English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For August 15/2026
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary to heaven with her body and soul
Assumption of the Virgin Mary The Christian tradition in the East and West tells us, and the Church proclaims a belief that our Lady, the Virgin Mary, has ascended to heaven with her body and soul. This was announced by Pope Pius XII in the year 1950. We do not deny the death of the Virgin, but rather we believe that she moved later to heaven without her body seeing corruption, by a special privilege from God. Just as He chose her as a mother and a virgin, and just as He protected her from original sin, He also transferred her to Him in her perfect human nature, body and soul. The history of this feast is old, dating back to before the sixth generation on the constant. And we find for every saint a place where they honor his body, except for the Virgin, as there is no single tradition about honoring the body of the Virgin. Today, all Christians in the East and West, Catholics and non-Catholics – except for Protestants – celebrate this feast. May our Virgin Mother intercede for us, and may her prayers be a wall for us, Amen. (From the book The Liturgical Gospel (Bkerki-2005))

Titles For Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 14-15/2026
Elias Bejjani/Text, Video, Arabic and English/The Dhimmi and Sin of the Amnesty Law as it relates to the heroic South Lebanon Army and those forcibly displaced since 2000
With a reading of the article by director and writer Youssef Y. Khoury, which exposes and condemns the monstrous law: When Marika pardons Saint Rita/Elias Bejjani/August 14/2026
The Lebanese Army is an institution subordinate to the state, executing its orders and not the other way around./Elias Bejjani/August 12, 2026
The only treatment for the cancerous Hezbollah is strictly Israeli./Elias Bejjani/ِAugust11/2026
A jihadist alliance built on hatred, enmity, and contradictions: its fate is certain failure/Elias Bejjani/ِAugust 09/2026
When Mareika Pardons Saint Rita/Writer and Director Joseph Y. El-Khoury/August 13/2026
Video link & text of a par excellence interview with Engineer Alfred Madi, Head of the Other Option Movement
Video link to an interview with Dr. Charles Chertouni/Lebanon: “A Legal Illusion!” Aoun is powerless… and the militia is a state within a state.
Video link of journalist Ali Hamadeh's commentary for August 14, 2026
A video interview with retired Brigadier General Khaled Hamadeh, in which he discusses: weapons, Iran, Syria, Washington… and Lebanon: Where to?
Everything will stop’ if Hezbollah gives up weapons, US envoy to Beirut says
Walla: Israeli military strikes Ali al-Taher heights in southern Lebanon
Israeli shelling sparks fires in Bani Hayyan as strikes target Majdalzoun, Mansouri
US General Clearfield meets with Berri and Salam
US General Clearfield meets with Berri and Salam
HRW says UN must keep peacekeepers in Lebanon
Report: Lebanon told that Israel is readying to occupy Ali al-Taher
Report: Hezbollah evacuation of Ali al-Taher prerequisite for framework implementation
UK and Lebanon sign Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen security cooperation
After Lebanon scraps death penalty, where does the region stand?
Diplomacy vs. escalation: Southern Lebanon enters a critical new phase
Waste crisis or new tax? Lebanon’s environmental fee raises questions
FIFA chief Infantino receives support from 6 Arab federations including Lebanon
Wanted for war crimes: Why was retired Syrian Gen. Adel Issa detained in Beirut?
Human Rights Watch urges UN to maintain peacekeeping force in South Lebanon
Rain in August? Sudden weather shift surprises Lebanon
Amnesty law a distortion of what Lebanon could have been/Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/August 14/2026
Amnesty, Lebanese style: When impunity becomes law/Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya English/14 August ,2026
Sheikh Qassem: Framework Agreement Comprises Lebanon’s Surrender to Israeli Enemy, Hezbollah Will Keep Steadfast till Achieving Victory/Al-Manar English Website/14 August ,2026

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 14-15/2026
Trump says will ‘soon’ declare Hormuz Strait US territory
US threatens Iran with ‘economic isolation, like the world has never seen’
US says lower oil prices, not Iran's nuclear program, are now top priority in war
Pentagon signs deals with Boeing, RTX to boost missile interceptor component production
Karoline Leavitt’s White House departure: Who are the top contenders to replace her?
UAE says Iran attacked two ADNOC vessels in Hormuz strait
Iraqi daily oil exports highest since start of war: Minister
Saudi Arabia condemns Iran targeting of two ADNOC tankers in Hormuz
Yemeni forces strike Houthi positions in east
Houthis say they targeted Saudi Aramco oil facility with drone
US wants Netanyahu to condemn settler siege in Palestinian village, officials say
Kushner to visit Israel to bridge gaps on Gaza plan
Israel calls for police to replace military in handling West Bank settlers
Israeli military stops activists delivering food to trapped Palestinians in the West Bank
Libya’s Haftar played key role in release of US hostage held by ISIS, sources say

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 14-15/2026
Why AI is more than mere technological hype/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/August 14, 2026
Global economic upheaval: a survival guide/Mohamed A. El-Erian/Arab News/August 14, 2026
Has Iran defeated the Gulf states?/Mamdouh AlMuhaini/Al Arabiya English/14 August ,2026

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 14-15/2026
Elias Bejjani/Text, Video, Arabic and English/The Dhimmi and Sin of the Amnesty Law as it relates to the heroic South Lebanon Army and those forcibly displaced since 2000
With a reading of the article by director and writer Youssef Y. Khoury, which exposes and condemns the monstrous law: When Marika pardons Saint Rita
Elias Bejjani/August 14/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/08/156651/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJnA_J3-JNo
A thousand salutes of respect and pride to our free and heroic southern people, who have been refugees since the year 2000 in Israel and various free nations.
To them we say: You are Lebanon, you are the cedar, and wherever you are, patriotism, faith, and Lebanon reside.
You are the ones who should forgive Lebanon’s rulers and political parties, not the other way around. The miserable reality is that both you and we are living in an era ruled by proxy rulers, puppets, and dhimwis—under the care of corrupt political party leaders who falsely claim to be Christians while, in heart, soul, and practice, they are Judases.
Yes, we live in a time when the majority of our heedless people are partisans like flocks of sheep led to the slaughterhouse without even a bleat.
And a thousand yes, our time is the time of people with robes, birettas, and bellies, whom the saints of the Church disown.
The remaining and most dangerous of our misfortunes lies in our country’s proxy and mercenary, humiliating Membersof the Parliament who sold their dignity, the homeland, and the citizens for less than thirty pieces of silver.
O our honorable displaced southern people wherever you are, strengthen your faith and be certain that you will return when Lebanon returns to its true Lebanese identity, for its return will not be complete until you return to it honored and cherished.

The Lebanese Army is an institution subordinate to the state, executing its orders and not the other way around.
Elias Bejjani/August 12, 2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/08/156604/
The theatrical performance by the Minister of Defense in the Parliament yesterday, and his sullenness after being prevented from delivering his speech, is merely a heresy, a brazen tool, and illegal, aimed at sowing discord and serving the Iranian occupier and its army of local mercenaries—blasphemously and sacrilegiously named “Hezbollah”—while in reality and operational terms, it is the Iranian-Jihadist army of devastation.
The Lebanese Army is an institution just like all other state institutions subordinate to the Council of Ministers, the “executive authority,” and not a state within a state that decides, accepts, and rejects as it pleases. Hence, everything termed as the army’s opinion on the general amnesty law file is a violation of the constitution, a heresy, and an encroachment on the authority of the Council of Ministers.
This crude, theatrical deviation from the law is written, produced, and directed by Nabih Berri, the king of corruption, the corrupt, and 100% sectarian, who has worked for decades to expel Christians from all state institutions and entrench the Persian mullahs’ state.
As for the positions of the one who failed in all of Satan’s trials, Michel Aoun, and his son-in-law—who is listed on international corruption lists—along with all remaining MPs and stooges who are with him, in addition to the Syrian nationalist Elie Bou Saab and all the rest of the mercenaries funded by Hezbollah, they are bundles of stupidity, treason, subservience, and dhimmitude.
In our lived reality, the Lebanese Army has not been a national army after Commander Ibrahim Tannous; rather, it has transformed into a repressive force affiliated with occupying powers and their local tools—Palestinian, leftist, Syrian nationalist, jihadist, Syrian Baathist, Iranian etc.
The current role of the army, under the mullah-aligned leadership of Rudolph Haykal who acts on his own accord, lies outside the framework of the executive authority regarding all its positions and practices—specifically concerning negotiations with the State of Israel, as well as what is termed the army’s opinion on the general amnesty law… and the list of heresies goes on and on.
In conclusion, Lebanon’s army is not an independent state, but an institution like the rest of the state institutions, and everything outside this legal and constitutional framework is merely theatrical plays and heresies backed by the corrupt Nabih Berri, the Party of Satan, and the rest of the hired extras such as the contemptible Gebran Bassil.
Note: The attached image is AI-generated and not real.

The only treatment for the cancerous Hezbollah is strictly Israeli.
Elias Bejjani/ِAugust11/2026
The only treatment for cancerous, terrorist, Iran-jihadist Hezbollah is strictly Israeli. The solution is letting Israel uproot and eliminate it as soon as possible; everything else is a waste of time and a consolidation of Iran’s occupation and its barbaric jihadism.

A jihadist alliance built on hatred, enmity, and contradictions: its fate is certain failure.
Elias Bejjani/ِAugust 09/2026
Peace between Israel and Lebanon and Saudi Arabia's accession to the Abraham Accords are the first casualties of this failed sectarian Turkish-Saudi-Pakistani alliance.

When Mareika Pardons Saint Rita…
Writer and Director Joseph Y. El-Khoury/August 13/2026
(Translated from Arabic)
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/08/156651/
Amidst all the noise surrounding the general amnesty law, I personally care about only one file: the members of the South Lebanon Army (SLA) and their families. What has been issued regarding these honorable individuals is not an amnesty. It is a death sentence for the family.
They allow women, children, and those who did not formally join the military or security apparatus of the South Lebanon Army to return to Lebanon, while the father, brother, or son who served in the army must face trial! In other words, the “achievement” they are bragging about tells a mother: Return, but leave your son behind. It tells a wife: Return, but leave your husband behind. And it tells a child: Return to your homeland, but leave your father in exile.
This is not an amnesty. This is the fragmentation of families by law. And this, in itself, is a humanitarian crime.
Amnesty is granted to the guilty. These people, are the sons of southern villages who took up arms to defend their land and homes, first against the Palestinian gunmen and the leftist movements that supported them, and later against Hezbollah. They dealt with Israel because their state abandoned them and failed to protect them, and because the alternative was often either fleeing their land or defending it with whatever they had available.
So if you want to close this file today, do not tell them: We have pardoned you.
Tell them: We have wronged you.
Apologize to them.
Restore their dignity.
Compensate them for a quarter of a century of displacement, uprooting, and the stigma you attached to them.
For justice for the wronged is not achieved by pardoning them, but by apologizing to them.
A great deal of controversy has arisen surrounding the amnesty law, particularly regarding the distinction between crimes committed against civilians and those committed against military personnel. We heard deputies (MP’s) competing to defend “the prestige of the Lebanese Official army.”
Wonderful.
But where was this prestige when the South was abandoned? And where were these defenders of the Lebanese army when the people of the South stood by its side?
The South Lebanon Army itself originally emerged from the womb of the military institution in 1976. Its story with the Lebanese Army is much more complex than the lazy narrative reduced by the post-war state into a single word: collaborators.
The southern Jezzine MP, Ghada Ayoub, boasted about what she considered an achievement in lifting the injustice against Lebanese individuals present in Israel, stating:
“Our Lebanese people who did not join the military or security ranks and sought refuge in Israel after the liberation of the South in 2000…”
Wait a moment, Honorable MP; the “liberation of the South” from whom?
From whom were Jezzine and the South liberated in 2000? From their own sons! From the men who lived there and defended their villages!
And how can you sign a law that allows one family member to return while leaving another member behind the border, and then go out to celebrate “lifting the injustice”?
It would have behooved the Jezzine MP—the Lebanese Forces member—before seeking a few additional Shiites votes in the upcoming elections, to remember the history of her region. After the withdrawal of the Lebanese Forces from east Sidon in early 1985, and the explosion of the tragedy that struck the villages of the region and displaced their people, thanks to whom did Jezzine remain and avoid the fate that befell the villages of east Sidon? Was it not thanks to the South Lebanon Army?
Do you know, Honorable MP, why the South Lebanon Army left Jezzine in 1999?
Because the people of the region and the Jezzini soldiers of the South were deceived by President Emile Lahoud’s term, and wanted to return to the fold of the state. Therefore, Antoine Lahad respected their wish and withdrew. He respected their choice much more than your state later respected the fate of his fellow Jezzini sons.
And the Lebanese Forces bloc boasts that this “achievement” is its creation.
What an achievement!!?
This legislative monstrosity is nothing more than the political grandchild of one of the clauses that emerged from the Mar Mikhael Understanding, presented by the Free Patriotic Movement since 2011, and then left unimplemented for years even when the movement held the presidency and its ally Hezbollah was in control of the levers of power.
All of you want to share the paternity of an unborn child.
The Lebanese Forces say: We accomplished it.
The Movement says: We started it.
Then the FPM (Al Tayar) ultimately abstains from voting.
An orphan achievement, and everyone wants a picture with it.
Another Lebanese Forces deputy, Ziad Hawat, from Jbeil—where the Shiites vote has its electoral weight—comes out to proudly announce that any Lebanese present in Israel who was not in Lahad’s army and against whom no judicial setence has been issued can return, on the condition of renouncing Israeli citizenship.
Honorable MP, do you know where Lebanese Forces officers took refuge when the state persecuted them after the war?
They took refuge in the area managed by Lahad, and there they found protection. Yet you today call upon the Lebanese citizen in Israel to renounce the citizenship that granted them a normal life and rights!!
In exchange for what?
In exchange for a state that allows his wife to return and asks him to stand trial? Or in exchange for a homeland that asks him to disown the state that welcomed him after his own state expelled him?
Israeli citizenship was not just a passaport document for many of them. Rather, it restored their status as human beings after their state turned them into a political stigma, to appease Assad’s Syria first, and the equations of Hezbollah and the Wilayat of the Faqih later.
The Free Patriotic Movement also has a share in this memory.
Do its MP know what the South Lebanon Army did for the Lebanese Army when Michel Aoun was army commander and then head of the transitional government?
When the Lebanese currency, the lira collapsed in the late 1980s and the salaries of Lebanese Army personnel in the South became worth tens of dollars, Antoine Lahad compensated those soldiers from his own army’s budget so that their salaries would match those of his own soldiers.
Let them also ask their master Michel Aoun where the ammunition came from during the War of Liberation. And let them ask him who protected his supporters in the South when the state was chasing them. After that, let them explain to us how expressing gratitude to these people twenty-five years later became telling them:
Return to Lebanon… so that we may put you on trial.
Shame on such MP’s.
Shame on such Christian political parties.
And shame on such a church.
Yes, the church too.
Does the Maronite Patriarch know what his predecessor, Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, did when he asked foreign embassies not to facilitate the migration of Christians present in Israel?
He left his flock suspended between two worlds: a homeland that rejected them, and a country their homeland calls the “enemy” that welcomed them.
If the current Patriarch El Raei does not know, let him know now, and let him take action.
And what kind of state is this?
Its president is from the South, and from his own town come about two hundred members of the South Lebanon Army living the tragedy of exile. His primary advisor is from Jezzine. The head of his negotiating delegation is from Jezzine. And his army commander is from the South. Yet, retrieving those trapped on the Ali al-Tahar hill from their graves seems easier for this state than retrieving its living sons from exile.
This is the republic of selective justice. It unearths heroics for some of its sons from beneath the soil, and leaves its other sons to die as strangers because apologizing to them requires a courage no one possesses.
And to my southern people in exile I say: Do not wait for an amnesty from anyone. Those who wronged you are the ones who need to ask you for forgiveness.
The Lebanon that expelled you, fragmented your families, and stigmatized you does not deserve you. So may it be lawful for you wherever you are. And wherever you are, a part of the true Lebanon rejected by the republic of slogans exists.
As for us, in Lebanon, the degradation of standards has reached a point where the oppressor grants amnesty to the wronged, and the guilty grants a certificate of innocence to his victim.
Woe to an era where Mareika pardons Saint Rita.

Video link & text of a par excellence interview with Engineer Alfred Madi, Head of the Other Option Movement
Asovereign, Bashirian, and uncovering reading of everything related to the amnesty law, the case of the forcibly displaced, and the heroes of the South Lebanon Army; Dr. Samir Geagea's personalized and deviationist stances from the principle of sovereignty; Iran and the dangers, fate, and criminality of Hezbollah; negotiations with Israel; the sin of comparing any politician to Bachir Gemayel; the war with Iran; the Mecca Agreement; Ahmed al-Sharaa's rule in Syria, and his degree of proximity or distance to politicians and rulers, and the reasons for that.
Interviewer: Muhsin Hijazi, from As-Siyasa youtube platform
Date: August 14, 2026
Note: Transcription, summarization, phrasing, headings, conclusions, and English translation were handled independently and at the absolute discretion of Elias Bejjani, Publisher of the LCCC Website.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/08/156637/
Main Topics Addressed by Alfred Madi
General Amnesty Law and the Plight of Forcibly Displaced Southerners and the South Lebanon Army (SLA)
Madi argued that the Lebanese state abandoned the members of the South Lebanon Army after sending them to defend the south, and that the current law fails to provide them with justice. He criticized the selective and unfair treatment they faced, objecting specifically to the condition requiring them to renounce Israeli citizenship in order to return.
Defense of the SLA
Madi stressed that SLA members were defending their villages and families, rejecting collective accusations against them and noting that many prevailing narratives were politically fabricated or exaggerated after the year 2000.
Accountability or General Amnest
Madi proposed a clear principle: either hold everyone accountable for past actions across decades or issue a comprehensive general amnesty for all, rejecting selective justice applied only to the weaker party.
Hezbollah and the South
Responsibility for Destruction: Madi held Hezbollah and the Shiite Duo responsible for the destruction and displacement suffered by the south during recent wars, stating that those who accuse the SLA should equally hold accountable those responsible for displacing southerners today.
Collapse of Hezbollah's Iranian Project
Madi asserted that events in the south validate his previous warnings regarding Hezbollah's policies, arguing that the party drove the south into ruin and displacement and must face political and historical accountability.
Chapter VII and International Forces
Madi recalled being among the early advocates for multinational forces and the implementation of Chapter VII, as the Lebanese state has proven incapable of enforcing its sovereignty or resolving the issue of illegal weapons.
Negotiations with Israel and the Future of Hezbollah Weapons
Negotiation Dynamics: Madi stated that Israel negotiates from a victor's position, while Lebanon acts as though it negotiates from a position of strength. Serious negotiations, in his view, rest on two main Israeli conditions: disarming Hezbollah and achieving peace with Lebanon.
Scenarios for Disarmament
Madi ruled out Hezbollah willingly handing over its weapons or the Lebanese Army forcibly removing them. He outlined three potential external scenarios:
An Israeli intervention.
A Syrian intervention.
Multinational forces.
He suggested the solution will likely come from external actors rather than internal Lebanese dynamics.
Tunnels and Weapon Depots
Madi noted his belief that weapon caches exist in mountainous regions outside the south, without verifying every circulating report regarding tunnel networks connecting various Lebanese regions.
Political Class Rankings and Stances
First Group (Ordered roughly from furthest to closest):
Mohammad Raad: Ranked as the furthest due to representing Hezbollah.
Nabih Berri: Criticized for covering up Hezbollah and its policies.
Nawaf Salam: Viewed as a figure attempting to steer the country out of crises through negotiations.
Joseph Aoun: Viewed as the closest in this group, attempting to navigate the country past its crises.
Second Group (Gebran Bassil, Samir Geagea, Sleiman Frangieh, Sami Gemayel, Walid Joumblatt):
Gebran Bassil: Ranked as furthest due to his alliance with Hezbollah and the Mar Mikhael Agreement.
Samir Geagea: Subjected to political criticism over the Maarab Agreement and subsequent choices, expressing disappointment with the performance of the Lebanese Forces leadership.
Sleiman Frangieh: Described as politically clear and consistent in his positions, even in disagreement.
Sami Gemayel: Described as currently closest to him, and the most patriotic, centrist, and Lebanese by his personal assessment.
Dispute with the Lebanese Forces Leadership
Madi emphasized that his disagreement with the Lebanese Forces leadership is political, not personal, criticizing personal attacks against him and calling for political rebuttal instead.
Rejection of Comparison to Bachir Gemayel
Madi firmly rejected any comparison between Samir Geagea and Bachir Gemayel, considering Bachir Gemayel an exceptional figure incomparable to any other Lebanese politician.
Regional Dynamics, Iran, and Global Figures
The War on Iran: Madi argued that Iran did not achieve victory, noting the objectives of the conflict included striking the nuclear program, weakening the missile program, and curbing regional proxies—though some objectives remain incomplete.
Trump, Netanyahu, and Iran
Madi believes the US and Israel will continue pressing Iran, with the stronger party ultimately prevailing, while noting electoral calculations could influence new confrontations.
Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani Defense Pact
Madi interpreted this defense agreement as an attempt by the three nations to reorganize regional balances following receding Iranian influence, while expressing skepticism regarding its practical effectiveness due to conflicting interests.
Character Assessments
Mohammed bin Salman: Described as an influential leader playing a major role in reshaping the Middle East.
Donald Trump: Viewed as the figure who will alter the face of the world, particularly the Middle East.
Ali Khamenei: Believed his policies will bring devastation to Iran.
Benjamin Netanyahu: Described as a man taking steps others dare not take, regardless of agreement or disagreement with him.
Ahmed al-Sharaa: Expressed uncertainty and reservation regarding his political future, stating his intentions may be good, but he has yet to prove his ability to stabilize Syria and protect all components of society.
General Conclusion
Alfred Madi’s positions center around core themes:
*Challenging the leadership of the Lebanese Forces party over principles, positions, and compromises, while *viewing campaigns against him as personal and unjust.
*Defending forcibly displaced southerners and the South Lebanon Army while rejecting selective treatment.
*Holding Hezbollah accountable for the destruction of the south and calling for its disarmament.
*Questioning the Lebanese state's standalone ability to resolve the weapons crisis and calling for an expanded international role.
*Supporting regional orientations opposing the Iranian axis while endorsing the path of peace and regional settlements.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/08/156637/

Video link to an interview with Dr. Charles Chertouni/Lebanon: “A Legal Illusion!” Aoun is powerless… and the militia is a state within a state.
Interview conducted by Joe Ibrahim from SBC Lebanon
August 14, 2026 (Google translation from Arabic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhkXZWQFuTA
1. Charles Chertouni opens fire: Aoun is maneuvering and has no real power… and Hezbollah controls Lebanon!
2. Rome negotiations falter… and where is Lebanon headed? Charles Chertouni: The state is marginalized and Iran is filling the void.
3. Charles Chertouni: Aoun came to Washington without a plan… as if it were a family visit! And this is what awaits Lebanon.
Episode description:
Joe Ibrahim, on the “Political Pod” program, hosts researcher and political writer Charles Chertouni for a fiery political discussion about the future of Lebanon and the region, the course of Lebanese-Israeli negotiations, the Turkish-Saudi-Pakistani role, and the future of Hezbollah and the Lebanese state. Among the most prominent issues discussed in the dialogue are:
• The stalled Lebanese-Israeli negotiations in Rome
• The parallel track between Israeli withdrawal and disarmament
• Hezbollah's continued adherence to its role as a "state within a state"
• Has the Lebanese state become marginalized and incapable of decision-making?
• Iran's role in filling the power vacuums in Lebanon and the region
• Joseph Aoun's stance in Washington and Turkey
• Does the President of the Republic possess genuine political authority?
• Nabih Berri, Hezbollah, and the future of the internal political equation
• The Turkish-Saudi-Pakistani axis and the convergence of interests
• What awaits Lebanon on the ground as events escalate?
• The US elections and the future of the Democratic Party
• The future of the Lebanese army and political decision-making in Lebanon

Video link of journalist Ali Hamadeh's commentary for August 14, 2026
Naim Qassem admits: We started the 2006 war and the war of retaliation for Khamenei's assassination!
(Google translation from Arabic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwRvMrJj2To
"Tell Hezbollah that if it surrenders its weapons, everything will stop": US Ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa
Today marks 20 years since the end of the 2006 war!
US Ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa, and the head of the US Military Coordination Group for Lebanon, General Joseph Clearfield, met with Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.
On the table: The Lebanese state is being urged to persuade Hezbollah to hand over Ali Taher Hill to the Lebanese Army, along with all military positions in the South. Update on Ali al-Taher Hill: More drone strikes on the hill and surrounding towns like Kfar Tebnit…
On the 20th anniversary of the end of the 2006 war, Sheikh Naim Qassem accuses the authorities (Presidents Joseph Aoun and Nawaf Salam) of signing an agreement dictated by Israel. However, he admits that Hezbollah initiated the 2006 war.
Naim Qassem admits: Hezbollah ignited the March 2016 war in retaliation for the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He also admits that Hezbollah started the 2006 war!

A video interview with retired Brigadier General Khaled Hamadeh, in which he discusses: weapons, Iran, Syria, Washington… and Lebanon: Where to?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8idb66huUxU
The interview was conducted by journalist Nada Andraos and uploaded to her YouTube channel on August 14, 2026. (Google translation from Arabic)
The Rome 3 negotiations, Hezbollah's weapons, and the future of southern Lebanon are at the heart of this dialogue with Brigadier General Khaled Hamadeh, offering an analysis of the political and military trajectory Lebanon is undergoing amidst regional escalation and transformations.
The episode addresses the November 27, 2024 agreement, the state's monopoly on weapons, direct negotiations and the framework agreement, the difference between Israeli withdrawal and redeployment, and the issue of pilot zones and the implementation of disarmament.
The interview also discusses the military situation in Ali al-Taher, the balance of power between Hezbollah and Israel, tunnels and technological and intelligence superiority, and developments in southern Lebanon, Nabatieh, Bint Jbeil, and Khiam. The episode then shifts to domestic Lebanese issues, from the amnesty law and the judicial crisis to the government's role in shaping public policy, before discussing relations with Syria, the border demarcation, security coordination, and the cooperation and coordination agreement between Lebanon and Syria.
In the final segment, Brigadier General Khaled Hamadeh discusses regional shifts, Iran and its proxies, the Mecca Agreement, Lebanon's position within new alliances, President Aoun's visit to Washington, communication with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, verification criteria, and the potential for continued escalation.
Watch the full episode to understand the interconnectedness of Hezbollah's weapons, the negotiations, Ali Taher, southern Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and regional transformations.
In your opinion, can Lebanon benefit from the current regional shifts, or will internal stagnation keep the crisis unresolved?
Subscribe to the channel and follow more political discussions and analyses. 00:00 Rome 3 and Hezbollah's Weapons
01:23 The November 27 Agreement and the Exclusivity of Weapons
04:05 The Framework Agreement and the Israeli Withdrawal
07:33 The Experimental Zones and the Governmental Division
10:11 Ali Taher: Technology Against the Tunnels
14:44 The State and the Priority of Disarmament
17:44 The Amnesty Law and the Judicial Crisis
23:55 Ali Taher and the Balance of Power
28:13 The Destruction of the South and the Lebanese Displacement
29:57 Iran and its Regional Proxies
31:20 The Absence of a Lebanese Public Policy
33:02 Lebanon and Syria After the Fall of Assad
36:56 The Border with Syria and the Cooperation Agreement
40:36 Security Coordination and Lebanese Politics
43:38 The Mecca Agreement and the Regional Front
48:55 Washington and the Saudi Guarantees
50:04 The Absence of Verification Standards and the Risk of Escalation

‘Everything will stop’ if Hezbollah gives up weapons, US envoy to Beirut says
Al Arabiya English/14 August ,2026
US Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa on Friday called on Hezbollah to surrender its weapons, saying Israeli attacks would stop once the Iran-backed group gives up its arsenal.“Attacks will stop when it is time,” Issa told reporters after meeting Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. “And, also, you should tell Hezbollah that if they give up their weapons, everything will stop.”In recent months, Israel has increasingly focused its operations on the strategically important Ali al-Taher ridge, located just under 2,000 feet above sea level near the southern city of Nabatieh.Hezbollah operatives and command centers are believed to be located in the area, including in underground facilities.Asked whether the United States supports Israeli attacks on Ali al-Taher, Issa said he did not know. “You know more than I do,” he quipped. On pilot zones, Issa said an assessment of the initial zones would need to be completed before additional zones are determined. He also said a shortlist of countries had been drawn up as potential participants in a third-party verification mechanism in southern Lebanon without elaborating.Lebanon and Israel have been engaged in direct, US-brokered talks for several months, with recent rounds held in Rome. Issa said no date had yet been set for the next round. However, a State Department official told Al Arabiya English this week that the next round of talks is expected to take place in early September.

Walla: Israeli military strikes Ali al-Taher heights in southern Lebanon
LBCI/14 August ,2026
Israel’s military carried out a drone strike on the Ali al-Taher heights in southern Lebanon, the Israeli Walla news website reported Friday, citing a military source.

Israeli shelling sparks fires in Bani Hayyan as strikes target Majdalzoun, Mansouri
Naharnet/14 August ,2026
Israeli artillery shelling sparked fires in the southern town of Bani Hayyan Friday while Israeli forces detonated houses in Markaba nearby. Strikes targeted al-Mansouri and Majdalzoun and detonations were also registered in al-Mansouri, Beit Yahoun, Haddatha, and Kounine. Later in the day, artillery shelled the Ali al-Taher hill.

US General Clearfield meets with Berri and Salam
Naharnet/14 August ,2026
U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa and U.S. General Joseph Clearfield met Friday with Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. Visiting General Clearfield heads a coordination group involved with the U.S. sponsored June agreement. The framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel involves the disarmament of Hezbollah, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from south Lebanon and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the region, starting in "pilot zones".Following his meeting with Berri, Ambassador Issa stated that negotiations in Rome remain ongoing and positive. He noted that General Clearfield's visit aims to provide clarification, particularly to Berri, and to explain what is happening on the ground. When asked by reporters when Israel would cease its attacks, Issa replied, "Tell Hezbollah to hand over its weapons, and everything will stop." For his part, Berri stressed that Israel must stop its war and withdraw from south Lebanon. Salam also emphasized that Israel must halt hostilities, expand pilot zones, and establish a clear timeline for withdrawal from occupied territories in southern Lebanon. On Wednesday, Clearfield met with army chief Rodolphe Haykal. The pair discussed "developments in the south and security arrangements" relating to the deal, the Lebanese military said, as well as "the difficulties the army faces in carrying out its missions, primarily due to the continuing attacks, bulldozing and destruction by the Israeli occupation".President Joseph Aoun also met Clearfield, his office said, and discussed the implementation of the framework deal. Israel and Lebanon are to hold an eighth round of U.S.-sponsored negotiations next month, in Rome. Issa said there is a list of countries that might participate in monitoring the framework agreement. "But so far, no specific country has been confirmed," he told reporters.

HRW says UN must keep peacekeepers in Lebanon
Agence France Presse/14 August ,2026
Human Rights Watch has called on the United Nations to keep an international force in Lebanon after its peacekeepers' mandate ends this year. The peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL, has roughly 7,500 personnel from nearly 50 countries, and has been in place since 1978. Its presence has not prevented repeated outbreaks of conflict. Southern Lebanon has seen successive wars between Israel and Hezbollah. In August last year, however, the U.N. Security Council, under U.S. pressure, decided to end UNIFIL's mandate on December 31, 2026. "Pulling the plug on UNIFIL without a robust international force in place would effectively abandon millions of Lebanese civilians to an uncertain and potentially disastrous fate," said Louis Charbonneau, HRW's U.N. director. "The peacekeepers are a crucial deterrent against attacks on civilians and human rights abuses," he added. HRW urged the U.N. to extend the peacekeeping force's mandate "until the security situation has improved sufficiently to consider further reducing the force". U.N. chief Antonio Guterres has said that peacekeepers will be needed in Lebanon after the current mandate expires, a suggestion likely to face opposition from the United States and Israel. In June, he proposed three options ranging from nearly 2,000 to more than 5,500 U.N. personnel to monitor the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, and support Lebanon's armed forces. That same month, France and Italy said they wanted to launch a coalition for after UNIFIL to strengthen Lebanon's sovereignty and prevent its territory from being "a foothold for regional escalation". In July, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun called for UNIFIL to stay. And Lebanon's U.N. mission sent a letter, signed by 86 member states, to the U.N. Security Council calling for UNIFIL troops to remain with an expanded mandate. Aoun said that if UNIFIL could not stay there should be "an alternative force" to "assist the Lebanese army in clearing the southern regions, removing unexploded ordnance, and keeping pace with the implementation" of the framework agreement. HRW's Charbonneau said that "the Security Council should not leave Lebanese civilians unprotected"."The council will share much of the blame if UNIFIL’s departure creates a security vacuum that opens the door to further abuses".

Report: Lebanon told that Israel is readying to occupy Ali al-Taher
Naharnet/14 August ,2026
Messages have reached relevant parties in Lebanon indicating that Israel is preparing to launch an offensive to occupy the Ali al-Taher hills and is on high alert, awaiting a signal from the United States, a senior security official said. This official told al-Joumhouriya newspaper that the U.S. informed Lebanese authorities that it would not be able to completely prevent the Israeli operation, but requested that it be a precise, surgical operation with minimal explosions and terrorization of civilians, and in a manner that does not undermine the framework agreement. "The Israelis need this achievement and will not back down from it," the official added, noting that "all eyes are on Hezbollah's reaction: will it engage in a full-scale battle or deal with the matter in a way that does not give the enemy a pretext to launch a large-scale offensive and displace residents from villages and towns again?" The source concluded that "this battle has become a matter of time, and is racing against the imminent Iranian-American agreement, which will undoubtedly have a direct impact on the southern front."

Report: Hezbollah evacuation of Ali al-Taher prerequisite for framework implementation
Naharnet/14 August ,2026
Hezbollah's complete surrender of the Ali al-Taher hills to the Lebanese Army is a prerequisite for fully implementing the Framework Agreement, said a political source familiar with Lebanese-U.S. discussions, including the recent visit of the head of the Military Coordination Group for Lebanon, General Joseph Clearfield, to Beirut and his meetings with President Joseph Aoun and Army Commander General Rodolphe Haykal. “This includes solidifying the ceasefire, expanding the pilot zones, and establishing the mechanism tasked with verifying the army's deployment in the two pilot zones in the towns of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, Froun and Srifa,” the source told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper. The political source confirmed that the evacuation of the Ali al-Taher hills is at the top of the agenda for the negotiations session to be hosted by Rome for the third time in early September. He told Asharq al-Awsat that the future of the situation in southern Lebanon hinges on Hezbollah's response to Aoun's demand for its evacuation of the Ali al-Taher hills, including the military installations it has constructed beneath them. The source added that Hezbollah “has not yet responded as it should to the government’s desire for the army to deploy in the hills of Ali al-Taher.”

UK and Lebanon sign Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen security cooperation
Naharnet/14 August ,2026
The United Kingdom has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Lebanon’s Ministry of Interior and Municipalities and Ministry of Defense, reaffirming its “long-standing partnership with Lebanon’s security institutions.”The UK’s Integrated Security Fund will support a 31-month Internal Security Assistance Program for the Internal Security Forces (ISF) and the Lebanese Army, totaling up to £16.3 million, the British embassy said in a statement. “The UK’s partnership with the Lebanese Army, the Internal Security Forces, and their respective ministries will contribute to strengthening security, stability, state authority and institutional resilience in Lebanon. It will support professional, accountable and effective responses to current and emerging internal and external security challenges, including counter-terrorism activities and criminal violence,” the embassy added.
British Ambassador to Lebanon Hamish Cowell said: “The United Kingdom is proud to stand alongside Lebanon and its security institutions. This Memorandum of Understanding reflects our shared commitment to a more secure, stable and resilient Lebanon, and to supporting professional state institutions, such as the Lebanese Army and ISF that serve and protect the Lebanese people.”The UK has been a close partner of the Lebanese Army and Internal Security Forces since 2009.

After Lebanon scraps death penalty, where does the region stand?
Agence France Presse/14 August ,2026
Lebanon has formally abolished the death penalty, going against the grain in a region where Iran and Saudi Arabia are reportedly the second- and third-biggest executors globally, after China.Here's a look at which countries in the Middle East and North Africa top the list of executioners, which have a moratorium on applying the death penalty, and whether others might follow Lebanon's example.
Top regional executioners?
According to an Amnesty International report, of at least 2,707 people executed globally in 2025, more than 95 percent were in the Middle East and North Africa region, almost half for drug-related offences. Amnesty said governments in the region use capital punishment "as a tool to repress dissent and crack down on actual or perceived national security threats, amid a resurgence of punitive drug policies". Iran alone accounted for 2,159 of those executions -- Tehran's highest recorded figure in more than 40 years, according to Amnesty -- as authorities "intensified their use of the death penalty as a tool of political repression and control", particularly after a 2025 war with Israel. This year too, rights groups say Iran has been stepping up executions after protests in January and during the latest war launched on it by Israel and the United States. This week, more than 30 countries accused Iran of executing protesters to "silence dissent", criticism which Tehran brushed off. Saudi Arabia carried out a record high of at least 356 executions last year, Amnesty said, "driven by an alarming increase in the number of drug-related cases", most of which involved foreign nationals. This year, Saudi authorities had already executed 130 people by August 13, according to an AFP tally based on official announcements.Authorities say the penalty is compatible with Sharia law -- the Islamic legal code based on the teachings of the Quran -- and necessary to "maintain public order".Yemen was third regionally and fourth globally according to Amnesty, with at least 51 executions last year. Egypt, with 23 executions, was sixth globally, trailing the United States.
Which countries hold back?
Tunisia has had a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty since 1991, and Algeria and Morocco since 1993. In Iraq, which came fourth globally in 2024, Amnesty noted that executions were "largely on hold" last year, however thousands are still sentenced to death, many accused of belonging to the Islamic State group. Jordan this year hanged six men convicted in "terrorism and criminal cases", ending a nine-year moratorium there. Syria did not hand down any death sentences in 2025, the first full year under the new Islamist authorities, but this week sentenced ousted leader Bashar al-Assad and other top security officials to death in absentia. The country regularly carried out executions under Assad's rule. Israel has abolished capital punishment for "ordinary crimes" but retains it for some "exceptional" offences.
It last executed Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1962.
But in March, Israel passed a law making death the default punishment for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank convicted by military courts of carrying out deadly attacks classified as "terrorism". It also faced international scrutiny after passing a May law establishing a special tribunal to try those accused of taking part in Hamas' October 7, 2023 attacks, with authority to hand down the death penalty. The Palestinian Authority has not carried out an execution since 2005, with president Mahmoud Abbas refusing to sign execution orders. The authority has signed a number of international conventions that call for the abolition of capital punishment, without actually doing so itself. Death sentences are still handed down, but not implemented. Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has frequently put Palestinians to death, including last year through the public executions of alleged collaborators with Israel.
Following Lebanon's lead? -
Aurelie Placais, director of the World Coalition against the Death Penalty, told AFP that Lebanon's move "sends a strong signal to the rest of the region". Ogarit Younan, who co-founded Lebanon's national campaign for the abolition of the death penalty nearly 30 years ago, expressed hope that Lebanon could be a model in the region. She said countries need a civil society movement ready for a long-term campaign on the issue, with small wins along the way. In Lebanon, she told AFP, "we had a strategic vision and plan since the beginning, and then we did it step by step".

Diplomacy vs. escalation: Southern Lebanon enters a critical new phase
LBCI/14 August ,2026
There is no halt to the explosions in southern Lebanon, no expansion of the pilot zones for now, and, initially, no changes are expected until Israel’s elections. This is a concise summary of the U.S. position, backed by Israel, on developments in southern Lebanon, amid a visit by Chairman of the Military Coordination Group for Lebanon Lieutenant General Joseph Clearfield and U.S. Ambassador Michel Issa to Lebanese officials. From Ain el-Tineh, Issa explained the purpose of the visit, saying: “We came to meet with Speaker Nabih Berri to clarify matters, and Berri is always understanding.” For his part, Berri told the U.S. delegation that the key to stability remains compelling Israel to halt its war and withdraw to the international border. Also from Ain el-Tineh, amid reports of an Israeli operation being prepared in Ali al-Taher, Ambassador Issa was asked whether the United States supports any Israeli military operation there. The issue had also previously been discussed with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. According to LBCI information, diplomatic efforts are underway to prevent any major Israeli attack on Ali al-Taher and to seek a diplomatic solution. One option being considered is handing the hill over to the Lebanese army, as any major escalation there could trigger a wider confrontation, derail the Rome negotiations and bring a broader war back. According to the information, Hezbollah has not yet provided a response to any of these options. Regarding the monitoring mechanism for implementing the framework agreement, LBCI has learned that several countries are being considered, with the matter currently under discussion at the Pentagon. In parallel, negotiations between Lebanon and Israel will continue, although no date has yet been set for the next round, according to Ambassador Michel Issa. Ultimately, amid diplomatic efforts to prevent the confrontation from expanding and an ongoing negotiation process with no new date set, southern Lebanon is entering a delicate and dangerous phase as Israeli demolitions of villages and homes continue.

Waste crisis or new tax? Lebanon’s environmental fee raises questions
LBCI/14 August ,2026
About $185 million a year is the estimated cost of solid waste management in Lebanon. But instead of asking how to reduce that cost and turn waste from a burden into a productive sector, the government has opted to collect a large share of the funds from Lebanese citizens. On June 15, the Cabinet approved imposing a 1.5% environmental fee on a wide range of imported goods. The decision would have affected many products, potentially paving the way for a new wave of price increases. As objections mounted, the Finance Ministry backed down from imposing the fee on most of the targeted goods and limited it to 26 types of imported goods, including alcoholic beverages, tobacco and perfumes. But the rollback was not complete. A closer look at the fee schedule shows that the rate increased from 1.5% to 3% on alcoholic beverages, tobacco, cars and watches, and to 2% on leather and fur products. The reason? To make up for part of the revenue the Treasury would lose after removing a large number of goods from the list. Customs authorities will immediately begin collecting the fees for the Treasury, with expected revenues ranging between $90 million and $120 million annually. The funds are supposed to contribute to addressing the waste crisis.But this is where the questions begin: Under what plan will waste be managed? Where is the sustainable waste management plan? Who will oversee how these funds are spent? And who will ensure that the revenue actually goes to the waste sector rather than being absorbed into other areas of government spending?Most importantly, why should Lebanese citizens pay tens of millions of dollars every year to manage a sector that should, if properly managed, be able to recover part of its costs through sorting and recycling? Years of plans, contracts and temporary solutions have passed, yet waste remains a crisis, and costs continue to rise. Today, instead of first presenting a clear, transparent and accountable plan, the government is imposing the fee before providing a solution. And the problem does not stop at the value of the fee. In Lebanon, any new import fee can translate at the market level into a price increase greater than the actual value of the fee. The trader raises prices for the distributor, the distributor raises them for the retailer, and ultimately, the consumer pays. Even goods that are not subject to the fee could be swept up in the price increases, with prices rising under the claim that “fees have gone up.” Amid a waste crisis that the government has yet to solve sustainably, and a new fee that is supposed to finance that solution, the question remains: Will the environmental fee mark the beginning of a genuine effort to address Lebanon’s waste crisis? Or will it simply become another source of revenue for the Treasury, and another bill for the Lebanese people?

FIFA chief Infantino receives support from 6 Arab federations including Lebanon
Associated Press/14 August ,2026
The heads of six Arab football federations expressed their "full support" and "confidence" in Gianni Infantino on Thursday as the embattled FIFA president fights to keep his job after his failed World Cup private investment plan.
The backing came from 2030 World Cup co-host Morocco, Qatar, Egypt, Mauritania, Lebanon and Sudan, with four of the signatories being FIFA council members. "We, the undersigned leaders of our respective football associations, express our full support for Mr. Gianni Infantino, President of FIFA, and reaffirm our confidence in his leadership and continued commitment to the development of football worldwide," the statement read."We deeply appreciate Mr. Infantino's sustained efforts to advance football globally, expand opportunities across all regions and strengthen the game's role in bringing people and communities together."The statement said the signatories "look forward to continuing our close cooperation with him towards a stronger and more prosperous future for world football, expanding opportunities and further enhancing Arab football's contribution to the global game."Infantino is facing a revolt after his plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private equity investors. He withdrew the $20 billion proposal after a furious backlash by global football officials, including European body UEFA, which has warned of a boycott of all FIFA games and events.UEFA teamed up with CONCACAF — the confederation for North, Central America and the Caribbean — and the Asian Football Confederation — and issued an open letter Monday saying Infantino's plan was a "fundamental breach of trust" and described it as "deception."And on Thursday, the Football Association of Ireland said in a statement it has withdrawn its support for Infantino to be re-elected as FIFA president in March, saying "recent events have raised significant concerns regarding governance, transparency and the lack of meaningful consultation."The football federations in England and Wales did the same last week, while Northern Ireland said it was backing UEFA's stance. New Zealand Football issued a statement Friday local time saying it had withdrawn its support for the candidature of Infantino and was seeking an independent review of steps taken to develop the FIFA Forward Enterprise scheme.New Zealand Football broke ranks with its Oceania confederation, saying it "formed the view that decisions and actions within FIFA have contributed to a breakdown in trust and increased division within international football, and that an independent review is required to restore confidence and trust."Without commenting on Infantino's position, the OFC said it welcomed FIFA's decision to withdraw the FFE proposal and its commitment to review the issues surrounding the project."OFC recognizes the progress achieved over the last decade in advancing football development in Oceania under FIFA's leadership and encourages FIFA to use the review as an opportunity to identify and implement any changes that may be necessary," the statement said. Schism in Asian bloc over Infantino support By expressing support for Infantino, Qatar and Lebanon aligned against the Asian Football Confederation. Infantino's official Instagram account previously has posted letters of support from several member federations, including Morocco, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The four FIFA council members among the signatories were Qatar Football Association president Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Egyptian Football Association president Hany Abo Rida, Moroccan Football Federation president Fouzi Lekjaa and Mauritanian Football Federation president Ahmed Yahya.The other two were Lebanese Football Association president Hashem Haidar and Moatasem Gafar, president of the Sudan Football Association. Infantino has been FIFA president since 2016 and seemed sure to be re-elected unopposed next year in Morocco. FIFA has set a Nov. 18 deadline for challengers to come forward.

Wanted for war crimes: Why was retired Syrian Gen. Adel Issa detained in Beirut?
LBCI/14 August ,2026
Wanted by Syrian authorities and having fled to Lebanon, he entered his country’s embassy in Lebanon to request official documents, only to be detained. So, what is the story behind Adel Issa, a retired general in the former Syrian army? Issa, from the coastal Syrian province of Tartus, retired from the army about five years ago. Before his retirement, however, he held a prominent military position: commander of the 17th Division of the former Syrian army. It was one of the main military formations deployed in northeastern Syria, particularly in Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, and carries a grim image among many residents of those areas, who associate the division with years of shelling, killings and destruction during the war. Issa assumed his position in 2014, during one of the bloodiest periods of the Syrian war, when fighting extended beyond military fronts and civilians and communities paid the price.
So, what happened to Issa in Lebanon?
According to the official account, Issa went to the Syrian Embassy in Beirut last week to request a general power of attorney. After his name was checked, authorities discovered that he was wanted. The embassy contacted the justice, interior and foreign ministries in Damascus, which confirmed that an in absentia arrest warrant had been issued against him by the Criminal Court and that he was wanted on war crimes charges. According to the information, Syrian authorities had raided his home in Tartus several times but failed to find him. The embassy then contacted the Public Prosecutor at the Court of Cassation. Prosecutor General Judge Ahmad Rami el-Hajj dispatched a Criminal Investigation Unit patrol, which took custody of Issa outside the embassy premises and on Lebanese territory. Meanwhile, Judge el-Hajj received a Syrian request for Issa’s extradition under the judicial agreement between the two countries. The embassy later sent the documents and details requested by el-Hajj. According to the extradition request, Issa is wanted over his role as commander of the 17th Division, as well as for heading a security operations room in Deir ez-Zor province. He is being pursued on war crimes charges. A week after his detention at the Criminal Investigation Unit detention facility at the Justice Palace, Prosecutor General Judge Ahmad Rami el-Hajj questioned Issa Friday and issued a judicial detention order against him, pending a decision on the extradition request next week. Pending a final decision on whether he will be extradited, his lawyer said that if the extradition is approved, he will pursue another legal avenue: applying for political asylum and seeking to suspend the extradition until the application is decided. The application will be filed with the Interior Ministry and reviewed by the political asylum committee, headed by the interior minister, which makes its decision by majority vote. The case of Adel Issa is one of the lingering consequences of a Syrian war whose files and unresolved issues remain open and have crossed borders.

Human Rights Watch urges UN to maintain peacekeeping force in South Lebanon
LBCI/14 August ,2026
Human Rights Watch has called on the United Nations to maintain an international peacekeeping presence in South Lebanon after the mandate of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) expires on December 31. The organization warned that the withdrawal of around 7,500 peacekeepers without a strong replacement force could create a security vacuum and expose civilians to further violations.

Rain in August? Sudden weather shift surprises Lebanon
LBCI/14 August ,2026
A sudden shift in weather brought unexpected rainfall to several parts of Lebanon on Friday, accompanied by a noticeable drop in temperatures. The unseasonable weather comes amid the typically hot conditions of August, with rain reported across several areas.

Amnesty law a distortion of what Lebanon could have been
Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/August 14/2026
The Lebanese are well known for their humor in difficult situations. The first WhatsApp message I received following Wednesday’s vote in Lebanon’s parliament approving the amnesty law was a meme with an urgent news sign copying a major media outlet stating: “General amnesty law to include those married for more than 20 years.” The law, passed a day after the abolition of the death penalty, was delivered following months of tension among Lebanon’s political parties. These negotiations made clear the extent of the dysfunction in the confessional political system.
The stated reasons for the law are to ease tensions, reduce overcrowding in prisons and turn the page. Yet, in this law, every group looked after its own interests. The Sunni political forces were interested in prisoners connected to battles in places such as Tripoli and Abra, some of whom were jailed without being presented to a judge. Hezbollah was interested in drug-related offenses and other prisoners in the Bekaa. Some Christian forces were interested in Lebanese who fled to Israel after the latter’s withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000 and were subsequently convicted or prevented from returning.
As a quick reminder, the Sunni prisoners were taken as a result of the Tripoli clashes, which were repeated Sunni-Alawite battles largely linked to the Syrian civil war. Sunni groups in Bab Al-Tabbaneh generally supported the Syrian opposition, while the Alawite community of Jabal Mohsen was aligned with the Assad regime. As for Abra, this was a 2013 confrontation between Sheikh Ahmed Al-Assir’s Sunni militants and the Lebanese army in which 18 soldiers were killed. Hezbollah’s support for Bashar Assad and its military intervention in Syria directly impacted these confrontations. Hezbollah dominated the state and, whether the group assisted the army or not, it is unthinkable that this action was not directed with its interests in mind.
Menassa’s position is incomplete. Why treat Hezbollah differently than he treats Sunni extremists?
The main tension in this law was regarding the Sunni component. Defense Minister Michel Menassa wanted to give a speech to parliament stating that the army opposed an amnesty for those convicted of attacking or killing soldiers. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam blocked him from speaking, arguing that the government had not formally adopted a position on the bill and that Menassa could not present an independent government position. As a result, Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement walked out of the vote.Despite the walkout, Hezbollah got the amnesties it wanted for its own people. I understand the position of the defense minister. However, it is incomplete. Why treat Hezbollah differently than he treats Sunni extremists? Didn’t Hezbollah fight in Syria? Weren’t the Tripoli clashes and, to a certain extent, Abra a spillover from the Syrian civil war? Didn’t Hezbollah drag Lebanon into wars and commit terrorist acts against the Lebanese as well as internationally? Doesn’t Hezbollah, both then and to this day, bear arms? What is the difference between Al-Assir and Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem? More importantly, why isn’t the army executing the plan that has been decided by the government — disarming Hezbollah — with the same strong will and decisiveness it took against Al-Assir? The answer is simple: muscle.
Everything that has taken place is a travesty. It is the same as the bankers’ Ponzi scheme
Hezbollah, despite being weakened, still has firepower and influence — hence the refusal or inability of the army to take concrete actions against it. To date, neither Hezbollah, which sits outside prison, nor Al-Assir’s group, which sits in prison, have stood before a judge. Lebanese justice did not speak before this amnesty. This law is a distortion of everything that Lebanon could have been at the end of the civil war. The Syrian occupation, followed by the Iranian one with Hezbollah, forbids this from ever happening. Everything that has taken place is a travesty. It is the same as the bankers’ Ponzi scheme. Are they also absolved of wrongdoing while hard-working Lebanese have lost their life savings? There is no way Lebanon can function with this type of political system and a confessional trade-like mentality of all political parties. We cannot interpret it as a national reconciliation — it is more like confessional bargaining. Moreover, there is no guarantee that Lebanon will not face the same challenges in another five years or a decade because the root causes of this situation have still not been addressed. This starts with, but goes beyond, Hezbollah delivering its arsenal to the Lebanese Armed Forces. Indeed, as long as this does not happen, there will always be double standards. The army needs to regain its real role. Reading the geopolitical changes, and how the winds are changing fast, it is only a matter of time before we witness a trading places scenario that will keep Lebanon trapped in a cycle of violence and instability.
I know that I will once again sound like a broken record but this type of law and the comedic act of Hezbollah and the FPM storming out of the session while knowing they are getting what they want make me even more convinced that the only solution for Lebanon is federalism. The country needs more than an amnesty law or an attempt to display modernity with the abolition of the death penalty. This does not change the archaic political system. But a new political system would.
*Khaled Abou Zahr is the founder of SpaceQuest Ventures, a space-focused investment platform. He is the CEO of EurabiaMedia and editor of Al-Watan Al-Arabi.

Amnesty, Lebanese style: When impunity becomes law
Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya English/14 August ,2026
Lebanon’s parliament has once again demonstrated its peculiar genius for turning a failure of the state into a political achievement. The newly approved general amnesty law is being presented as a humanitarian measure, a solution to overcrowded prisons, prolonged detention, unpaid fines and cases that have languished for years without proper judicial resolution. Some of these grievances are real, and some of the people who will benefit from the law may indeed have been treated unjustly. But that is precisely why this legislation should trouble us rather than reassure us.
A justice system cannot be built on exceptions. When the courts fail, the answer is to repair the courts, not periodically erase the consequences of their failure through political bargaining. If people have been held for years without trial, try them. If sentences are disproportionate, review them. If prisoners have completed their terms but remain incarcerated because they cannot pay fines, fix the law. If convictions are unsafe, reopen the cases.
These are the functions of a judiciary.
Amnesty may sometimes be justified after wars, regime changes or extraordinary national crises, but when it becomes a substitute for functioning institutions, it ceases to be mercy and becomes evidence of institutional surrender.
The Lebanese version is more troubling still because it carries the unmistakable fingerprints of the country’s sectarian order. The debate was never simply about legal categories, prison reform or proportionality of punishment. As usual, every community arrived carrying its own list of grievances, its own prisoners, its own fugitives and, naturally, its own definition of injustice. What emerged was less a philosophy of criminal justice than a balance sheet: this sect gets this concession, that party protects that category, another group secures relief for another constituency, and everyone goes home claiming victory.
Justice, however, cannot be divided into confessional portions and still be called justice.Once the identity of the offender, the political sponsor behind him or the sectarian constituency claiming him becomes part of the calculation, equality before the law has already been abandoned. The courthouse has merely been replaced by the negotiating table, and the judge by the big boss. The controversy surrounding the law has also exposed another problem that Lebanon prefers not to discuss: The increasingly political posture of the Lebanese Army itself. The Army is, in theory, an institution subordinate to civilian authority. Yet on this issue, its behavior, and that of the defense establishment more broadly, displayed something dangerously close to the renegade traits that have afflicted other institutions of the Lebanese state – the assumption that institutional prestige somehow gives one the right to intervene in political and legislative decisions.
The attempt by the Army leadership and the defense minister to obstruct or pressure against the amnesty on the grounds that some of those who might benefit had been involved in killing Lebanese soldiers was presented as a defense of the dignity of the military. It was, in fact, largely an exercise in populism and exhibitionism. The killing of soldiers is a grave crime. Precisely for that reason, it should be dealt with by the judiciary, not transformed into an emotional veto wielded by the military establishment over legislation. The Lebanese Army does not own the blood of its fallen soldiers, nor does the defense minister. Their families are entitled to justice, as are all victims. But justice cannot mean that one state institution decides that its victims are more sacred than those of everyone else, or that its institutional memory gives it a privileged voice over parliament.
A military that begins to consider itself the custodian not merely of national security but of the political definition of justice enters dangerous territory. Lebanon already suffers from armed actors who believe themselves entitled to stand above the state. It hardly needs the institution tasked with defending the state to cultivate its own exceptionalism.
There is irony here that Abu Nuwas would have appreciated. The great Abbasid poet, famous for his excesses and equally famous for his confidence in divine forgiveness, is traditionally associated with the lines:
“O Lord, though my sins have grown immense, I know that Your forgiveness is greater.”
Abu Nuwas, however, was addressing God.
Lebanese politicians appear to have mistaken his theology for a penal code.
Divine forgiveness can afford to be infinite. State justice cannot. A republic that tells its citizens, explicitly or implicitly, that punishment is temporary because some future political settlement may erase it is not encouraging reconciliation; it is subsidizing impunity. It teaches the offender that the real question is not whether he has violated the law, but whether he belongs to a constituency powerful enough to negotiate his release.
And herein lies the real danger of this amnesty. It does not merely release prisoners or reduce sentences. It reinforces a political culture in which accountability is provisional while impunity is permanent.
Lebanon has spent decades perfecting this craft. Crimes are forgotten in the name of stability, investigations become inconvenient in the name of communal peace, and responsibility is diluted until everyone is somehow guilty and therefore no one can ever be held responsible. The general amnesty law fits comfortably within this tradition. Its defenders can point to deserving cases – and there are certainly deserving cases – but individual injustice cannot justify collective arbitrariness.
Indeed, the existence of those deserving cases is perhaps the most damning indictment of the state.Why did they need parliament to rescue them? Why could the judiciary not do so? Why should a person unjustly detained have to wait for a grand political bargain involving parties, sects and political calculations before his rights are restored?
That is not reform. It is an admission that the ordinary machinery of justice has ceased to function. Lebanon urgently needs prison reform, faster trials, modern sentencing rules, judicial independence and credible mechanisms for reviewing wrongful or excessive detention. What it does not need is another lesson in the distinctly Lebanese art of escaping consequences.A country cannot be governed by periodically declaring people forgiven according to the arithmetic of sectarian compromise. Nor can its military, its political parties or its sectarian leaders each reserve the right to decide which crimes deserve punishment and which victims deserve priority. A state governed by law must have one justice, not eighteen varieties of it. Otherwise, we may as well hang Abu Nuwas’s verses above the entrance to every Lebanese courthouse and assure every future offender that there is little reason to worry.
Sin today. Negotiate tomorrow. Amnesty eventually.

Sheikh Qassem: Framework Agreement Comprises Lebanon’s Surrender to Israeli Enemy, Hezbollah Will Keep Steadfast till Achieving Victory
Al-Manar English Website/14 August ,2026
Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem delivered on Friday a televised speech on the anniversary of the Divine Victory over the Israeli enemy in 2006, affirming that the Israeli enemy has always resorted to pretexts in order to wage prepared wars on Lebanon.
Sheikh Qassem pointed out that on March 2, 2026, the Resistance responded to the assassination of Imam Leader Khamenei. “The response also summarized the pain we endured for 15 months of Israeli violations. The result was that the aggressive Israeli war was opened on Lebanon. He noted that all evidence afterwards confirmed that if the war had not been opened on March 2, it would have been opened later in March, because the Israelis were ready for it and because they want to carry out this wide-scale aggressive act,” His Eminence added. Sheikh Qassem said: “For us, the war was an aggressive, existential war. Therefore, we confronted it with a Karbala-like confrontation, because we considered we had one of two choices: either we fall and surrender and the Israelis win, or we remain steadfast and defeat the Israeli project.”
He said that the Resistance prevented the enemy from achieving its objectives, and it is proceeding with its choices. Whoever bets on surrender is betting on a mirage and does not know the Resistance well. He noted that the Resistance and the people of the Resistance endure and are patient because we are facing choices that we cannot accept when they lead to surrender and collapse. Sheikh Qassem pointed out that the Lebanese authority went to the “Framework Agreement,” which is neither an agreement nor a framework. It is Israeli diktats written with Israeli ink, signed by the Lebanese authority, giving Israel everything it wants, and the Lebanese authority relinquishes sovereignty. He noted that the Israeli enemy would not have carried out all this aggression and all this annihilation without the Americans.Sheikh Qassem said: “Everyone who watched the scene in Washington saw one team called the American-Israeli team. As for the Lebanese team, it was subordinate and was implementing what America said.”Sheikh Qassem addressed the Authority: “Give us one achievement that was made in the seven rounds. The Israeli enemy got everything and everything it wants. Our problem with the agreement is, first, the direct negotiations, because you give Israel in advance what it wants. And second, the entire content.”Sheikh Qassem affirmed that the authority must admit that it has failed and return to its people to reach a unified, guaranteeing position of strength, and to use elements of power to confront this arrogant Israeli enemy, and to employ all the cards we have: the card of the Resistance, unity, and sovereignty, in order to confront it with them.
He said that this negotiation will only bring disgrace and shame, and with its continuation the disgrace and shame will continue and grow even more.
Sheikh Qassem asked: “Isn’t it enough for this authority what the Israeli enemy has done and what it does daily of aggressive practices: demolishing homes and villages, occupying land, and killing people?” And he asked: “What is this innovation you called ‘experimental areas’? Zawtar al-Gharbiya, which was not occupied, is now ‘experimental’ on the condition that Israel allows you to enter it? From the liberated lands, do we say there is liberation? Or is this giving Israel guarantees to deploy in the liberated lands under the pretext of ‘investigation’ and that it wants to supervise the Lebanese reality.”
Sheikh Qassem asked: “What is happening in Al-Mansouri, even though it is a liberated village? Yet the Israelis displaced its people and prevented the Lebanese Army from entering.” Sheikh Qassem said: “At the very least you should have walked out of the session, and you didn’t. And you should have said we are stopping negotiations because there is no withdrawal.” And he affirmed: “We know that the American tells you behind closed doors that they cannot do anything with the Israeli enemy because they support its steps.”Sheikh Qassem addressed the Authority: “At least respond to Katz and Netanyahu with a position.”Sheikh Qassem said to the Authority: “I call on you to backtrack from this sinful mistake, this shameful mistake, this humiliating mistake, this mistake that raises question marks about what these officials are doing.”
The Secretary-General of Hezbollah affirmed that what is happening is surrender, and “we do not accept surrender. We will remain standing, steadfast. We do not accept the violation of our country’s sovereignty and for the blood of martyrs to be wasted,” calling on the authority to stop accumulating failure because “this accumulation destroys the country, harms the country, and harms the future.”
Sheikh Qassem noted that no matter how harsh the present is, the future, according to the divine promise and what we do as a duty, will, God willing, lead to changing these realities. And “our bet is on the Resistance, the people, and the patriots.”His Eminence affirmed that “the steadfastness of the Resistance and Iran placing the issue of Lebanon as a first condition in the Islamabad understanding document is what curbed the Israeli enemy.”He said: “Some say that 300,000 citizens returned because of the ‘Framework Agreement.’ This is laughable. What brought people back is the Islamabad Agreement, and what stopped the ceasefire in its wide form is the Islamabad Agreement.”He affirmed that “our position today is that we are on the path of the absent Imam Mousa al-Sadr, who announced that Israel is absolute evil and that the South can only smile. And we continue on the path of the Master of the Martyrs of the Nation, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who gave a lot for decades to establish this equation and bring victories. He was the leader of the great victory in July, and he sponsored the True Promise, and the great result we obtained came.”Sheikh Qassem pointed out that “this Resistance is a defensive case. The wars were imposed on us and we are defending. We accept a ceasefire because we are defending, but the enemy wants war. However, we do not surrender even if the pains are great.”Sheikh Qassem stressed that “the South must be the central issue today. The displaced must be secured, as must shelter, aid, and reconstruction of damages. And the state is responsible before any other party. It is true that we are taking on helping, cooperating, and exerting maximum effort, but the origin is that the state must do its duty, and this is what we will strive for.”
Sheikh Qassem addressed the great families, saying: “Any words we say cannot be an atom compared to what you have given in sacrifices and giving. We see you as great. You are the crown on our heads. We tell you that we will die for you and we will fight to the last drop of blood, and we are together in one trench.”He said: “It is your right to be angry and to express it, but we ask you to store this anger and prepare to use it at the time when it is due to achieve your goals and demands.”
He added that “anger has a time, and it can explode. How does it explode? Let those who do not know how to work and try to work against the Resistance and the people of the Resistance bear responsibility.”He pointed out that “responsibility falls on those who attack the Resistance, the people of the Resistance, Lebanon, the future of Lebanon, and the sovereignty of Lebanon.”Sheikh Qassem addressed the honorable resistance fighters: “O crown of our heads, title of pride, example of devotion and sacrifice, and lights of liberation and independence. You are victorious in this world and the hereafter. And we are honored that we are together in the battle of liberation, pride, and human dignity.”Sheikh Qassem thanked all those from parties, forces, and sects who contribute to all movements rejecting occupation, confronting aggression, and rejecting the agreement of humiliation and normalization. He praised the spirit of social solidarity, where “we all rally together to address the pains at the educational, social, housing, and economic levels.” He said this social solidarity is important in order to fill the gaps created by this authority due to its lack of serious and effective work in the positive direction.
Sheikh Qassem said: “We are indebted to our martyrs and our great ones who preceded us to the heights and paved the way for us for a better future. Our martyrs placed a trust on our necks. We will preserve it and we will continue upon it. Our martyrs are the honorable title at the level of Lebanon, the cause of Palestine, and at the level of the whole world, because they are a model of sacrifice and giving.”
Sheikh Qassem addressed the wounded: “May God bless you for this great sacrifice that you bore for this great march.”
He affirmed that “we will not abandon the prisoners. We will continue to demand, strive, and work for their release, God willing.” And he added: “God willing, we will have rounds of victory. And with all the pain we must endure, because we are standing. And our standing is a station among the stations of victory.”In his remarks on the anniversary of the victory, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah said that the anniversary established an important historical milestone in the history of Lebanon and the region, and that the “True Promise” war was to confront the Israeli aggression that began under the pretext of the capture of two Israeli soldiers. The war began after all communications, all political relations, and all diplomacy failed to secure the release of Lebanese prisoners in the prisons of the Israeli occupation.Sheikh Qassem said: “This operation was necessary to fulfill the pledge that we do not leave our prisoners in prison. So how could we change the equation without confrontation and pressure on the Israeli enemy, who only understands the language of force? This operation, in the known military sense, did not warrant launching a war for it. But it later became clear that the Israelis, in cooperation with the Americans, were preparing for a major war in September 2006.” He noted that “this war ended with the defeat of the Israeli enemy, this arrogant enemy and those behind it, America, at the hands of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon and all the honorable resistance fighters, within the framework of the triad of Army, People, and Resistance. And among the results of this operation was the release of prisoners and detainees held by the occupation.”Sheikh Qassem said: “The enemy submitted to this Resistance, to this people, and to steadfast and confrontational Lebanon. Among the results is that deterrence remained in place against the Israeli enemy from 2006 to 2023. This is evidence of the importance of the Resistance. This is a model showing that the Resistance is capable of changing the equation. This is an existing, ongoing experience.”

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 14-15/2026
Trump says will ‘soon’ declare Hormuz Strait US territory
AFP/14 August ,2026
President Donald Trump on Friday said he would “soon” declare the Strait of Hormuz waterway part of US territory, claiming that Iran was being heavily defeated.
“Pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States. It’s true,” he said with a chuckle during a political rally at a police academy in New York state.

US threatens Iran with ‘economic isolation, like the world has never seen’
AFP/14 August ,2026
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened Thursday to subject Iran to economic isolation “like the world has never seen before,” adding that new measures are expected next week. “It will be a combination of economic isolation, like the world has never seen before,” Bessent told conservative television network Newsmax, adding that “the continued blockade in the Strait of Hormuz... will keep anything from going in or out of the Iranian ports.”“Watch this space for more announcements coming next week,” he said.
Bessent described a two-pronged approach featuring financial pressure and a physical blockade of the ports. Vice President JD Vance said earlier that the top US priority in the Iran war was bringing oil and gasoline prices down for Americans, with preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon now ranking second. The tougher stance contrasts with remarks by Bessent on August 4, when he told CNBC that an agreement with Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could be reached within days. Those comments sent Wall Street higher and oil prices lower.

US says lower oil prices, not Iran's nuclear program, are now top priority in war
Agence France Presse/14 August ,2026
The top U.S. priority now in the Iran war is no longer its nuclear program but to bring gasoline prices down for American consumers, the vice president said Thursday, with the treasury secretary adding that new economic punishment to wear down Tehran is imminent.
The comments by Vice President JD Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent illustrate the powerful leverage Tehran has gained by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. Preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon -- consistently touted by President Donald Trump as his main reason for the war -- now takes a back seat to getting oil flowing again freely through the strait, Vance said on Fox News. Vance's comments underscored the stark reality that the war now centers on control of the Strait of Hormuz, the critical fuel supply conduit that was open before Trump started the war along with Israel in late February. Iran has all but shut it down in retaliation and thus found a crucial bargaining chip against Trump as he struggles to find a way out of the war and shies away from resuming large-scale attacks.The 80-year-old president's approval rating is plummeting, the war is unpopular among Americans and midterm elections are approaching in November.Republicans fear Trump and the war, which has caused gasoline prices to soar, will cost them their control of Congress. "I know that oil is down today and it's way down from the highs in the early days of the conflict," Vance said on Fox News. "That's goal number one -- keep oil and gas cheap for Americans all over our country.""And then obviously goal number two is ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon," he added.
'Low-keying it' -
The vice president has been among the members of the administration most skeptical of the offensive launched against Iran in late February. These remarks, however, appear to confirm the more cautious approach now favored by the US president, which involves maintaining strong economic pressure on Iran by blockading its ports and preventing it from selling oil. Heralding more economic punishment, Bessent threatened to subject Iran to economic isolation "like the world has never seen before." He said new measures are expected next week. Only days ago Trump had said an agreement to reopen the strait was imminent. Now his administration seems to be digging in, with diplomacy on hold as he hopes economic suffering will cause Iran to yield. "We are low-keying it," Trump said Sunday. "We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money," Trump told the news outlet Axios. The US military reportedly burned through stockpiles of costly high-tech missiles and other weapons in the months since the war started at a cost of billions and is now reportedly running low, limiting Trump's options for resuming attacks on Iran. "Sometimes we're focused on the energy piece of it because we want Americans to be able to afford the price of oil and gas. Sometimes we're obviously focused on the military... on the nuclear program," Vance also said. Trump had said recently he would hold off on attacking Iran again only if an agreement were reached quickly to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Now Iran has set a list of conditions for reopening the passageway that the Trump administration is unlikely to accept: an end to the war on all fronts, the lifting of the US blockade of Iranian ports, the end of sanctions, the release of frozen assets and compensation for wartime damage. Those conditions echo the terms of a so-called memorandum of understanding which was reached in June and collapsed as fighting resumed. It included a provision to create a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran.

Pentagon signs deals with Boeing, RTX to boost missile interceptor component production
Reuters/14 August ,2026
The Pentagon on Friday announced framework agreements with Boeing BA.N and RTX RTX.N to increase production of components of SM-3 Block IIA and SM-3 Block IB munitions. Both agreements will strengthen production of a series of critical ship-fired surface-to-air interceptors that underpin the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, the Pentagon said in a statement.

Karoline Leavitt’s White House departure: Who are the top contenders to replace her?
Al Arabiya English/14 August ,2026
US President Donald Trump announced the departure of his White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday. According to the Truth Social post, Leavitt is stepping down from her role to spend more time with her family.While she was admired by MAGA supporters and hailed by the president as “one of my most trusted aides,” Leavitt also faced scrutiny from critics who accuse her of spreading misinformation and curbing press freedom. Following the announcement, several front runners have emerged to replace Leavitt for the press secretary role.
Alina Habba
Habba, Trump’s former personal lawyer, is an early frontrunner, the New York Post reported, citing sources within and close to the administration.
Habba joined Trump’s legal team in 2021 vocally defending him during the 2024 hush-money trial that resulted in his conviction on 34 felony counts. Trump has described her “a tireless advocate for justice” and “unwavering in her loyalty,” according to a report in TIME magazine. Following his re-election Trump installed Habba as the interim US attorney in New Jersey. Later, when he nominated her for that role on a permanent basis, he faced resistance in the Senate and a panel of judges declined to extend her tenure, seeking to replace her. Trump and the Justice Department fought to keep her position ultimately allowing her to keep her role in an acting capacity.
Scott Jennings
Jennings is a Trump defender and MAGA commentator known for his spats with Democrats on CNN, according to the Daily Beast, he is the favorite to replace Leavitt.
He has a background in government PR, having served in the George W. Bush administration as a special assistant to the president and deputy director of political affairs. He has also advised on campaigns for Republican Senator Mitch McConnell.
Jennings was once a critic of the president and is accused of “trashing” him off camera, the Independent reported in March this year. Nonetheless he was lauded by Trump at a rally in Michigan last year who described him as “terrific,” praising him for “taking it right to the edge” in his defense of the president on CNN.
Matthew Boyle
Boyle is the Washington bureau chief of conservative news site Breitbart. He is also a close front-runner due to his writing on the president who knows him by name, according to the New York Post.
Katie Miller
Miller has extensive ties to the Trump establishment as a conservative podcaster, former Trump staffer, and the wife of Special Adviser and Deputy Chief of White House Staff Stephen Miller. Miller served as the director of communications for the now closed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the management of Elon Musk.
She has also worked as an assistant press secretary at the Department of Homeland Security during Trumps first terms before becoming communications director for former Vice President Mike Pence.
Anna Kelly
Kelly is another frontrunner from inside the White House communications team. She was the White House deputy secretary under Leavitt and has previously worked as the national press secretary for the Republican National Committee, and for Republican Representative Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin.

UAE says Iran attacked two ADNOC vessels in Hormuz strait
Agence France Presse/14 August ,2026
The United Arab Emirates on Friday blamed Iran for attacks on two vessels linked to its state-owned oil company as they passed through the Strait of Hormuz a day earlier. Iran has imposed an effective blockade of the strait, frequently attacking commercial ships, and wants to charge users for passage, which the U.S. fiercely opposes.The UAE foreign ministry denounced what it called "the hostile Iranian attack" targeting two vessels affiliated with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) "with no injuries reported".ADNOC confirmed "two of its vessels were attacked while transiting" the waterway on Thursday evening, adding the situation was "brought under control", the official WAM news agency reported.On Friday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported two identical incidents of drone strikes on tankers in Hormuz a day earlier, causing minor damage but no casualties. It was not clear whether they were referring to the ADNOC-affiliated ships. "UKMTO has received reports from military authorities that a tanker was struck by a Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) whilst conducting an outbound transit of the Strait of Hormuz. The vessel was subject to minor damage, crew are reported as safe and accounted for and no environmental impact has been reported," it said in both statements. Last week, ADNOC had said three of its tankers had been attacked in the strait, with the UAE foreign ministry reporting an attack on an ADNOC tanker a day later.
Continued attacks in the strait, which was free to transit before the Middle East war began in February, led to the collapse of an April ceasefire between the United States and Iran. A June deal -- meant to serve as a jumping-off point for negotiations on a permanent settlement -- had said Iran and Oman, also bordering the waterway, would hash out future arrangements for the strait in discussion with other Gulf countries and "in line with the applicable international law". Last week, Iranian security chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr laid out a laundry list of conditions for reopening the strait, including an end to the "war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq".He also demanded the lifting of a parallel U.S. naval blockade of Iran, the end of sanctions, the release of frozen assets, and compensation for wartime damage, according to remarks reported by Tasnim news agency.

Iraqi daily oil exports highest since start of war: Minister
AFP/14 August ,2026
Iraq’s average daily oil exports since the beginning of August are the highest since the outbreak of the Middle East war between Iran and the United States choked off the Strait of Hormuz, the oil ministry said Friday. Iraqi Oil Minister Bassem Mohammed Khudair told a press conference that “exports since the beginning of the month have reached a rate of two million barrels” per day, for a total of around 26 million barrels. He said the daily rate had been achieved “for the first time since the crisis began” on February 28 after US-Israeli strikes on Iran, which retaliated by blocking the waterway crucial for global oil and gas trade. Before the war, Iraq produced around four million barrels per day, and exported an average of 105 million barrels per month, mostly from its Basra oil terminal via Hormuz. Ali Nizar, the head of Iraq’s State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO), said in a TV interview last week that Iraq exported in July “35.5 to 37 million barrels” via Hormuz. Another seven million barrels were exported through a pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. According to SOMO data, Iraq exported via several routes just over 32 million barrels of crude oil in May and June, including more than 20 million barrels from its southern port. Iraq, an OPEC founding member, was forced to halt production in most of its oil fields during the war as reservoirs filled up. Due to the waterway disruption, it began exporting crude using tanker trucks through Syria, as well as the pipeline to Turkey.

Saudi Arabia condemns Iran targeting of two ADNOC tankers in Hormuz
United Arab Emirates/Al Arabiya English/14 August ,2026
Saudi Arabia on Friday condemned and denounced the targeting of two tankers operated by the UAE’s ADNOC while they were transiting international waters in the Strait of Hormuz. The Saudi Foreign Ministry described the attack as a dangerous escalation and said it posed a threat to maritime security, freedom of navigation and the safety of commercial shipping. The ministry said the incident was part of what it described as repeated Iranian attacks targeting ships and commercial vessels in the region. Saudi Arabia held Iran fully responsible for the consequences of continued attacks and called on Tehran to immediately halt such actions, respect international law and ensure freedom and safety of navigation in international waterways. Riyadh also reiterated its full solidarity with the United Arab Emirates and expressed support for any measures taken by Abu Dhabi to protect its security and interests.

Yemeni forces strike Houthi positions in east
Al Arabiya English/14 August ,2026
As clashes between Yemeni government forces and the Houthis continue across several areas amid heightened regional tensions between Iran and the United States, Yemeni forces have continued targeting Houthi positions with drones in the eastern province of al-Jawf.
The forces released footage showing drones and advanced weapons being used to strike Houthi positions, gatherings and vehicles across several battlefronts. Informed sources also told Al Arabiya English on Friday that clashes had erupted between government forces and the Houthis in the al-Barh axis, east of the city of Mokha. The sources said various types of weapons were used in the fighting. Brigadier General Sadiq al-Asri, deputy chief instructor at Yemen’s Air Force and Air Defense College, said bringing drones into service represented an important step in efforts to rebuild and develop the capabilities of the country’s air force. He said the move comes alongside efforts to rehabilitate fighter aircraft and develop medium-range missile systems. Al-Asri added that the use of drones was aimed at expanding the armed forces’ operational capabilities, particularly in reconnaissance, surveillance, intelligence gathering, target identification, support operations and combat missions, according to local media.Clashes between the Houthis and forces loyal to Yemen’s internationally recognized government have intensified again in recent days. The latest escalation in Yemen, including Houthi threats against commercial shipping and warnings that the group could close the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, comes as Iran has effectively disrupted navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. Hormuz has become the main flashpoint between Tehran and Washington amid efforts to end the war that erupted after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February.

Houthis say they targeted Saudi Aramco oil facility with drone
LBCI/14 August ,2026
Yemen's Houthi rebels said on Friday that they had targeted an oil facility belonging to Saudi Arabia's state petroleum company Aramco with a drone, the group's Saba press agency reported. A military source quoted by the agency said the group had attacked a site in Najran, in southwest Saudi Arabia, "by means of a drone, and the operation achieved its objective."AFP

US wants Netanyahu to condemn settler siege in Palestinian village, officials say
Al Arabiya English/14 August ,2026
The United States wants Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to publicly condemn a siege imposed by Jewish settlers in a Palestinian village, US and Israeli officials said on Friday. Settlers have been besieging homes in Qusra in the occupied West Bank for almost a week, trapping Palestinians in an area where rights groups say settlers are mounting a concerted effort to seize more land, further eating into territory where Palestinians aim to establish a state. The siege has drawn public US criticism: the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee — a strong supporter of Jewish settlement in the West Bank — on Thursday condemned settlers besieging a Palestinian home as “Israeli terrorists.”A US official and an Israeli official said on Friday White House officials are pressing Netanyahu to publicly condemn the siege. Washington began to protest after learning that the home of a Palestinian American was among those under siege, said the two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions, of which they had knowledge. Netanyahu has not commented on the siege in Qusra. Neither his office nor the White House immediately responded to requests for comment.
‘The settlers are still here’
Settler violence in the West Bank has risen during the three years since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on Israel.Condemning settlers could be politically risky for Netanyahu some two months before an election, potentially upsetting settler voters upon whom parts of his right-wing coalition rely. Opinion polls show Netanyahu could lose power, his security credentials still shaken by the 2023 Hamas attacks. “We are very afraid,” said Aysha Hassan, a Palestinian woman who lives in one of three besieged homes in the village, speaking to Reuters by phone.
“There is nothing new. It’s been like this for six days...the settlers are still here.”Hassan said she had seen settlers below the house in the early hours of the morning and shared videos with Reuters showing groups of settlers wandering underneath her home that she said she had taken from her window. The United Nations has said some 15 Palestinians, including two children, were trapped inside their homes with no water or electricity. Footage shot by a Palestinian resident trapped in another of the besieged homes and obtained by Reuters showed seven settlers outside, standing near a blue tent. One is seen throwing stones toward the nearby village, as another arrives with chairs. Israeli army vehicles and soldiers later arrive and the tent is seen collapsed on the ground. “Israeli civilians erected a tent in the Qusra area, and IDF soldiers operated to remove it while protecting the local residents,” the Israeli military said in a statement, a day after dozens of troops were sent into Qusra and occupied several village homes.Netanyahu’s government, the most right-wing in Israeli history, has spearheaded a rapid expansion of settlements in the West Bank, territory captured by Israel in a 1967 war. Israel has established dozens of new settlements and settler outposts in the area. Rights groups say that settlers have been trying to seize properties on the outskirts of Qusra and neighboring Jalud as part of a strategy to seize the land between them and join it up with settler outposts to the south and larger settlements to the west.
Men in uniform prayed with settlers
The siege began at the weekend when settlers closed off the road to the three homes and set up a tent in their front yards, refusing to allow anyone to enter or leave. They had earlier cut off their electricity and water. The Israeli military has said soldiers have deployed in Qusra since Thursday morning to protect residents and maintain security.Video from earlier in the week showed several Israeli men in green military garb joining the settlers in a morning prayer in the tent. The military said it was taking disciplinary action against any personnel involved.The West Bank is home to some three million Palestinians and 500,000 settlers. There are some 146 settlements in the West Bank, as well as 390 smaller outposts, according to the Israeli settlement watchdog group Peace Now.With Reuters

Kushner to visit Israel to bridge gaps on Gaza plan
AFP/14 August ,2026
US President Donald Trump’s envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner will visit Israel next week in hopes of bridging gaps on a Gaza plan rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, officials said Friday. Kushner and Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative for Gaza of Trump’s so-called Board of Peace implementing the deal, will visit both Israel and key mediator Egypt. The trip comes after Netanyahu publicly rejected a 15-point plan announced by Mladenov in which Hamas agreed to hand over its weapons to a new Palestinian governing committee in Gaza. A Board of Peace official said Kushner and Mladenov hoped for “constructive conversations” on advancing Trump’s overall peace plan that began with the October 2025 declaration of a ceasefire, which has reduced but not ended Israeli strikes in Gaza. “The United States and Israel agree on the end state, which is a demilitarized Hamas,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “We will hear the concerns that have been raised and talk about next steps. What is critical is that we both agree on the desired outcome and are finding ways to accelerate progress.”The latest part of the Gaza plan, to which Hamas agreed in late July, would start a phased Israeli withdrawal from much of the Gaza Strip, according to an initial version released by the Board of Peace.Mladenov later backtracked and said that Israel would not need to pull out troops until a complete Hamas disarmament. Netanyahu had vowed no pullout and has voiced skepticism that Hamas would disarm, saying it should destroy weapons in a verifiable way.

Israel calls for police to replace military in handling West Bank settlers
AFP/14 August ,2026
Israel’s defense minister called Friday for the police to take over law enforcement in the occupied West Bank from the military, which has come under fire from the right-wing for trying to remove settlers harassing Palestinians. The measure, if implemented, would be a step towards Israeli annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory – something several ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government openly call for. The announcement comes almost a week into a siege by Israeli settlers who have blockaded Palestinians inside their homes in the northern West Bank, repeatedly returning despite attempts by the military to remove them. Palestinian residents of three houses in Qusra near Nablus say they have been effectively cut off from food and other supplies since the siege began on Sunday. Against the backdrop of the blockade, Defense Minister Israel Katz’s office announced he had “instructed the IDF to prepare a plan to transfer all enforcement powers regarding civil matters among Israeli communities and population in Judea and Samaria to the Israel Police,” using the Biblical term for the West Bank.
The military would continue to exercise power over Palestinian residents of the West Bank. “The IDF’s role is to fight Palestinian terrorism, focus on defending borders and communities against threats... and not chase boys on the hilltops,” Katz said, referring to the Hilltop Youth – a settler group regularly accused of violence towards Palestinians.“The police will prepare and establish an appropriate force to handle civil matters, and will be granted all necessary powers and budgets,” the statement said.
Israeli media reported however that a transfer of enforcement powers would be highly unlikely to go through before national elections scheduled for October 27, which polls show are looking tight. More than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law, among some three million Palestinians in the territory.Settlement expansion and construction have soared under Netanyahu’s government, alongside violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
‘So ashamed’
The settler siege in Qusra has drawn unusually sharp criticism from the United States. A few dozen activists managed to get supplies to the blockaded families on Friday, after they dropped donations off outside for inspection by the Israeli military. “We have succeeded in bringing water, food and medicine to the besieged homes in the village of Qusra,” said Ofer Cassif, a lawmaker from the far-left Hadash party.An AFP journalist reported seeing settlers at the site early on Friday, but they appeared to have dispersed from the immediate vicinity by later in the day. On their march to the blockaded houses, the activists held a Palestinian flag and signs reading “Justice for All” and “Stop the Settlers’ Terror.”“I’m so ashamed of what my people do here to the Palestinians,” said 72-year-old retired prosecutor Naomi Granot, who was at the scene to deliver supplies.
“I would like us both people to get together, to get an agreement,” she told AFP.
“What my people are doing here is just awful. It’s unlawful.”
An AFP journalist had earlier reported that the settlers had set up a new tent near the blockaded houses on Friday morning, but it had been removed by later in the day.Anton Goodman, the acting director of the NGO Rabbis for Human Rights, said the military had “let settler terrorists go wild in this area, take over houses, injure people, stop their livelihoods, enforce no freedom of movement.”On Thursday, the Israeli military said troops had been deployed in Qusra “to protect the residents and maintain security in the area.”The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, for years a staunch supporter of settlers, on Thursday criticized the siege, saying there was “no excuse for such thuggish behavior.”“Actions by those who carried out this horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass this family are disgusting,” Huckabee wrote on X.
One of the besieged homes is owned by a US citizen.

Israeli military stops activists delivering food to trapped Palestinians in the West Bank
Reuters/14 August ,2026
Israeli and foreign activists approached a Palestinian home, besieged by Jewish settlers, in the occupied West Bank village of Qusra on Friday (August 14) to deliver food and water but were stopped by the Israeli military. Families have been trapped this week by Jewish settlers in a siege Palestinians say is aimed at forcing them from their land. Video showed several Israeli soldiers standing outside one of the homes, preventing the activists from reaching the house. Activists left the supplies near gate.Reuters confirmed the location by buildings, walls, gate and road layout which matched satellite imagery. The hills matched the topographic mapping of the area. The date when the videos were filmed was verified by Reuters live video of the same event. The two families under siege in the area say they are running low on supplies and that the settlers have been damaging their property, throwing stones at their homes and shouting insulting language at them. Palestinians say Israeli authorities allow settlers to seize land and resources across the West Bank with impunity, including in areas where they hold Israel-issued ownership documents.Incidents of settler land seizures are especially common in areas on the outskirts of villages, like Qusra, which sits in an area under complete Israeli security control. Israeli troops took up positions inside Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank village of Qusra on Thursday, the mayor said.

Libya’s Haftar played key role in release of US hostage held by ISIS, sources say
Reuters/14 August ,2026
A deal to free an American hostage held by an ISIS affiliate in West Africa’s Sahel region was brokered with the help of the eastern Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar, four sources told Reuters. The hostage, a pilot working for a Christian missionary organization in Niger, was handed over to eastern Libyan authorities late Thursday, one of the sources said. Libya’s role in the deal has not previously been reported. Haftar’s involvement in the freeing of a US hostage reflects how he has carved out a position as a major security broker in the Sahel region, and has used it as leverage to curry favor with the Trump administration.The missionary, Kevin Rideout, worked for the evangelical agency Serving in Mission and was kidnapped in Niger in October. It was not clear what, if anything, was traded in exchange for his release. One of the four sources said the Libyan side had paid a ransom, without providing further details.The State Department declined to comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment about Haftar’s involvement. In a social media post, Trump said the US looks forward to welcoming Rideout home. The authorities in eastern Libya were not immediately available for comment. Reuters reported last year that Rideout was seized by three unidentified men on his way to the airport in Niamey and taken to the western Tillaberi region of Niger, where militants linked to ISIS and al-Qaeda operate. The US has made recovering Rideout one of its top priorities in the Sahel. The Trump administration lifted sanctions on top Malian government officials earlier this year in an effort to secure overflight access to the country’s airspace to hunt for the pilot. For months, officials believed Rideout may have been moved to Malian territory. The details of Rideout’s handover to Libyan authorities and his journey to Libya were not immediately clear. Two sources said the recent effort to secure his release from the ISIS affiliate was led by Cherif Ould Tahar, a Malian Arab businessman with connections to regional armed groups and smuggling networks. Tahar could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Latest LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 14-15/2026
Why AI is more than mere technological hype
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/August 14, 2026
One recurring question that policymakers, business leaders and investors face whenever a powerful new technology emerges is whether it will deliver sustained increases in productivity and output or if enthusiasm will fade once practical limits become clear. Today, artificial intelligence sits at the center of this debate. Despite earlier cycles of optimism only leading to disappointment, the technology has advanced rapidly in recent years. The latest developments and concrete evidence indicate that AI is going to become a major driver of long-term economic growth, with its impact likely to accelerate in the years ahead.
Technological revolutions have historically generated both exaggerated hopes and underestimations of their lasting effects. For example, the early commercial internet produced a speculative bubble that collapsed around the turn of the millennium, yet the underlying infrastructure later supported durable gains in commerce, communication and productivity. Other similar patterns exist, such as those relating to the diffusion of electricity and the internal combustion engine. AI has followed a comparable path. Periods of heightened expectation in earlier decades gave way to “AI winters,” when capabilities lagged behind promises. But the present phase differs because foundational advances have already produced systems that are commercially deployable, rather than being confined to research laboratories.This phase differs because advances in AI have already produced systems that are commercially deployable
Secondly, evidence of the industry’s transformation is widespread, covering fields such as manufacturing, logistics and supply-chain operations, while healthcare applications include machine-learning assistance in medical imaging analysis and accelerated drug discovery and clinical trial design. Another aspect is AI’s customer service applications, which provide clear micro-level results. For example, in a carefully studied rollout at a Fortune 500 firm, access to a generative AI conversational assistant raised the number of issues resolved per hour by about 15 percent on average among more than 5,000 agents, with the largest gains accruing to less experienced workers.
Research looking at European firms found that AI adoption raises labor productivity by about 4 percent in the short run, driven primarily by capital deepening rather than immediate job displacement, while complementary investments in software, data and workforce training increase the benefits. Macroeconomic assessments and reports reinforce these findings. For instance, the International Monetary Fund has estimated that AI could raise average annual global gross domestic product growth by 0.5 percentage points between 2025 and 2030. World Trade Organization analysis projects that, by 2040, global GDP could be up to 13 percent higher and the value of trade nearly 40 percent higher, relative to a baseline without AI-driven advances. These effects arise from lower trade costs and stronger productivity growth in sectors integrated into international commerce.
In addition, longer-horizon estimates associated with PwC place AI’s cumulative contribution to the global economy by 2030 in the vicinity of $15 trillion, reflecting both productivity improvements and demand-side effects from better products and personalized services.But it is vital to note that gains are likely to be uneven. Advanced economies with strong digital infrastructure, skills and institutional readiness will have larger near-term benefits. Further evidence of progress is corporate performance, which provides tangible illustrations of commercialization at scale. For example, Nvidia, the leading supplier of AI accelerators, reported record revenue of $215.9 billion for the fiscal year ending in January, a 65 percent increase from the prior year. This growth reflects intense demand for training and inference infrastructure. Determined national strategies can convert AI into a tool of economic diversification and growth
Meanwhile, Microsoft’s AI business has reached an annualized revenue run rate of $37 billion and OpenAI generated more than $20 billion in revenue in 2025.
In China, the AI industry exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan ($176 billion) in 2025, growing about 40 percent year-on-year, with more than 6,000 AI companies and expanding applications in manufacturing and services. These figures demonstrate that AI is already generating substantial commercial value and is not confined to experimental research.
The Middle East, and Saudi Arabia in particular, illustrates how determined national strategies can convert AI into a tool of economic diversification and growth. PwC estimates that AI could contribute about $320 billion to the Middle East economy by 2030. Saudi Arabia is projected to capture the largest absolute share — about $135 billion or some 12 percent of GDP — while the UAE is expected to see a relative impact approaching 14 percent of GDP. Under Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and its National Strategy for Data and Artificial Intelligence, overseen by the Saudi Data and AI Authority, the Kingdom aims to rank among the top 15 AI nations by 2030. The Public Investment Fund has established Humain as a dedicated AI vehicle, pursuing large-scale data center capacity, Arabic-language foundation models and partnerships with leading technology firms including Nvidia and AMD.
In conclusion, I believe the evidence clearly shows that AI has progressed from a speculative narrative and is now operating systems that are already enhancing productivity, reshaping industries and generating commercial returns that are measured in the tens and hundreds of billions of dollars. Institutional forecasts of contributions to global GDP and the rapid growth of national AI industries in places as diverse as China and Saudi Arabia are also real and expanding. Therefore, for policymakers, business leaders and investors, the evidence clearly supports treating AI as a durable engine of economic expansion rather than a temporary field filled with irrational enthusiasm and hope.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. X: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Global economic upheaval: a survival guide
Mohamed A. El-Erian/Arab News/August 14, 2026
For decades, companies, investors, and policymakers operated on the comforting assumption that the global economy was underpinned by a relatively stable equilibrium. Macroeconomic and financial shocks were treated primarily as cyclical disruptions that could be managed to put things back on track toward a predictable destination — that of per capita national economic growth within a continuously globalizing economic and financial order. But this paradigm is now being challenged by geopolitical tensions, the weaponization of economic relations, the rapid advance of new technologies, and other factors.
Navigating economies and markets through this storm is possible, but it requires a commitment to building resilience, maintaining optionality, and demonstrating agility. That will not happen automatically, because there is now uncertainty about the theoretical and practical endpoints of many secular changes — from productivity and economic growth to supply chains and equilibrium interest rates. Moreover, the broader trade and payments architecture is evolving rapidly, adding to many firms’ operational complexities and planning uncertainties.
For those who think this is an exaggeration, consider how our new reality has been playing out this year across three domains. First, geopolitical tensions are motivating new efforts to exploit and weaponize critical supplies. The post-Cold War era of frictionless globalization has given way to a scramble for political leverage via existing interdependencies. Both state and nonstate actors have recognized the potential to wield asymmetric power by throttling the physical arteries of global commerce. From maritime disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea to the fierce contest over critical mineral supply chains, geography is being systematically weaponized.
Geography is being systematically weaponized
But these strategies have no clear endpoint. No one knows where the current geopolitical fragmentation will lead. Some hope for what former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown calls “managed globalization light,” others fear an irreparably fractured international order, and some still long for the old days of unfettered globalization and multilateral rule of law. Yet at this very moment, shipping routes are having to be rewired, and maritime risk premiums remain elevated. With no grand diplomatic settlement on the horizon, multinational corporations will be forced to shift further from efficient “just-in-time” supply chains to building in more costly “just-in-case” redundancies.
Second, economic policy instruments that once underpinned the functioning of the shared plumbing of a unified global economy are becoming weapons. The increasingly unpredictable use of tariffs, sanctions, investment controls, and export embargoes is fundamentally altering the calculus of global capital allocation and upending the international financial order as we know it. As national security concerns increasingly override economic and commercial efficiency, there are no longer any mutually agreed limits to economic statecraft. Here, too, the destination or endpoint is unclear, because what were once parameters of the system are now volatile variables.
Third, markets are being asked to fund massive capital expenditures in the race to develop and deploy productivity-enhancing technologies. Tech giants and nontech incumbents, together, are committing hundreds of billions of dollars to data centers, computing capacity, and AI deployment. Yet once again, the destination — the point where this unprecedented spending will translate into large, monetizable productivity gains — remains unknown.
Owing to the perceived penalty for falling behind, many corporate boards feel compelled to authorize historic levels of investment without a clear path to earning adequate returns on invested capital. And because all this capital expenditure needs to be financed, the implications for debt markets are far from comforting. Indeed, the cost of capital is already experiencing upward pressure from competing private and public funding claims.
Shipping routes are having to be rewired
True, despite the uncertainty around major structural determinants, the global economy and the bond market have so far navigated around the biggest land mines. But this is largely because a few powerful factors have protected the system. The first is the dynamism of the US economy, which plays a central role in global growth and innovation, offsetting the structural sluggishness of China and Europe.
The second factor has been the availability of endogenous market liquidity. Despite the post-2021 monetary-policy tightening, the financial system has generated its own liquidity. Deep corporate cash buffers and new financial instruments have kept credit flowing, reinforcing the role of physical inventory buffers — most notably in energy markets, where strategic reserves and flexible refined-product markets have repeatedly absorbed geopolitically driven supply shocks.
But a critical distinction must be made between genuine, structural sources of resilience and the more temporary forms that rely on depletable physical and financial buffers. Oil inventories have now been drawn down to lows not seen in decades, and abundant endogenous market liquidity may not be relied on — as evidenced by the recent fire sale of overleveraged hedge fund Situational Awareness and the deleveraging of some Korean exchange-traded funds. Sooner or later, profligate fiscal policies and unbridled corporate capex will collide with rising debt burdens, excessive financial leverage, and higher interest rates.
Without clearer endpoints, hopes for a return to the predictable world of the past must give way to the reality of bumpy geo-economic transitions. Companies, governments, and investors can no longer afford to orient their strategies around single-point forecasts, or “baselines.” Instead, the focus must shift to building even greater resilience, agility, and optionality in the near term. These are the strategic assets needed to survive a bumpy, unsettling journey that could veer in any number of directions. With the buffers that have shielded the global economy depleting, everyone will need to build wider margins of safety.
The system is coasting in part on what will soon be the fumes of borrowed liquidity and drained physical inventories, as well as deficit-funded spending. As this realization sinks in, the months and years ahead will be increasingly characterized by greater economic and financial volatility, as well as a broader dispersion of outcomes as the gap between winners and losers widens across and within sectors, countries, and financial assets.
We must accept that the absence of widely accepted endpoints constitutes yet another “new normal.” As destabilizing and disorienting as this structural reality seems, those who embrace it will find that these are the circumstances in which multiyear leads are established, and fortunes are made. And those who fail to exhibit resilience, agility, and open-mindedness risk the kind of paralysis that undermines economic well-being now and for years to come.
*Mohamed A. El-Erian, a former president of Queens’ College at the University of Cambridge, is Practice Professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is also Senior Global Fellow at the Lauder Institute.
Copyright: Project Syndicate

Has Iran defeated the Gulf states?
Mamdouh AlMuhaini/Al Arabiya English/14 August ,2026
When US President Ronald Reagan came to power, the Soviet Union was at the height of its strength, or so the prevailing belief went. It was a hardline revolutionary regime with a massive nuclear arsenal. So why did it collapse only a few years later?
Reagan saw what others had failed to see. Despite its outward appearance of strength, the Soviet Union was suffering from a deep crisis of political legitimacy and economic performance. For all its military power, the system was fragile from within and rapidly eroding. In his famous 1982 speech before the British Parliament, Reagan cited Marx, who had predicted that a major revolutionary crisis would erupt in the West. The irony, Reagan argued, was that this crisis was not unfolding in the capitalist West, but in the very heartland of Marxism: The Soviet Union. Something similar can be said, on a regional level, when comparing Iran with the Gulf states.On the surface, the Iranian system appears powerful and victorious. It is capable of harming Gulf states with missiles and drones, threatening them through militias, striking ships and oil facilities, shutting airports for hours and threatening navigation. But behind this image of military strength, Iran’s regime, armed with ballistic missiles, is grappling with deep political and economic crises.
Politically, before the outbreak of the war, the system faced a major wave of protests, the latest of which came last January, when thousands were killed. The regime itself acknowledged that more than 3,000 people had died.
The causes of popular anger in Iran are likely to persist after the war rather than subside. Large segments of the Iranian population are questioning the value of a revolutionary ideology that has brought their country isolation, sanctions, blockades and wars, as well as the enormous sums spent over decades on allies and proxies across the region.
The well-known Iranian slogan, “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, I give my life for Iran,” which has been chanted during different waves of protests over the years, is in essence a popular indictment of Tehran’s regional priorities.
Iran’s political system is suffering from a clear crisis of legitimacy and public trust, one that is acknowledged even by figures within the political establishment and the reformist camp, who have called for deep and urgent reforms.
Economically, the picture is even more difficult. Iran’s economy has endured years of sanctions, mismanagement and isolation, and the war has only intensified those pressures.
By contrast, Gulf governments enjoy high levels of political stability and internal cohesion. In fact, the war has strengthened public support for Gulf states in the face of an external threat.
These states have also succeeded in avoiding direct involvement in the war, limiting the damage caused by Iranian attacks and preventing the external conflict from turning into internal strife among different components of their societies.
In practical terms, it is difficult to compare the crisis of legitimacy facing the Iranian system with the state of political stability in the Gulf. Those who possess political legitimacy, internal stability and public support are better positioned to survive and endure.
Economically, the same contrast can be seen. While Iran’s economy faces increasing pressure and constraints, Gulf economies are competing to attract capital, companies and talent, build strong infrastructure and diversify their sources of income.
The Gulf states have tied their economies to the global economy, and their cities have become centers for business, tourism, investment and technology.
Iranian attacks have hit airports, alarmed some tourists and damaged ships and facilities, but ultimately these are losses that can be contained and repaired. They have not been able to halt economic activity or derail long-term development projects.
Human appeal is also one of the factors that determines a state’s success and strength. If you asked a citizen of an Arab country, or even someone from Iran itself, where they would prefer to live and work, in Iran or in one of the Gulf capitals, large numbers would most likely choose the latter. This is not a minor issue. Human appeal means attracting more minds, talent, capital and creative ideas. Iran itself has an enormous reservoir of talent and intellectual capacity, but large numbers of its people have chosen to emigrate and seek their futures abroad.
The central point is that the Iranian system appears strong and defiant because it launches missiles and drones and creates a sense of exhilaration among its supporters. At the same time, however, it has impoverished its people, repeatedly clashed with them, and is suffering from both a crisis of political legitimacy and a worsening economic crisis. By contrast, the Gulf may appear weaker when it comes under attack, but in reality it possesses the foundations of long-term strength and success: Political stability, public support, development, integration into the global economy and the ability to attract people.
Iran can harm the Gulf states. It can disrupt their airports for hours and strike their facilities and ships. But that does not mean it is winning.
Strategically, Iran is losing the most important battle of all: The battle to build a state capable of enduring and prospering. The Gulf states, meanwhile, are positioning themselves on the right path, even if dozens of missiles and drones fall on them.

Selected Face Book & X tweets on August 14/2026