ship. Although some said to wait for the other
ships that had been delayed by a storm, Louis was set on taking the shore now.
“Our men,” wrote Gui, one of the knights present, “seeing the lord King’s
steadfastness and unwavering resolve, at his bidding made ready…to occupy the
shore by force and go on land.” When his counsellors urged him not to join in
the initial landing, due to the danger it posed to his person, Louis responded,
“I am only one individual whose life, when God wills it, will be snuffed out
like any other man’s.”
And so, on today’s date, June 6, 1249, the Crusaders, to a loud battle cry,
furiously paddled to shore and “in accordance with the lord King’s strict and
most urgent command, hastily leaped into the sea up to their loins.” Clad in
heavy iron and slowly plodding toward the coast, they were met by and fended off
a hail of arrows. “Of all the ships, the lord King’s put in first,” continues
Gui.
“Louis leapt into the water up to his armpits and waded ashore, shield round
neck, helm on head, and sword in hand.” Jean de Joinville (1224–1317), a close
friend of Louis who participated in the Crusade, continues: “So soon as they
[Muslims] saw us land, they came toward us, hotly spurring. We, when we saw them
coming, fixed the points of our shields into the sand and the handles of our
lances in the sand with the points set towards them.” Confronted by this massive
spike-studded shield wall, and seeing “the lances about to enter into their
bellies,” the Muslims “turned about and fled”—all except one, who, thinking his
comrades were charging behind him, was instantly “cut down.”
Thereafter, the Crusaders “fell manfully upon the enemies of the Cross like
strong athletes of the Lord,” writes Gui: “The armed Saracens, stationed mounted
on the shore, disputed the land with us…maintaining a dense fire of javelins and
arrows against our men. And yet our men… pushed on and set foot on the land
despite the Saracens.” The more the Muslims gave way, the more the Christians
advanced onto dry ground. Before long, horses had been ferried over and mounted,
leading to heavy, splashy cavalry charges, all under the cover of missile fire
from the Christian fleet. Terrified by such daring, the Muslims tucked tail and
ran.
Rather than falling back on and holding Damietta, Emir Fahreddin entirely fled
the scene. On seeing this ignominious retreat, and not wanting to face, in the
words of Muslim chroniclers, “the fury of the Christians,” the garrison in
Damietta, followed by its entire citizenry, fled the city under the cover of
night in great disorder and panic—“barefoot and unclad, hungry and thirsty, in
poverty and disarray, women and children”—though not before cutting the throats
or “dashing out the brains” of most of their Christian prisoners.
A few escaped captives and slaves intercepted the Crusaders on their march to
Damietta, which they were astonished to find completely deserted. On the morning
following this spectacular start to his Crusade, Louis and his men went to
Damietta’s chief mosque. “Here, three days earlier,” a shocked Gui wrote, “the
prisoners categorically assured us, the most filthy Mahomet had been glorified
with abominable sacrifices, cries from on high, and the blast of trumpets.”
But because the mosque was formerly a church—“where [Coptic] Christians long ago
had been in the habit of celebrating Mass and ringing their bells”—the king had
the mosque purified with holy water and, “once it had been utterly purged of the
pagans’ filth,” celebrated mass there. In this manner, and as Louis’s mother,
Blanche, wrote to Henry III, “the site of the mosque, which some time ago—when
the city was previously captured [by Muslims in the seventh century]—was the
Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was reconciled and thanks were given there to
God Most High.”
As these accounts make clear, thirteenth century Europeans were not oblivious to
the fact that all of the Near East and North Africa—not just Jerusalem—were
originally part of Christendom. This comes out especially in the Crusaders’ talk
concerning Egypt. For example, the foundation charter for the re-consecration of
this church-turned-mosque-turned-church again, dated November 1249, makes the
following assertions: “after this country [Egypt] is liberated from the hands of
the infidels” and “when this land is liberated.” Similarly, Guillaume de Sonnac,
the Grand Master of the Templars, wrote about how “the Lord King plans…to return
the entire country [of Egypt] to Christian worship.”
Lofty aspirations to be sure. At any rate, it was an amazing start to an
otherwise tragic crusade.
*This articele was excerpted from chapter 5 of Raymond Ibrahim’s book, Defenders
of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam.
Will OPEC’s cuts stabilize the oil market — and affect gas
prices at the pump?
Simon Henderson/The Washington Institute/June 06/2023
If the price of gasoline changes in July, thank Saudi Arabia. But, although one
should perhaps be grateful for a “Saudi lollipop,” as its oil minister described
it Sunday in Vienna, it will come at a potential cost. The Saudis want a stable
oil market, as most of us do, but their definition of what is a good price for a
stable market is higher ($80 per barrel) than that for probably the rest of us,
who rather like $70 per barrel, where it has been heading recently, and
potentially lower.
The “lollipop” (or “sweetener,” as the Financial Times helpfully translated it
for a wider audience) is the Saudi decision to cut oil production by 1 million
barrels per day for the month of July and perhaps longer. The move was necessary
to get the rest of OPEC and OPEC+ — the grouping expanded to include countries
such as Russia, Kazakhstan and Mexico — to agree on cutbacks in their production
quotas.
For non-economists, comprehension can be tricky but basically, lower production
— aka supply — pushes prices up. The price is currently weak because demand is
weak. Saudi Arabia evidently wants to reduce supply to force prices up.
Whether or not it will work — and if so, how well — is anyone’s guess. Members
of cartels, which notionally agree on price, function by cheating on production
limits. Major players such as Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter,
have to tolerate the cartel being undermined by the smaller players. A
particular challenge is that Russia, the world’s second largest oil exporter,
has been cheating like crazy, desperate for revenue in the face of international
sanctions imposed since its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, despite
notionally cutting back on production.
Another metaphor, courtesy of the Saudi oil minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin
Salman, was included in his comment: “We want to ice the cake.” Again, that’s an
apparent reference to his fellow oil producers, rather than consumers like you
and me. His previous noteworthy comment was to warn speculators, who may have
been hoping to bet on a future drop in price, that they may “ouch.”
It does not take much imagination to think that it is Prince Abdulaziz himself
who may be “ouching.” He is trying to deliver a higher oil price to his prime
minister and younger brother, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MbS, who,
according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates, needs at least $80 per
barrel to fund his budget and mega projects such as the NEOM futuristic city on
the northern Red Sea coast.
Would a Saudi royal fire another prince for underperforming in his job? In the
old days, the answer would have been “no,” but these days it could be “perhaps.”
The question is made more complex because the role of prime minister used to be
that of the monarch, but King Salman last year handed the role to MbS, as his
favorite son is known.
An additional twist is that Abdulaziz was rumored to be less than happy when his
sibling, 25 years younger, initially shot to prominence. On the weekend, the
Financial Times described the oil minister as “petulant,” a description some
call MbS himself. It could almost be an action thriller.
An early indication of how this may play out will come in the oil markets today.
But it will be informative, rather than indicative. The trend over the course of
the week will be more interesting. And when we get to July, it could become, at
least to market watchers like myself, very interesting.
*Simon Henderson is the Baker Fellow and director of the Bernstein Program on
Gulf and Energy Policy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
What to Do With Families of Islamic State
Foreign Fighters
Martyn Warr, Austin Doctor, Devorah Margolin/The Washington Institute/June
06/2023
Backed by hard data, on-the-ground observations, and best practices, three
experts explore the thorny question of repatriating the children and spouses of
imprisoned jihadists. On June 1, The Washington Institute held a virtual Policy
Forum with Martyn Warr, Austin Doctor, and Devorah Margolin. Warr leads the
Counter-Daesh Communications Cell in Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and
Development Office. Doctor is the director of counterterrorism research
initiatives at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and
Education Center (NCITE), an assistant professor of political science at the
University of Nebraska at Omaha, and coauthor (with Margolin) of the study
“Reintegration of Foreign Terrorist Fighter Families: A Framework of Best
Practices for the U.S.” Margolin is the Blumenstein-Rosenbloom Fellow at The
Washington Institute and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. The
following is a rapporteur’s summary of their remarks. Martyn Warr Currently,
many women and children affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) remain in camps
run by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and international military contingents
in northeast Syria, and resolving their situation is a priority for the
coalition. Although IS has been defeated territorially, it still has a degree of
ideological influence and operational capabilities within these camps, using
them as a tool for radicalization, recruitment, and support. Children are
especially vulnerable to these radicalization efforts, in part because they do
not receive adequate education—in many cases, their principal educators are
likely IS affiliates.
In addition to security concerns, camp residents face very poor humanitarian
circumstances. To address these problems, authorities need to reduce the size of
the camps as much and as quickly as possible. This would also help contain the
IS threat militarily and psychologically in the long term.
In late 2022, the coalition brought together key political, military,
humanitarian, government, and nongovernmental representatives in Amman, Jordan,
to discuss repatriation efforts for the first time. Repeating this type of
large-scale, targeted meeting is necessary to advancing repatriation. Since that
gathering, repatriation efforts from Syria’s al-Hawl camp have achieved some
success—this week, the camp’s population is set to fall below 50,000 for the
first time since March 2019, when IS lost its last bit of territory in Baghuz.
The coalition will continue to focus on this issue at its imminent ministerial
meeting in Riyadh, seeking more funds specifically for helping residents inside
the camps, repatriating them, and bolstering the communities they will return to
inside and outside Syria. Since 2022, 4,200 Iraqis have been repatriated from
al-Hawl, not including the 500-600 set to be repatriated later this week.
Authorities in Baghdad have largely succeeded in reaching their two main goals:
repatriating 150 families per month from al-Hawl to the Jeddah-1 camp in Iraq,
and enabling a similar number of families to leave Jeddah-1 and return to their
home communities. The coalition, the UN, and various NGOs have supported this
movement.
In Syria, 1,400 residents have been reintegrated into communities in the
northeast since the beginning of 2022, including 219 in Manbij on May 29.
Regarding third-country nationals (TCNs), nearly 1,000 have been repatriated
since 2022, and this rate has increased in 2023 due in large part to U.S.
advocacy and facilitation.The coalition believes that strategic communication
can help improve humanitarian and security circumstances in the camps while also
increasing the flow of Syrians and Iraqis successfully returned to their
communities. The latter benchmark is crucial because these individuals often
face problems with acceptance, security, jobs, and access to resources upon
their return. Clear communication can also help improve the reputation of the
camps and their residents, increase the number of convictions against IS
returnees who merit prosecution, deter individuals who may still support the
group, and give a voice to IS victims.
Austin Doctor
The United States and its partners have made repatriation of foreign terrorist
fighter (FTF) families a policy priority. In Washington, there is general
bipartisan consensus that this effort should be carried out expediently, and
cautious optimism is warranted as repatriation efforts are beginning to happen
at scale and across the coalition. Yet much work remains to be done. For
example, the United States has repatriated a relatively small percentage of the
foreign nationals in detention—39 U.S. citizens (15 adults and 24 minors)—and
more Americans are likely still being held in northeast Syria (the total number
is not known publicly). To address critical questions about repatriating and
reintegrating FTF families, the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and
Technology Directorate funded a two-year program aimed at identifying best
practices for such programs. A systematic, evidence-based framework is crucial
not only to facilitating sustainable, holistic reintegration, but also to
helping policymakers and practitioners minimize programmatic risk. Key examples
of best practices include scaling reintegration policies around each country’s
specific returnee profile, tailoring returnee case management to the individual
level while maintaining common strategic principles, and facilitating close
coordination between practitioners and private-sector partners at the federal,
state, local, and tribal levels. Evidence-based best practices can also help
ensure that repatriation policies and practices avoid common pitfalls. For
example, reintegration programming cannot be effective without clear goals for
what success means and how it can be evaluated. Moreover, officials must assign
clear roles and responsibilities to organizational structures and processes
involved in such programming. Reintegration is fundamentally about the
relationship between returnees and their home communities. It is a collection of
coordinated processes with two main goals: helping returnees attain a sense of
belonging in their communities while significantly reducing their risk of
recidivism into violent extremism.
Devorah Margolin
Age and gender biases shape understandings of detention, repatriation,
accountability, and reintegration, and therefore have a tremendous effect on
policies toward IS FTF families. The international community has been successful
in fighting IS insurgencies since the group’s territorial defeat, but
authorities have struggled to find consensus on repatriation, accountability,
and reintegration tools and policies. Repatriation has been gaining momentum of
late, as shown by this year’s uptick in Iraqi and TCN returnees as well as
Syrian reintegration from al-Hawl. Yet a large number of TCNs, Iraqis, and
Syrians are still detained in northeast Syria, the majority of them women and
minors, so repatriation policy must do more to implement gender- and age-based
approaches. Toward this end, discussions about accountability and reintegration
programming for TCNs need to address a wide spectrum of knowledge gaps and
biases, from exposure to violence and weapons training to the impact of gender
roles and expectations. Some degree of bias can even be seen in the way
officials refer to these individuals—as “FTF families,” a term that centers the
discussion on fighters and those affiliated with them, at times minimizing the
role played by those who support and facilitate violent extremism in other ways.
To establish a strategic and proactive approach to repatriation that takes such
biases into account, the previously mentioned Homeland Security research program
outlines best practices in three key areas: (1) formulating a clear and
strategic communications strategy to garner civil support, (2) providing
trauma-informed care for FTF families, and (3) integrating evaluation mechanisms
into programs and policies. The current status of detainees in northeast Syria
is precarious, and certain factors could make the situation even worse:
continued IS threats against camps and prisons; the threat of further natural
disasters like the February earthquakes in Syria and Turkey; the lingering
possibility of Turkish cross-border intervention; the uncertain future of the
SDF; and recent regional efforts to normalize relations with the Assad regime.
To mitigate these risks, authorities must continue the conversation about
implementing repatriation in a timely manner.
This summary was prepared by Camille Jablonski. The Policy Forum series is made
possible through the generosity of the Florence and Robert Kaufman Family.
Iraq Is Quietly Falling Apart
Michael Knights/The Foreign Affairs website/June 06/2023
Iran’s Proxies Have Seized Power in Baghdad—and Are Gutting the State
On the surface, Iraq appears to have achieved a measure of stability. The
country finally has a functioning government after a yearlong political vacuum.
Terrorist violence has fallen to its lowest rate since the 2003 U.S. invasion.
Even the country’s Iran-backed militias—long a source of tension with
Washington—have significantly reduced their attacks on U.S. diplomatic and
military sites. In a May 4 speech at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan credited a U.S strategy built on
the “twin pillars of deterrence and diplomacy” for the decrease in attacks on
U.S. interests.
As Sullivan’s speech illustrates, President Joe Biden’s national security team
sees a quiet Middle East as an end unto itself—including in Iraq. Although
Sullivan was quick to add that he was “not pulling out the victory flag on Iraq”
and that the United States still has “a broad agenda” to strengthen Baghdad’s
independence from Tehran, his real metric of success was clearly the
de-escalation of tensions between the United States and the Iran-backed militias
that dominate the Iraqi government. The White House believes that regional
de-escalation is necessary to allow the United States to focus on its
competition with China. But in Iraq, this approach promises to have long-term
costs: the U.S. desire for calm is being exploited by Tehran’s allies to
destabilize its politics.
Iraq may look calm, but looks can be deceiving. The country is actually entering
a uniquely dangerous period: Iran’s allies have achieved unprecedented control
of Iraq’s parliament, judiciary, and executive branch, and they are rapidly
rigging the political system in their favor and looting the state of its
resources. Washington’s complacent attitude toward these events is only setting
it up for costly involvement later. Iraq is the world’s third-largest oil
producer and a country whose collapse could destabilize the entire Middle East
through the spread of refugees and terrorism. Great-power competition has never
been an excuse to tune out the threats facing the country—and it shouldn’t be
one now.
Iraq has passed through numerous dark moments since 2003, but arguably none were
as devoid of hope as the present time. Yes, Iraq has a government led by Prime
Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and the Coordination Framework, a political
bloc closely allied with Iran. But this is only because the actual winner of the
October 2021 election, Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s populist movement, quit the
parliament in June 2022. The Sadrists took this step after the judiciary, which
is controlled by the leaders of the Iran-backed militias, changed the rules of
government formation to benefit Tehran’s allies. As a result, the election
result was rendered irrelevant and the losers were rewarded with victory—even
after they rioted to overturn the results and fired drones at the prime
minister’s house.
The Coordination Framework’s subsequent monopolization of all branches of the
Iraqi government is unprecedented in the country’s post-2003 history. It is
ruling with a level of unchecked authority that Iraq has not seen since the days
of Saddam Hussein. Sudani is a puppet: while the prime minister is an
experienced public sector manager and a hard worker, he leads Iraq in name only
and is openly disparaged by Tehran’s allies in Baghdad. The real powers are
three warlords, each closely tied to Iran, at the top of the Coordination
Framework: U.S.-designated terrorist Qais al-Khazali, the head of the
Iran-trained Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia; former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki;
and the leader of the Iran-founded Badr Organization, Hadi al-Amiri.
For many years, these three politicians were partly held in check by a patchwork
of opponents. During the U.S. occupation from 2003 to 2011 and again during the
war against the Islamic State (ISIS) from 2014 to 2019, Washington worked
assiduously to prevent the militias from gaining control of too many levers of
state power. Iraqi protesters have also acted as a check on the power of the
Iran-backed groups—their mass demonstrations in 2019 brought down the
militia-controlled Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi. And during Iraq’s most
recent elections, Sadr tried to rally a cross-sectarian and multiethnic majority
to form a cabinet that excluded the Coordination Framework.
Today, these sources of opposition have all fallen away. Sadr’s electoral gambit
failed because of the judiciary’s intervention, and his movement is now out of
power and licking its wounds. The Iran-backed militias also have nothing to fear
from the cowed and despondent youth protesters. Meanwhile, the United States is
distracted by its geopolitical struggle with China and has reduced its goals to
simply de-escalating tensions across the Middle East—no matter the long-term
cost to U.S. interests in the region.
RIGGING THE SYSTEM
The implications of the Coordination Framework’s takeover of the Iraqi
government are already clear. The bloc now has free rein to consolidate sweeping
control of the country, pillage Iraqi state resources, and suppress dissenting
voices. And its ascendancy shows no signs of waning: the Coordination Framework
now dominates the country’s cabinet and controls the parliament until the next
scheduled election, in October 2025.
Most important, the group directs the actions of the judiciary to an extent that
has not been seen since Saddam’s fall. Iraq’s most senior judge, Faiq Zaydan, is
a close ally of the warlords at the top of the Coordination Framework. Under his
leadership, Iraq’s Supreme Court has intervened decisively in the country’s
politics to perpetuate the militias’ power. At precisely the moment the
Coordination Framework needed to block Sadr’s 2021 electoral victory, the court
changed the rules of government formation—ruling that Sadr needed a two-thirds
supermajority in parliament, rather than a simple majority, to form a
government.
The Coordination Framework is also using its unchecked power to embed itself in
other Iraqi state institutions. The Iraqi National Intelligence Service, Baghdad
airport, anticorruption bodies, and customs posts have all come under the
group’s control since October 2022. Iraqi state institutions such as these were
already tottering, and these actions threaten to erode them further.
Iran-backed groups are using their expanding influence within these institutions
to escalate efforts to silence their domestic opponents. For instance, after
gaining control of Iraq’s media regulator, the Communications and Media
Commission, in January, they developed plans to introduce draconian digital
content regulations that promise to squelch Iraqis’ freedom of expression. The
regulations, which would require social media influencers to move to Iraqi
government–owned domains and include vague definitions of unsuitable content
that will serve to justify censorship, have drawn criticism from international
organizations for violating the Iraqi constitution.
Finally, the Coordination Framework is looting Iraqi state resources for its own
political advantage. Iran-backed groups have established a state company that is
actively consolidating state assets, using much the same approach as Iran’s
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Furthermore, these groups have
overseen the massive expansion of Iraq’s budget in an effort to buy the
population’s support as they consolidate power.
LOOTING THE STATE
The militia politicians of the Coordination Framework have long sought to
control a company that can amass government land and other public assets. Their
model for this effort is the IRGC’s Khatam al-Anbiya conglomerate, which has
achieved vast economic and political influence in Iran by being awarded more
than 1,200 construction contracts, worth over $50 billion, since its formation,
in 1990. Khatam al-Anbiya has been sanctioned by the United States, the United
Nations, and the European Union as a commercial extension of the IRGC.
Whenever the time has come to choose a new prime minister in recent years, the
Iran-backed militias have asked each of the shortlisted candidates whether they
would support the creation of a company along these lines. In 2018, Prime
Minister Adel Abdel-Mahdi said yes and received militia support for his
appointment as premier, but the U.S. government prevented the formation of the
company. When Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi took over as a midterm
replacement premier in 2020, he had the political support to refuse to allow the
company to form—and then refused again in 2022 when Tehran’s allies proffered it
as the price for his receiving a four-year second term. The Iran-backed militias
finally got their way under Kadhimi’s replacement, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia
al-Sudani, who announced in November 2022 the formation of “the Muhandis General
Company for Construction, Engineering, and Mechanical, Agricultural, and
Industrial Contracting.” The firm is named after the U.S.-designated terrorist
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in January 2020. This
time, the United States did nothing.
No organization like the Muhandis General Company has ever existed before in
Iraq. As shown in its articles of incorporation, the company is officially owned
by the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the Iraqi reserve army that arose
during the fight against ISIS and is led by the Coordination Framework and other
Iran-backed terrorists. Its remit is effectively unlimited: it can work in any
sector, as its full name implies, and is essentially an empty container through
which Iran-backed militias can consolidate their control over the Iraqi economy.
Uniquely for an Iraqi state company, the new firm can receive free land, state
capital, and state-owned enterprises, and can undertake construction and
demolition without cabinet or parliamentary approval.
In December 2022, soon after it was created, the Muhandis General Company
received 1.2 million acres of government land along the Iraqi-Saudi border at no
cost. The acquisition was announced in the media but went through none of the
usual paperwork or red tape that typically accompanies such projects. The
project is purportedly for tree planting and agriculture—but to give a sense of
scale, the area that it covers is half the size of Lebanon and more than 50
times bigger than the largest-ever planned agricultural project in Iraq’s
history. The land is also strategically located in an area where Iraqi militias
have fired drones into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on multiple
occasions since 2019. And in what may be the first example of an urban land
appropriation in Iraq, a PMF force also illegally expropriated a large piece of
prime west Baghdad real estate on behalf of the Muhandis General Company on
April 24, simply seizing a chunk of historic downtown Baghdad the size of 20 New
York City blocks, the entire grounds of Buckingham Palace, or the U.S. Capitol.
The continued growth of the Muhandis General Company would represent a severe
blow to Iraq. It would also thwart U.S. hopes for the country’s economic future.
On May 31, the senior State Department official on the Middle East, Ambassador
Barbara Leaf, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “economic
vitality for the first time is really evident” in today’s Iraq. This potential
will be strangled in its cradle if powerful militias can use their new economic
power to seize any promising industry, force themselves on government contracts,
and intimidate foreign investors.
BREAKING THE BANK
Iran-backed militias are also using state revenues to cement their hold on
power. The Coordination Framework–led government’s first draft budget is the
largest in Iraq’s history: it proposed $152 billion in spending, a roughly 50
percent increase from the last authorized Iraqi budget from 2021. The government
has pledged to sustain this level of spending for three consecutive years—that
is, right up until the October 2025 elections.
This reckless level of spending ignores the warnings of the United States, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank, which have called on Iraq
to reduce its bloated public sector. The Coordination Framework is trying to buy
the goodwill of Iraq’s political factions and its population through
unsustainable spending, including the creation of at least 701,000 new
government jobs—a 17 percent increase in government employees in a single year.
For example, the PMF is set to grow from 122,000 to 238,000 paid members, a 95
percent increase in the number of state-funded militiamen in a country
experiencing its lowest levels of violence in two decades.
By overloading the state with salary obligations, the Coordination Framework is
laying the groundwork for future instability. Even at today’s oil prices, which
are around $75 per barrel, this level of spending would wipe out most of Iraq’s
$115 billion in reserves in half a decade. If oil prices drop, Baghdad will go
broke even quicker. When Baghdad last found itself in dire financial straits in
2014, the world was quick to rally to Iraq’s aid because the country was vital
to the fight against the Islamic State. But the Iraqi government cannot count on
future such largesse. On May 31, the IMF sounded the alarm bell by predicting
that Iraq would face “critical macroeconomic stability risks” in the coming
years. In plain terms, this means default on payments to citizens and investors,
inflation and protests, and instability and refugee outflows to Europe.
DOING MORE WITH LESS
For the United States, the apparent quiet in Iraq could well turn out to be the
calm before the storm. This is not the first time Washington believed it was on
the glide path to stability in Iraq: after the 2010 elections that saw Maliki
reappointed for a disastrous second term, the United States tried to wash its
hands of the country. Then, as now, Iran-backed parties managed to rig the
government formation process in their favor, and subsequently weakened Baghdad’s
authority through corruption, militia influence, and political cronyism. After
the U.S. military withdrew in December 2011, Iraq seemed quiet—but its political
and social foundations were rotting from the inside. Two and a half years later,
the United States was pulled back into Iraq to fight a bloody war after ISIS
captured one-third of the country. Washington cannot afford to allow history to
repeat itself.
Temporarily reducing the incidence of pinprick attacks on heavily armored U.S.
diplomatic facilities should not be Washington’s main metric for success in
Iraq. Heavily fortified U.S. diplomatic sites were built at huge expense
precisely to allow American diplomats to defend U.S. interests and values
regardless of enemy harassment.
The United States doesn’t need to send troops or billions of dollars to help
reverse the dangerous trends in Iraq. U.S. financial and intelligence
capabilities can still have a significant impact on the actions of Iraqi
officials—many of whom have higher political ambitions and interests in
international commerce and banking. For instance, according to U.S. diplomatic
sources, Faiq Zaydan was deeply distressed when three U.S. Congress members sent
a letter to Biden in February that named Zaydan as a potential sanctions target.
The United States needs to use leverage such as this—privately at first—to
signal its concern about the state of Iraq’s judiciary and its key leadership.
There is a real risk of Iraq becoming a sort of judicial dictatorship, in which
governments come and go but the judiciary represents a permanent cudgel wielded
by the Iran-backed militias. American officials have unrivalled intelligence on
the communications and financial interests of corrupt officials in Iraq, and
they should use this information more frequently to issue sharp private warnings
to officials in Baghdad to amend their behavior.
The apparent quiet in Iraq could well turn out to be the calm before the storm.
The United States must also make good on its promise to uphold American values
of democracy and human rights in Iraq. In his May address, Sullivan stressed
that supporting U.S. values is one of the five pillars of the Biden
administration’s Middle East policy. In Iraq today, this means pushing back on
Baghdad’s draconian restrictions on social media use, investigative journalism,
and political satire—all hallmarks of dictatorship in the making.
Washington needs to support investigative journalism and help protect such
efforts with its good offices. The United States can also use its financial
intelligence capabilities to find money hidden abroad by corrupt officials and
return this money to Iraq. For instance, it can also help Iraqi authorities
apprehend the real culprits behind the $2.5 billion “heist of the century,” in
which officials linked to the Coordination Framework emptied an Iraqi government
tax account by stealing a checkbook and writing themselves hundreds of checks.
If the United States truly wants an independent, sovereign, and economically
functional Iraqi state, it should lead and give support to investigations to
track down stolen money and recover it for Iraq—not just learn about cases such
as these when they break in the news.
Most urgently, the United States should work to isolate the Muhandis General
Company from the Iraqi economy before it contaminates the country’s investment
landscape. The firm represents an attempt to strip the assets of a major
industrial nation for the financial benefit of U.S.-designated terrorists and
human rights abusers, who are the primary beneficiaries of the company. To the
U.S. government’s credit, the Muhandis General Company is already the subject of
considerable scrutiny by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets
Control and the U.S. Office of the Coordinator on Global Anti-Corruption, but
this needs to be translated into sanctions designations.
The United States can position itself on the right side of history in Iraq if it
continues to push back energetically against the worst excesses of the militias
that stand behind the current government. Even amid its competition with China
and the war in Ukraine, Washington can still use its voice and unmatched
financial and intelligence capabilities to weaken antidemocratic forces and give
Iraq’s youth, reformers, and anticorruption investigators the opportunity to
defend the fragile democracy that still—barely—exists in Iraq.