English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For March 17/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
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15 آذار/2023

Bible Quotations For today
Jesus touched their eyes and said, ‘According to your faith let it be done to you & their eyes were opened
Matthew 09/27-35: “As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, crying loudly, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David!’ When he entered the house, the blind men came to him; and Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ They said to him, ‘Yes, Lord.’Then he touched their eyes and said, ‘According to your faith let it be done to you.’And their eyes were opened. Then Jesus sternly ordered them, ‘See that no one knows of this.’But they went away and spread the news about him throughout that district. After they had gone away, a demoniac who was mute was brought to him. And when the demon had been cast out, the one who had been mute spoke; and the crowds were amazed and said, ‘Never has anything like this been seen in Israel.’But the Pharisees said, ‘By the ruler of the demons he casts out the demons.’Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 16-17/2023
UNIFIL: No Recent Blue Line Crossing between Lebanon and Israel
Israel says responsible for roadside bomb 'will pay dearly'
At Lebanon Border, Israeli Minister Vows Reprisal for Rare Bomb Attack
Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor Attends Corruption Questioning
Salameh walks free after lengthy questioning before European team
Pope urges new president in Lebanon in talks with Mikati
Italy promises support for Lebanon
KSA says no 'detailed understandings' with Iran over Lebanon, Iraq
Jumblat proposes Chibli, says time for unconventional names
Empty schools bode long-term damage from crisis
France 24 cuts ties with Lebanese journalist over 'anti-Semitic' tweets
Lebanon terrorist infiltration: Israel faces threats from all angles - analysis/Seth J. Frantzman?Jerusalem Post/March 16/2023
A people’s constitution would give the Lebanese hope/Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/March 16, 2023
The Illusion of a Lebanese State/Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah/Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs/March 16/2023

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 16-17/2023
Iran Sways between Optimism, Pessimism with IAEA
Amnesty International: Iran Forces Have Tortured Child Protesters
Shirin Ebadi Urges EU 'Not to Give In' to Iran
Once firmly against emigration, some Iranians are pushing their children to flee
Netanyahu in Germany amid tensions at home, Iran worries
Iranians in Winnipeg doubt claims that thousands of protesters have been pardoned
Iran agrees to stop arming Houthis in Yemen in deal with KSA
Iran's top security official in UAE to seek stronger ties
Israeli raid in West Bank kills Four
Israelis protest Netanyahu's controversial judicial reform in 10th consecutive week
Putin tells Russia's billionaires to invest in face of "sanctions war"
Poland breaks up Russian spy network, says minister
Deadly explosion rips through spy agency building in Russia
Russia wants to replenish its troops by recruiting 400,000 new contract soldiers starting April: reports
With Saudi deals, US, China battle for influence in Mideast
Meeting of Turkey, Syria, Iran, Russia, officials postponed -Turkish source
China, Japan trade accusations over maritime incursions
Many Killed in Mysterious Helicopter Crash in Iraq's North

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 16-17/2023
Analysis-Frustrated Khamenei pushed for Saudi-Iran deal clinched in China/Parisa Hafezi, Aziz El Yaakoubi and James Pomfret/DUBAI (Reuters)/Thu, March 16, 2023
How Iran’s Regime Is Threatened by Its Clerics/A new wrinkle in the Islamic Republic’s continuing political crisis/Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh/Commentary/March 16/2023
Middle East: recent developments could rewrite the political map – but a lot will depend on Israel/Paul Rogers/The Conversation/March 16/2023
Biden Admin Shills for ‘Combat Islamophobia’ Day/Raymond Ibrahim/PJ Media/March 16/2023
Biden Is Delivering the Middle East to China ... The new Beijing-brokered deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran is a warning sign of things to come/Michael Doran/The Tablet/March 16/2023
Biden Administration's Delusional Plan to Combat Palestinian Terrorism/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/March 16/2023
The ball is in Iran’s court following Saudi Arabia deal/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/March 16, 2023

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 16-17/2023
UNIFIL: No Recent Blue Line Crossing between Lebanon and Israel
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 16 March, 2023
UNIFIL’s spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said on Thursday that no crossing of the Blue Line has been recorded recently between Lebanon and Israel. Tenenti said the UNIFIL has inspected media reports claiming that a person has trespassed from Lebanon into Israel, according to dpa. “The UNIFIL did not record any crossing of the Blue Line in the last few days,” Tenenti was quoted as saying in a statement published by Lebanon’s National News Agency on Thursday. He added that Head of Mission and Force Commander of the UNIFIL Major General Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz urged both sides to exercise self-control and to preserve stability.On Wednesday, the Israeli army said it killed an armed suspect on Monday entering the country from Lebanon with a suicide vest and that investigations were ongoing to see if he has links to Hezbollah. The Israeli army said soldiers stopped a car carrying the bombing suspect at a checkpoint Monday shortly after a roadside explosion seriously injured a driver near Megiddo Junction in the country’s north. The suspect was wearing a suicide vest and had a rifle and a gun when he was stopped near the border with Lebanon. The army said it shot and killed the man and is questioning the driver. The army said the device exploded at a 90-degree angle, which is unusual for the area. That led officials to suspect that the man infiltrated from Lebanon and may have been linked to Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group.

Israel says responsible for roadside bomb 'will pay dearly'
Naharnet/Thursday, 16 March, 2023
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visited Thursday the Lebanese border, after Israel said an armed man suspected of blowing up a car may have come from Lebanon. Gallant threatened that "whoever decided to test Israel" by perpetrating the roadside bombing in the country's northern region "will pay dearly."But Israeli newspaper Haaretz claimed that "Israel prefers to contain the incident rather than let the situation in the north escalate." "However, it may yet respond in a limited fashion," the daily added. Gallant said that the attack was complicated but that Israel will find the truth. The Israeli army had said Wednesday that soldiers killed an armed man suspected of entering the country from Lebanon and blowing up a car, raising the risk of renewed tensions with Hezbollah. The security situation in Israel prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cut in half his planned two-day visit to Germany this week, his office said. The army said soldiers stopped a car carrying the bombing suspect at a checkpoint Monday shortly after a roadside explosion seriously injured a driver near Megiddo Junction in the country’s north. The suspect was wearing a suicide vest and had a rifle and a gun when he was stopped near the border with Lebanon. The army said it shot and killed the man and is questioning the driver. The army said the device exploded at a 90-degree angle, which is unusual for the area. That led officials to suspect that the man infiltrated from Lebanon and may have been linked to Lebanon's Hezbollah. The army said it did not release the details of the incident for two days because it was trying to determine the suspect's identity, which it did not release.Meanwhile, the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon said in a statement it had not observed any border crossings in recent days, calling on both parties to show restraint.

At Lebanon Border, Israeli Minister Vows Reprisal for Rare Bomb Attack
Asharq A-Awsat/Thursday, 16 March, 2023
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday said those responsible for a rare roadside bomb attack this week which officials said may have involved Lebanon's Hezbollah, would be found and held accountable. Israel's military said on Wednesday that security forces had killed a man carrying an explosive belt after he apparently crossed from Lebanon into Israel and detonated a bomb on Monday, seriously wounding a motorist. It was examining whether Iran-backed Hezbollah was involved. "Whoever carried out this attack will regret having carried out an attack against the citizens of Israel and against the state of Israel. We will find the right timing and appropriate manner to hit back," Gallant told reporters while touring the Israel-Lebanon border. But the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon spokesperson, Andrea Tenenti, said on Thursday that no crossing of the Blue Line has been recorded recently between Lebanon and Israel. Tenenti said the UNIFIL has inspected media reports claiming that a person has trespassed from Lebanon into Israel, according to dpa.

Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor Attends Corruption Questioning
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 16 March, 2023
Lebanon's embattled Central Bank governor appeared Thursday for questioning for the first time before a European legal team visiting Beirut in a money-laundering probe linked to the governor. Several European countries are investigating Riad Salameh, who in recent years has been charged with a handful of corruption-related crimes. Salameh has been Lebanon's central bank governor since 1993. The questioning was originally scheduled for Wednesday. Salameh did not show up. Judicial officials told The Associated Press that Judge Helena Iskandar, who is representing the Lebanese state at the questioning in the European probe, charged Salameh, his brother Raja and associate Marianne Hoayek with corruption and ordered detained after the Central Bank chief did not show up. Their assets were also frozen. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the press. In addition to the European probe, there are other legal proceedings against Salameh underway in Lebanon. In late February, Beirut’s public prosecutor, Raja Hamoush, charged the three with corruption, including embezzling public funds, forgery, illicit enrichment, money-laundering and violation of tax laws. The European delegation is investigating the laundering of some $330 million. The questioning was expected to last until Friday, the judicial officials said. Lebanon is grappling with the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history. The economic meltdown, which began in October 2019 and is rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement by the country’s political class, has plunged more than 75% of the tiny nation’s population of 6 million into poverty.

Salameh walks free after lengthy questioning before European team
Associated Press/Thursday, 16 March, 2023
Central bank chief Riad Salameh on Thursday attended a questioning session in the Justice Palace after failing Wednesday to show up before a European legal team visiting Beirut in a money-laundering probe linked to him. Salameh later left the Justice Palace after a lengthy interrogation session that lasted several hours. The Europeans questioned Salameh through Lebanese Judge Charbel Abu Samra, acting as a go-between. Under Lebanese laws, they could not directly question Salameh. The European delegation — with representatives from France, Germany, and Luxembourg — spent about two hours Wednesday at the Justice Palace in Beirut waiting for Salameh. Salameh’s lawyer showed up and submitted a petition that his client not be questioned by foreign judicial officials. The request was rejected by the prosecutor’s office and a new session was scheduled for Thursday. It is the European delegation’s second visit to Beirut after a trip in January, when they questioned nine people, including current and former central bank officials, as well as the heads of several banks in the crisis-hit Mediterranean country. The European delegation is investigating the laundering of some $330 million. The questioning was expected to last until Friday, the judicial officials said.

Pope urges new president in Lebanon in talks with Mikati
Naharnet/Thursday, 16 March, 2023
Pope Francis on Thursday reiterated his “firm faith in the message that Lebanon performs through the cultural and religious pluralism that characterizes it and makes it unique in the region,” during talks with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati in the Vatican.
The pontiff also stressed “the need for solidarity among Lebanese officials in order to exit the crises that Lebanon is facing and elect a new president for the country.”Mikati for his part said he handed the pope “a letter explaining the situations in Lebanon and the possible solutions that the Vatican can contribute to their success through carrying out contacts with the international community, especially as to holding the presidential election.”“I invited the pope to visit Lebanon, seeing as that would represent a beam of hope for Muslims and Christians in Lebanon alike,” the premier added.

Italy promises support for Lebanon
Arab News/March 16, 2023
Najib Mikati told Giorgia Meloni that his priorities were education, health and the election of a new president
PM Meloni said Italian support to the Lebanese people and institutions would continue in the spirit of the two nations’ long-standing friendship
ROME: Italy will continue to support Lebanon through “a difficult phase of its history,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has told Najib Mikati, the Lebanese interim Prime Minister, during a meeting in Rome. Mikati told Meloni on Thursday that his priorities were education, health and the election of a new president, according to a source close to the Italian Prime Minister. The Lebanese leader called for “all international partners not to lower their attention towards the dire situation” in his country, the source said. Meloni said Italian support to the Lebanese people and institutions would continue in the spirit of the two nations’ long-standing friendship. She assured Mikati that Italy would “continue and further strengthen” assistance through its State Agency for Development Cooperation and its participation in the United Nations Interposition Force. Mikati also met Pope Francis and the Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin during a visit to the Vatican. The Pope expressed “concern regarding the difficult socio-economic situation faced by the Lebanese population, which is aggravated by the current institutional stalemate of the country as it urgently awaits the election of a new president.”Lebanon has been without a president since October after Michel Aoun’s term ended. MPs have failed to agree on his replacement due to boycotts and factional rows in Parliament. According to a communique, Pope Francis stressed “the importance of the inalienable presence of Christians in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East” and called “for the peaceful coexistence among Lebanese of different faiths to be strengthened in order to guarantee peace and stability for the entire region.”

KSA says no 'detailed understandings' with Iran over Lebanon, Iraq
Naharnet/March 16, 2023
Saudi Arabia has not reached “detailed understandings” with Iran over “the crises in Iraq and Lebanon,” the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV quoted a Saudi source as saying on Thursday. Commenting on the landmark reconciliation agreement reached between the kingdom and Iran last week, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said that “Lebanon needs Lebanese rapprochement, not Iranian-Saudi rapprochement.”Iran and Saudi Arabia have agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after seven years of tensions. The major diplomatic breakthrough negotiated with China lowers the chance of armed conflict between the Mideast rivals -- both directly and in proxy conflicts around the region. Iran long has backed the Lebanese Shiite armed group and political party Hezbollah, while Saudi Arabia has backed the country's Sunni politicians as well as the Christian Lebanese Forces and the Druze Progressive Socialist Party. Easing tensions between Riyadh and Tehran could see the two push for a political reconciliation in Lebanon, which is facing a presidential vacuum and an unprecedented financial meltdown.

Jumblat proposes Chibli, says time for unconventional names
Naharnet/March 16, 2023  
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat has said "it is time to get out of the shell of traditional names" and to elect a consensual and not a confrontational president. In an interview published in Kuwait's al-Qabas newspaper on Thursday, Jumblat suggested the name of Lebanese international lawyer Chibli Mallat, and re-mentioned International Monetary Fund official and ex-minister Jihad Azour. He said that both Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh and MP Michel Mouawad are confrontational. "Can Lebanese parties continue with their confrontational approach when there is a political climate of consensus in the region," Jumblat wondered. "There is a regional dialogue that is bigger than (Parliament Speaker Nabih) Berri and myself, shouldn't we benefit from it," Jumblat asked. Lebanon has been without a head of state since Michel Aoun's mandate expired last year. Parliament had failed in 11 sessions to elect a new president and Berri hasn't called for a new election session since January, saying that no breakthrough to the deadlock appears likely. He had months ago called for a national dialogue that Christian parties rejected. "Will we remain stubborn in the time of dialogue, normalization and the return of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran," Jumblat said, as he called again for consensus.

Empty schools bode long-term damage from crisis
Associated Press/March 16, 2023  
On a recent school day, the Rene Mouawad High School in Beirut was empty, its classrooms dark, just like all of Lebanon's public schools have been for most of the past three months. Its striking teachers were protesting in front of the Education Ministry, not far away. About a hundred teachers joined the demonstration outside the ministry, blocking traffic and holding placards demanding pay raises. "We are done with charity," said Nisreen Chahine, the head of the union for contractor teachers. "We are not negotiating anymore. They should either rightfully pay us or go home."
The teachers gave speeches demanding officials come out and talk to them. But as usual in these regular protests, no one from the ministry emerged. After several hours, the teachers packed up and went home.
Lebanon's schools are crumbling under the weight of the country's economic collapse as the political leadership — which caused the crisis through decades of corruption and mismanagement — balks at taking any measures to resolve it. Since the meltdown began in late 2019, over three-quarters of Lebanon's 6 million people have been plunged into poverty, their assets evaporating as the currency's value shrivels and inflation rises at one of the world's highest rates. Most of the country's children have not been in school for months — many since even before teachers, who say they can no longer live on their salaries, went on strike in December. Lebanon was once known for producing a highly skilled, educated work force. But now an entire generation is missing out on schooling, wreaking long-term damage on prospects for the country's economy and future.
Teachers called their strike because their salaries, in Lebanese pounds, have became too low to cover rent and other basic expenses. The pound has gone from 1,500 to the dollar before the crisis to 100,000 to the dollar currently. Most teachers are now paid the equivalent of about $1 an hour, even after several raises since 2019. Grocery stores and other businesses now usually price their goods in dollars.
Teachers are demanding adjusted salaries, a transportation stipend, and health benefits. The government only offered to partially cover transportation, saying it didn't have the budget for more. Though schools partially reopened last week after some teachers returned to work, most chose to continue striking.
Even before the crisis, Lebanon's investment in public schools was limited. In 2020, the government's spending on education was equivalent only to 1.7% of Lebanon's GDP, one of the lowest rates in the world, according to the World Bank. The 2022 budget allocated 3.6 trillion Lebanese lira for education — the equivalent of around $90 million at the time the budget was passed in October, less than half the $182 million budget on education from a donor-funded humanitarian program. Instead, the government has relied for years on private and charity schools to educate children. Humanitarian agencies paid to cover salaries and keep decrepit infrastructure functioning. Two-thirds of Lebanese children once went to private schools, but hundreds of thousands dropped out in recent years because private schools have had to increase tuition to cover soaring costs. Public and private schools struggle to keep lights on as fuel costs mount. Even before the strike, more than 700,000 children in Lebanon, many of them Syrian refugees, were not in school because of the economic crisis. With the strike, an additional 500,000 joined their ranks, according to UNICEF. "It means we now see children ages 10, 12, 14 and they are not able to even write their own names or write basic sentences," Ettie Higgins, UNICEF deputy representative for Lebanon, told the The Associated Press. UNICEF said that last week it gave almost $14 million to help more than 1,000 public schools pay staff. Rana Ghalib, a mother of four, said it makes her anxious to see her children at home when they should be in school. Her 14-year-old son had to repeat the 6th grade because he has fallen behind during previous disruptions. "The classrooms are basically empty because teachers are demanding their rights and they're dark because there is no fuel," Ghalib told the AP. The international community has been pushing Lebanon's leaders to carry out wide-ranging reforms in the economy, financial system and governance in order to receive a $3 billion bailout package from the International Monetary Fund and unlock development aid. The political elite, which has run the country since 1990, has stalled — because, critics say, reforms would undermine its grip on power and wealth. Amid political deadlock, there hasn't been a president for months, and the government only functions in a limited caretaker capacity. Education, meanwhile, is joining banks, medicine and electricity in the ranks of Lebanon's failing institutions. That could cause long-term damage: Lebanon has traditionally relied on its educated and skilled diaspora population abroad to send remittances back home to support families, invest and feed dollars into the banking system. The exodus of skilled people skyrocketed during the economic crisis, leaving remittances as Lebanon's last economic lifeline.
Hussein Cheaito, an economist and nonresident fellow at The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, a Washington-based think tank, says the crippled education system will further "deteriorate the social fabric" of Lebanon and deepen poverty.
"This will have a effect on the longer-term growth of the economy," he told the AP. "This means there will be less access to jobs in the future … (and) weaken the labor market in general." Ghalib, meanwhile, checks on her children, who are watching TV and playing with their cellphones at a time when they would usually be studying. Even her 9-year-old daughter is aware that her future is in jeopardy, she said."My youngest daughter tells me, 'I want to be a doctor, but how can I do that if I'm sitting at home?'" Ghalib said. "I don't know what to tell her."

France 24 cuts ties with Lebanese journalist over 'anti-Semitic' tweets
Agence France Presse/March 16, 2023  
France 24 has said it would no longer work with one of its Lebanon-based correspondents following accusations of anti-Semitic messages on social media. In a statement, the news channel said it planned to file a complaint against Joelle Maroun, who worked for its Arabic service through an external production company, for damaging the company's reputation. The channel also reprimanded three other Arabic-language journalists over messages seen as breaching its code of conduct on impartiality over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
France 24's action follows a report by CAMERA, a pro-Israeli NGO in the United States, showing messages by the four journalists that it described as anti-Semitic. One of Maroun's messages mentioned Adolf Hitler and alluded to the Holocaust. France 24 said it was ceasing work with Maroun due to the "intolerant messages posted on her personal accounts, which are the antithesis of the values defended by the international channel and are criminally reprehensible."

تقرير من جيروزالم بوست للكاتب سيث ج. فرانتزمان يتناول حادثة التسلل الإرهابي الأخيرة لحزب الله من لبنان مؤكداً أن إسرائيل تواجه تهديدات من جميع الزوايا
Lebanon terrorist infiltration: Israel faces threats from all angles - analysis
Seth J. Frantzman?Jerusalem Post/March 16/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/116661/116661/
Hezbollah has continued to threaten Israel over the years. It has harassed the Jewish state with drones and sent agents to areas near the Golan.
The recent incident in northern Israel where an explosive device was detonated near Megiddo junction on Route 65 raises many questions. According to official reports, Israel’s security forces stopped a vehicle near Moshav Ya’ara on Route 899 and there was a terrorist and a driver inside. The terrorist posed a threat and was “neutralized.” He was in possession of weapons and an “explosive belt.”
This raises key questions about various security threats to Israel and also the Iranian-backed axis of groups that threaten the Jewish state. It also is a reminder of the kind of complex asymmetric threats that Israel faces – instead of large-scale complex terror attacks, Israel increasingly faces numerous disjointed groups, from the clashes in Jenin and Nablus, to Jericho.
Pro-Iran media waited until the details of the incident in the North were revealed in Israel to discuss the story. This appears to point to the fact that Hezbollah and the pro-Iran groups are not taking credit for the incident and did not try to publicize it. These media, such as Al-Mayadeen, could have been discussing this all week, but they were not.
Israel’s assessment is that the terrorist crossed the border from Lebanon. “The terrorist stopped a vehicle and asked the driver for a ride up North,” the IDF said. “The terror attack is under extensive review, in which the possibility of the involvement of the Hezbollah terrorist army is also under review.”
Involvement of Hezbollah, a serious escalation
The involvement of Hezbollah would be a serious escalation. But why would the terrorist group send one man with an improvised explosive device (IED), a rifle and a handgun over the border to conduct an attack of this nature? This is a major risk for the organization.
The attack doesn’t appear to be well planned or thought out. Why risk uncovering the role of Hezbollah by sending a sophisticated type of IED that can be traced to Iranian-backed groups?
Explosive types matter. The Palestinian terror groups once used bombs, including having suicide bombers target buses, to spread terror. Iran has a key role in certain types of explosive devices. It supplied Iraqi groups with Explosively Formed Projectiles (EFPs), a lethal type of IED that killed many US troops in 2006-2007.
Hezbollah has used explosives to target Israeli forces for many years and has sent operatives to train in the use of systems like EFPs. Hezbollah not only supplied Iraqi militias but this technology also ended up with the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. That doesn’t mean the attack in the North used this technology; it just means that explosive technology often travels through channels and networks and can be linked to various groups. So can the weapons the suspect carried.
Hezbollah has continued to threaten Israel over the years. It has harassed the Jewish state with drones and sent agents to areas near the Golan. Tensions have ebbed and flowed between the two adversaries.
A new maritime deal signed last year was supposed to reduce tensions. The new deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia might also mean reduced tensions in Lebanon in the run-up to the decision on a new president there.
So why would Hezbollah risk raising tensions with a terrorist incident like this, involving just one man? Has it frequently used explosive belts, or is this a tactic more common among Hamas, jihadists or ISIS types? These are key questions.
In the wake of the attack in the North and the “neutralization” of the suspect, many aspects of the threat lack clarity. Since it is not clear if he was affiliated with Hezbollah, it leaves the option open that he may have been affiliated with other groups. Iran backs Hezbollah, but it also backs Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Israel has been increasingly clashing with Islamic Jihad in Jenin and also Hamas members in Jericho, as well as other armed groups in the West Bank. Iran has an interest in supporting those groups and also threatening Israel from many directions. Tehran’s interest is in making Israelis feel less secure. That means that it may try various means to threaten Israel.
It also means other groups may be actively involved. During the 2021 conflict between Israel and Hamas, there were also incidents in Lebanon of attempted attacks, including rockets fired at the Jewish state and a drone launched from Iraq.
This follows the 2018 incident in which an Iranian drone was flown from T-4 base in Syria toward the West Bank. It was downed by Israel near Beit She’an. The drone had munitions on it and may have been transporting them to groups in the West Bank.
There are other types of incidents as well. In November, two explosive devices were detonated in Jerusalem, one of them at a bus stop and another near Ramot. A suspect was eventually arrested in east Jerusalem who was believed to be an alleged ISIS supporter. There have been other incidents involving suspects who are not clearly affiliated with the usual suspects, such as Hamas or Jihad.
Iranian media these days is more interested in stories about the Iran-Saudi deal and their belief that the US and Israel are losing out in the region. In addition, Syrian regime leader Bashar Assad was in Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, as the news broke about the incident in the North. Would Iran, focused on large issues of diplomacy, want to stir up an incident with Israel involving a lone gunman with an IED?
These are the questions. The overall context is that it is one of the kinds of threats Israel faces, which do not include large terror armies but rather a series of smaller groups and incidents.
Click Here To the above piece in the Jerusalem Post
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-734483?_ga=2.184948649.1678771049.1678962195-320814913.1667203196&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Israelis+protest+judicial+reform+in+third+nat+l++Day+of+Disruption&utm_campaign=March+16%2C+2023

A people’s constitution would give the Lebanese hope
Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/March 16, 2023
The upcoming municipal elections in Lebanon have been delayed to May due to a lack of material and resources, according to the caretaker Cabinet. Despite the situation getting much worse, it is similar to what happened in 2016, when speculation abounded as to whether the elections would take place. In the absence of a new president and a caretaker prime minister, many wonder if the same void is about to take place with municipalities and mukhtars. Regardless, the Lebanese expect little change from these elections. Cynicism and despair have already won all upcoming elections.
The Lebanese are well aware that no elections or new president, prime minister, mayor or mukhtar will change the course of their country. They do not expect change and are now relying on themselves more and more to continue with their daily lives. In this current system, there is nothing that allows them to build their lives or plan for any positive future. The reality is that Lebanon needs to build something new. Lebanon needs a new political system. A new constitution is what should be put to the vote as soon as possible. Not the replacement of one disappointing politician with yet another.
Despite being the most important, municipality elections are usually the most overlooked by voters all over the world. They impact citizens the most. They impact them and where they live directly. For Lebanon, the focus should be placed elsewhere. It should be on putting forward a new constitution, which should be the subject of a referendum — a vote to change the current political system. It is impossible to change the country and create a better future while keeping this broken and corrupted political system.
How could this work? How could Lebanon put forward a new political system? What should the political and security transition look like? And, more importantly, what could permit such a transformation? Moreover, what would this new constitution look like? I believe that answering these questions is exactly where we should start. It is about imagining a new state and writing a new constitution. So, Lebanon does not need massive crowds, protests and chants that dissipate and die as soon as the gatherings end. Lebanon needs to be reinvented and rebuilt. It needs hard work.
The Lebanese are well aware that no elections or new president, prime minister, mayor or mukhtar will change the course of their country
Let us forget cynical politics for a second. Most Lebanese think they cannot change anything. This is not true. They cannot change anything in the current system, but they can put forward a new one. And this is a big difference. Today, good men and women will be crushed or corrupted if they enter the political arena. This is why they need to start by formulating a new one. This is the only way, even if it sounds ridiculous in the face of the current challenges of daily life. Putting forward a new constitution is the seed or road map that is needed to move forward. Let people visualize and dream again of what their country could be and how their lives would be. Bring back hope.
In order to achieve this, Lebanese from all sides should come together. Lawyers, scientists, writers, judges, economists, artists, entrepreneurs and, obviously, people from all confessions. They have the power to make this change. It should exclude any present or past public official or politician. This group should ask themselves, what is Lebanon? What does the country stand for? What is important to nurture and preserve? How do they insulate the country from being torn apart with each geopolitical shift? In short, how does Lebanon mature and take its fate into its own hands?
I am convinced that, should a few good men and women take on this initiative, they will quickly come to the realization that a federal system is what will empower Lebanon. It is the only system that resembles the Lebanese. It is the only system that will allow for them to be “out of many, one.” Which is exactly what they are at their core.
Why is it that Lebanese get along everywhere else in the world but become cannibals in their own country? Why is it that brilliant successes are achieved in all fields by Lebanese everywhere but in Lebanon? Simply because, today, the Lebanese political system exacerbates the fear of the other and of losing out, as well as envy and greed. All this comes to an end with a federal system. In a federal system, the equivalent of municipal elections are the most important. If we compare with successful examples such as Switzerland, we see how diversity becomes power instead of being a drag on the country. People vote in their canton on what matters the most — education, healthcare and security — without impacting the others. In Germany, the Gemeinden (municipalities) have considerable autonomy and responsibility in terms of the administration of schools, hospitals, housing and construction, social welfare, public services and utilities, and cultural amenities. This is what Lebanon needs.
This should be done while guaranteeing, within the constitution, respect for human rights and the ironclad independence of the courts. Just as in other similar countries, a bicameral system could also be implemented and it should be discussed. Ultimately, Lebanon needs a fresh start that no election, whether municipal or parliamentary, would be able to achieve. Even if, tomorrow, by some miracle, Lebanon woke up to a new president and prime minister, the nightmare would continue. Change starts with a dream and its execution.
*Khaled Abou Zahr is the founder of Barbicane, a space-focused investment syndication platform. He is the CEO of EurabiaMedia and editor of Al-Watan Al-Arabi.

The Illusion of a Lebanese State
Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah/Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs/March 16/2023
https://jcpa.org/the-illusion-of-a-lebanese-state/
The disintegration of the Lebanese body politic is proceeding at an accelerated speed, creating a situation in which the different political factions concede that all efforts meant to reach a political solution that would allow Lebanon to climb out of the abyss today are no longer available.
As many times before, Lebanon has been left without a president since October 31, 2022, and a caretaker government with no genuine powers or legitimacy. The historical core agreement considered a sort of “holy alliance” that governed state politics for the last 17 years has ended without fanfare. That document was known as the Mar-Mikhail Memorandum of Agreement, signed by the then-leader of the Maronite “Free Patriotic Movement” (FPM), Michel Aoun, and Hizballah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah.1
This memorandum allowed Michel Aoun to be elected president in 2016 while Hizbullah gained prominence in Lebanese politics. In effect, Michel Aoun was held hostage by Hizbullah, who was allowed to block or agree to any political decision concerning domestic and foreign relations. According to one member of the FPM, the decision to end the memorandum of understanding was taken by Hizbullah “after considering that there was no need anymore for the alliance with the FPM.” MP Jimmy Jabbour added: “Nothing is left of the Mar-Mikhail Agreement except for protecting the back of the resistance [Hizbullah], and there is no partnership anymore. The detachment between the FPM and Hizbullah has taken place, and the separation has become a fact
The already complicated imbroglio concerning the election of the next Lebanese president, combined with the separation between Hizbullah and the FPM, has translated into a situation in which “there will be no election of a president in the foreseeable future.” Furthermore, the FPM declared, “The FPM will not take part in a parliament session should 65 votes be secured for the pro-Syrian Marada Movement head Suleiman Franjieh.”2
Indeed, four candidates eye the presidential position. However, none can secure a simple parliamentary majority of 65 members because each represents a political faction that will not compromise with any other. Hizbullah and its Shiite “twin,” Amal, have chosen Suleiman Franjieh, their ally in recent years, while the other Christian factions have named Michel Mo’awwad as their candidate. The FPM is lobbying to put forward the name of its present leader, Gibran Bassil, president Aoun’s son-in-law. The dissociation with Hizbullah serves Bassil vis-à-vis Washington to relieve him from the threat of sanctions because of his relations with the terrorist-listed organization. Thus, he moves closer to emerging as a presidential candidate, while Hizbullah sees his actions as tantamount to treason.3 The fourth candidate is the army chief Joseph Aoun (not related to Michel Aoun), who cannot be elected because of constitutional limitations. He cannot switch his military gear into a presidential suit until a law is enacted. Such a law is impossible right now to pass because a constitutional rule demands an acting government and not a caretaker, as is the case today. To complicate things, to form a new legal government, an interim president is needed, which is again not the case today.4
Suleiman Franjieh and Michel Mo’awwad represent the Lebanese tragedy: Suleiman is the grandson of President Suleiman Franjieh (1970-1976), who asked the Syrians to intervene in the civil war in Lebanon in 1976 and the son of Tony Franjieh who was assassinated (June 13, 1978) by forces led by the leader of the Lebanese Forces party, Samir Geagea. Michel Mo’awwad is the son of the assassinated president Rene Mo’awwad, who was killed after serving as president of Lebanon for 18 days (November 5-22, 1989).
However, since they are part and parcel of an electoral campaign, all candidates and supporters are trading barbs to belittle their rival and tar him with accusations of corruption. In an interview with the al-Akhbar newspaper, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said he would try to break the impasse and only call for a session of parliament when he senses that the parties are ready to elect, not to “waste time” and make statements. “Our candidate is known, but their candidate is a test-tube experiment,” Berri said. He added: “The only two serious candidates are Franjieh and Army chief Joseph Aoun, who is currently impossible to elect because it needs a constitutional amendment that a caretaker cabinet cannot make. Berri concluded that “the main problem in the presidential elections is inter-Maronite” [Christian].5
Calling Nabih Berri a “master of corruption,” Mo’awwad said Berri’s remarks carried an insult against his father, slain president Rene Mo’awwad, and all the MPs and blocs that voted for him in the latest presidential election session. “The Lebanese do not forget and will not forget Nabih Berri’s militia practices nor his siege of Beirut and its people and economy nor his siege along with his ally Hizbullah of the entire country to please foreign schemes.”6
The Lebanese Forces (LF), siding with Mo’awwad, joined the exchange of accusations by condemning the Shiite custom of “pleasure marriages” (Niqah Mut’aah), described by critics as “legal prostitution” and “adultery (temporary) marriage,”7 drawing a flurry of attacks by Hizbullah. The LF and the Kataeb party brandished their last resort weapon: boycotting the sessions of parliament to prevent the quorum needed for the election of a candidate, a threat that most opposition parties did not accept.8
Adding fuel to the burning fire, the caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, gave an interview in which he claimed, quoting a poll conducted by the Maronite church, that the Christians in Lebanon represented only 19.4% of the population9 (very far from the almost 40% claimed since the last census conducted in 1932). Mikati was understood to be insinuating that the partition of leading positions in Lebanon decided upon in 1943 in a non-signed oral covenant should be changed. However, his statement caused a general denial, stressing that the distribution between the three main confessions (Christians, Sunnis, and Shi’a) has not changed.
Amid conflicting reports about possible “deals” presented by different parties and meant to allow the election of a president, the latest rumors point to a potential deal that could be reached in late Spring or the beginning of Summer, according to which Suleiman Franjieh would be elected as president in return for the appointment as premier of Nawaf Salam, former ambassador to the U.N. and International Court of Justice judge. In the wake of the latest Paris meeting, the French sent a “clear message” to Hizbullah about the Franjieh-for-Salam deal.10
The presidential vacuum has created a chaotic situation in which the different branches of government fight one another. This is particularly true of the clash between the judiciary and the executive branch. For example, since the massive Beirut port explosion on August 4, 2020, all investigations conducted by judges to uncover the causes of the blast have been blocked by politicians, especially those linked to Hizbullah, suspected of storing the ammonium nitrate Hangar 9 of the port. The pro-Hizballah politicians used their power and influence to block all investigations and personal orders of a subpoena.
The judicial system has also been blocked in its effort to investigate the assassination of the journalist Luqman Slim (February 4, 2021), known for criticizing Hizbullah.
Now the Lebanese Prosecution Office May Be Stirring
With the intensive talk about corruption and the uncovering of the involvement of politicians and high-ranking officials in the transfer of vast sums of monies outside Lebanon with the cooperation of Lebanese banks, the Lebanese press is full of details on politicians who plundered the state coffers and filled their own.
Judge Ghada Aoun, a relative of President Aoun and a Mount Lebanon prosecutor, has charged the director-general of the internal security forces with obstructing the implementation of a judicial warrant and breaching his job duties.11 The minister of interior, Bassam Mawlawi, under Prime Minister Najib Miqati’s orders, instructed the authorities not to carry out Ghada’s orders.12 Lebanon’s top prosecutor Ghassan Oweidat told judge Ghada Aoun to pause the probe into banks’ wrong-doing.13
Ghada Aoun said that those instructions to stop the probe represented “a total breakdown of justice in this poor country,” and she called it “an unprecedented interference in the work of the judiciary.”14
Lebanese judge Raja Hamoush charged the former Central Bank governor, his brother Raja and his assistant Marianne Howayek with embezzlement, forgery, illicit enrichment, money laundering, and breach of tax law on Thursday. – (MENA, February 28, 2023)15
In fact, Ghada is aware of the link between the brothers Miqati Taha and Nagib and Riad Salameh, the Governor of the Bank of Lebanon. According to a press report, Riad Salameh received 14 million dollars from Taha Miqati, which was transferred in the framework of an agreement between a company owned by Salameh in Geneva and the group M1 of the Miqati brothers.16
Ghada Aoun is not only going after the Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon. She is also after 20 Lebanese banks, suspected of money laundering, assisting Hizbullah, and illegally transferring monies outside the country. So is the Swiss regulator who is investigating 12 Lebanese banks related to the Governor of the Bank of Lebanon, who is accused of transferring 250 million dollars into his personal accounts in Switzerland17 and other banks considered to be money havens (United Kingdom, France, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Germany) and to have facilitated the transfer of five billion dollars from Lebanon to foreign banks at a time when it was forbidden to transfer foreign assets abroad in the aftermath of the 2019 economic crisis. Governor Salameh is accused with his brother Raja, his son Nadi, and his personal assistant Marianne Hoayek of money laundering by the Swiss Authorities and speculating against the Lebanese lira and illegal transfers abroad. According to Ghada Aoun, proof, testimonies, and numbers are coming from the Swiss investigators that cannot be ignored. The investigators also discovered that Riad Salameh had a daughter in a relationship with a Ukrainian woman, to whom he transferred 21 million dollars.18
Riad Salameh’s activities were revealed in the massive trove of the “Panama Papers.” According to those revelations, Riad Salameh had two bank accounts worth hundreds of millions of dollars in Panama. In addition, a company owned by Bashar Assad’s cousin, Rami Makhlouf, transferred to Salameh’s Zurich account 55 million Euros. Salameh also owns a bank account at First National Bank with 80 million dollars in deposits. As for his brother Raja and his assistant Marianne, they possess 446 million and 340 million dollars in their bank accounts. When a journalist began investigating the issue in 2020, Ghada Aoun was summoned to the internal security headquarters and accused of tarnishing the reputation of the Lebanese banks and the prestige of the economy led by the Governor of the Central Bank, Riad Salameh, and advised to forget about her investigation.19
Her critics claim that she is acting on behalf of former president Michel Aoun who was accused of embezzlement by his deputy in 1988 — “when President Amine Gemayel nominated him at the end of his mandate and with no elected successor to take over the country as a caretaker.” Michel Aoun filled the post until he fled to France after a Syrian invasion of the Christian enclave.
According to General Issam Abou Jamra,20 Michel Aoun received in 1988 from Saddam Hussein 30 million dollars which were earmarked to pay the salaries of the army members. Aoun immediately took five million and transferred the funds to his wife’s account in France, while he took 12 million dollars for his personal use. When he was elected president in 2016, the minister of finance, Mohammad Safadi, unblocked the remaining 13 million in Michel Aoun’s personal account. Ghada Aoun’s critics point at Michel Aoun’s embezzlement and ask why she is not concentrating on that issue instead of harassing the banking sector. A complaint was filed at the appeals court of Mount Lebanon asking for an investigation into the corruption involving former president Michel Aoun as revealed in revelations by his former deputy.
Hizbullah’s Dirty Hands
Hizbullah also has its share of setbacks in this chaotic atmosphere where everyone is fighting everyone. At the end of February 2023, the United States succeeded in putting its hands on one of Hizbullah’s financiers, Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi, in Bucharest and is in the process of extradition. In addition, the U.S. State Department has offered a reward of up to 10 million dollars for information leading to the disruption of the financial mechanisms of Hizbullah.21 This development occurred when there was growing criticism in Lebanon of Hizbullah’s bank, “Al-Qard al-Hassan” (AQAH)” which continues to expand with no control at all from the Central Bank of Lebanon, while the judges concentrate on investigating “legal banks.”
AQAH was registered as a social organization in 1987 at the Ministry of Interior. Today, it is the long financial arm of the “resistance,” with more than 1.9 million people as its clientele who benefit from its services, such as the distribution of almost 4 billion dollars in loans. AQAH has developed from a social organization into a huge financial institution that functions without being registered at the Central Bank of Lebanon. Branches are opening, and ATMs are being installed in almost all of Lebanon. AQAH offers its clientele loans at exceptionally low interest to be reimbursed over long periods, but the primary mission of the” bank” is to finance Hizbullah’s open and covert activities. AQAH has 31 branches all over Lebanon, 15 in Beirut, 10 in South Lebanon, and six in the Bekaa valley — with 500 employees.22
Aware of the American sanctions against Hizbullah, AQAH has no accounts in Lebanese or foreign banks and does not invest in Lebanon or abroad. The only link is with Iran. However, from time to time, the United States penetrates Lebanese banks to discover illegal activities conducted with Hizbullah. Such was the case in 2019 with the “Jammal Trust Bank,” which offered services to Hizbullah’s executive council and the Martyrs Foundation.23
At this junction in time, Lebanon is in chaos. The revelations about the monies stolen, transferred, and disappeared fuel the Lebanese’s anger, despair, and dissatisfaction. The plunging Lebanese pound, which has lost more than 90% of its value since October 2019, the galloping inflation, and the deeper poverty combined with the lack of any alternative translate to many that Lebanon as a state is no more. The dollarization of the economy is moving fast. All prices in supermarkets and other commercial entities are displayed in dollars. Electricity is almost inexistent. Hospitalization costs are out of reach. Teachers have no money to fill their gas tanks and cannot reach the schools where they teach. A third of Lebanon’s students in the public sector and a third of the teachers have not seen schools for the last two months. Medicines are brought individually from visitors from abroad or bought at pharmacies selling Iranian or Syrian-made dubious medication. In this dire reality, the Lebanese, aware of the profound differences between the different political camps, have lost hope of seeing a solution soon.
The ones that survive are those who receive remittances from abroad. All the rest have become dependent on the state for their physical survival. Without the estimated 8 billion dollars a year injected into Lebanon by the Lebanese diaspora, Lebanon would cease to exist.
Notes
https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/295734-fpm-mp-says-hezbollah-has-ended-mou-with-his-movement; http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/295734↩︎
https://mustaqbalweb.com/article/251423-%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%81%D8%B5%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D8%B7%D9%86%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%B1-%D9%88%D8%AD%D8%B2%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A3%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A7-%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%82%D8%B9%D8%A7
https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/295955-berri-says-maronite-disaccord-complicating-presidential-vote↩︎
https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/295983-mouawad-lashes-out-at-berri-over-in-vitro-experiment-candidate↩︎
https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1330210/mariage-adultere-un-responsable-fl-critique-le-chiisme-politique-et-sattire-les-foudres-du-hezbollah.htm↩︎
https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/295964-report-opposition-won-t-join-lf-in-boycotting-presidential-vote↩︎
https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1329394/le-nombre-de-chretiens-quelle-mouche-a-donc-pique-nagib-mikati-.html;
https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1329311/polemique-sur-le-nombre-de-chretiens-au-liban-la-fondation-maronite-dans-le-monde-repond-a-mikati.html↩︎
https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/295842-report-shiite-duo-agrees-to-franjieh-for-salam-deal↩︎
https://civilsociety-centre.org/actions/judge-ghada-aoun-charges-director-general-internal-security-forces-obstructing↩︎
https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1329170/poursuites-contre-les-banques-mikati-demande-a-maoulaoui-dagir.html.↩︎
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/lebanon-top-prosecutor-tells-judge-investigating-banks-pause-probe-2023-02-28/↩︎
https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/2023/02/28/judge-receives-riad-salameh-corruption-file-with-hearings-to-be-set-soon/↩︎
https://mondafrique.com/le-combat-obsessionnel-de-ghada-aoun-contre-les-banques-libanaises/amp/↩︎
https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1329590/les-fonds-detournees-de-la-banque-centrale-du-liban-ont-ete-transferes-en-suisse-media.html; https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1329727/le-regulateur-suisse-enquete-sur-douze-banques-liees-a-laffaire-salame.html↩︎
https://libnanews.com/riad-salame-est-implique-dans-le-transfert-de-5-milliards-de-dollars-a-letranger-ghana-a↩︎
https://mondafrique.com/le-combat-obsessionnel-de-ghada-aoun-contre-les-banques-libanaises/amp/↩︎
https://icibeyrouth.com/liban/195319↩︎
https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/295954-us-state-department-offers-10-mn-for-info-on-hezbollah-financial-network.↩︎
Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah, a special analyst for the Middle East at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, was formerly Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Deputy Head for Assessment of Israeli Military Intelligence.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 16-17/2023
Iran Sways between Optimism, Pessimism with IAEA
London - Adil Al-Salmi/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 16 March, 2023
In the grey area between optimism and pessimism, Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman of Iran’s atomic agency, said Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) must find political and technical solutions to outstanding issues. Iran has agreed with the IAEA regarding three locations where traces of uranium were found, Kamalvandi told reporters on Tuesday. “If there will be further questions, we will answer and talk to each other to determine how these issues can be followed up,” added Kamalvandi. The IAEA has long demanded that Iran explain the reasons behind inspectors finding traces of uranium in the cities of Varamin and Turquzabad in southern Tehran and the city of Abadeh in Fars province. Kamalvandi said that discussions underway with the IAEA revolve around the agency finding traces of U-236 in the three sites. According to the Iranian spokesman, the traces belong to material transported by a Russian company working in Iran. Earlier this month, the IAEA said Iran had given widespread assurances to finally cooperate in the long-stalled investigation of undeclared sites. Upon his return from Tehran, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told reporters that he had received promises from Iranian officials that Tehran would cooperate by giving the agency information and access to undeclared sites. This would have indicated a significant improvement after Iranian stalling for years, but Tehran later denied having approved site access or allowing inspectors to talk to concerned officials. “The issue of letting people in never came up during Grossi’s two-day visit to Iran,” said Kamalvandi, adding that there was no agreement regarding installing new cameras at Iran’s nuclear facilities. Last Friday, Grossi announced that talks that had been agreed upon with Iranian officials could begin early this week. He said the exchanges could extend to between a week and ten days. “This path is a step forward, but the future is grey. I am neither optimistic or pessimistic,” Kamalvandi told state-owned ISNA then. Kamalvandi added that such issues must be resolved in their political and technical dimensions. Before the recent agreement with Grossi, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian called on the IAEA to solve outstanding issues “from a technical, non-political perspective.” Iranian officials repeated this request during Grossi’s visit. Discussions about reviving the Iran nuclear deal stopped in March 2022, and the latest attempt at mediation by the EU to return to the agreement failed last September.

Amnesty International: Iran Forces Have Tortured Child Protesters
Asharq A-Awsat/Thursday, 16 March, 2023
Iran’s intelligence and security forces have been committing horrific acts of torture, against child protesters as young as 12 to quell their involvement in nationwide protests, Amnesty International reported Thursday. Such acts include beatings, flogging, electric shocks, rape and other sexual violence, it said. Before releasing them, state agents often threatened children with prosecution on charges carrying the death penalty or with the arrest of their relatives if they complained, the report added. Iran has been swept by protests since the death of a young Iranian Kurdish woman in the custody of the country's morality police last September. Iranian authorities have admitted that the total number of people detained in connection with the protests was above 22,000. While they have not provided a breakdown of how many of those detained were children, state media reported that children comprised a significant portion of protesters.
“Iranian state agents have torn children away from their families and subjected them to unfathomable cruelties. It is abhorrent that officials have wielded such power in a criminal manner over vulnerable and frightened children,” said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “The authorities must immediately release all children detained solely for peacefully protesting.”

Shirin Ebadi Urges EU 'Not to Give In' to Iran
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 16 March, 2023
Nobel Peace Prize-winning Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi on Wednesday urged the EU to maintain pressure on the authorities in Tehran over human rights violations. "Subordinate aid to Iran, contracts with Iran, and treaties with Iran to respecting international norms, otherwise the money will not benefit the Iranian people at all," the activist said in a speech to the European Parliament. Ebadi insisted that "sanctions work" against the authorities in Tehran. "Do not give in to this regime," she told EU legislators, AFP reported. The European Union has imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on Iranian officials for their fierce crackdown on protests over the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Amini died in custody lin Tehran ast September after being arrested for an alleged violation of Iran's mandatory dress code for women. The 27-nation European bloc has so far stopped short of formally labelling Iran's Revolutionary Guards a terror group, despite calls to do so from Germany and the Netherlands. But Ebadi was categorical that "the Revolutionary Guards is a terrorist group". "Say it officially," she urged the EU. She said that since the start of the protests over Amini's death "at least 500 people" had been killed and 20,000 imprisoned. "Don't look away from the immense violations of fundamental rights in Iran," she said. Her address came on the eve of MEPs voting on a resolution on Iran, in particular on the mystery poisonings of thousands of schoolgirls. Ebadi shrugged off claims that poverty in Iran was due to sanctions being imposed by the international community on the country. Instead she pinned the blame on "the misappropriation of funds" and "bad economic policies" by the authorities. "Democracy is the key to Iran's future, it is the key to peace and stability in the whole region, and it is also in your interest," she argued. "If democracy comes to Iran, there will be fewer refugees in your country."

Once firmly against emigration, some Iranians are pushing their children to flee
A Times Staff Writer/March 16, 2023
Lida never wanted her children to leave Iran. Even as the 52-year-old retired schoolteacher watched the country’s moribund economic prospects spur more and more young people to leave, she still hoped to spend her retirement years with her son and daughter as they finished their education, got married and started families of their own. But between Tehran's brutal clampdown on anti-government protests and a sanctions-crippled economy that continues to crater, she now feels she has little option but to help her children escape the country.
“What if my son is killed in the protests like the others? What if my daughter was arrested? I now have nightmares thinking about them staying,” said Lida, who, like others interviewed, gave only her first name to avoid reprisals. She and her husband, also a retired schoolteacher, sold their car and what property they had to fund their children’s studies abroad. Her daughter, 20, has been dispatched to study physiotherapy at a university in Istanbul; her son, 27, is planning to leave for Italy to earn a master's degree in computer science.
“I want them to be safe,” she said. "Their safety is more important than us being together.”
Lida’s children join a growing exodus out of Iran. Though the country has long suffered brain drain, recent reports indicate that more Iranians are quitting the Islamic Republic than ever before. The director of the Iran Migration Observatory, a semi-governmental agency, recently told local media that the emigration rate over the last four years averaged 65,000 people annually — but that the last few months had seen the number rise by more than 50%.
Companies offering emigration services are seeing such a boom in demand that they say they’re turning applicants away, forcing many to turn to human traffickers.
“Everyone regardless of their age is looking for an exit plan,” said Sasan, a 40-year-old who trains students to take the International English Language Testing System, or IELTS, an English proficiency exam that can be used for immigration applications.
“In my two decades of experience, the situation has never been like this. It’s absolutely terrifying.”Sasan’s colleague Hamid, 39, the director of an IELTS office in Tehran, said nearly 50,000 applicants took the exam in the last 10 months — a record for the country.
The effects of the exodus can be seen in the real estate market, with advertisements of apartments for sale in upscale areas increasing even though prices have tumbled. One real estate agent said apartments were selling at 10% to 15% below their real value.
Observers blame the desire to leave on an increasing sense of despair in the country with the hard-line policies of President Ebrahim Raisi. Many see as a turning point his government’s crackdown on the massive demonstrations sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran's morality police last September — unrest that has continued despite estimates of hundreds of demonstrators killed and arrested.
After the protests began, a stream of celebrities, including athletes and artists, left Iran or reported that authorities had banned them from travel after participating in the demonstrations.
Meanwhile, negotiations to revive Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers — and with it the easing of sanctions to help the economy— remain stalled. Inflation and demonstrations have all but paralyzed businesses; recent weeks saw the Iranian currency, the rial, nosedive to 7% of its official value against the dollar on the black market before it rallied in response to last week's news of a diplomatic rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
As the government kept limiting access to the internet, online businesses followed suit. The human resources manager at Digikala, one of Iran’s top online shops, told a local newspaper that a quarter of its employees had left the country.
The most popular destination — for those who can afford it — is Canada, where the government recently announced legislation aimed at making it easier for Iranians to come into the country. Others head for the United Arab Emirates or Turkey as a passageway to European countries. And it’s not just highly educated professionals such as doctors and engineers who want to go.
“I have a successful business, but my wife wants to leave here to guarantee a better future for our kids. It’s a fact of our society now,” said a businessman who gave his name only as Vaziri and who had come to the IELTS office to reserve a session.
Though his English was not fluent, Vaziri was hoping to score high enough on the test to enter a postdoctoral program in Canada this year. “I’ve already failed before, but my wife insists we don’t give up. Many of my friends have already left,” he said, adding that if he didn’t do well on the test, he would set his sights on leaving for Dubai or Turkey. “My parents were always against emigration, but after everything in the last few months they’re pushing me nonstop to leave,” added 28-year-old IT graduate Mohammad, who is trying to reach Italy.
He doesn't consider himself an excellent student, but the challenge of living under a government constantly at odds with the international community has become too much.
“I don't want to live under sanctions and threat of war,” Mohammad said. The government has taken various measures to stanch the flow. In an interview with the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran News Network, Rouhollah Dehqani Firouzabad, the country’s vice president for science, technology and the knowledge-based economy, said the state would offer free housing, university jobs and lucrative projects to elites willing to return to Iran.
But it has also placed obstacles before those who want to leave. It recently raised the price for a Certificate of Good Standing, a government document Iranians must have to be able to leave the country, along with the fee for issuing university diplomas. Upcoming IELTS testing dates were suspended last month, but are expected to return with significantly higher fees attached.
But that’s unlikely to stop people, said Hamid, the IELTS office director. “The moment they announced the suspension of IELTS, our website had hundreds of applicants booking all available seats before the cutoff,” he said. “This will only make emigration more expensive, nothing more.”
Some have resorted to trafficking networks, paying anywhere from $12,000 to $15,000 to try to reach Europe via Turkey. Soon after the anti-government protests broke out last year, Yahya, 56, who runs a human smuggling ring in the western province of Urmia, says his clients more than tripled in number, before the rial's tumble in February brought that total back down because dollars became more expensive. Lida, the retired schoolteacher, is watching her circle of family and friends disintegrate. Several of her former colleagues have sent their children to Turkey, and every few months brings word of a friend or relative going to Canada. Her sister recently said she would apply to go there as well. Lida is still hoping her son will soon depart for Italy to study, though she hates the idea of his leaving.
“I know I'm going to be depressed when he goes,” she said. “I see all my life gone.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Netanyahu in Germany amid tensions at home, Iran worries
BERLIN (AP)/Thu, March 16, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting Germany's leaders Thursday on an abbreviated visit that comes in the shadow of tensions over his government's planned overhaul of Israel's judicial system and worries about Iran’s nuclear program. Netanyahu has meetings scheduled with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Germany's largely ceremonial president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on his one-day trip to Berlin. The prime minister's office has said he cut the length of his visit in half because of the security situation in Israel. He delayed his departure from Israel on Wednesday as the country's figurehead president prepared to unveil a compromise proposal for overhauling the legal system, an approach that Netanyahu rejected. German officials have voiced concern about the Israeli government's plan, which would allow parliament to overturn Supreme Court decisions and give Netanyahu's parliamentary coalition the final say over all judicial appointments. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said when her Israeli counterpart visited last month that "the protection of principles of the rule of law such as judicial independence ... was always a hallmark of Israel.”
Protests against the overhaul are planned in Berlin, though not near Netanyahu, whose visit is taking place under the customary heavy security. Germany and Israel, which traditionally are close allies, share concerns about Iran's nuclear activities. Netanyahu has threatened military action against Iran’s nuclear program as it enriches uranium closer to weapons-grade levels. Germany is one of the world powers that entered a tattered 2015 deal with Tehran to address concern about its nuclear ambitions. Baerbock has stressed the importance of “preventing a nuclear escalation by Iran by diplomatic means, because every alternative would be disastrous.”

Iranians in Winnipeg doubt claims that thousands of protesters have been pardoned
Saeideh Mirzaei/CBC/Thu, March 16, 2023
Iranians in Winnipeg say they don't believe a claim from the head of Iran's judiciary that thousands of people arrested in anti-government protests have been pardoned.
Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, Iran's chief justice, said Monday that more than 22,000 people have been pardoned after being arrested in the protests that swept Iran over the September death of Mahsa Amini, according to an Associated Press report.
The 22-year-old woman died in custody after she was detained by the country's morality police, accused of not wearing her headscarf properly. There was no immediate independent confirmation of the mass pardon, and some Winnipeggers with ties to Iran are skeptical.
Saeideh Mirzaei, a University of Manitoba PhD student from Iran, said she reacted with "bitter laughter" after hearing the announcement. The government has announced pardons before, but prisoners are often later re-arrested, she said. "They're not long-lasting pardons or kindness.… Some of them are out just for a couple of days and they [are arrested] again." Iran's state-run news agency quoted Ejei as announcing the releases Monday, after earlier suggestions Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could pardon thousands ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which starts later next week.
The chief justice said a total of 82,656 prisoners and people facing charges had been pardoned, including 22,628 who were arrested amid the demonstrations. The pardoned demonstrators had not committed theft or violent crimes, he said, which may suggest the total number of people detained is even greater. In February, Iran acknowledged "tens of thousands" had been detained in the protests. "Of course these are not real pardons," said Winnipeg's Mirzaei. "The real pardon is releasing all the prisoners."
'There is no amnesty' Iranian Community of Manitoba president Arian Arianpour called the announcement "outrageous." He said he also knows a number of people who have been pardoned by the government in the past and then re-arrested. "When you've been pardoned, you can't be summoned for the exact same charges. But so many people have," he said. Arianpour said he believes Iran is trying to give the impression of a more peaceful government through the pardons, in an attempt to quell the country's ongoing protests. "The regime wants to show off with this so-called amnesty, but there is no amnesty," he said.
Though demonstrations in Iran over Amini's death have slowed in recent months, Arianpour said civil disobedience in the country is at an all-time high. "In cities all over the country, you will see people wearing no hijab," he said. Mirzaei also said even though demonstrations have declined, people in the country are still angry, and many are protesting in ways that don't necessarily involve being on the streets. "People need to refresh and take back their energy to fight," said Mirzaei. "I just put myself in the place of people who are in Iran," she said. With the risk of being killed or imprisoned for protesting, "how many days you are going to go out?"Mirzaei said she wants to go back to Iran after she finishes her studies. The thought of return is always on her mind. "If I really expect people to continue fighting, I have to be a part of that fight, too," she said. "If I don't dare [to go] back, I shouldn't expect people to be in the street.... I hope I can go back and serve my community."

Iran agrees to stop arming Houthis in Yemen in deal with KSA
Associated Press/ March 16, 2023
Iran has agreed to stop sending weapons to the Houthi rebels in Yemen as part of a China-brokered deal with Saudi Arabia, U.S. and Saudi officials said. The Wall Street Journal, an American daily, quoted Thursday U.S. and Saudi officials as saying that if Tehran does stop arming the Houthis, it could put pressure on the militant group to reach a deal to end the conflict. The Iran-Saudi relationship has been historically fraught and shadowed by a sectarian divide and fierce competition in the region. Diplomatic relations were severed in 2016 after Saudi Arabia executed prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Protesters in Tehran stormed the Saudi Embassy and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed “divine revenge” for al-Nimr’s execution. Iran-allied Houthis seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in 2014 and forced the internationally recognized government into exile in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition armed with U.S. weaponry and intelligence entered the war on the side of Yemen’s exiled government in 2015. Years of inconclusive fighting created a humanitarian disaster and pushed the Arab world’s poorest nation to the brink of famine. Overall, the war has killed more than 150,000 people, including over 14,500 civilians, according to The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. A six-month cease-fire, the longest of the Yemen conflict, expired in October, but finding a permanent peace is among the administration's highest priorities in the Middle East. U.S. special envoy to Yemen Tim Lenderking is visiting Saudi Arabia and Oman this week to try to build on the U.N.-mediated truce that has brought a measure of calm to Yemen in recent months, according to the State Department. Beijing swooped in on the Iran-Saudi talks at a moment when the fruit was already “ripening on the vine,” according to one of six senior administration officials who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private White House deliberations. The Iran-Saudi announcement coincided with Chinese leader Xi Jinping being awarded a third five-year term as the nation’s president. The official added that if China can play a "reinforcing role” in ending hostilities in Yemen the administration would view that as a good thing. But both the White House and Saudi officials remain deeply skeptical of Iran's intentions in the Yemen war or more broadly acting as a stabilizing force in the region.
To date, China, which has a seat on the U.N. Security Council, has shown little interest in the Yemen conflict, Syria, or the Israeli-Palestinian situation, according to administration officials. Yet, Xi this week called for China to play a bigger role in managing global affairs after Beijing scored a diplomatic coup with the Iran-Saudi agreement.

Iran's top security official in UAE to seek stronger ties
DUBAI (Reuters)/Thu, March 16, 2023
Iran's top security official held high-level talks in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday as Tehran seeks greater outreach to Gulf states amid mounting tensions with the West over the country's nuclear work and its drone sales to Russia. The visit by Iran's Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Shamkhani comes days after Tehran and Riyadh reached a China-facilitated deal to re-establish relations and re-open embassies within two months after years of hostility. "Considering the suitable platforms that have been created since a year ago for the development of relations between Iran and the UAE, I see this trip as a new stage for political, economic and security relations," said Shamkhani in Abu Dhabi, Iranian state media reported. The UAE downgraded its diplomatic ties with Iran after Riyadh severed its ties with Tehran in 2016 following the storming of the Saudi embassy in the Islamic Republic by hardline protesters over Riyadh's execution of a prominent Shi'ite cleric. After years of animosity on different sides of geo-political rivalries, the UAE started re-engaging with Tehran in 2019. It resulted in upgraded diplomatic ties last year between Iran and the UAE, which has business and trade ties with Tehran stretching back more than a century, with Dubai emirate long being one of Iran's main links to the outside world. Growing worries about warming relations between Israel and its former Arab foes, including normalisation agreements between Israel and some Arab nations known as the Abraham Accords, have pushed Tehran's clerical rulers to pursue regional detente. Tension between Iran and the West have mounted over Tehran's nuclear activity and its supply of drones for Russia's war in Ukraine, as well as the Islamic Republic's clampdown on months of anti-government-protests. Tehran denies selling drones to Moscow for use in the Ukraine war. The Islamic Republic's arch-foe, Israel has threatened to carry out military attacks if world powers fail to salvage Iran's 2015 nuclear pact. Indirect talks between Tehran and Washington have stalled since September. Then-U.S. President Donald Trump reneged on the accord in 2018 and reimposed U.S. sanctions. In response, Tehran breached the deal in several ways, including by rebuilding stocks of enriched uranium.

Israeli raid in West Bank kills Four
News Agencies/March 17/2023
Israeli forces killed Four Palestinians in a raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry said. There were "three martyrs from occupation (Israeli) bullets in Jenin," a ministry statement said, while the Israeli army said that "security forces are currently operating in the Jenin refugee camp".

Israelis protest Netanyahu's controversial judicial reform in 10th consecutive week
Euronews with AFP/Thu, March 16, 2023
Protests continue to rock Israel for the 10th week as opponents of controversial judicial reforms sought by the government demonstrated Wednesday at Ben Gurion airport, ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's departure on an official trip to Germany.
On Tuesday, the Israeli Knesset voted to approve a bill in the first reading that would allow lawmakers to scrap Supreme Court rulings with a simple majority vote. The Netanyahu government, which includes ultra-Orthodox and extreme-right-wing parties, introduced its package to overhaul the judiciary in January. The prime minister, who also has a planned trip to Britain, presented the plan as key to restoring the balance between the branches of government in a system he believes gives judges too much power over elected officials. The reforms would also grant the ruling coalition more powers in appointing judges. But the move has sparked 10 consecutive weeks of nationwide demonstrations, with critics expressing concerns that the reform package threatens Israel's liberal democracy. They have also charged that the proposed changes aim to protect the Israeli prime minister as he fights corruption charges. At Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv on Wednesday, some demonstrators held aloft banners that read "Crime Minister", in reference to Netanyahu's ongoing legal battle. Israeli President Issac Herzog has tried to broker dialogue and called on the coalition government last week to halt the legislation, dubbing it "a threat to the foundations of democracy". Herzog warned late on Monday that the "constitutional and social crisis" was damaging the country and "could have diplomatic, economic, social and security repercussions". Israel's opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has refused to engage in dialogue before the ruling coalition entirely freezes its push to turn the bills into law. Lapid and three other Jewish opposition party leaders said they would boycott the final votes on the legal reform bills if they reach their third readings. The heads of the two Arab opposition parties did not attend the meeting. A group of prominent scholars have meanwhile sought to present to the parliament a compromise version of the reforms, declaring that the aim was "preventing constitutional chaos."

Putin tells Russia's billionaires to invest in face of "sanctions war"
MOSCOW (Reuters)/March 16, 2023
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday urged Russia's billionaires to invest in new technology, production facilities and enterprises to help it overcome what he said were Western attempts to destroy its economy. Addressing Russia's business elite in person for the first time since the day he sent his troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, Putin told them their role was not just to make money but to support society. Companies should not hide their assets offshore but should invest more at home, he said. He hailed the "high mission" of entrepreneurs who looked after their workers and directed their talents not just towards extracting profit but also for the public good. Billionaires Oleg Deripaska, Vladimir Potanin, Alexei Mordashov, German Khan, Viktor Vekselberg, Viktor Rashnikov, Andrei Melnichenko and Dmitry Mazepin - whose interests range from metals and banking to fertilisers - were among those in attendance.
"I look forward to hearing your opinion on how to make the development of the domestic economy at a new stage more dynamic, more successful, so that it leads to a noticeable improvement in the quality of life of people across the country," Putin told them. Though welcomed with a standing ovation, he was delivering a tough message to Russia's richest people: that they need to think more about the needs of the country and less about their own bottom line. When he met with them at the start of the war, Putin told them he had been left with no choice but to launch his "special military operation" - in effect forcing them into a public display of consent.
ECONOMY RESISTS SANCTIONS
Many of the tycoons, known as oligarchs, were subsequently placed under sanctions by the West, but Putin said the attempt to destroy Russia's economy had failed. He said those Western firms that had decided to stay in Russia rather than flee in a corporate exodus last year had made a smart decision. In the clearest sign of rising demands on big business, the government - faced with a widening budget deficit - plans to raise around 300 billion roubles ($3.9 billion) in a windfall tax, though this will not affect oil, gas and coal firms. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said the tax would be set at around 5% of excess profits, TASS news agency reported. The levy will come into force legally from 2024, but the finance ministry expects companies to make payments this year as well, he said. Russia is hoping to bring about economic growth this year, after a 2.1% slide in 2022. Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov told the congress that GDP and investment would grow this year, but stopped short of giving estimates. The economy proved unexpectedly resilient in the face of sanctions last year, but a return to pre-conflict levels of prosperity may be far off as more government spending is directed towards the military. Putin has effectively placed large parts of the economy on a war footing, with defence factories working round the clock to churn out weapons, ammunition and equipment. The president last month urged business elites to invest in Russia rather than "begging" for money in the West, telling them that ordinary Russians had no sympathy for the yachts and palaces they had lost due to sanctions.
(Reporting by Reuters; writing by Mark Trevelyan, Jake Cordell and Alexander Marrow; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Poland breaks up Russian spy network, says minister
WARSAW (Reuters)/Thu, March 16, 2023
Poland has broken up a Russian espionage network operating in the country and detained nine people it says were preparing acts of sabotage and monitoring rail routes to Ukraine, the interior minister said on Thursday. An ally of Ukraine and hub for deliveries of weapons to Kyiv's armed forces, Poland says it has regularly found itself the target of Russian efforts to destabilise the country. "In recent days, the Internal Security Agency has detained nine people suspected of collaborating with the Russian secret services," Mariusz Kaminski told a news conference. The suspects were foreigners from countries to the east of Poland. "The suspects conducted intelligence activities against Poland and prepared acts of sabotage at the request of Russian intelligence," he said. Kaminski said six of the people detained had been charged with espionage for Russia and participation in an organised criminal group. Prosecution proceedings against three people detained on Wednesday were ongoing, he added. "Internal Security Agency officers secured cameras, electronic equipment, as well as GPS transmitters that were to be mounted on transports with help for Ukraine," Kaminski said.
The group had also been ordered to carry out propaganda activities to destabilise relations between Poland and Ukraine, and they had been paid for their activities, he said. Kaminski's statement came after private radio station RMF FM reported on Wednesday that Polish security services had detained six people suspected of spying for Russia. According to RMF, cameras were found close to the Jasionka airport near Rzeszow, which has become a transfer point for weapons and ammunition being delivered to Ukraine. On Wednesday, Polish President Andrzej Duda met with CIA Director William Burns. The president's office said they discussed the security situation. Several European countries have expelled Russian diplomats for alleged spying since the war in Ukraine dragged relations between Moscow and the European Union to historic lows. In February, a Russian citizen who has been living and conducting business activities in Poland for many years has been charged with spying for Russia between 2015 and April 2022.

Deadly explosion rips through spy agency building in Russia
Joe Barnes/The Telegraph/Thu, March 16, 2023
At least one person was killed and two were injured in an explosion that caused a fire at an FSB Border Service Department building in Russia, local authorities said. The security service building is in the port city of Rostov-on-Don, near the Ukrainian border in the southeast of Russia. Local residents heard an explosion and then black smoke started pouring out of the building, according to local media reports. "Emergency services were dispatched... details are being clarified," the press office of the emergency services in Rostov-on-Don said in comments carried by the state-run TASS news agency. It is not yet clear what caused the explosion. There have been several incidents of reported sabotage attributed to Ukrainian partisans within Russian territory since the Kremlin deployed troops to Ukraine in February last year.

Russia wants to replenish its troops by recruiting 400,000 new contract soldiers starting April: reports
Matthew Loh/Business Insider/March 16, 2023
Russia wants to recruit 400,000 new contract soldiers starting in April, per multiple local reports.
News of this recruitment drive comes amid the military's push to increase its manpower by 50%.
Russian contract soldiers are typically volunteers who serve three-year paid stints in the army.
The Russian Ministry of Defence plans to recruit another 400,000 contract soldiers in 2023, according to multiple local media reports. The recruitment drive is expected to launch on April 1, and regional governments have already been informed of the hiring quotas they need to fulfill, reported Radio Free Europe on Tuesday. The Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions, for example, were each told to obtain 10,000 signatures by the end of 2023, according to Ura.Ru, a pro-Kremlin news outlet. And in Voronezh, one of the Russian regions closest to the border with Ukraine, military officials were seen distributing subpoenas to residents, telling them to update their particulars with enlistment and military registration offices, per BBC Russia. The authorities said the summons were issued just to collect information, and not to lay the groundwork for a second mobilization, BBC Russia reported. The Russian news outlet Layout reported that the Russian military is in particular looking for new recruits in specialized vocations, like artillery or armor operators. The incoming batches of contract soldiers will be allowed to choose whether they will be deployed to Ukraine, Layout wrote, citing an anonymous source at a local authority in Voronezh.
Russia declared a "partial mobilization" of 300,000 reservists in September to replenish forces being depleted by its invasion of Ukraine. Reports of draftees with little training and poor equipment dying en masse have prompted local fears of a second mobilization wave. However, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in February there are no plans for a second mobilization. Shoigu also said in December that the defense ministry is seeking to bolster its military from 1 million personnel to 1.5 million. The augmented military is expected to field some 695,000 contract soldiers, with at least 521,000 in service by the end of 2023, Shoigu said. Russian contract soldiers are typically volunteers who sign up for a three-year paid stint in the army, per the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank. They numbered around 400,000 before Moscow invaded Ukraine. Since the war began in February 2022, recruiters have been offering hefty bonuses and increased salaries to contract soldiers, while the Kremlin rushes to bolster resources for its hard-hit troops. The Russian Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

With Saudi deals, US, China battle for influence in Mideast
AAMER MADHANI, MATTHEW LEE and ELLEN KNICKMEYER
WASHINGTON (AP)/Associated Press/Thu, March 16
In a matter of days, Saudi Arabia carried out blockbuster agreements with the world’s two leading powers — China and the United States.
Riyadh signed a Chinese-facilitated deal aimed at restoring diplomatic ties with its arch-nemesis Iran and then announced a massive contract to buy commercial planes from U.S. manufacturer Boeing.
The two announcements spurred speculation that the Saudis were laying their marker as a dominant economic and geopolitical force with the flexibility to play Beijing and Washington off each other. They also cast China in an unfamiliar leading role in Middle Eastern politics. And they raised questions about whether the U.S.-Saudi relationship — frosty for much of the first two years of President Joe Biden's term — has reached a détente.
But as the Biden administration takes stock of the moment, officials are pushing back against the notion that the developments amount to a shift in the dynamics of the U.S.-China competition in the Middle East.
The White House scoffs at the idea that the big aircraft deal signals a significant change in the status of the administration's relations with Riyadh after Biden's fierce criticism early in his presidency of the Saudis' human rights record and of the Saudi-led OPEC+ oil cartel move to cut production last year.
"We’re looking forward here in trying to make sure that this strategic partnership really does in every possible way support our national security interests there in the region and around the world," White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said of the U.S.-Saudi relationship. He spoke after Boeing announced this week the Saudis would purchase up to 121 aircraft.
But China's involvement in facilitating a resumption of Iran-Saudi diplomatic ties and the major Boeing contract — one the White House said it advocated for — have added a new twist to Biden's roller-coaster relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
As a candidate for the White House, Biden vowed that Saudi rulers would pay a "price” under his watch for the 2018 killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the kingdom’s leadership. More recently, after the OPEC+ oil cartel announced in October it was cutting production, Biden promised “consequences” for a move that the administration said was helping Russia.
Now, Washington and Riyadh seem intent on moving forward, and at moment when China is at least dabbling in a more assertive Middle East diplomacy.
Saudi officials kept the U.S. up to date on the status of talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia on restarting diplomatic relations since they began nearly two years ago, according to the White House. Significant progress was made during several rounds of earlier talks hosted by Iraq and Oman, well before the deal was announced in China last week during the country's ceremonial National People’s Congress.
Unlike China, the U.S. does not have diplomatic relations with Iran and was not a party to the talks.
The Iran-Saudi relationship has been historically fraught and shadowed by a sectarian divide and fierce competition in the region. Diplomatic relations were severed in 2016 after Saudi Arabia executed prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Protesters in Tehran stormed the Saudi Embassy and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed “divine revenge” for al-Nimr’s execution.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan earlier this week said China was “rowing in the same direction” with its work at quelling tensions between the Gulf Arab nations that have been fighting proxy wars in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq for years.
“This is something that we think is positive insofar as it promotes what the United States has been promoting in the region, which is de-escalation, a reduction in tensions,” Sullivan said.
But privately White House officials are skeptical about China's ability, and desire, to play a role in resolving some of the region's most difficult crises, including the long, disastrous proxy war in Yemen.
Iran-allied Houthis seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in 2014 and forced the internationally recognized government into exile in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition armed with U.S. weaponry and intelligence entered the war on the side of Yemen’s exiled government in 2015.
Years of inconclusive fighting created a humanitarian disaster and pushed the Arab world’s poorest nation to the brink of famine. Overall, the war has killed more than 150,000 people, including over 14,500 civilians, according to The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.
A six-month cease-fire, the longest of the Yemen conflict, expired in October, but finding a permanent peace is among the administration's highest priorities in the Middle East. U.S. special envoy to Yemen Tim Lenderking is visiting Saudi Arabia and Oman this week to try to build on the U.N.-mediated truce that has brought a measure of calm to Yemen in recent months, according to the State Department.
Beijing swooped in on the Iran-Saudi talks at a moment when the fruit was already “ripening on the vine,” according to one of six senior administration officials who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private White House deliberations. The Iran-Saudi announcement coincided with Chinese leader Xi Jinping being awarded a third five-year term as the nation’s president.
The official added that if China can play a "reinforcing role” in ending hostilities in Yemen the administration would view that as a good thing. But both the White House and Saudi officials remain deeply skeptical of Iran's intentions in the Yemen war or more broadly acting as a stabilizing force in the region.
To date, China, which has a seat on the U.N. Security Council, has shown little interest in the Yemen conflict, Syria, or the Israeli-Palestinian situation, according to administration officials. Yet, Xi this week called for China to play a bigger role in managing global affairs after Beijing scored a diplomatic coup with the Iran-Saudi agreement.
"It has injected a positive element into the peace, stability, solidarity and cooperation landscape of the region,” China’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Geng Shuang told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday. “We hope it can also create conducive conditions for improving the situation in Yemen.”
The administration officials said that Beijing has shown modest interest in reviving the seven-party Iran nuclear agreement — of which it is a signatory — that President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from in 2018. The Biden administration put efforts to revive the nuclear agreement on hold last fall after protests broke out in Iran following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody for allegedly flouting Iran’s strict dress code for women.
To be certain, China — a major customer of both Iranian and Saudi oil — has been steadily increasing its regional political influence. Xi traveled to Riyadh in December and received Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Beijing last month.
But Miles Yu, director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute, said that Xi's call to be a more active player on the international stage would require Beijing to dramatically change its approach.
“China's diplomatic initiatives have been based on one thing: money,” said Yu, who served as a China policy adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during the Trump administration. “They've made friends in Africa and Asia, but mostly it was monetary. These kind of transactional dealings do not forge permanent friendship.”Not every move China takes to engage more deeply with the Middle East necessarily harms the United States, noted Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat and a frequent critic of Saudi Arabia.
“But it’s probably true that China should pick up some of the cost of securing the oil that … frankly, is probably more important to them than to the United States in the long run," Murphy said. “I think China has benefited by being a free rider on U.S. security investments in the region for a long time."
The White House is not particularly concerned at the moment about the Saudis reorienting themselves toward China for several reasons, including that the Saudis' entire defense system is based on American weapons and components, administration officials said. The officials added that it would take the Saudis at least a decade to transition from U.S. weapons systems to Russian or Chinese oriented systems.
Saudi Arabia’s reliance on U.S.-made weapons systems and the American military and commercial presence in the kingdom — some 70,000 Americans live there — have played a big part in the relationship weathering difficult moments over the years, said Les Janka, a former president of Raytheon Arabian Systems Co. who spent years living in the kingdom. It would take "an unbelievable amount of activity to dismantle, given the reliance on American weapons, American technology, American training, everything that goes into it,” Janka said.

Meeting of Turkey, Syria, Iran, Russia, officials postponed -Turkish source
ANKARA (Reuters)/Thu, March 16, 2023
A meeting of the deputy foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey, Iran and Syria, scheduled for this week, has been postponed to an unspecified date, a source from the Turkish foreign ministry said on Thursday. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said last week that the deputy foreign ministers of the four countries would meet this week in Moscow, ahead of planned talks between foreign ministers at a later date, aimed at resolving the crisis in Syria. The deputy foreign ministers' meeting had been scheduled for March 15-16, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Monday.
But the meeting was postponed for "technical reasons", a Turkish foreign ministry source said, without elaborating. In a sign of potential rapprochement between Ankara and Damascus, Syrian and Turkish defence ministers held landmark talks in Moscow in December, alongside their Russian counterpart, marking the highest-level encounter since the start of the Syrian war more than a decade ago. In January, Cavusoglu said he could meet his Syrian counterpart in February to discuss normalisation between the two neighbours. NATO member Turkey has been a major backer of the political and armed opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the 12-year conflict in Syria, and has sent its own troops into swathes of the country's north. Moscow is Assad's main ally and Russia encouraged a reconciliation with Ankara. After meeting his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian last week, Cavusoglu said Iran wanted to join the talks between Turkey, Syria and Russia, and Turkey agreed. In a rare visit abroad, Assad met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; Editing by Daren Butler and Sharon Singleton)

China, Japan trade accusations over maritime incursions
BEIJING (AP)/Wed, March 15, 2023
China’s dispute with Japan over tiny Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea is heating up again, with both sides accusing the other of infringing on their maritime territory. China says the islands belong to it and refuses to recognize Japan’s claim to the uninhabited chain known as the Senkakus in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. Taiwan also claims the islands, which it calls Diaoyutai, but has signed access agreements for its fishermen with Japan and does not actively take part in the dispute. China routinely sends coast guard vessels and planes into waters and airspace surrounding the islands to harass Japanese vessels in the area and force Japan to scramble jets in response. On Wednesday, a Chinese coast guard spokesperson said Chinese vessels had “expelled some Japanese vessels which had illegally entered the territorial waters.” The unidentified official said its moves were routine measures to safeguard sovereignty and maritime interests. Japan’s coast guard on Thursday said Chinese coast guard vessels were violating Japanese territorial waters around the islands and have been repeatedly requested to leave and not to approach Japanese fishing boats operating in the area. Unlike islands in the busy South China Sea, which China claims virtually in its entirety, the Senkaku/Diaoyu chain lying between Okinawa and Taiwan has little strategic importance. However, China has made it a cause celebre in its campaign to rally nationalism based on memories of Japan's brutal invasion and occupation of much of China that ended in 1945. Meanwhile, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida were meeting in Tokyo Thursday for talks underscoring their shared sense of urgency to form a united front on North Korea and China with their mutual ally, the United States. Chinese intrusions by China’s military vessels into waters around the Islands featured in wide-ranging January discussions in Washington between President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Those talks came as Japan is increasing defense spending dramatically and looking to build security cooperation with allies in a time of provocative Chinese and North Korean military action. The U.S. is also bolstering alliances in the Indo-Pacific to meet new threats, including providing Australia with nuclear-powered submarines, gaining increased access to Philippine bases and boosting defense cooperation with Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy China claims as its own territory to be brought under its control by force if necessary.

Many Killed in Mysterious Helicopter Crash in Iraq's North
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 16 March, 2023
Several people, including fighters belonging to an outlawed Kurdish insurgency group, were killed in a mysterious helicopter crash in northern Iraq, according to a statement from the Iraqi Kurdish-run counterterrorism service on Thursday. The AS350 Eurocopter crashed in the district of Chamanke in Dohuk province in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region the previous night, the counterterrorism service said in a statement posted on social media. All of its passengers were killed, the statement said. An investigator at the scene of the crash said at least seven were on board. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media while the investigation is ongoing, The Associated Press said. The helicopter was carrying members belonging to the outlawed Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK, the statement said. The incident is shrouded in mystery because no party has of yet claimed ownership of the military helicopter. The Iraqi government, the US-led coalition and Türkiye had been contacted by the Iraqi Kurdish regional government about the crash, but each party denied the helicopter was theirs, the statement said.Zagros Hiwa, a PKK spokesperson, said the group does not possess helicopters and they were also investigating the incident. He also cast doubt on the presence of PKK fighters onboard the flight, saying they may have a coalition helicopter carrying fighters with the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, another PKK affiliate active in Syria. A spokesman for the US-led coalition declined to comment, saying the crash fell outside the scope of the coalition's operations. Turkish defense ministry officials said that initial reports that the helicopter had been Turkish were “completely untrue” and that there was no helicopter flight belonging to the Turkish military in the region. The PKK has been waging an insurgency against Türkiye since the 1980s and is considered a terror group by Ankara, the United States and the European Union. The PKK have established safe havens in northern Iraq and roam freely there and frequently come under attack by Türkiye.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 16-17/2023
Analysis-Frustrated Khamenei pushed for Saudi-Iran deal clinched in China
Parisa Hafezi, Aziz El Yaakoubi and James Pomfret/DUBAI (Reuters)/Thu, March 16, 2023
Eager to end its political and economic isolation, Iran had been trying for two years to restore ties with its long-time rival Saudi Arabia, an Arab heavyweight and oil powerhouse.
Last September, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lost patience with the slow pace of bilateral talks and summoned his team to discuss ways to accelerate the process, which led to China's involvement, two Iranian officials told Reuters.
Beijing's secret role in the breakthrough announced last week shook up dynamics in the Middle East, where the U.S. was for decades the main mediator, flexing its security and diplomatic muscles.
"The Chinese showed willingness to help both Tehran and Riyadh to narrow the gaps and overcome unresolved issues during the talks in Oman and Iraq," said an Iranian diplomat involved in the talks.
The deal was struck after a seven-year diplomatic rupture. For Saudi Arabia, a deal could mean improved security. In 2019, the kingdom blamed Iran for attacks on its oil installations that knocked out half of the its supply.
Iran denied involvement. Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Saudi Arabia's Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan has said that Saudi investments into Iran could now happen quickly.
Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran in 2016 after its embassy in Tehran was stormed during a dispute between the two countries over Riyadh's execution of a prominent Shi'ite Muslim cleric.
Hostility between the two powers had endangered stability in the Middle East and fuelled regional conflicts including in Yemen, Syria and Lebanon.
Asked whether the Saudi-Iran deal might fray, Wang Di, a senior Chinese diplomat involved in the talks in Beijing, told reporters the rapprochement was a process without expectations that all issues would be solved overnight.
"The important thing is for both sides to have the sincerity to improve ties," he said, according to state Xinhua news agency reporter Yang Liu on Twitter. Saudi Arabia, Washington's most important Arab ally, began exploring ways to open a dialogue with the Islamic Republic two years ago in Iraq and Oman, said a Saudi official.
This lead to a critical moment in December, when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Riyadh. In a bilateral meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the president expressed his desire to broker dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
"The crown prince welcomed this and promised to send, for us to send to the Chinese side, a summary of the previous rounds of dialogue, a plan on what we think on how we can resume these talks," said the Saudi official.
In February, Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi visited Beijing and the Chinese forwarded Riyadh's proposals that were accepted by the Iranian side, the official added.
CHINESE MEDIATION 'BEST OPTION'
An Iranian official said the deal covered a range of issues, from security concerns to economic and political issues.
"I will not go into details but we have agreed that neither country will be a source of instability for the other one. Iran will use its influence in the region, particularly in Yemen, to help Riyadh's security," the official said.
"Both sides will do their best to preserve security in the Persian Gulf, guarantee the oil flow, work together to resolve regional issues, while Tehran and Riyadh will not get involved in military aggression against each other."A Saudi-led coalition has been battling the Houthi movement in Yemen for years.
Exactly how much support Iran has given the Houthis, who share a Shi’ite ideology, has never been clear. Sunni countries in the Gulf accuse Iran of interference via Shi’ite proxies in the region, something Tehran denies.
"Iran is the main supplier of weapons, training, ideological programs, propaganda and expertise to the Houthis and we are the main victim. Iran can do a lot and it should do a lot," said the Saudi official.
Iran chose its senior national security official Ali Shamkhani to lead the negotiations because he is an ethnic Arab, said a regional source who belongs to Khamenei's inner circle.
"The Chinese showed willingness to help both Tehran and Riyadh to narrow the gaps and overcome unresolved issues during the talks in Oman and Iraq," said the Iranian diplomat involved in the talks.
"China was the best option considering Iran's lack of trust towards Washington and Beijing's friendly ties with Saudi Arabia and Iran. China also will benefit from a calm Middle East considering its energy needs," said an Iranian official, briefed about the meetings.
After decades of mistrust, ongoing frictions should not come as a surprise. "This agreement does not mean that there will be no issues or conflicts between Tehran and Riyadh. It means that whatever happens in the future it will be in a 'controlled' way," said an Iranian insider, close to Iran's decision-making elite.
**(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

How Iran’s Regime Is Threatened by Its Clerics/A new wrinkle in the Islamic Republic’s continuing political crisis
Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh/Commentary/March 16/2023
Fereydoon Abbasi is a hardline parliamentarian and former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization. In 2010, he barely survived what looked like an Israeli assassination attempt. And in December 2022, this stalwart of the mullahcracy issued an unusual rebuke. “Just complaining is not enough,” he said. “It is expected that the seminary will offer its opinion on how to solve our problems.” In the middle of the most serious uprising that Iran’s Islamic Republic has confronted in its 44-year lifespan, Abbasi chose to single out the nation’s clerical elders for a solution to the troubles swirling around the theocracy since the death of a young Kurdish-Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, on September 16, 2022. Given the strain on the security services, the rapid decline of Iran’s currency, its accelerating nuclear program, and near-constant Israeli covert action inside the Islamic Republic, it seems curious that a nuclear physicist and a former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, who isn’t known to opine on religious issues, should be so concerned with the musings of nonagenarian ayatollahs in the shrine city of Qom.
Since the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, the Islamic Republic has not infrequently had to deal with city-shaking demonstrations, strikes, and even rebellions. The clerical regime has found itself confronting sullen members of the middle class and angry youth time and again. In 2009, protests against a rigged presidential election reached a million people in the streets of Tehran; in 2019, the security forces used automatic-weapons fire to suppress dissent that verged on insurrection. But the continuing protests sparked by the death of Amini at the hands of the morality police last year are different.
The slogan at the center of the protests is “Women, Life, Freedom”—zan, zendegi, âzâdi—and it deliberately conceals more than it reveals. This is not a revolt for clean elections, better wages, or even female emancipation. It is a plea for personal dignity and individual sovereignty. This upwelling explicitly aims to overturn the theocracy and replace it with a democracy no longer limited by clerical oversight. Although not well appreciated by many outside of Iran, democratic aspirations were a significant driver of the revolution in 1978–79. The ruling clergy was compelled by that fact to incorporate democratic elements into the new religious order; and so for many, even within the clergy, the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy is believed to rise from the people as well as God and the holy law. The people need to be supervised, of course, by those who know better—the clergy. But the body politic has constituent authority that even hardcore theocrats reluctantly recognize. And the Islamic Republic’s flirtation with limited democracy throughout its tenure, which led Iranians to hope intermittently that they might be able to change the course of their country at the ballot box, has whetted the appetite among many for the real thing. As the legitimacy of theocracy has collapsed, the desire for popular sovereignty has risen.
Revolution-loyal clerics have worried about the health of the republic since Khomeini’s passing more than 30 years ago. The late Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi-Kani, himself a cleric of unimpeachable revolutionary credentials who often served as an intermediary between the clerical establishment in Qom and the ruling political clergy in Tehran, warned in the early 1990s that clerics were becoming corrupted by power and wealth, that they were losing the affections of the faithful. According to him, mullahs needed to remember that their essential role in Iranian society depended on their spiritual and juridical work away from power. His counsel wasn’t followed, and partly as a result, official Iranian studies have that shown a rapidly declining number of young men are seeking a clerical education even though it remains the pathway to power and wealth for the poor. Even more telling, Iranian women of the lower and middle classes, where the wives of clerics have usually come from, no longer find mullahs attractive as mates. And the regime is well aware that mosque attendance has dropped precipitously. The historic norm for Shiites, who had a complicated relationship with state authority throughout most of Islamic history, was irregular mosque attendance. That changed with the Islamic revolution. What far-sighted revolutionary clerics like Mahdavi-Kani feared would happen has come to pass: The public expression of Muslim fraternity, if it still exists in the Islamic Republic, has distanced itself from state-controlled mosques and imams. This likely explains the growth of a more mystical, mullah-hostile, populist Shiism among the poor.
Clerical leaders have taken note of all this discontent. Their usually subtle, indirect critiques of the theocracy have become bolder. The grand ayatollahs are cautious men inclined toward consensus who usually present themselves as concerned guardians of the revolution and the faith. Outside of religious ritual and the mundane aspects of Islamic law, they tend to focus on economics, the people’s material well-being—but politics are never far behind.
When the troubles broke out in September 2022, Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi stressed, “We will not resolve the issue of hijab or poverty with pressure.” Hossein Nuri Hamadani, a clerical leader who is arch-conservative on most issues, including women, insisted, “If plans to eliminate oppression, discrimination, and poverty are not on the agenda, and if these issues are not resolved, then the Islamic revolution has not reached its objectives.” He went further: “It is necessary for officials to listen to the people’s demands and solve their problems and be sensitive to their rights.” His fellow divine, Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi-Amoli, embraced the opposition, noting, “We also accept this slogan.…Listen to the students.” He ended his message with a stark warning: “If the nation rises up, we have no way to escape.”
All this has sparked its share of consternation in the capital of Tehran. Emissaries from the capital frequently journey to Qom hoping to quiet aggrieved ayatollahs. In the past months, speaker of the parliament Mohammad Qalibaf and various ministers have pleaded their case. President Ibrahim Raisi, who has been crisscrossing the country since his election and is known to work the phones, has also been calling Qom.
So why does the regime care now? Tehran is known for disciplining recalcitrant and disrespectful mullahs. It usually shows a certain decorum toward the grand ayatollahs, whose patronage systems aren’t legally under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s control. The politicized clergy are often tied by affection and family to mullahs who’ve chosen to keep their distance from government. But there is no question who rules. And the fossilized theological elite atop Iran’s clerical establishment surely have no base of support among the rebellious youth. In fact, given the public’s long experience with theocratic rule, Iran has perhaps become the most secular Muslim nation in the Middle East, Turkey included.
What Mahdavi-Kani worried about 30 years ago—if religion is about everything, then it becomes about nothing—has probably happened for most peo-ple under 30. That may well also be true for people under 50. An Islamic Republic that makes worship its business routinely issues reports documenting the increasing secular direction of its subjects. The mosques, as the regime points out, are mostly empty even on days of religious commemoration. Hardly anyone purchases religious tomes issued by the state publishing houses. It’s a decent guess that no one in Iran who listens to Western music, diaspora Persian pop, or Sufi compositions has ever voluntarily touched a religious guidebook by Khamenei. In terms of appearance, men eschew beards and women hate the headscarf. Since the outbreak of the latest insurrection, mullahs have routinely been accosted on the streets. (This has been a problem since the 1990s, but it appears to have gotten much worse.) In sharp contrast to the 1970s, religion has lost its centrality in Iranian society.
The supreme leader and his allies take a dim view of the grand divines. Given Khamenei’s lack of theological erudition (he was a middling scholar when Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, then the majordomo of the political clergy, made him the supreme leader), he has always approached his more accomplished brethren with a mixture of envy, suspicion, and hostility. As an aspiring totalitarian state, the Islamic Republic sought to nationalize religion and diminish the autonomy of seminarians. The Revolutionary Guards have even set up their own religious school; Khamenei controls the selection and sermons of the Friday prayer leaders. But the hawza—the community of senior clerics of Qom—has not succumbed to the state’s attempts at total control. And the marjas, the “sources of emulation” considered the highest authorities in Iran’s branch of Shia Islam, continue to offer benediction to supplicants, collect alms from the faithful, and to some extent chart their own path. Khamenei doesn’t esteem these old men, but he has to take into consideration any criticisms they might make, for the simple reason that many of his foot soldiers might care a lot what these divines think.
The Islamic Republic has never been a traditional authoritarian state; it’s more an ideological construct. Such regimes require a dogma, a serious argument sanctioning repression. They ask their security forces routinely to bloody their hands, even sometimes to commit atrocities.
Its working-class enforcers often come from religious families. And Iran’s overlapping security services have a lot of conscripts. Even within the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, the country’s elite military force, conscripts may represent more than half the corps. The top echelons of the guards may be tied to the government by financial rewards and privileges of power, as well as a militant creed, but such dispensations do not trickle down all that generously. Faithful enlisted men need religion to justify their actions. They likely respond best, without guilty consciences, when the gravamen against the enemy is defined by religious belief. The regime, given its fairly accurate understanding of what has been taking place in Iranian society, likely views its conscripts as sentries who themselves need to be watched for wobbliness.
This is why the clerical critique is so subversive. The Islamic Republic’s current dilemma is existential. All national armies that confront civilian protestors have their share of doubts and defections. The esteemed leaders of the Shiite community—and nonpolitical clerics work their way up the totem pole through a combination of skills (erudition, fundraising, marriage)—cannot operate without the approbation of their families and fellows. A marja knows people voluntarily follow his views; if someone strongly disagrees with a grand ayatollah, he or she is free to search elsewhere for guidance. That undoubtedly disconcerts, if not frightens, the regime as its popularity has collapsed. Khamenei is demanding that poor young men be willing to return to their own neighborhoods and kill those who are culturally close. They need to be willing to kill young, unveiled women. The clerics are not making that demand easy to enforce.
Although it has become commonplace to hear Western and Iranian feminists describe Iran’s Islamic society as misogynistic, that isn’t how the faithful, especially the regime’s supporters, view it. They see themselves as protecting women from the depredations of men. It’s been obviously hard for the regime to square the imperative to protect women, which is at the core of male Islamic culture, with the demand to beat and kill girls. Khamenei, who isn’t soft-hearted and has a proven fondness for men who excel at killing, has flinched in his rhetoric when it comes to describing young women as the “enemies of God,” which is the usual way the regime labels those who rebel. As they always do when demonstrations disquiet them, Khamenei and the guards have tried to cast the latest revolt as a Western and Zionist plot to undermine Islam and an uncompromising revolution. In their eyes, the tumult after Amini’s murder is a conflict between believers and nefarious agents of foreigners. This charge is also hard for Iranians to take seriously when young women and girls—some may well be the daughters and granddaughters of clerics and guardsmen—are on the front lines.
Given that female dissent in Iran is now present even among the poor and lower middle class, the pressure on the poorly educated foot soldiers of the regime must be intense. The Islamic Republic’s increasingly permanent state of instability is a minefield for those who must oppress dissenters who look and talk like them. Khamenei likely knows he will have no surcease to this agitation before his death. He is 83 years old and not in the best of health. He sees his true enemy—Westernization—pretty clearly since he himself was once enraptured by European literature. He translated the works of Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian father of modern Islamic militancy, into Farsi because he, too, was appalled by, and perhaps guiltily attracted to, the Occident’s personal freedom. Khamenei knows that the West’s secret sauce is its capacity to encourage people to self-actuate.
Among women, even in the holy city of Qom, which has seen frequent demonstrations since September, Western views, values, and sentiments appear to have penetrated quite deeply. It’s a perverse paradox for the theocracy: The Islamic revolution’s success has produced a secularizing nemesis. For the moment, on the streets, the regime appears to have the upper hand. Though strained, the security services have held.
But all revolutions have their ebbs and flows. Intense activity alternates with relative calm. Iran’s senior seminarians have extensive alms-collecting networks throughout the country. They have, in other words, informal intelligence services nationwide feeding information back to them. They are surely aware how deep the anger is now against the theocracy. They probably sense more tumult coming. Like the ruling elite, they don’t appear to have any clear idea of how to stop it. They obviously don’t want more violence. It’s a biting irony that their pacific intentions, that their commendable public airing of their concerns, may well make the Islamic Republic even more unstable.
*Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, is a resident scholar at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Middle East: recent developments could rewrite the political map – but a lot will depend on Israel
Paul Rogers/The Conversation/March 16/2023
Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies, University of Bradford
Following political developments in the past fortnight, two state-level policy changes in the Middle East are likely to combine to have a substantial impact on regional stability.
On March 10, in a deal brokered by China and signed in Beijing, Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after a seven-year break. While a long way from bringing an end to conflicts such as the bitter war in Yemen, it is, as Simon Mabon noted in an article for the Conversation, a positive development.
The previous week, writing in the Times, Middle East correspondent Michael Spencer revealed a plan by Gulf states to restore relations with the Assad regime in Syria.
If this report is accurate, the implications of the two developments for Middle East politics are substantial – not least because of recent social and political developments in Israel and Iran.
Arab detente
The essence of the Times story was that some Arab states want to normalise relations with Damascus – even if this is opposed by the US and its western allies. This should involve an easing of sanctions and more regional economic integration.
It will also mean getting Syria back into the Arab League, from which it has been suspended since 2012 following its brutal suppression of Arab Spring protesters. The move is championed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and along with the Saudi-Iran agreement has the potential to reorder the balance of power in the region. The early indications are that beneficiaries of the two developments will include China and the individual regional autocracies involved. Beijing will benefit by taking a key role in facilitating the deal, thereby increasing its status across the Islamic Middle East and north Africa.
Russia is also likely to benefit, if less directly. It has carefully nurtured its military connections with Syria over the past decade, starting with its small naval facility at Tartus, which has the potential to give Russia a warm-water Mediterranean port. The port at Tartus is in the middle of a significant expansion that includes the construction of a new floating dock for ship repair.
Russia has also long had the use of the Syrian Air Force’s Hmeimim airbase and has recently extended one of the runways. The base is now something of a military transport hub for links to Libya and states further south across the Sahel. Moscow also maintains close military connections with Iran, a relationship which is currently bearing fruit in the shape of a supply of armed drones for its war in Ukraine.
Nuclear deal
If both China and Russia benefit from the likely changes, what of the one other key state within the region, Israel? The long-term response of the Netanyahu government to the new circumstances will depend greatly on the status of the presently defunct Iranian nuclear deal.
A recent period of tension was eased by quick diplomacy by the head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, last month. There has been subsequent talk of a breakthrough on verification and monitoring activities. For the moment, the possibility of a crisis has lessened but not disappeared. After years of gradual progress while Barack Obama was in the White House, the 15-year agreement was reached in July 2014 which would limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions in return for sanctions relief. The joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA) involved Iran, the US, China, France, Russia, Germany and the UK. The deal came into force in 2015.
It was disliked from the start by an Israeli government deeply suspicious of Iran. Israel’s concerns were subsequently partly assuaged by Donald Trump, who ditched the treaty and strengthened the sanctions regime in 2018. Since then, Iran has considered itself free of the limits but has eroded them round the edges rather than ditching them completely.
The current occupant of the White House, Joe Biden, has so far avoided strident condemnation of Iran’s actions. Not so for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But at present the Netanyahu government’s approach is also affected by the deep political and social unrest currently affecting Israel itself. This stems from a combination of a long-term division between the secular and the religious.
Secular Israelis tend to want the country’s judiciary to exercise a degree of power over the Knesset legislative body through the country’s supreme court – not least in matters of human rights.
Jewish religious parties, on the other hand, mostly want those powers subject to higher religious authority exercised through the Knesset. Netanyahu’s majority currently depends on the support of his ultra-religious coalition allies. And here lies the problem.
While Netanyahu’s proposals to limit the power of the judiciary may be popular with his far-right parliamentary colleagues it has aroused fierce opposition, with hundreds of thousands of protesters taking to the streets. What makes them particularly significant is that they extend to the armed forces, with many of Israel’s most experienced air force pilots joining the protests. Traditionally, suspicions of Tehran are held across the political spectrum in Israel. This is rooted in Israel’s idea of itself as a bastion of western-style liberal democracy in a sea of Islamic autocracy. But now the evolving – and increasingly extreme – religious dimension in Israeli politics takes that to an even stronger level of concern over Iran’s real nuclear intentions.
Israel may have succeeded in strengthening economic links with some oil and gas-rich Gulf States, but it is far from convinced that the Iran/Saudi political thaw will have any effect on Iran’s nuclear intentions.
In that it is probably correct. Tehran has little confidence in the stability of the US’s approach to the JCPOA after what happened under Trump. So, while the developments of the last two weeks may be welcomed by many, on this issue at least, little has changed.
*Paul Rogers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Biden Admin Shills for ‘Combat Islamophobia’ Day
Raymond Ibrahim/PJ Media/March 16/2023
As the UN has decreed, today is “International Day to Combat Islamophobia.” Not only is the Biden State Dept. recognizing it, but Antony Blinken just issued a statement — one that raises more questions than answers:
Last year, the United Nations declared March 15 as the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. This date also marks four years since the terrorist attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. On that day, a gunman killed 51 Muslim worshippers in two mosques and injured another 40.
That’s right: March 15 was chosen because of the mosque attacks. But this begs the question: if one attack on a mosque was enough for the UN to institutionalize a special day for Islam, what about the countless, often worse, Muslim attacks on non-Muslim places of worship? Why have they not elicited a similar response from the UN? As closely documented here, Muslims have bombed and burned countless churches, resulting in the death of, according to one very conservative tally, over a thousand Christians who were otherwise peacefully worshipping in their churches.
Now, if one non-Muslim attack, which claimed 51 Muslim lives, was enough for the UN to establish an “International Day to Combat Islamophobia,” why have many Muslim attacks on churches, which have claimed over 1,000 Christian lives — meaning some 20 Christians were killed in their churches for each one Muslim killed in a mosque — not been enough for the UN to establish an “international day to combat Christianophobia”?
Every person, everywhere has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief, including the freedom to change their beliefs or not believe. Each person also has the freedom, either individually or in community with others, in public or private, to manifest those beliefs in worship, observance, practice, and teaching…. As the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief told the Human Rights Council in 2021, “Institutional suspicion of Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim has escalated to epidemic proportions.”
Okay, but what if the “thought, conscience, religion, and belief” of any one person or group just so happen to call for things that are against the law? If there is any “Islamophobia,” it’s not because Western people begrudge Muslims the right to believe “differently.” It’s because those beliefs lead to things like intolerance for and violence against non-Muslims (infidels), death to apostates — so much for “the freedom to change their beliefs or not believe” — the treatment of women as chattel, and “child marriage” (pedophilia).
The problem here is that too many Western people think that all religions are by nature “spiritual,” something “done on the side,” in one’s closet or church. In reality, Islam is all about how society is to be governed; it is about laws — many of which are tribalistic — not abstract prayers. It’s because many of these laws — say, the permissibility of sex-slavery— directly contradict international law, that “suspicion” of Muslims exists in the first place.
On this day, we call attention to people around the world who are harassed, detained, imprisoned, or even killed for identifying, practicing, converting to Islam or being perceived as Muslim.
Meanwhile, and in the real world, those who are truly being “harassed, detained, imprisoned, or even killed” for their religion are Christians, especially those living in the Muslim world. Since July 2011, I have been compiling a monthly report, collating and summarizing the many accounts of Muslim persecution of Christians that surface every month. Every one of these now 150 or so reports typically features dozens of accounts concerning the bombing, burning, or banning of churches; the rape and forced conversion of Christian women; murderous attacks on and long prison sentences for apostates and blasphemers; generic but institutionalized discrimination and exploitation; and, of course, the outright slaughter of Christians (usually dozens every month).
And yet, there is zero recognition of this true epidemic from those who would otherwise have you recognize “International Day to Combat Islamophobia,” namely the UN and Biden State Dept.

مايكل دوران/موقع ذي تابلت: بايدن يسلم الشرق الأوسط للصين حيث أن الإتفاق الإيراني السعودي الأخير الذي توسطت فيه بكين هو علامة تحذير لأمور أخرى قادمة
Biden Is Delivering the Middle East to China ... The new Beijing-brokered deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran is a warning sign of things to come
Michael Doran/The Tablet/March 16/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/116671/michael-doran-the-tablet-biden-is-delivering-the-middle-east-to-china-the-new-beijing-brokered-deal-between-saudi-arabia-and-iran-is-a-warning-sign-of-things-to-come%d9%85%d8%a7%d9%8a%d9%83%d9%84/
Can Washington recognize a Sputnik moment when it sees one? The reconciliation that Chinese leader Xi Jinping brokered last week between Iran, America’s adversary, and Saudi Arabia, its most influential Arab ally, toppled the United States from its throne as the unrivalled strategic actor in the Middle East. This coup should banish, once and for all, any doubts that Xi aspires to pose a direct challenge to American military primacy in the Middle East.
For those who have been watching closely, Xi has been signaling this aspiration for years. In 2017, for example, he opened a naval base in Djibouti, which guards the gateway to the Suez Canal from the Indian Ocean. Four years later, he tried to build a military facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which guards the Strait of Hormuz. Xi’s effort to appoint the Chinese military as guardian over two chokepoints in the global energy trade should itself have already sparked a Sputnik moment.
Why didn’t it? The Biden administration, in keeping with many analysts on both the left and the right of the political spectrum, has consistently assumed that China and the United States, despite their rivalry, can stabilize the Middle East together. “This is not about China,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said last week about the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. “We welcome any efforts to help … de-escalate tensions in the Middle East.”
China, so the thinking goes, prioritizes its economic interests over any effort to supplant the United States in the Middle East. Today, the Chinese economy is experiencing a historic slump and its banks are overleveraged. If Xi’s imperative is economic revival, how could he possibly afford to engage in a contest for supremacy in the Middle East?
This reasoning misses two key points. First, the drive for energy security places China on a collision course with the United States. Xi and his Asian rivals depend on energy that either originates in the Middle East or transits through it. If Xi can bring an end to America’s military primacy, then his own supply lines become more secure and the supply lines of his rivals become more vulnerable.
Most of America’s Asian allies—including Japan, South Korea, and Australia—depend on Middle Eastern energy. We can’t defend Taiwan alone. The military contest between the U.S. and China in Asia, in other words, includes the struggle for mastery in the Middle East.
No wonder, then, that China is carrying out one of the largest military buildups in history. It cannot supplant the United States today as a full dimensional security provider, but the day when it can is coming sooner rather than later. In the meantime, it seeks to diminish America’s status by weakening its alliances.
Second, the Middle East plays a special role in Xi’s plan to create a Beijing-led global economic system, one that will run parallel to the American-led system. To succeed in this effort, he must protect China from the advantages that America enjoys due to the power of its capital markets, its leading position in advanced technologies, and the status of the dollar as the global reserve currency. Offsetting these advantages requires access to the vast capital reserves of the Gulf states, whose economies are booming.
But for Xi, commercial and security calculations are braided together like the strands on a single rope. Consider the Emiratis’ decision, in 2021, to ignore American concerns about rendering themselves vulnerable to Chinese intelligence penetration and tap the telecommunications company Huawei to build their 5G network. Uniquely, Huawei offers purchasers a one-stop shop, providing all parts of a 5G network in a single package. No Western company can deliver such convenience, forcing customers to piece together components from multiple suppliers.
Although the Emiratis knew that Washington would respond by canceling a $23 billion arms package that included the F-35 fighter jet, they stuck with Huawei nevertheless. They were hedging against America strategically, but as their vehicle for the hedge they chose a purely commercial transaction.
The sale was a twofer for Beijing. It distanced Abu Dhabi from Washington militarily but also let flow a stream of funding from a cash-rich investor—an American ally, no less—precisely when the U.S. was trying to decouple the Western and Chinese technology sectors.
In return for participating, at least partially, in a China-centric economic sphere, Xi is presenting Beijing to the Gulf Arab states as an alternative to Washington for managing the Iranian threat. The Saudis made their Iran focus clear when, in exchange for normalizing relations with Israel, they recently asked the United States for security guarantees, help in developing a civilian nuclear program, and missiles and drones, the very weapons that tilt the regional balance of power in favour of Tehran. In essence, the Saudis said that if Washington will check the rise of Iran, they will participate with Israel in an American-led regional bloc.
Biden perhaps fears that the Saudis are bluffing, that they will pocket any concession the United States makes and still continue to hedge toward Beijing. Or perhaps he fears that Iran will draw the U.S. into a military confrontation. With a war raging in Ukraine and the threat of war looming over Taiwan, neither Biden nor the Pentagon relish the prospect of an escalation in the Middle East.
But American options are diminishing by the day. In the Middle East, the United States cannot outcompete China economically. The Chinese are now the world’s largest purchaser of oil from the region, and they are rapidly expanding their exports to the Middle East. As a great power patron, the only thing that distinguishes the U.S. from China is its military might.
But the Biden team refuses to check Iran militarily. In that case, what good is Washington to Saudi Arabia? Why wouldn’t Riyadh turn eastward? In contrast to Washington, Beijing at least wields influence in Tehran. It is eager to export drones and missiles, it won’t hesitate to provide assistance with a civilian nuclear program, and it won’t deliver sermons on human rights. Best of all, Xi’s grand economic strategy compels him to woo Riyadh.
America’s refusal to build an anti-Iran bloc is delivering the Middle East to China.
*Michael Doran is Director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/biden-china-saudi-iran-talks

Biden Administration's Delusional Plan to Combat Palestinian Terrorism
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/March 16/2023
[T]he Biden Administration officials recently proposed a plan "to provide 5,000 Palestinians with commando training in Jordan" and then deploy them to areas under the control of the PA. The 5,000 officers will bring with them 5,000 rifles to Palestinian cities and towns -- where almost every Palestinian already has a weapon.
Any time the US has funded, armed and trained Palestinian militias, the target has invariably ended up not terrorist groups but Israelis. Why is there any reason to think that this time will be different?
In addition, the plan would require Israel "to sharply curtail IDF counterterror operations." The Biden administration, in other words, wants Israel to stop defending itself and rely on the Palestinian leadership and the new Palestinian "commandos" to go after the terrorists. Palestinian officials, meanwhile, are busy glorifying terrorism and paying visits to the families of terrorists.
This would leave the Israelis with the rights to neither self-defense nor hot-pursuit. Terrorists will be able strike inside Israel, then run back to the Palestinian areas where they will be "home free;" instead of being arrested, they will be celebrated.
The Biden plan also reportedly "foresees the deployment of foreign forces, including U.S. military forces, on the ground."
Israel, roughly the size of New Jersey, would have on its border a Palestinian terrorist army, well-trained, well-funded, and "protected" by a superpower.
[The Israelis] would find themselves in the impossible position of risking harming the Europeans and Americans forces stationed there. These troops, mingled among the Palestinians, would essentially be "human shields," deliberately placed in harm's way to prevent Israel from taking any action.
What, then, is the Biden Administration really doing?
An international military presence to help the Palestinians in the West Bank would handcuff the Israelis. This appears to be the real plan.
Worse, if "foreign countries" were allowed into the West Bank to work with the new US-trained Palestinian militias, who would get to decide which foreign countries?
Or perhaps the US will try to persuade the Palestinians to reintegrate Gaza, run by Hamas, an Iranian proxy, into the West Bank, as the US Department of State's new Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs, Hady Amr, recommended in his Brookings report?
It would be suicidal for Israel to permit "foreign forces," who any day could be hostile, on border of Jerusalem. Why would, or should, any country, especially such a small one, place its border security in the less-than-reliable hands of someone else? Would Germany? Would France?
All that is needed is for Abbas to order his security forces to go after the armed groups, in accordance with the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement (Oslo II) of 1995.
Abbas, however, has so far refused to issue such an order. He is most probably afraid that if he does so, his people, who view the terrorists as "heroes," would revolt against him, denounce him as a "traitor" a "collaborator" with Israel, and kill him, as happened to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat after he signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.
The Palestinian Authority is not prepared to send its forces to arrest Palestinian terrorists so long as they do not pose a threat to Abbas or his associates.
Abbas's security forces proved that they can be tough, but only against human rights activists, not terrorists.
If the Biden Administration were serious about the Palestinian Authority reining in its terrorists, it could simply demand that the Palestinians honor Article XIV of the Oslo II agreement, which states that, "except for the Palestinian Police and the Israeli military forces, no other armed forces shall be established or operate in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip."
The Biden Administration could also remind the Palestinians of Article XV of the same agreement that states that "both sides shall take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism, crimes and hostilities directed against each other..."
Above all, the Biden Administration needs to keep all foreign troops out of the area. They are simply decoys -- to protect the terrorists from counterattacks.
The Biden administration is fooling itself into believing that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the PA leadership will suddenly change their policy towards the terrorists just because they are getting an additional 5,000 "commandos." These "commandos" will simply join the tens of thousands of Palestinian security officers who are doing nothing to enforce law and order or prevent terrorism. Pictured: Terrorists from the Fatah-affiliated al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades march in Nablus on March 14, 2023, to show support for Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli custody. (Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images)
The Biden administration believes that the best way to de-escalate tensions between Israel and the Palestinians is by allowing the Palestinian Authority (PA) to recruit more officers to the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank.
According to reports, the Biden Administration officials recently proposed a plan "to provide 5,000 Palestinians with commando training in Jordan" and then deploy them to areas under the control of the PA. The 5,000 officers will bring with them 5,000 rifles to Palestinian cities and towns -- where almost every Palestinian already has a weapon.
The Biden administration is fooling itself into believing that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the PA leadership will suddenly change their policy towards the terrorists just because they are getting an additional 5,000 "commandos." These "commandos" will simply join the tens of thousands of Palestinian security officers in the West Bank who are doing nothing to enforce law and order or prevent terrorism.
Any time the US has funded, armed and trained Palestinian militias, the target has invariably ended up not terrorist groups but Israelis. Why is there any reason to think that this time will be different?
In addition, the plan would require Israel "to sharply curtail IDF counterterror operations." The Biden administration, in other words, wants Israel to stop defending itself and rely on the Palestinian leadership and the new Palestinian "commandos" to go after the terrorists. Palestinian officials, meanwhile, are busy glorifying terrorism and paying visits to the families of terrorists.
This would leave the Israelis with the rights to neither self-defense nor hot-pursuit. Terrorists will be able strike inside Israel, then run back to the Palestinian areas where they will be "home free;" instead of being arrested, they will be celebrated.
The Biden plan also reportedly "foresees the deployment of foreign forces, including U.S. military forces, on the ground."
This arrangement creates a political and military nightmare.
Israel, roughly the size of New Jersey, would have on its border a Palestinian terrorist army, well-trained, well-funded, and "protected" by a superpower.
Under this proposed new arrangement in the West Bank, when the Israelis are attacked and need to take out the launch-pad or the attackers, they would find themselves in the impossible position of risking harming the Europeans and Americans forces stationed there. These troops, mingled among the Palestinians, would essentially be "human shields," deliberately placed in harm's way to prevent Israel from taking any action.
Apart from creating an implicit alliance that would then have to be funded forever and destined to grow, the presence of foreign troops would also create pressure on Israel to capitulate to any demands from the countries involved. Their first concern would presumably be to protect their troops and assets.
What, then, is the Biden Administration really doing?
An international military presence to help the Palestinians in the West bank would handcuff the Israelis. This appears to be the real plan.
Worse, if "foreign countries" were allowed into the West Bank to work with the new US-trained Palestinian militias, who would get to decide which foreign countries? Perhaps the Palestinian leadership would like Iran -- which , since its 1979 Islamic Revolution, has been launching attacks against Israel (for instance here, here and here) and threatening genocide -- to stop in?
Or perhaps the US will try to persuade the Palestinians to reintegrate Gaza, run by Hamas, an Iranian proxy, into the West Bank, as the US Department of State's new Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs, Hady Amr, recommended in his Brookings report?
Another Iranian proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon, has already been threatening Israel for years (here, here, here, here and here ).
It would be suicidal for Israel to permit "foreign forces," who any day could be hostile, on border of Jerusalem. Why would, or should, any country, especially such a small one, place its border security in the less-than-reliable hands of someone else? Would Germany? Would France?
The Palestinian Authority does not need more "commandos" to rein in the numerous armed groups operating in areas under its control, especially in the northern West Bank cities of Jenin and Nablus. All that is needed is an order from the Palestinian leadership to crack down on the terrorists. Such a scenario, however, as the Biden Administration surely knows, is out of the question, particularly under the current Palestinian leadership, which has continually chosen to side with the terrorists and their families.
The Palestinians have enough police and security forces to crack down on the armed groups, but they will do nothing -- zero -- to disarm the terrorists or stop them from carrying out attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians.
All that is needed is for Abbas to order his security forces to go after the armed groups, in accordance with the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement (Oslo II) of 1995.
Abbas, however, has so far refused to issue such an order. He is most probably afraid that if he does so, his people, who view the terrorists as "heroes," would revolt against him, denounce him as a "traitor" a "collaborator" with Israel, and kill him, as happened to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat after he signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.
The Palestinian Authority is not prepared to send its forces to arrest Palestinian terrorists so long as they do not pose a threat to Abbas or his associates.
This is the same Abbas who has long been glorifying terrorism and inciting hate against Israel. This is the same Abbas who pays generous rewards to Palestinians, and their families, who carry out shootings, bombings, stabbings and other attacks against Israelis as part of a well-funded Palestinian "Pay for Slay" program that rewards murdering Jews.
A public opinion poll published in December 2022 by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) found that 72% of the Palestinian public are in favor of forming armed groups such as the Lions' Den in Nablus.
Another 79% said they oppose the surrender of the armed groups' members and their weapons to the Palestinian Authority security forces. According to the poll, a vast majority (87%) said the PA does not have the right to arrest or stop members of the armed groups from carrying out attacks against Israel.
Judging from their actions, the Palestinian security forces have become part of the problem, not the solution. Instead of combating terrorism, the Palestinian security forces are taking their cue from their leaders by paying tribute to the terrorists.
Abbas's security forces proved that they can be tough, but only against human rights activists, not terrorists. Abbas uses the Palestinian security forces to suppress political rivals and critics, such as Nizar Banat, a leading human rights activist and outspoken critic of the Palestinian leadership. In 2021, scores of security officers raided his home and beat him to death.
In light of the growing Palestinian support for terrorism, as the Biden Administration doubtless knows, it is laughable to think that any Palestinian leader would dare act against the wishes and sentiments of the Palestinian public.
The new "commandos" that the Biden Administration wants to train and deploy in the West Bank will undoubtedly join their comrades in the Palestinian security forces in honoring terrorists and presumably helping them murder even more Jews.
Instead of creating a new terror army in the West Bank, the Biden Administration should simply demand that the Palestinians abide by the agreements they signed with Israel.
If the Biden Administration were serious about the Palestinian Authority reining in its terrorists, it could simply demand that the Palestinians honor Article XIV of the Oslo II agreement, which states that, "except for the Palestinian Police and the Israeli military forces, no other armed forces shall be established or operate in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip."
The Biden Administration could also remind the Palestinians of Article XV of the same agreement that states that "both sides shall take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism, crimes and hostilities directed against each other, against individuals falling under the other's authority and against their property and shall take legal measures against offenders."
The latest Biden Administration plan will bring anything but security to both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Creating a new armed militia in the West Bank will not stop terrorism as long as the Palestinian Authority continues to support and glorify terrorists and incite violence against Israel.
Above all, the Biden Administration needs to keep all foreign troops out of the area. They are simply decoys -- to protect the terrorists from counterattacks.
*Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
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The ball is in Iran’s court following Saudi Arabia deal
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/March 16, 2023
The Islamic Republic can use the Iran-Saudi pact that was announced last week as the spur to make fundamental changes to its regional policies, which would bring the Iranian nation several benefits.
First of all, when Iran builds friendly relationships with Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Bahrain, and respects their sovereignty and national interests, this will undoubtedly increase Tehran’s standing among these nations and enhance its legitimacy in the Middle East.
A lack of dialogue and diplomatic relations between countries can have unintended consequences, such as exacerbating mistrust and causing misunderstandings, tensions, conflict or even wars. According to FutureLearn, the main role of diplomacy is to “ensure peaceful relations between countries. This might include negotiating trade deals, discussing mutual problems, implementing new policies, and tackling disputes. The consequences that can arise if diplomatic relations are not had can be very serious — conflict, violence, and even war.”
The economic benefits of having good relationships and diplomatic ties with other countries, particularly neighbors, are countless. For example, when it comes to the tourism industry, the Islamic Republic could attract more visitors, which would significantly contribute to its economic development and provide revenue for ordinary people in Iran, along with small businesses.
Iran is home to 21 UNESCO World Heritage sites, the ninth most of any country worldwide. A 2019 report by the ILIA Corporation stated: “Iran, the land of four seasons, history and culture, souvenir and authenticity with mountains and deserts, forest, plains and seas, cultures and traditions has an immense potential for attracting international tourists. Travel and tourism is an important economic activity in most countries. As well as its direct economic impact, the industry has significant indirect and induced impacts … Iran has been recognized as the most cost-competitive travel destination by the World Economic Forum due to low fuel prices, cheap hotel rooms as the most common reasons.”
If Iran had friendly ties with other nations in the region, the US might think it appropriate to lift sanctions against Tehran
If Iran had friendly ties with other nations in the region — and if it was no longer seen as a threat but, rather, a constructive player — the US might think it appropriate to lift sanctions against Tehran. US sanctions on dozens of industries besides oil and gas, such as metal and gold, could also be lifted.
Iran possesses the world’s largest untapped emerging market in the world, worth more than $1 trillion. Opportunities exist in almost every sector and the economy desperately needs new capital. With the easing of sanctions, the country’s global legitimacy would increase and foreign businesses would be permitted to operate there. Iran would reenter the international community, the international banking and financial systems, and the open market for oil. This would help the country realize its economic potential as the second-most-populous nation in the Middle East. It has a sizable, educated and savvy middle class, as well as the world’s second and fourth-largest gas and oil reserves, respectively.
The Western world has already welcomed the agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Peter Stano, EU external affairs lead spokesperson, said: “The European Union welcomes the announced agreement on resumption of diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and looks forward to its implementation … (the EU) remains ready to engage with all actors in the region in a gradual and inclusive approach, and in full transparency.”
In addition, when the Iranian government builds trust and genuine diplomatic ties with its Arab neighbors, it would see no reason to support its proxies any longer. Imagine the amount of money the Islamic Republic would save if it stopped supporting its proxies in the Middle East. In addition, if these nonstate actors and groups failed to receive financial and weapons support, their power to create unrest and conflict in the region would greatly diminish. This would enhance Middle Eastern stability and security and make the region safer and more prosperous for all nations.
Iran would also be able to redirect the billions of dollars that it is currently hemorrhaging on its proxies toward creating jobs at home, increasing wages and upgrading its infrastructure. This would reduce the economic frustration felt by many Iranians. One of the underlying reasons for Iran’s recurring protests is the economy, particularly rampant inflation, high unemployment and low wages.
Furthermore, Iran would be able to attract foreign investment and countries in the region would increase their trade with Iran, helping Tehran fulfill its economic potential. It is worth noting that Saudi Arabia has the largest economy in the Arab world and is the largest free economic market in the Middle East and North Africa.
Finally, the Iranian government can learn a critical lesson from world history. Europe was affected by conflict — two world wars that devastated its populations and economies — but, in the late 1940s, several nations charted a path toward improving their diplomatic ties, economies and living standards. They subsequently became prosperous by concentrating on domestic issues and improved relationships with their neighbors.
In a nutshell, the ball is in Iran’s court. The Islamic Republic can use the momentum generated by its agreement with Saudi Arabia to change its regional policies, improve its ties with all Arab nations and subsequently enhance its economy and legitimacy in the Middle East.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh