LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS
BULLETIN
December 31/16
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& Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
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Bible Quotations For Today
In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint
John 01/01-18/:"In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with
God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came
into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the
light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not
overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a
witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He
himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light,
which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and
the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came
to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who
received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of
God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of
man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen
his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John
testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, "He who comes
after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me." ’) From his fullness
we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses;
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God
the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
We have not ceased praying for you and
asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual
wisdom and understanding
Letter to the Colossians 01/9b-20/:"We have not ceased praying for you and
asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual
wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully
pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the
knowledge of God. May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from
his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience,
while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the
inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of
darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we
have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation;
for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things
visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers all
things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all
things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the
church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come
to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was
pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all
things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his
cross."
Titles
For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources
published on December 30-31/16
What challenges await Lebanon’s new government?/Haytham Mouzahem/Al
Monitor/December 30/16
Question: “What sort of New Year’s Resolution should a Christian make
GotQuestions.org/December 30/16
Ce que l’on attend de l’Eglise maronite/BEYROUTH | Contributeur – Le 30
décembre 2016
Obama's Russia sanctions put President-elect Donald Trump in a tough
position/Jake Novak / CNBC/December 30/16
Secularism: Everyone Wants to Get Rid of It/Yves Mamou/Gatestone
Institute./December 30, 2016
Why is the EU defending Iran/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Al Arabiya/December 30/16
John Kerry tells it like it is/Fawaz Turki/Al Arabiya/December 30/16
MS804 explosive traces: Unraveling the skepticism over Egyptian claims/Martin
Rivers/Al Arabiya/December 30/16
Stepping into the Middle East’s next security equation/Dr. Theodore Karasik/Al
Arabiya/December 30/16
Syria Will Stain Obama’s Legacy Forever/By David Greenberg/Foreign
Policy/December 29, 2016
What Is Behind the EU's Positions and Appeasement Policies Toward Iran/ NCRI
Iran News/December 30/16
Iran: Rouhani's Demagogic and Cruel Approach Toward Homeless
"Grave-Sleepers"/ NCRI Iran News/December 30/16
Ex-CIA director: I was sure if we didn’t strike Syria’s nuclear reactor, Israel
would/Ronen Bergman/Ynetnews/December 30/16
Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News published on December
30-31/16
Hariri: Aoun's Saudi Trip Boosts Tourism
Hariri: Oil decrees scheduled on next Cabinet session’s agenda
Aoun Signs Decrees Promoting Armed Forces Officers
Army Busts Terror Cell in North Lebanon
Armed Bank Robbery in Dahiyeh Leaves One Dead and Another Wounded
Mashnouq Affirms Readiness to Stage Elections Based on 'Consensual' Law
Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister in Beirut
Aoun Vows to 'Modernize State, Combat Corruption, Provide Security'
Sarraf Inspects Army Command Center, Says Will Seek to Boost Army Capabilities
Turkey Urges Iran to 'Use Its Influence' on Hizbullah, Damascus
Lebanese gifted children reap seven medals in international competition on
mental calculation in Seoul
Geagea welcomes Bishop Rahme
Bonne felicitates Lebanese on New Year: We enjoy deeply entrenched hsitory
Army carries out raids in Qaser in search of wanted persons
Basbous applauds ISF soldier who thwarted robbery attempt
Public Works Minister follows up on aviation safety
Rahi, Obeid tackle overall situation
Sarraf, Kahwaji visit Operations Room: We seek to reinforce military
institution capabilities
What challenges await Lebanon’s new government?
Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 30-31/16
Russia Pushes
U.N. Council Resolution Endorsing Syria Peace Plan
Putin Takes Lead in Syria Peace after Battlefield Wins
Turkey Seeks to Upstage U.S. with Syria Ceasefire
Clashes near Damascus, Airstrikes in Hama despite Syria Truce
Damascenes Struggle after Clashes Cut Off Water
Nazarbayev orders foreign ministry to prepare for Syria talks
Trump slams ‘inflammatory’ Obama on Twitter
Putin Refuses to Expel U.S. Diplomats, Looks to Trump
Putin says Russia will not expel US diplomats
Tragedy of Grave Sleepers in Iran Is a 'Direct Result' of the Clerical Regime's
Rule
Iran Regime Officials' Terrified Warnings About a Repeat of 2009 Uprising
Tunisia Says 800 Returning Jihadists Jailed or Tracked
Israeli Guards Shoot Knife-Wielding Palestinian Woman
Saudi Invites Rival Iran for Talks on Hajj Return
Latest Lebanese Related News
published on December 30-31/16
Hariri: Aoun's Saudi
Trip Boosts Tourism
Naharnet/December 30/16/Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced Friday that the
executive decrees necessary for oil and gas exploration will be on the agenda
of a cabinet session that will be held Wednesday, as he noted that President
Michel Aoun's upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia will “greatly contribute to the
return of tourists to Lebanon.”“From now on, it is prohibited to return to the
political rift, seeing as it turns out that the political rift is only useful
to garner a few electoral votes,” Hariri told a delegation from the country's
Economic Committees and private sector. “The presence of a country advancing
economically is beneficial for everyone, and even the democratic and political
game will become better and the political rhetoric will differ drastically,”
the premier added. “All political parties must ease their rhetoric to preserve
this atmosphere,” he urged. Hariri added: “We have a cabinet session on
Wednesday and the executive decrees of the oil sector will be on its agenda.”
Hariri: Oil decrees scheduled on next
Cabinet session’s agenda
Fri 30 Dec 2016/NNA - Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced on Friday that the
Cabinet will convene next Wednesday with the item on executive decrees relevant
to the oil sector scheduled on its agenda. Hariri welcomed at the Grand Serail
today an extended delegation of the Economic Committees and the private sector,
whom he told that the state could not afford to hire all those looking for
jobs, "while the private sector, if developed, will provide job
opportunities for everybody." "From now on, my policy is that of no
return to political rift; political rift has proven to be only useful with few
electoral votes," he said. "The visit of President Michel Aoun to the
Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia will tremendously help the return of tourists to Lebanon. His
Excellency does not represent a camp but all the Lebanese; his presence in the
Kingdom shall yield relief and stir the wheel of tourism. The President and I
have agreed on 95% of the economic issues and you will find him in the front row.
He will support all our economic policies," he added. "The age of
this government is not long, but many things that help the economy and reassure
citizens can be achieved," he continued. "As to corruption, we
established a specific ministry and the President and I shall focus on this
dossier," he indicated, adding that the government will work on improving
internet and telecoms services. "There will also be balanced
development," he vowed. Pertaining to the displaced Syrians, Hariri revealed
that a huge dossier is en route to be built before its submission before the
international organizatio
Aoun Signs Decrees Promoting Armed Forces
Officers
Naharnet/December 30/16/President Michel Aoun on Friday signed decrees
promoting armed forces officers from all ranks, the presidency said in a
statement. The promoted officers belong to the army, Internal Security Forces,
General Security State Security, and Customs. Aoun also signed decrees for the
promotion of other officers during the year 2017. Friday's “were the last
decrees that the president signs in 2016,” the presidency said.
Army Busts Terror Cell in North Lebanon
Naharnet/December 30/16/The Lebanese army busted a terror cell in north Lebanon and
confiscated arms and ammunition that were in their possession, the state-run
National News Agency reported Friday. The Lebanese Army Intelligence
Directorate arrested a terror cell composed of three extremists in Tripoli's Bab
al-Tabbaneh, NNA said. The army units confiscated an explosive belt, a weapon
with a silencer and a quantity of arms and ammunition.
Armed Bank Robbery in Dahiyeh Leaves One
Dead and Another Wounded
Naharnet/December 30/16/One armed suspect was shot dead and another was wounded
in an exchange of gunfire with police in a bank robbery attempt in Beirut's
southern suburb, the National News Agency reported Friday. Two armed robbers
broke into Credit Libanais bank in Dahiyeh when an Internal Security Forces
corporal, Hassan Atwi, happened to pass by the bank and heard gunshots and
screaming, NNA said. The policeman rushed into the bank and opened fire at the
culprits leaving one dead and another wounded in the leg.
The wounded perpetrator was referred to Bourj al-Barajneh police station for
investigations.
Mashnouq Affirms Readiness to Stage Elections
Based on 'Consensual' Law
Naharnet/December 30/16/President Michel Aoun met with Interior Minister Nouhad
al-Mashnouq on Friday, who assured that the ministry is ready to stage the
parliamentary elections based on any electoral law that garners the political
parties' consensus, the National News Agency reported. Aoun affirmed in front
of a delegation from the Interior Ministry, which Mashnouq was heading, that
“Efforts are being exerted to develop and automate the government’s departments
and institutions to disseminate stability and security.”
For his part, Mashnouq said: “The Ministry is ready for the application of any
electoral law that garners political consensus among the Lebanese.”Lebanon's
political parties are bickering over amending the current election law which
divides seats among the different religious sects. Hizbullah has repeatedly
called for an electoral law based on proportional representation but other
political parties, especially al-Mustaqbal Movement, have rejected the proposal
and argued that the party's controversial arsenal of arms would prevent serious
competition in regions where the Iran-backed party is influential. Mustaqbal,
the Lebanese Forces and the Progressive Socialist Party have meanwhile proposed
a hybrid electoral law that mixes the proportional representation and the
winner-takes-all systems. Speaker Nabih Berri has also proposed a hybrid law.
The country has not voted for a parliament since 2009, with the legislature
instead twice extending its own mandate. The 2009 polls were held under an
amended version of the 1960 electoral law and the next elections are scheduled
for May 2017.
Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister in Beirut
Naharnet/December 30/16/Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister, Khaled Bin Ibrahim
al-Jindan, is expected to arrive in Lebanon Friday for talks with
senior Lebanese officials, LBCI reported. The Saudi diplomat's visit comes amid
a flurry of diplomatic activity witnessed in Lebanon since the election of
President Michel Aoun on November 31, that ended over
two years of political vacuum, and the formation of PM Saad Hariri's cabinet.
Several regional and internationals officials visited Lebanon
recently to announce renewed support for the Mediterranean country.
Aoun Vows to 'Modernize State,
Combat Corruption, Provide Security'
Naharnet/December 30/16/President Michel Aoun announced Friday that the main
objectives during his presidential tenure will be “the modernization of the
State, combating corruption and providing stability and security.”“Achieving
these objectives will reflect positively on investments and contribute to
improving the economic situation and increasing touristic projects,” Aoun
added. Aoun's election after two and a half years of presidential void and Saad
Hariri's appointment as premier have raised hopes that Lebanon can
begin tackling challenges including a stagnant economy, a moribund political
class and the influx of more than a million Syrian refugees. Analysts have
however warned that Aoun's election will not be a "magic wand" for Lebanon, which has seen longstanding political
divisions exacerbated by the war in neighboring Syria. In addition to pledges of
economic growth and security, Aoun said in his oath of office last month that
Lebanon must work to ensure Syrian refugees "can return quickly" to
their country. Aoun also pledged to endorse an "independent foreign
policy" and to protect Lebanon
from "the fires burning across the region."
Sarraf Inspects Army Command Center, Says Will Seek to Boost Army Capabilities
Naharnet/December 30/16/Defense Minister Yaaqoub al-Sarraf visited Army
Commander General Jean Qahwaji at his Yarze office on Friday and discussed with
him the situations and needs of the military institution, state-run National
News Agency reported. Sarraf and Qahwaji then headed together to the army
command center, where the head of the Operations Directorate, Brig. Gen. Ziad
al-Homsi, explained the command center's work, its communication with the
military units in the Lebanese regions and the deployment of army forces on the
ground. Homsi also explained the defense missions on the southern and eastern
borders, the security measures that the army is implementing across Lebanon during
the holidays, and its pursuit of fugitives. Sarraf lauded “the great efforts
that the army is exerting to protect national stability, especially in the
field of combating terrorism and the various types of organized crime, as well
as its full readiness on the southern border in the face of the Israeli
enemy.”The newly-appointed minister, who is loyal to President Michel Aoun,
also stressed that he will seek to “boost the army's capabilities during the
coming period in a manner that corresponds to the magnitude of the
responsibilities it is shouldering.”
Turkey Urges Iran
to 'Use Its Influence' on Hizbullah, Damascus
Naharnet/December 30/16/Turkey on Friday called on Iran
to “use its influence” on Hizbullah and the Syrian regime to push them to
respect the Syria
ceasefire that started at midnight and has seen several violations. “Iran must use its influence in a positive manner
-- especially on Hizbullah, the Shiite groups and the Syrian regime – as it
promised in Moscow,”
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. Asked Thursday about Turkey's
call for the withdrawal of all foreign fighters from Syria, including
Hizbullah's forces, Hizbullah senior official Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyed said: “We
are not present in Syria at the request of Turkey, Saudi Arabia or the United
States, we are there as part of our cooperation with the Syrian state.”“When we
sense that it is beneficial to withdraw from Syria, we will do so,” he added.
Lebanese gifted children reap seven medals in international competition on
mental calculation in Seoul
Fri 30 Dec 2016 /NNA - Genius children affiliated to Genius Map Foundation
returned on Friday to Lebanon, reaping seven cups and medals in the
international competition for instant mental calculations which took place in
Seoul, capital of South Korea, amongst 500 children from twenty countries.
Chairing the delegation of students to Seoul
has been Genius Map Foundation Director General in Lebanon Dr. Hadi Hamza,
accompanied by Imad Aschkar representing National Education Ministry. The
gifted students received an official reception at the VIP Lounge at the International Rafic Hariri
Airport, attended by
Telecommunication Minister Jamal al-Jarrah. In his delivered word, Minister
al-Jarrah lauded the achievement scored by the gifted students, calling on the
State to support the capabilities of these distinguished children.
Geagea welcomes Bishop Rahme
Fri 30 Dec 2016/NNA - Lebanese Forces leader, Samir Geagea, welcomed, at his
Maarab residence on Friday, Maronite Bishop of Baalback and Deir-al-Ahmar,
Hanna Rahme, with whom he discussed the current general situation. Geagea later
met with a delegation of the family of child Ella Tannous.
Bonne felicitates Lebanese on New Year: We
enjoy deeply entrenched hsitory
Fri 30 Dec 2016/NNA - French Ambassador to Lebanon,
Emmanuel Bonne, congratulated in a statement distributed by the French Embassy
the Lebanese people on the occasion of the New Year, wishing the best for France and Lebanon which enjoy deeply
entrenched history and cordial friendship.
Army carries out raids in Qaser in search
of wanted persons
Fri 30 Dec 2016/NNA - The Lebanese Army has carried out raids in Qaser, the
border village, in search of wanted individuals, NNA field reporter said on
Friday. Also, the Army has setup checkpoints and inspected the cars and the
passengers' identity cards.
Basbous applauds ISF soldier who thwarted
robbery attempt
Fri 30 Dec 2016/NNA - Internal Security Forces Director General, Ibrahim
Basbous, contacted on Friday the Internal Security Forces (ISF) soldier, who
thwarted the robbery operation in Credit Bank on Martyr Hadi Nasrallah
autoroute in the Southern Suburbs of Beirut, to congratulate him on his
audacity. Basbous also invited him to his office to honor him.
Public Works Minister follows up on aviation safety
Fri 30 Dec 2016/NNA - Minister of Public Works and Transportation, Youssef Fenianos,
held on Friday a series of meetings with aviation executives and technicians to
discuss civil aviation safety. "Immediate measures will be taken within
the next few days, in coordination with all the ministries and administrations
concerned with the safety of aviation," the Minister announced following
the meetings.
Rahi, Obeid tackle overall situation
Fri 30 Dec 2016/NNA - Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rahi received
on Friday in Bkirki former Minister Jean Obeid, who came on a visit to
well-wish the Patriarch on the festive season. The visit was a chance to dwell
on the overall situation in the country.
Sarraf, Kahwaji visit Operations Room: We
seek to reinforce military institution capabilities
Fri 30 Dec 2016/NNA - National Defense Minister, Yacoub Sarraf, visited on
Friday Army Commander General Jean Kahwaji at his office, for talks over the
military institution's present situation and its various needs. Minister Sarraf
and General Kahwaji then moved together to the Command Operations Room, whereby
Director of Operations Brigadier General Ziad al-Homsi gave firsthand briefing
over the Room's work and its communication with the various operation rooms
across the Lebanese territories, in addition to their defensive tasks on the
southern and eastern borders. Brigadier al-Homsi also gave briefing over the
security measures implemented by the Room in the various areas to maintain
security and the pursuit of wanted men, and reassuring citizens during the
holiday season. Minister Sarraf stressed that he shall exert all efforts to
reinforce the capabilities of the army in the next phase, in line with the size
of responsibilities shouldered by the army. Sarraf also heaped praises on
"the great efforts undertaken by the army to safeguard national stability,
especially in the field of combating terrorism and the various sorts of
organized crime, in addition to its full readiness on the southern border in
the face of Israeli enemy."
What challenges await Lebanon’s new
government?
Haytham Mouzahem/Al Monitor/December 29/16
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/12/30/haytham-mouzahemal-monitor-what-challenges-await-lebanons-new-government/
Translator: Sami-Joe Abboud
After handily winning parliament's vote of confidence Dec. 28 with 87 out of 92
votes, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his new unity government will
now tackle their top priorities, which include protecting Lebanon from
fallout from the Syrian civil war.
The newly approved Lebanese government faces many difficult issues, including
adoption of an electoral law ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections in
May, as the political blocs are divided over the matter.
Other leading items on the agenda include approving a 2017 budget, stimulating
the economy, and taking immediate action to address electricity and water
problems as well as difficulties with traffic and solid waste treatment.
Priorities also include developing a strategy to prevent corruption, fighting
terrorism and speeding up license approvals for oil exploration and extraction.
Hariri managed Dec. 18 to form the first government in two years, under
President Michel Aoun, despite differences that erupted between the major blocs
over the number of ministers and their responsibilities.
Hariri’s national consensus government has a total of 30 ministers representing
the country’s major parliamentary blocs and parties, with the exception of the
Christian Phalanges Party, which rejected the state ministry position it was
offered. The government includes seven state ministers, and six new state
ministries have been established, for women's affairs, anti-corruption,
presidential affairs, displaced citizens, human rights, and planning. The
Planning Ministry had been abolished in 1977 and replaced with the Council of
Development and Reconstruction.
The government includes 29 men and only one woman — Minister of State for
Administrative Development Inaya Azzedine, the first veiled minister in the
history of Lebanon.
Azzedine is a member of the Shiite Amal Movement's political bureau.
Aoun and his party, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), have a large share of
the ministries with eight, including the Foreign Ministry, the Defense
Ministry, the Justice Ministry and the Energy and Water Ministry.
In addition to the premiership, Hariri and members of his party, the Future
Movement, have six portfolios, including Interior Ministry and the
Telecommunications Ministry.
Besides Azzedine's position, the Amal movement led by parliament Speaker Nabih
Berri has two portfolios: the Finance Ministry and Agriculture Ministry.
Meanwhile, the Shiite Hezbollah Party has two portfolios: the Industry Ministry
and the Youth and Sports Ministry. The Shiites waived the Public Works Ministry
to the Marada party, led by Suleiman Franjieh. Hezbollah made this gesture to
thank Franjieh for backing down from his presidential candidacy; Hezbollah
backed Aoun.
Hezbollah had signed a joint memorandum of understanding with Aoun's FPM on
Feb. 6, 2006. The latter supported resistance positions during the Israeli war
on Lebanon in July and
August 2006, and later the Shiite group’s intervention in Syria. This led
Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah to say: “We owe Gen. Aoun a debt
until the day of judgment."
Giving Franjieh’s bloc a basic ministry was one of the main issues that
delayed forming the government, as his bloc has only three parliament members,
which is not enough to allow him to assume such a ministry. Also, the FPM
wanted to prevent Franjieh from getting a basic ministry as punishment for
competing with Aoun over the presidency.
However, the Lebanese Forces (LF) party led by Samir Geagea got four
portfolios, including the post of deputy prime minister and the Health
Ministry. The LF’s share was a reward from Aoun, who had worked out an
arrangement with LF that allowed him to win the presidency. This came despite
Aoun's and Geagea's being longtime foes.
Their arrangement earned LF a larger share of posts than it would
normally have. The LF has only has eight parliament members, while the Future
bloc has 33 members and got six ministers. For their part, the Amal and
Hezbollah blocs have 26 parliament members and obtained five ministers. This
led Hezbollah and its allies to object and refuse to give the LF five ministers
or what is termed a "sovereign ministry" (the four sovereign
ministries are defense, foreign affairs, interior, and finance). As such, the
LF share was reduced to four ministers.
The ministerial statement was drafted in six days, though it was expected
to take longer. The statement is a declaration of the government's political
and economic visions and plans, and is submitted to parliament to win its
confidence. However, the article related to the “resistance against the Israeli
occupation” usually raises differences between the March 8 alliance and the
March 14 coalition, which refuses to mention the Hezbollah resistance in the
statement so as not to bestow legitimacy on the armed movement.
This time, however, the statement was drafted in a way that brought
together the inaugural speech of the president and a declaration by the
government of Tammam Salam when he was prime minister regarding the right to
resist the Israeli occupation. The result was as follows: “We will spare no
effort or resistance to liberate any Lebanese territory that is still under
occupation or to protect our country from an enemy that still has ambitions
regarding our land, water and national resources based on the responsibility of
the state and its role in preserving Lebanon's sovereignty, independence and
unity as well as the safety of the citizens. … The government emphasizes the
right of the Lebanese citizens to resist the Israeli occupation, counter its
aggressions and recover the occupied territories.”
A source close to Hezbollah told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity
that the party was satisfied with the statement.
The statement stressed the need to work on the imminent approval of a new
and modern law for parliamentary elections, one that grants fair representation
to all the Lebanese people. The elections are supposed to take place in May.
Adopting the electoral law will be the biggest challenge to the
government as Aoun, Hezbollah, Amal and their allies are in favor of the
proportional system, while parliament member Walid Jumblatt, leader of the
Druze bloc, is absolutely against it. The Future Movement and the LF also
reject the law and either support the existing 1960
law, which is based on a majority system, or a mixed law that combines the
majority and proportional systems.
The same source explained that should the 1960 majority law remain in
place, Hezbollah would not lose any seats in parliament. Yet, the source added,
the party wants the proportional system to be adopted to ensure that all groups
and currents are fairly represented and to secure national fusion amid
national, rather than sectarian, representation.
In this context, former Minister of State Karim Pakradouni told
Al-Monitor that Aoun supports the proportional system but will accept another
mixed or majority law that garners the support of all the other blocs.
Political analyst Yasser al-Hariri told Al-Monitor no bloc opposes the
1960 law, even if some blocs say they do. However, a new law that is based on
the majority and proportional systems could be agreed upon provided it leads to
the same results of the 1960 law.
Since Lebanon
is a country of deals and national consensus, all parties likely would agree on
an electoral law that satisfies the major sects and blocs, although Aoun,
Hariri and Berri agree on adopting a new reformist modern law.
Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on
December 30-31/16
Russia Pushes U.N. Council
Resolution Endorsing Syria Peace Plan
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 30/16/Russia on Friday submitted a draft
resolution to the U.N. Security Council supporting the ceasefire it helped
broker in Syria as well as planned peace talks in Kazakhstan. Moscow
drew up the text endorsing the plan it spearheaded with the help of Turkey and Iran
for a nationwide ceasefire, which went into effect at midnight and appeared to
be mainly holding despite reports of sporadic clashes near Damascus. The deal calls for subsequent
negotiations in late January in the Kazakh capital Astana, Russia's
U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters. The council held closed-door
consultations on the text Friday morning. Some countries have made
recommendations that can be "easily absorbed" into the draft
resolution, he added, saying that the peace plan "is not just a
Russia-Turkey effort." "We hope that tomorrow morning, we can go for
a vote and adopt it unanimously," Churkin said. The ceasefire deal calls
for negotiations over a political solution to end the conflict that has killed
more than 310,000 people since 2011 and forced millions to flee. The ceasefire
-- which involves 13 groups representing 60,000 fighters who control
"large chunks" of Syria
-- appeared to be "holding adequately," the Russian envoy said. The
deal excludes jihadist groups including the Islamic State and Fateh al-Sham
Front, an al-Qaida affiliate previously known as Al-Nusra Front. Russia's plan, which pointedly excludes the United States,
does not overlap with an initiative for negotiations in February mediated by
U.N. peace envoy Staffan de Mistura, Churkin said. Nevertheless, Moscow expects the UN
will be "fully involved" in preparing for the Astana talks, he added.
"We hope others will join in, like Egypt,
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar," Churkin said. One
Western diplomat said it would take time to examine Moscow's draft resolution. "It needs to
be studied seriously," the diplomat said. There were still "a lot of
unanswered questions," said another Western diplomat, adding that Russia might be
hard-pressed to muster the nine votes needed for its resolution to pass. The
draft resolution, a copy of which was seen by AFP, "endorses the documents
mediated and issued by Russia
and Turkey
on December 29." It "stresses the importance of their full and
immediate implementation and calls upon all parties to be guided by the
aforementioned documents and provide support to their implementation." The
text does not mention the planned UN-led talks in Geneva in February.
Putin Takes Lead in Syria Peace after Battlefield Wins
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 30/16/After turning the tide on the
ground in Syria
with his country's military might, Russian President
Vladimir Putin is trying to cement his authority by forging an unlikely peace
deal. The Kremlin strongman on Thursday announced a new truce and talks between
Damascus and rebel groups, thrusting Moscow into pole position
as the conflict's key broker. By combining muscle with realpolitik Russia has struck an improbable understanding
with Turkey on Syria, filling a vacuum left by the United States
that has effectively sidelined the est. Here is how Russia made itself the main player and what that
means now:
Putin on top
When Putin launched Russia's
bombing campaign to back Syrian President Bashar Assad in September 2015, his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama warned that Moscow risked getting
stuck in a "quagmire." But now the Kremlin has shored up Assad,
helped him reclaim the second city of Aleppo
and pushed rebel groups into a ceasefire. "Russia
is positioning itself as a mediator between those inside Syria and a mediator between the external
actors," Alexei Malashenko from the Moscow Carnegie
Center told AFP. Putin
has seized the initiative with a combination of ruthlessness and bravado as the
U.S.
under Obama increasingly moved its focus elsewhere. Untroubled by public
opinion at home, Putin faced down ferocious international criticism of his
intervention and the brutal bombardment of Aleppo to help Assad secure his position.
After the major victory on the battlefield, Moscow
is pushing from a position of strength for talks expected next month in Astana,
the capital of Kazakhstan.
Winning over Turkey
Putin has admitted that the latest truce and agreement to talk are "fragile",
with two earlier attempts by Russia
and the U.S. to stop the
fighting in Syria
collapsing in failure. But this time Russia
has secured a valuable partner whose influence could prove a gamechanger in
bringing rebels to the table: Turkey.
"The situation had seemed liked a dead end," Fyodor Lukyanov,
chairman of Council on Foreign and Defense Policy in Moscow, told AFP. "But the agreement
with Turkey
changed the balance."NATO-member and traditional U.S. ally Ankara
has supported those seeking to topple Assad, but now appears to have decided to
place other priorities above insisting on change next door. The two sides have
patched up a feud over Ankara's downing of a
Russian fighter jet last year and pushed on much further to seal their
cooperation on Syria.
The first step saw the two reach a deal to evacuate fighters and civilians from
Aleppo, a face-saving move that allowed Ankara to present a
defeat as a diplomatic coup. Despite denials from Turkey,
a broader grand bargain appears to involve Moscow
giving Ankara tacit approval for its incursion
into Syria
against IS jihadists and Kurdish fighters. While Turkey officially insists that
Assad must go in any peace process, its rhetoric has been noticeably toned down
of late. Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports have surfaced that Russian planes have
for the first time struck in the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab in Syria, which is
surrounded by Turkish troops.
U.S. out for good?
Washington -- and the rest of the West -- now finds itself very much on
the margins on Syria, due to
its own inaction and Russia's
assertiveness. "President Obama has been a bystander to this carnage...and
he is not taken terribly seriously by the people like President Putin,"
said Clifford D. May from the U.S.-based Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies. Russia, Iran and Turkey
seem to have closed the door on any U.S. involvement in the peace
process, but that could change when President-elect Donald Trump replaces Obama
next month. Trump has said he wants to improve Washington's
dire ties with Moscow
and focus on fighting Islamic State rather than toppling Assad. If the talks in
Astana make progress toward shaping Syria's future, then Putin may be able to
present Trump with a fait accompli and wangle a deal to join forces against IS.
Moscow winning the peace?
But many remain skeptical about whether Moscow's peace push can succeed where years
of international efforts have failed. The future of a resurgent Assad remains a
major stumbling block and there is no consensus about how Syria will be
governed. There are also questions over who represents the opposition after its
defeat in Aleppo
and whether it can be viewed as legitimate. Simultaneous to announcing the
ceasefire, Putin, by announcing a "reduction" in Russian forces, sent
a sign that he may be looking to step back from Syria. This is the second time Moscow has said it was
scaling down its operations, having announced in March it was doing so before
being forced to build up its firepower again. "It is most likely a
gesture, to show them that we consider the military phase over, now it's time
to agree," analyst Lukyanov said. "And if it doesn't work out then
we'll be back."
Turkey Seeks to Upstage U.S. with
Syria Ceasefire
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 30/16/By brokering with Russia a
ceasefire agreement for Syria, Turkey is hoping to sideline the United States
at a time of rising tension and ensure Ankara has a say in its neighbor’s
postwar future. One year ago, it was inconceivable that Turkey and Russia
would agree a truce for Syria,
with both spitting out venomous accusations over the shooting down by Ankara of a Russian war
plane. But after a reconciliation process of sometimes dizzying speed, Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have
overseen a truce deal welcomed by all sides in the conflict that may lead to
peace talks. Even the December 19 assassination of Russia's
ambassador to Ankara
in the heart of the capital failed to derail the process, indeed bringing the
two countries closer. The ceasefire was announced after weeks of talks hosted
by Turkey in Ankara between Russian representatives and the Syrian
opposition that Turkey
worked to support and keep secret. Previous stabs at a ceasefire have involved Russia and the United
States, but on this occasion little effort was made to
include Turkey's
NATO ally. Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at The
Washington Institute, said Turkey
was acutely aware U.S. President-elect Donald Trump could strike a deal on Syria with Russia shortly after taking office
and wanted to get in there first. "Ankara
has seen the writing on the wall that Trump and Putin will have a deal on Syria, and is
therefore, working to have its own deal with Putin ahead of the Trump presidency,"
he told AFP.
'Shaken relations'
The ceasefire deal with Russia comes at a time when Turkey's relations with the United States are encountering strains unseen
since the Iraq
war of 2003. Whereas Erdogan hailed the Syria ceasefire as a "historic
opportunity", the State Department was less euphoric, calling it "a
positive development." Turkish officials are livid over U.S. backing for Syrian Kurdish militia groups
seen by Ankara as the local branch of the
Kurdish militants who are waging a deadly insurgency inside Turkey.
"No development, no regional and global policy since the 1950s shook
Turkey-U.S. relations so deeply," wrote Ibrahim Karagul, editor-in-chief
of the pro-Erdogan Yeni Safak daily. Adding to the frustration, Ankara claims it has received no U.S. military support for Turkey's own incursion inside Syria aimed at
cleansing the border area of jihadists and the Kurdish militia. The Turkish
military and its Syrian rebel allies have for weeks been stuck and taking
casualties in the town of al-Bab where jihadists have offered their fiercest
resistance. With conspicuous timing, the Turkish army on Friday said Russian
planes hit IS targets in al-Bab and south of the city three times for the first
time, in apparent support of the Turkish operation. "Washington
has been reticent to extend air support to Turkey's campaign," said
Cagaptay. "Therefore, Turkey
is turning towards Russia."
'Greatest struggle'
Ankara and Moscow
had seemed unlikely partners to broker a deal on the Syria conflict, having stood on
polar opposite sides since the war began in 2011. Erdogan has denounced Syrian
President Bashar Assad as a "murderer who has killed 600,000 of his own
people" and must be ousted. Russia
is the regime's chief ally and its intervention in Syria from September 2015 tipped
the balance of the conflict against the Turkey-backed rebels. Yet Ankara remained silent as Assad claimed full control of Aleppo in his most decisive victory of the civil war and
worked with Moscow
on an evacuation deal. Erdogan instead stepped up his rhetoric against the United States, even accusing Washington
of backing IS jihadists. With the regime holding the upper hand, Turkey has decided to work with Russia rather than against it to ensure Ankara has a say in the postwar future of Syria, whose land was part of the Ottoman Empire and is still considered to be its
backyard. Erdogan said in a speech on December 22 that Turkey risked being the victim of a new Sevres
Treaty -- the 1920 agreement that was to partition the Ottoman
Empire -- if it stood still in the region. "We are in the
biggest struggle since the War of Independence" that ensured the creation
of modern Turkey
in 1923, Erdogan said. Turkey's
own incursion in Syria has
crucially been aimed not only at Islamic State (IS) jihadists also but also
preventing Syrian Kurds establishing a key corridor from Aleppo
province into Turkey.
"Turkey's
policy on Assad has suffered a clear defeat," said Mujtaba Rahman,
managing director of the Eurasia Group. "But Erdogan is still fighting to
keep the Syrian Kurds in check and sees cooperation with Putin as the best way
to achieve it."
Clashes near Damascus, Airstrikes in
Hama despite Syria Truce
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 30/16/A ceasefire was holding
across most of Syria on Friday but clashes near Damascus underlined the
fragility of the deal brokered by rebel supporter Turkey and key regime ally
Russia. The nationwide truce, the first since September, is intended to pave
the way for new peace talks in Kazakhstan
being organized by Moscow, Ankara
and Tehran. The
agreement comes a week after Syrian President Bashar Assad's army recaptured
second city Aleppo
in a major blow to rebel forces.
On the first day of the ceasefire Friday, the Britain-based Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights reported sporadic violence in the Wadi Barada
area, where rebels have cut water supplies to Damascus. Observatory director Rami Abdel
Rahman said helicopters carried out raids on rebel positions but it was unclear
which side had started the clashes. Syria's government had been
shelling Wadi Barada before the truce began at midnight as it pushes rebels
there to accept a "reconciliation deal" and leave the area. The
forces there include former al-Qaida affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front, previously
known as al-Nusra Front, which Syria's
government says is excluded from the ceasefire. Opposition figures however say
the truce applies to all rebel-held territory, even where Fateh al-Sham is
present. Last week, rebels attacked water infrastructure in Wadi Barada and
neighboring Ain al-Fijeh, cutting supplies to the capital. Four million people
in Damascus and
its suburbs have now been without water for a week, the U.N. says. The clashes
in Wadi Barada were the most serious of several isolated incidents of violence
since the truce began. The Observatory reported at least 16 government air
strikes across several areas in Hama province in
central Syria, but no
casualties, but said a person was killed by regime sniper fire in the rebel
bastion of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus.
Tired of war
In rebel-held Idlib province, however, it was
quiet and residents expressed hope for respite from the bloody conflict.
"I support the ceasefire... and I support its continuation," said
31-year-old Ahmed Astify. "Everyone, whether (they are) rebels or regular
people, is tired," he added. Mohammed, 28, said: "We hope that this
will lead to the end of the war."Syria's
government and its ally Iran
both welcomed the ceasefire deal. Damascus
called it a "real opportunity" to find a political solution to the
war, which has killed more than 310,000 people since it began with anti-regime
protests in March 2011. Despite being left out of the process, Washington described the
truce as "positive." Analysts were cautious but said the involvement
of Russia, Iran and Turkey could be important. Sam
Heller, fellow at The Century Foundation, said there was "real interest
and urgency" from Moscow and Ankara, but expressed doubts about whether Tehran and Damascus
were on board. "All indications are that Iran and the regime want to
continue towards a military conclusion," he said. He said renewed fighting
in Wadi Barada or Eastern Ghouta could pose
major threats to the truce.
Talks in Astana
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he would now reduce Moscow's military contingent in Syria, which has been fighting to
bolster the government since last year. But he added Russia would continue to fight
"terrorism" and maintain its support for the government. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also
said Ankara
would continue the operation it began in August targeting the Islamic State
group and Kurdish fighters. Moscow
says seven key rebel groups have signed up to the deal, including the powerful
Ahrar al-Sham, but the truce excludes jihadist organizations like IS or Fateh
al-Sham. But Syria's
political opposition and rebels said the truce applied to all parts of the
country. "The agreement includes a ceasefire in all areas held by the
moderate opposition, or by the moderate opposition and elements from Fateh
al-Sham, such as Idlib province," said Ahmed Ramadan, a member of the
National Coalition opposition body. Despite backing opposite sides in the
conflict, Turkey and Russia have worked increasingly closely on Syria, brokering a deal this month to allow the
evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians and rebel fighters from Aleppo. They are now
pushing for peace talks between Damascus and the
rebels to start next month in Kazakhstan's
capital Astana. .N. peace envoy Staffan de Mistura said he hoped the agreement
would "pave the way for productive talks", but also reiterated he
wants negotiations mediated by his office to continue next year. Russia,
meanwhile, submitted a draft resolution to the U.N. Security Council supporting
the ceasefire and the planned peace talks and was hoping for a unanimous vote
on Saturday. Moscow and Ankara
say the Astana talks are meant to supplement U.N.-backed peace efforts, rather
than replace them, and want to involve regional players like Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Qatar,
and Jordan.
Washington is conspicuously absent from the new process, but Moscow said it
hoped to bring U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's administration on board once
he takes office in January.
Damascenes Struggle after Clashes Cut Off Water
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 30/16/Near a church in old Damascus, people in a long
queue wait impatiently for the tanker to fill their canisters after being
deprived of water for a week. "I can't carry
more than one can, (but) my sons are coming soon with a jerrycan each and we'll
have enough water for two or three days," says Abu Assaad Hawasli, wearing
a thick woollen sweater. The water shortage in Damascus is the result of fighting between
the regime and rebels in the region of Wadi Barada, northwest of the Syrian
capital and its main source of water. The two sides accuse each other of
responsibility for the shortages. And despite a nationwide ceasefire that began
at midnight after an agreement brokered by Turkey
and Russia,
clashes erupted in the Wadi Barada region on Friday. "It's been an hour
and I'm still waiting," says Hawasli, a man in his fifties. From his shop,
Essal Dalati watches those queuing for water. "The truck came two days ago
and I took 20 cans that I have kept for my family," he says. "Difficult
days await us. Nothing can replace water."
Millions without water
Taps are dry for all but one or two hours every three days, says an AFP
correspondent in Damascus.
To compensate for the crisis, tanker trucks distribute water from the capital's
reserves, alternating in different districts. Four million people in Damascus and its suburbs
have now been without water since December 22, according to the U.N. Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA. "Two primary sources of
drinking water -- Wadi Barada and Ain al-Fijeh -- which provide clean and safe
water for 70 percent of the population in and around Damascus are not functioning, due to
deliberate targeting resulting in the damaged infrastructure," OCHA said
in a statement. The regime launched an offensive last week against rebel-held
areas in Wadi Barada.Infrastructure at the pumping station has been damaged,
but the regime and the insurgents deny responsibility.
'Contaminated' water
"Armed groups contaminated the source at Ain al-Fijeh with diesel
and large quantities have spread to Wadi Barada," said a military source.
The rebel fighters then "completely cut off the water from Damascus to put pressure
on the army and get the military operations to stop," the source told AFP.
The shortage of water is likely to continue in Damascus. Even after an army victory, it
would take the authorities around 10 days to "repair the damage caused to
the Ain al-Fijeh station," said a government official. As a result of the
crisis, Abu Hassan is overwhelmed by the number of customers at his shop in
Mazza on the outskirts of Damascus.
Since they are unable to wash their dishes, dozens of men and women come to the
business to buy disposable plates and cutlery. "In two days, we sold more
than we did in a month," says Abu Hassan, whose phone rings constantly.
"I've exhausted all my plastic glasses, but I'm unhappy to see the sadness
in people's eyes." One of his customers, Hawraa, 28, checks her shopping
list as she waits to be served. "It's been a week since I had any water at
home," she says. "I have to wait to go to work to go to the
toilet."But even that is a luxury for another client, Abdallah Rai. Upon
arriving at his workplace in central Damascus,
a sign was displayed on the toilet door: "Out of service".
Nazarbayev orders foreign ministry to
prepare for Syria talks
Reuters, Almaty Friday, 30 December 2016/Kazakh President Nursultan
Nazarbayev ordered the Central Asian nation’s foreign ministry to prepare for
hosting the talks on Syria in Astana in the near future, his office said in a
statement on Friday. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who announced a
nationwide ceasefire in Syria
on Thursday, has said the warring sides were also prepared to start peace talks
intended to take place in the capital of Kazakhstan. Meanwhile, there have
been reports that Russian fighter jets have hit three ISIS
targets around the northern Syrian town of al-Bab over the past 24 hours, the
Turkish military said on Friday, in what appeared to be the first Russian support
for Turkish army operations in the area. The strikes came as a nationwide
ceasefire in Syria, brokered
by Russia and Turkey which
back opposing sides in the conflict, got off to a shaky start at midnight. The
ceasefire does not include ISIS.
Trump slams ‘inflammatory’ Obama on
Twitter
AFP, Washington Wednesday, 28 December 2016/US President-elect Donald Trump on
Wednesday accused Barack Obama of making “inflammatory” statements and
complicating the impending transfer of power - the latest salvo in an
escalating war of words with the current commander-in-chief. The unorthodox
personal and public criticism of a sitting president comes less than a month
before the 70-year-old Trump - who defeated Obama’s preferred successor Hillary
Clinton in November’s presidential election -takes office. “Doing my best to
disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks,” Trump
wrote on Twitter. “Thought it was going to be a smooth
transition - NOT!”The social media jab is the latest from the 70-year-old
real estate mogul aimed at Obama, in what has become a most unconventional
transition between the outgoing Democrat and the incoming Republican leader.
Obama said in an interview released earlier this week that he could have been
re-elected for a third term if he had been eligible and that the nation still
largely embraces his political vision. “I am confident in this vision because
I’m confident that if I had run again and articulated it, I think I could’ve
mobilized a majority of the American people to rally behind it,” Obama told the
interviewer, his former senior adviser David Axelrod.
Israel policy
It was not immediately clear what exactly Trump was referring to in the first
tweet, but minutes later, he took Obama to task over his policy on Israel.
“We cannot continue to let Israel
be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. They used to have a great
friend in the US,
but.....” he wrote. “Not anymore. The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and
now this (UN)! Stay strong Israel,
January 20th is fast approaching!”Last week, the UN Security Council passed a
resolution demanding a halt to Israeli settlement building in Palestinian
territory. The United States
declined to use its veto, instead abstaining and thus enabling the adoption of
the first UN resolution since 1979 to condemn Israel over settlement policy.
Trump, who takes office on January 20, had publicly called for the United States
to veto the resolution and has repeatedly criticized Obama’s approach.
Putin Refuses to Expel U.S. Diplomats,
Looks to Trump
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 30/16/President Vladimir
Putin said Friday said he would not expel any Americans in response to Washington turfing out
dozens of Russian diplomats over alleged election interference. The Kremlin
strongman's shock decision came after Russia's
foreign ministry asked him to send home 35 U.S. diplomats in a tit-for-tat
retaliation for the expulsion of the same number of its staff by President
Barack Obama on Thursday. "We will not create problems for American
diplomats. We will not expel anyone," Putin said in a statement, also
inviting children of U.S.
diplomats to a holiday party at the Kremlin. Putin's move was a clear sign that
Moscow is
pinning its hopes on President-elect Donald Trump to help rebuild ties -- which
have plunged to their lowest point since the Cold War -- when he takes office
next month. "We evaluate the new unfriendly steps by the outgoing U.S.
administration as a provocation aimed at further undermining Russian-American
relations," Putin said. He said Moscow
would plan its next steps "based on the policies pursued by the
administration of president Donald Trump", while
warning that the Kremlin reserves the right to hit back. Putin ended his
message by wishing both Obama and Trump a Happy New Year.
'Grizzly Steppe'
Obama on Thursday unleashed a barrage of sanctions against Russia over
alleged cyberattacks aimed at tilting the election in Trump's favour. The move
came after years of bad blood with Putin that has seen Washington
slap sanctions on Moscow over its interference
in Ukraine and Syria.
In response to the alleged hacks, dubbed "Grizzly Steppe" by U.S.
officials, Obama announced sanctions against Russia's military and domestic
intelligence agencies, and gave the 35 suspected "intelligence
operatives" 72 hours to leave. U.S. intelligence concluded that
the Kremlin had ordered a hack-and-release of Democratic Party and Hillary
Clinton campaign staff emails in a bid to put Republican real estate mogul
Trump in the Oval Office. Obama's moves have put him at odds with his
successor, who has expressed his admiration for Putin and desire to improve
ties with Russia.
Moscow has repeatedly denied the hacking
allegations and Trump too has questioned whether Russia really tipped the electoral
scale, painting Obama's accusations as a thinly veiled effort by a Democratic
president to cover up for his party's loss. Trump said that while he believes
the U.S.
should "move on to bigger and better things," he would meet
intelligence leaders next week for a briefing on the situation. Obama -- who
has also clashed with Trump over his Israel
policy in recent days -- has pointedly stated that "all Americans should
be alarmed by Russia's
actions."
'Unprecedented'
It remains to be seen whether Trump would move
to roll back the sanctions against Moscow,
with many leading Republican lawmakers publicly warning him to stay tough on
Putin. Obama also linked the fresh sanctions to harassment of U.S. diplomats in Moscow,
which Washington
described as "unprecedented" in the post-Cold War era. U.S.
officials played down the impact that sanctions against the GRU and the FSB
could have on intelligence-sharing on issues like counterterrorism, saying
cooperation was already limited. Both agencies will face sanctions, along with
GRU agency chief Igor Korobov and three of his deputies. In addition, the U.S.
Treasury hit two individuals, Evgeniy Bogachev and Aleksey Belan, with
sanctions for "involvement in malicious cyber-enabled activities."The
sanctions freeze any assets they may have in the United States and blocks US.. companies from doing business
with them. The U.S.
government is also declassifying technical information on Russian cyber
activity to help companies defend against future attacks. "The United States and friends and allies around the
world must work together to oppose Russia's efforts to undermine
established international norms of behavior and interfere with democratic
governance," Obama said. That reflects growing concerns that Russia could target upcoming elections in France, Germany
and the Netherlands.
Putin says Russia will not
expel US diplomats
Reuters, Washington Thursday, 29 December 2016/Meanwhile,
Russian President Vladimir Putin has condemned a new round of US sanctions against
Russia but said Moscow will not retaliate
by expelling American diplomats. Putin, in a statement the Kremlin's web-site
on Friday, referred the new sanctions as a “provocation aimed to further
undermine Russian-American relations.”But he said Russia would not be expelling
American diplomats in retaliation like the Russian foreign ministry earlier
suggested. “We will not create problems for American diplomats. We will not
expel anyone,” Putin said in a statement released by the Kremlin. The United States has expelled 35 Russian diplomats
and closed two Russian compounds in New York
and Maryland in response to a campaign of
harassment against American diplomats in Moscow,
a senior US
official said on Thursday. The move against the diplomats from the Russian
embassy in Washington and consulate in San Francisco is part of a series of actions announced on
Thursday to punish Russia
for a campaign of intimidation of American diplomats in Moscow
and interference in the US
election. The Obama administration was also announcing on Thursday a series of
retaliatory measures against Russia
for hacking into US political institutions and individuals and leaking
information to help President-elect Donald Trump and other Republican
candidates, two US
officials said. Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has called for better
relations with Russia.
It was not clear if he will be able to immediately overturn the measures
announced on Thursday.
The Russian diplomats would have 72 hours to leave the United States,
the official said. Access to the two compounds, which are used by Russian
officials for intelligence gathering, will be denied to all Russian officials
as of noon on Friday, the senior US official added.
“These actions were taken to respond to Russian harassment of American
diplomats and actions by the diplomats that we have assessed to be not
consistent with diplomatic practice,” the official said.
Tragedy of Grave Sleepers in Iran Is a 'Direct Result' of the Clerical Regime's
Rule
NCRI /December 30/16/Remarks by Shahin Gobadi, member of the Foreign Affairs
Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), on the tragedy
of “grave sleepers” in Iran: The tragic situation of grave sleepers in Iran is
another result of the disastrous rule of the clerical regime, in a country
which sits on an ocean of oil. Iran,
one of the most resourceful and richest countries in the world, currently is in
such a miserable condition that some of its people have to sleep in open graves
at night. The big question is what has happened to Iran’s resources? In particular,
what happened to tens of billions of dollars of unfrozen assets after the
nuclear agreement? It is rather evident that all that money was plundered by
the regime’s officials, who are involved in rampant corruption, cases of which
have become exposed one after the other. It is also spent on dispatching tens
of thousands of the regime’s forces and mercenaries to Syria to prop up the dictator, Bashar Assad and
to massacre the Syrian people as we witnessed in Aleppo. It has also been spent on suppression
of the Iranian people who are becoming more and more fed up with the situation
and their disenchantment has become more evident with the passage of time. It
has been spent on terrorist groups and fomenting Islamic extremism throughout
the region and on Weapons of Mass Destruction and proliferation of long range
missiles.It is rather obvious that this miserable and tragic situation in Iran,
in particular the dreadful condition of grave sleepers, is a direct result and
consequence of the clerical regime’s actions, and the Iranian people’s welfare
will only improve after the downfall of the clerical regime by the Iranian
people and the resistance.
Iran Regime Officials' Terrified Warnings
About a Repeat of 2009 Uprising
NCRI /December 30/16/On the anniversary of the Iranian regime’s repressive
mobilization following Iranian people's 2009 Ashura uprising that shook the
entire regime head to toe, leaders and officials of the regime fearfully warn
about a repeat of the uprising and the prospect of regime overthrow. In a
statement, mullah Ahmad Janati, head of the regime’s
Assembly of Experts, said: “Seditionists in 2009 (uprising) pulled the country
into a long chaos and anarchy such that it requires years to compensate for the
damage to the system.
He told the state TV: “They were thinking about overthrow of the Islamic
Republic which means the issue was not the elections or something like that at
all but to overthrow the Islamic Republic and Islamic Revolution and replace it
with a secular government. If this sedition (uprising) had succeeded, this
system would have been suppressed (defeated) completely and the Islamic regime
would have been dismantled. Meanwhile, Hossein Shariatmadari, Khamenei’s
mouthpiece and representative in Keyhan daily, said: “Repeat of a new sedition
(uprising) in the framework and formula similar to the sedition 2009 seems
unlikely, but occurrence of other seditions is not unexpected and the evidence
that new possible sedition is forming can be seen. The main strategic line of
the enemy’s roadmap that has repeatedly and explicitly been emphasized by the
enemy is to overthrow the regime.”
Tunisia Says 800 Returning Jihadists
Jailed or Tracked
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 30/16/Tunisia said Friday it has jailed
or closely monitored 800 jihadists who have returned from foreign battlefields
in the past decade. "Some are in prison, some are under house arrest and
others are under close surveillance", government spokesperson Iyed Dahmani
said of the fighters who have returned since 2007. A little under
3,000 Tunisians have joined the ranks of jihadist groups fighting in
neighboring Libya, as well
as in Syria and Iraq,
Dahmani said. The United Nations puts this figure at 5,000. On Thursday, Prime
Minister Youssef Chahed said all jihadists returning from fighting abroad would
be immediately arrested and judged according to the country's counter-terrorism
law. Chahed said authorities had "lists of all (Tunisian) terrorists"
and "all the data on them". Last week, Interior Minister Hedi Majdoub
told parliament that 800 jihadists had already returned from the front lines.
Concern about their return has increased since Tunisian Anis Amri, 24, was
identified as the suspected attacker who mowed down 11 people at a Berlin
Christmas market last week, and also killed the driver. Tunisians rallied
outside parliament at the weekend to protest against allowing jihadists back
into the country. The national union of internal security forces has called on
the government to strip Tunisian jihadists of their nationality. But President
Beji Caid Essebsi, citing the constitution, has said the authorities cannot
prevent a Tunisian from returning home. Since its 2011 uprising, Tunisia has
faced repeated jihadist attacks, killing more than 100 soldiers and policemen,
as well as about 20 civilians and 59 foreign tourists, according to official
figures.
Israeli Guards Shoot Knife-Wielding Palestinian Woman
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 30/16/A Palestinian woman was shot and
wounded Friday after approaching an Israeli security checkpoint near Jerusalem with a knife,
Israeli police said. The woman approached the crossing point in Qalandia,
between Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, in a lane designated for vehicles despite
repeated calls from guards to stop, a statement said. She was wounded when
security forces opened fire, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Police said
she was 35 and from Issawiya, a neighbourhood in east Jerusalem. A spokeswoman for the Israeli hospital
she was taken to described her condition as "serious". She was left
for around an hour after the attack on the ground before receiving treatment,
an AFP photographer at the checkpoint said.
Israel
public radio said forces checked her for explosives before allowing her to be
transported to hospital. Since October 2015, 246 Palestinians, 36 Israelis, two
Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed in a wave
of violence, according to an AFP count. Most of the Palestinians killed were
carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli
authorities. Others were shot dead during protests or clashes, while some died
in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip.
Saudi Invites Rival Iran for Talks on Hajj
Return
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 30/16/Saudi Arabia has invited regional
rival Iran to discuss a return of its nationals to next year's hajj after
Iranians were excluded from the pilgrimage following a major diplomatic row,
reports said Friday. The Al-Hayat daily reported that Riyadh's
pilgrims minister Mohammed Bentin had opened discussions with more than 80
countries, including Iran,
to work out the details of the 2017 hajj. "Iran's hajj delegation was invited
to come to the kingdom" for preparations, the paper said. The Arab News
daily said Riyadh
would welcome pilgrims for hajj and the smaller umra rite "irrespective of
their nationalities or sectarian affiliations, including Iranian
pilgrims". More than 1.8 million faithful took part in this year's hajj,
but Iranians stayed at home after tensions between Riyadh
and Tehran
boiled over following a deadly stampede during the 2015 pilgrimage. Iran says it lost 464 people in the crush
outside Mecca.
They were among more than 2,300 people killed in the worst ever disaster to
strike the hajj -- one of the five pillars of Islam -- which capable Muslims
must perform at least once. Shiite Iran and predominantly Sunni Saudi Arabia
are at odds over a raft of regional issues, notably the conflicts in Syria and Yemen in which they support
opposing sides. Riyadh cut ties with Tehran in January after
Iranian demonstrators torched its embassy and a consulate following its
execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.
Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis
& editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 30-31/16
Question: “What sort of New
Year’s Resolution should a Christian make?”
GotQuestions.org?
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/12/30/what-sort-of-new-years-resolution-should-a-christian-make-3/
Answer: The practice of making New Year’s resolutions goes back over 3,000
years to the ancient Babylonians. There is just something about the start of a
new year that gives us the feeling of a fresh start and a new beginning. In
reality, there is no difference between December 31 and January 1. Nothing
mystical occurs at midnight on December 31. The Bible does not speak for or
against the concept of New Year’s resolutions. However, if a Christian
determines to make a New Year’s resolution, what kind of resolution should he
or she make? Common New Year’s resolutions are commitments to quit smoking, to
stop drinking, to manage money more wisely, and to spend more time with family.
By far, the most common New Year’s resolution is to lose weight, in conjunction
with exercising more and eating more healthily. These are all good goals to
set. However, 1 Timothy 4:8 instructs us to keep
exercise in perspective: “For physical training is of some value, but godliness
has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the
life to come.” The vast majority of New Year’s resolutions, even among
Christians, are in relation to physical things. This should not be.
Many Christians make New Year’s resolutions to pray more, to read the Bible
every day, and to attend church more regularly. These are fantastic goals.
However, these New Year’s resolutions fail just as often as the non-spiritual
resolutions, because there is no power in a New Year’s resolution. Resolving to
start or stop doing a certain activity has no value unless you have the proper
motivation for stopping or starting that activity. For example, why do you want
to read the Bible every day? Is it to honor God and grow spiritually, or is it
because you have just heard that it is a good thing to do? Why do you want to
lose weight? Is it to honor God with your body, or is it for vanity, to honor
yourself?
Philippians 4:13 tells us, “I can do everything through Him who gives me
strength.” John 15:5 declares, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man
remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit;
apart from me you can do nothing.” If God is the center of your New Year’s
resolution, it has chance for success, depending on your commitment to it. If
it is God’s will for something to be fulfilled, He will enable you to fulfill
it. If a resolution is not God honoring and/or is not in agreement in God’s
Word, we will not receive God’s help in fulfilling the resolution. So, what
sort of New Year’s resolution should a Christian make? Here are some
suggestions: (1) pray to the Lord for wisdom (James 1:5) in regards to what
resolutions, if any, He would have you make; (2) pray for wisdom as to how to
fulfill the goals God gives you; (3) rely on God’s strength to help you; (4)
find an accountability partner who will help you and encourage you; (5) don’t
become discouraged with occasional failures; instead, allow them to motivate
you further; (6) don’t become proud or vain, but give God the glory. Psalm
37:5-6 says, “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He
will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause
like the noonday sun.”
Ce que l’on attend
de l’Eglise maronite…
BEYROUTH | Contributeur – Le 30 décembre 2016
Par Farès Souhaid/iloubnan.info
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/12/30/fares-souhaidce-que-lon-attend-de-leglise-maronite/
A l’époque de la chute de l’empire ottoman au début du siècle dernier et de
l’avènement des mandats français et britannique dans la région, le patriarche
Elias Howayek a rencontré le général Clémenceau, l’un des ingénieurs du monde,
sorti vainqueur de la première guerre mondiale. Il a confirmé devant lui le
choix des maronites au Liban, en demandant l’aide de la France pour le concrétiser
: la création de l’Etat du grand Liban, où l’individu existerait en sa
qualité de citoyen et non pas de chrétien ou de musulman.
La valeur de ce choix consistait dans le fait qu’il devait paver la voie à la
transition des maronites et des autres communautés de la région d’un statut de
paroissien membre d’une minorité cherchant la protection ici et là, à un statut
de sujet protégé par la loi, avec une constitution assurant leurs droits, sur
le modèle occidental.
Ainsi, ils seraient libérés de l’emprise des
différentes puissances, dont ils croyaient qu’elles leurs apporteraient
protection à travers les siècles avant qu’on ne réalise plus tard qu’elles ne
servaient que leurs propres intérêts.
Aujourd’hui environ 100 ans plus tard, notre région
semble être sur le point de voir redessiner ses contours géopolitiques, dans le
cadre de nouveaux rapports de forces. Les éléments les plus importants de ce
nouveau contexte sont :
la chute des anciens régimes arabes en Syrie, en Irak, au Yémen, en Tunisie en
Egypte,
l’absence des arabes et de la solidarité inter-arabes de la plupart des
décisions prises pour la région
et l’apparition des forces régionales non arabes (Turquie, Russie, Iran,
Israël), qui se répartissent une influence dans la région comme ce fut le cas
pour les occidentaux avec l’accord Sykes-Picot selon la déclaration de Moscou.
C’est dans ce nouvel équilibre des forces que la
plupart des minorités dans la région (notamment chrétiennes et chiites)
essayent de se positionner. Les leaders politiques et
religieux se rapprochent de telle ou telle puissance. Les forces en présence
considèrent cet équilibre comme stable, comme le
contexte dans lequel il va falloir évoluer au cours de la phase à venir, sous
le slogan « l’alliance des minorités contre la majorité » (rappelez-vous
l’ensemble des églises chrétiennes d’Orient réunies au congrès de Washington pour la protection
des minorités en septembre 2014).
Aujourd’hui, dans cette phase, on note le net recul de l’Eglise maronite et l’avancée proportionnelle de l’Eglise orthodoxe,
à travers la présence de la Russie post-Union soviétique dans les événements de
la région.
Evidemment, certains considèrent que la présence de la Russie
‘’expansionniste’’ dans la région est une présence exagérée, conditionnée en
fait par le recul des Américains entre la période des élections américaines et
la prise de pouvoir de la nouvelle administration le 20 janvier 2017.
Certains pensent que l’accélération des événements dans certains pays, (comme
l’élection de Michel Aoun sous parapluie iranien, la légalisation par le
parlement irakien des milices chiites Hachd al-Chaabi, ou encore la chute
d’Alep) a pour but de consolider les cartes russo-iraniennes, qui leur permet
de négocier plus librement avec l’administration américaine. Tout cela sur fond
de rivalité russo-iranienne sur le leadership sur les minorités et de manœuvres de la Turquie.
Ceux qui portent cette vision méprisent l’emprise du trio sur
la région. Ils pensent qu’il n’y a pas de
décision politique sur la région et que le Moyen Orient passe simplement par
une phase transitoire turbulente.
Mais quoi qu’il en soit, et en dehors de toute lecture
politique, nous notons avec amertume l’absence de l’église maronite des
événements de la région dans la phase actuelle.
Il n’est pas nécessaire de créer ni d’inventer de
nouveaux rôles pour cette église. Car cette prestigieuse église arabe a déjà ses valeurs, et suit l’orientation de la papauté. Elle a
aussi des échanges et des congrès avec les patriarches
d’Orient. Elle a des plans de travail dans le cadre du synode patriarcal maronite. Elle a assez d’éléments en tout cas
pour déterminer naturellement son rôle sans avoir à en chercher de nouveaux.
Son rôle, c’est de participer à développer et
cristalliser tous les concepts de la coexistence islamo-chrétienne, sans
laquelle le Liban n’a pas de sens. Elle est invitée aujourd’hui à s’engager
dans la paix pour le Liban et la région. Ceux qui feront la
paix de la région sont ceux qui ont construit leur idéologie philosophique sur
la paix, pas sur la guerre.
J’appelle l’Eglise maronite rassembleuse à changer le
cours des événements provoqués dans l’histoire de la région par la prestigieuse
Eglise orthodoxe, dont l’ingérence ne devrait pas faire naître de nouveaux
empereurs au Moyen Orient.
http://www.iloubnan.info/politique/94039/Ce-que-lon-attend-de-lEglise-maronite
Op-Ed: Obama's Russia sanctions put President-elect Donald
Trump in a tough position
Jake Novak / CNBC/December 30/16
Will the sanctions and diplomatic expulsions President Obama has just ordered against
Russia
in retaliation for its alleged interference in the 2016 election have any
effect? It depends which playing field you care most
about.
Politically, this is winner for the outgoing president on a lot of levels.
First, it solidifies President Obama as a hero to Democrats and liberals who
believe that Russia
played a big role in helping Donald Trump win the White House. This may seem
like a bit of "sore loser" behavior or preaching to a left wing
choir, but sometimes the choir needs music. Second, it will endear him to quite
a few Republicans and conservatives who have long been wary of Russia and
Russian President Vladimir Putin. And House Speaker Paul Ryan immediately
commented on the sanctions, saying they were justified, (if overdue), and that Russian
President Vladimir Putin is not a friend of the United States. Third, it puts
President-elect Donald Trump in a tough position of having to either defend an
unpopular Russian regime or abandon his calls for better relations with Moscow. After all, politics
is war and just because President Obama is leaving the battlefield it doesn't
mean he has to go without giving his fellow soldiers a weapon or two. But this
is where all the effectiveness ends. Diplomatically and economically, these new
sanctions and expulsions won't change a thing. As noted Putin critic and
Hermitage Capital Management CEO Bill Browder said on CNBC just after the
sanctions were announced, this is all "too little, too late." The
Russians will simply replace the expelled diplomats with legions of others with
the same worldview and allegiance to Putin. Hacking attacks will continue. And Russia will not
be deterred from interfering in other ways as well. Russia
responds to strength, and that's been true of Russia during its Soviet and post-Soviet
ages. Simply put, diplomatic expulsions and a few economic restrictions are not
seen by Moscow
as examples of strength.
Indeed, the Russian Embassy in the UK responded with this tweet.
Worse, the retaliations by the Obama team may serve to boost the myth of
Russian king-making abilities worldwide. Even if we can eventually prove that Moscow was responsible
for those hacks of the Democratic National Committee emails, can anyone really
even name a single "smoking gun" email that sealed the deal against
Hillary Clinton? Did the voters really learn any new or real damaging
information?
The answers to all of the above questions are "no," but now a hack
that yielded little or no information anyone really cared about has blown up
into an international diplomatic incident. Yes, President Obama and the
Democrats are scoring some political points right now and none of them are
likely to ever have to pay a personal or professional price for these moves.
But for the rest of us not running for office or worrying about our approval
ratings, this is a big fat nothing.
Commentary by Jake Novak, CNBC.com senior columnist.
Follow him on Twitter @jakejakeny.
Secularism: Everyone Wants to Get Rid of It
Yves Mamou/Gatestone Institute./December 30, 2016
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/12/30/yves-mamougatestone-institute-secularism-everyone-wants-to-get-rid-of-it/
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9589/secularism-france
Now, after more than a century of separation of powers between church and
state, an intolerant and extremist Islam is disrupting the rules of the game,
invading public spaces, schools, universities and companies with the veil,
halal food and open violence.
"By making the public space empty of everything that brings us together...
Islamists are eager to fill it, especially in disillusioned, brainless and
uprooted young heads". — François Fillon, a former Prime Minister of
France, who is running for president in the 2017 election.
"Secularism is just becoming a religion opposed to all other
religions", said Tariq Ramadan, a prominent figure of the Muslim
Brotherhood in Switzerland
and France.
He congratulated mayors on Christmas nativity scenes probably because he sees
it as an opening for Islamic opportunities in the public sphere. "We need
a Republic authorizing the visibility of diversity and not a Republic of
neutrality," he said.
Can a French municipality erect a statue of the Virgin Mary in a public park?
The answer is No. France's
Administrative Court
has given the mayor of Publier, in eastern France (population 6500), three
months to comply with the ban on religious symbols in public spaces and to
remove the statue. If the municipality fails to do so, it will be fined €100
($105) a day. Mayor Gaston Lacroix said he will try to relocate the marble
statue on private land.
France's
1905 Law on the Separation of the Churches and the State (Article 2) states
that "The Republic does not recognize, pay or subsidize any religious
sect"; article 28 prohibits any religious symbol on public monuments.
The Virgin May statue in Publier, on the bottom of which is inscribed
"Our Lady of Geneva Lake watch over your children", has a long story.
It was installed in the town park in August 2011, without debate. The statue
was acquired with taxpayer money: €23,700 (USD $26,000). Acknowledging at the
time that he had "joked a little with the 1905 law" on the separation
of church and the state, the mayor had to sell the statue to a local religious
association.
Now, the mayor has to remove the statue from the public park. He tried to
privatize the piece of land where the statue is erected, but the land-sale
project was rejected by the court.
This story of a statue of the Virgin Mary illustrates the difficulties of
secularism, the defense of French identity, the fight against Islamism, and the
contradictory interests of different political parties in France.
Originally, secularism in France
was established to push religion out of the public sphere. An authentic war was
conducted at the end of 19th century and beginning of 20th to push a very
obscurantist Catholic Church out of all public spaces. According to historian
Jacques Julliard:
"Mgr de Quélen, Archbishop of Paris, remains famous for having said
'not only was Jesus the son of God, but his mother came
from a very good family'. For the Republic, fighting the church was a fight for
the liberation of the minds, for the construction of a school for knowledge
(against belief) liberated from priests, the building of an open
society..."
Now, after more than a century of separation of powers between church and
state, an intolerant and extremist Islam is disrupting the rules of the game,
invading public spaces, schools, universities and companies with the veil,
halal food and open violence. But instead of uniting against this troublemaker,
French society today is openly divided.
French state institutions and the political class (left and right) are
fully responsible for this division, which is also the result of confusion.
Instead of naming Islamism the enemy, all governments, left and right, have
chosen the wrong path of appeasement and increasing concessions -- refusing to
name Islamism as solely responsible for terrorism, refusing to consider the
Islamic veil as a tool of separatism, and letting Salafist mosques multiply --
in the vain hope of calming what is claimed to be the legitimate anger of
Muslims against "discrimination".
Because the state refused or was unable to elaborate a strategy for a
renewed secularism, actors on the ground (especially mayors of the 35,000
municipalities of France)
were left alone. In 2014 and 2015, some of them (no one knows how many) chose
to install or subsidize nativity scenes in the lobbies of their city halls.
Immediately, French political passions burst into the debate.
Free thinkers, all parties of the left and the extreme left, green parties
and partisans of multiculturalism went to court to fight the Christ child's
cribs. On the opposite side, some on the right and the extreme right supported
the Christ child's crib. In the middle, some supporters of secularism tried to
calm everyone down, but without great success.
On November 14, 2014, the Administrative Court of Nantes decided on
appeal to strike down the initial prohibition of a Christmas nativity scene in
the Departmental Hall of Vendée. In another case, on October 8, 2015, the Administrative
Court of Paris struck down on appeal an initial judgement authorizing the mayor
of Melun to display a nativity crib.
On December 1, 2016, the Lille
Administrative Court cancelled the decision of the
municipality of Henin-Beaumont (affiliated with the
"far right" Front National) to install a Christmas nativity crib in
the lobby of City Hall.
In November 2015, just before the Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris, in which 130
people were murdered, the powerful Association of Mayors of France (AMF)
relaunched the controversy by recommending, in the name of secularism, not to
install Christmas nativity scenes. Immediately, three mayors from the Front
National, and some others from the opposition party, Les Republicains, left the
AMF. Marion Maréchal-Le Pen of the National Front, and the granddaughter of the
party's founder, stated:
"This recommendation is a provocation. Secularism is the neutrality
of public authorities regarding religions, separation of Church and State, and
refusal to finance any sect, but secularism does not mean the disappearance of
our folk traditions that may have a religious connotation. Catholic
in particular."
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, president of Debout La France ("Stand Up France"), said AMF's decision is "silly".
He added:
"French people cherish their culture. Some mayors put Christmas
cribs in their town halls, others do not. If French people love Christmas
trees, find it convenient to call Easter holidays "Easter holidays,"
and have Christian cribs in city halls, let them do it. Do not cut the roots of
the French, stop denying our people the right to be themselves."
On the left, most leaders refused to comment because they were afraid to
engage in a debate with the Front National.
On November 9, 2016, the Conseil d'État (Council of State), the highest
administrative court in France, edited guidelines for local administrative
courts to allow Christmas nativity scenes in city halls, but under strict
conditions (no proselytizing). In others words, a Christian
display is authorized if all elements of Christianity are removed from
it. A nativity scene must be "folklore" to be authorized, and
nativity cribs that belong to a religious organization remain prohibited in
city halls.
If nativity scenes are an extremely ancient Christian tradition, the
installation of Christmas nativity scenes in city halls is very recent. One of
the oldest was inaugurated in 1989. In most instances, displaying nativity
scenes was a reaction to try to preserve French culture, and a claim to preserve
the Christian roots of France
-- mostly, and without saying it -- against Islam.
François Fillon, a former Prime Minister of France, who is running for
president in the 2017 election as the candidate of the main center-right party,
welcomed the decision of the Council of State. In Valeurs Actuelles, he said:
"Christmas has long since left the only sectarian domain, the one of
religion, to get into the cultural universe, that of civilization... By making
the public space empty of everything that brings us together, by sucking
everything that makes the thickness and depth of the collective being French,
secularism is, paradoxically, the useful idiot of sectarianism: all the space
it empties, Islamists are eager to fill it, especially in disillusioned, brainless
and uprooted young heads".
In France, François Fillon (right), a former Prime Minister who is
running for president in the 2017 election, welcomed a recent court decision to
allow Christmas nativity scenes in city halls.
This argument, of "secularism as a vacuum", was also developed
by Philippe de Villiers, a prominent figure of the right and founder of
Movement for France (MPF). In the weeks before the Council of State's decision,
Villiers gave an interview to Le Figaro entitled, "Yes to nativity cribs,
No to djallabas". He explained:
"I expect the Council of State to make the choice, not of a secular
vacuum, which would be an in-draft to Islam, but to make the choice of a living
secularism, which is consistent with our traditions.... The Council of State
said "yes" to the burkini. If they say "no" to Christmas
nativity scenes, (they) will no longer be the Council of State of France that
protects us. They will become the Council of Islamic State".
The debate seems booby-trapped. Because the left has been unable to renew
and impose secularism, today the "right" and Islamists have agreed to
get rid of it.
"Secularism is just becoming a religion opposed to all other
religions", said Tariq Ramadan, a prominent figure of the Muslim
Brotherhood in Switzerland
and France,
in 2014. He congratulated mayors on Christmas nativity scenes probably because
he sees it as an opening for Islamic opportunities in the public sphere.
"We need a Republic authorizing the visibility of diversity, and not a
Republic of neutrality," Ramadan said.
**Mamou is a journalist and author based in France. He worked for two decades
for the daily, Le Monde, before his retirement.
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed
here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone
Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be
reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone
Institute.
Why is the EU defending Iran?
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Al Arabiya/December 30/16
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/12/30/dr-majid-rafizadehal-arabiya-why-is-the-eu-defending-iran/
This week, some of Iran’s Persian-language newspapers carried headlines
boasting about European countries defending Iran and robustly aligning with
Tehran.
European officials have even warned the US,
President-elect Donald Trump and the Republicans, that EU will not welcome or
tolerate tearing up the nuclear deal or re-imposing international pressure on Iran. Iranian
officials had made similar statements as well.
EU’s warnings highlight the notion that it does not desire to endanger its
improving ties with Tehran.
The EU desires to preserve its economic interests with Iran and the US simultaneously.
Despite the EU and Iran’s
warnings, which are aimed at changing US political calculations toward Iran through political posturing, Washington needs to strongly pursue its own objectives
and well-informed long-term orientated policies toward Iran. Then, the
EU will find no option than to follow the US footsteps because of the high
stakes involved.
What are the other reasons behind the notion that the EU is protecting the
Islamic Republic? What are the EU’s objectives? And what are the geopolitical,
strategic, and humanitarian repercussions of the EU’s appeasement policy
towards Iran?
Economic interests
The most prominent reason behind the EU’s positions
and appeasement policies toward Iran
involve preserving its economic interests and increasing trade with Iran.
The EU is dependent on Russia
in the energy sector. Iran’s
energy sector has seduced European countries. Iran possesses the world’s second
and fourth largest gas and oil reserves, respectively. European leaders are
planning to decrease Russia’s
political leverage over the EU by investing and upgrading Iran’s gas
sector.
But what the EU does not recognize is that, in the long term, by strengthening
the Islamic Republic’s establishment through trade, the EU is actually
bolstering the Iran-Russia axis in the Middle East
and beyond, tipping the balance of power against the EU.
What the EU does not recognize is that by strengthening the Islamic Republic’s
establishment through trade, the EU is actually bolstering the Iran-Russia axis
in the Middle East and beyond, tipping the balance of power
Beside energy imports, the EU is benefiting from exports to Tehran as well as
taking advantage of accessing Iranian markets, which is the largest untapped
market in the world. Iran
also has the 17th largest population in the world, the 2nd largest population
in the Middle East after Egypt;
the second largest economy in the Middle East and North
Africa; and enjoys a highly young and westernized population which
prefer Western products.
However, unfortunately, the major beneficiaries of EU trade with Iran are not
the ordinary Iranian people. Major industries in Iran such as the oil or gas sectors
are not privatized, but owned by the government. The EU’s major purchases from Iran are done
on the state level. Moreover, even those large Iranian companies that might
seem private, are owned indirectly by the IRGC or the
Supreme Leader.
The key beneficiaries are the Office of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
and Iran’s Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC) which have significant control over Iran’s
political and economic systems.
As a result, we can make the logical conclusion that a large amount of these
additional trade and revenues are channeled to be used to strengthen Iran’s military
complex and the hold on power by Khamenei and his Shiite cleric system. Iran is also
desperate for these dollars to continue expanding its influence in the region,
to support Bashar al-Assad, Shia militias, and shift the regional balance of
power in its favor.
Geopolitical and strategic factors
While trade is a critical factor for the EU,
geopolitical and strategic factors come next. The EU has not had an articulated
agenda addressing the nearly six-year war in Syria, or conflicts in other parts
of the region. The EU’s policy, similar to that of Obama’s administration, is
mainly anchored in the “wait and see” rather than a “proactive” foreign policy.
When a country, or political entity does not have a clear policy, it generally
tends to take the backseat and quietly allow another country, or entity, which
does have powerful, clear, and articulate strategy, to lead. Iran has very clear, consistent and articulate
policy towards Syria,
that of preserving the power of Assad and the Alawite-dominated state.
Furthermore, since ISIS has become the EU’s number one threat, causing the
Syrian war to become secondary, the EU is relying more and more on Iran to take
the lead. This is due to the notion that Tehran
has boasted about, and has successfully sold the idea, that Tehran
is the only country that has put forces on the ground in Syria or Iraq
to fight ISIS.
Finally, and unfortunately, the EU’s decision to view Iran solely from the prism of economic interests
and its primary goal of pursuing its trade interests,
inflicts harm on ordinary Iranian people and millions of Syrians who suffer
from Iran’s
military expansion and human rights abuses. The US and regional powers have the
power to alter EU’s calculations.
John Kerry tells it like it is
Fawaz Turki/Al Arabiya/December 30/16
Aaron David Miller, now a vice president at the Woodrow
Wilson Center
in Washington,
was once a career diplomat. Last June, he wrote a lengthy piece in the Outlook
section of the Washington Post where he shared with his readers, recollections
he had about his many years of service at the State Department. Let me in turn
share a lengthy quote from that piece with mine.
“For much of my 24-year career as a State Department Middle East analyst,
negotiator and adviser, I held out hope that a conflict-ending peace agreement
was possible,” he wrote.
“I had faith in negotiations as a talking cure and thought the United States
could arrange a comprehensive solution. I believed in the power of US
diplomacy. But by the time I left government in 2003, I was a disillusioned
diplomat and peace processor with serious doubts about what the United States could accomplish in the Middle East. I realize now that, like [John] Kerry, I was
tilting at windmills. US-brokered peace in the Middle East
is a quixotic quest, and the more we try and fail, the less credibility and
leverage we have in the region.”
Call it negotiator-fatigue. Or call it old-fashioned frustration. Earnest
enough though it may have been in its efforts to mediate a solution – but
stymied by Israel’s
incorrigible colonization project in Palestine –
the United States
finally had to admit that it didn’t have the horses to pull that wagon. And
make no mistake about it, President Obama’s administration over the last eight
years knew who stood in its way and sabotaged its efforts at every turn.
So that administration, in a parting shot at the culprit, finally lashed out,
not only by allowing, late last week, a Security Council resolution to pass,
that branded Israel’s colonization project in Palestine a “flagrant violation
of international law,” but by giving Secretary of State John Kerry a lot of
leeway to deliver a blistering attack on that project in a speech delivered at
the State Department’s Dean Acheson Auditorium on Wednesday.
Of course the Secretary of State, as any diplomat shooting for “balance”,
blasted Palestinian “incitement” and “violence,” but as for the pain these
folks endure as an occupied people, he showed great compassion
It was as if, to express his exasperation at having labored in vain all these
years, Kerry was now ready to say, fine, we’ve had it up to here with you
Netanyahu and Co. and now it's time to, well, tell it like it is. And did he
tell like it is!
“The Israeli prime minister publicly supports a two-state solution,” he told
the audience, “but his current coalition is the most right-wing in history,
with an agenda driven by its most extreme elements. The result is that policies
of this government – which the prime minister himself described as 'more
committed to settlements than any other in Israel’s history’ – are leading in
the opposite direction, towards one state: Greater Israel.”
A penitent apology
Wait, let’s rewind. Did we hear that right? Yes, we did. And the reference
clearly was to an apartheid, settler-colonial state.
As to why the US, five days earlier, had not vetoed that Security Council
resolution critical of Israel’s colonization practices, Kerry offered, instead
of a penitent apology, a blunt rebuke.
“My job, above all, is to defend the United States of America, to stand
up for and defend our values and our interests in the world,” he thundered. “If
we were to stand idly by and know that in doing so we are allowing a dangerous
dynamic to take hold which promises greater conflict, where we have vital
interests, we would derelict in our responsibilities.”
As for the outpost colonies, he had the issue pinned down pat. These colonies,
he said: “are often located on private Palestinian land and strategically
placed to make two states impossible – and there are one hundred of these
outposts.”
Then he added: “Just recently the [Israeli] government approved a significant
new settlement well east of the barrier, closer to Jordan
than Israel.
What does that say to Palestinians in particular – but also the US and the world – about Israel’s
intentions?”
Of course the Secretary of State, as any diplomat shooting for “balance” in his
speech, blasted Palestinian “incitement” and “violence,” but as for the pain
these folks endure as an occupied people, he showed great compassion in his
remarks.
“I have also visited the [Palestinian] West Bank communities, where I met
Palestinians struggling for basic freedoms and dignity amidst occupation,
pushed by the military checkpoints that can make the most routine daily trips
to work or school an ordeal, and heard from business leaders who could not get
the permits needed to get their products to market, and families who have
struggled to secure permission to travel for needed medical care.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, predictably, fulminated, railed and ranted. After all, is
not the US supposed to be –
has it not in fact been all these years – at Israel’s beck and call? But no matter. Donald Trump, not quite three weeks from now,
will be in the White House. He will set it back on track. And for his part, the
president-elect tweeted: “We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total
disdain and disrespect. They used to have a real friend in the US, but not
anymore. Stay strong Israel.
January 20th is fast approaching.” It seems that whereas the outgoing secretary
of state wanted to talk Israel
off the ledge, the incoming president wants to urge it to jump. Someone bring a
gurney, will you?
MS804 explosive traces: Unraveling the
skepticism over Egyptian claims
Martin Rivers/Al Arabiya/December 30/16
Under normal circumstances, news that traces of explosives have been found
after a major air disaster would send the safety-obsessed aviation industry
into a headspin. That was what happened in October 2015, when security was
tightened across the globe after it became apparent that Metrojet Flight 9268
had been downed by a bomb in Egypt.
Yet, just one year on, purported evidence of TNT traces on the victims of
EgyptAir flight MS804 – which crashed en route from Paris
to Cairo in May
– has been met with deafening silence by the industry and angry dismissals by
relatives of the victims.
Top of their concerns is the knowledge that Egypt has manipulated air crash
investigations in the past. In 2002, the Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority
(ECAA) rejected the findings of the more experienced US National Transportation
Safety Board (NTSB) after parallel investigations into EgyptAir Flight 990,
which had crashed into the Atlantic Ocean
three years previously.
The NTSB cited “irrefutable evidence” that pilot suicide by a disgruntled
employee had caused the disaster, whereas the ECAA declared that mechanical
failure was the “likely cause of the accident”. Air safety experts around the
world have dismissed the Egyptian account as a face-saving exercise. Now, seven
months after the loss of MS804, a similar disagreement between French and
Egyptian investigators appears to be taking shape.
Controversial claim
The Egyptian side confirmed last week that a coroner had found traces of explosives
on the remains of some bodies pulled from the Atlantic.
Evidence of a possible bomb plot was first reported by Le Figaro newspaper,
which revealed in September that French investigators had verified the presence
of TNT but were being denied the opportunity to fully examine the remains.
Le Figaro went on to claim that Egyptian requests to publish a joint report
with the French side had been rejected, owing to concerns about how the traces
had come to appear on the debris.
The clear implication was that French officials believed the evidence may have
been tampered with – though this was never publicly asserted by Paris.
Following the latest update from Cairo,
an unnamed Egyptian official confirmed to Reuters that the two sides had not
seen eye-to-eye during the initial stage of the investigation, with French
experts requesting additional time to study the findings. "That is why it
took so long to make an announcement," he said, implying that a consensus
had now been reached.
The obvious question is why would Cairo
fabricate a story about a terror attack – particularly given its parallel
efforts to downplay atrocities committed on its soil, including the Metrojet
disaster?
However, on the very same day as the Egyptian announcement, French air crash
investigation agency BEA issued its own statement making clear that it still
has doubts about the authenticity of the traces.
"In the absence of detailed information on the conditions and ways in
which samples were taken leading to the detection of traces of explosives, the
BEA considers that it is not possible at this stage to draw conclusions on the
origin of the accident," the French body said, leaving little doubt that
tampering remains a major concern in Paris.
The obvious question is why would Cairo
fabricate a story about a terror attack – particularly given its parallel
efforts to downplay atrocities committed on its soil, including the Metrojet
disaster? (Egyptian officials called that crash an “accident” for several
months, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.)
Face-saving exercise?
The answer, uncomfortably, is that this could be another misguided attempt at
face-saving. The fact that MS804 was on the return leg of its Cairo-Paris-Cairo
roundtrip means that any security breach would most likely have occurred in
France; specifically, at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. In such a scenario,
EgyptAir would largely be absolved of responsibility.
By contrast, most other plausible scenarios – mechanical failure, pilot error,
or an accidental fire caused by smoking cigarettes – would place the blame
squarely on EgyptAir, exposing the company to further reputational and
financial damage.
That is the conclusion reached by Stephane Gicquel, head of France’s
National Federation for Victims of Attacks and Accidents, who was quoted by AFP
as saying: “We are being manipulated. No substantiated element points to
terrorism. This is blackmail on the part of Egyptian authorities … to protect
the company EgyptAir by placing responsibility on Paris.”
Until both the Egyptian and the French authorities conclude their
investigations, observers can only speculate about what caused the crash. It
would be unwise to read too much into remarks made by either side at this
stage.
Nonetheless, news of contradictory findings is the last thing that relatives of
the 66 perished victims want to hear. They need to know the truth about their
loved ones’ final moments – and the wider world needs to know what measures, if
any, can be taken to avert similar catastrophes in future.
Stepping into the Middle East’s next security equation
Dr. Theodore Karasik/Al Arabiya/December 30/16
Reflecting on 2016, it is important to understand the transition underway. This
year’s legacy is one of swift change undermined by countries’ inability to
understand recent developments throughout the Middle East and North
Africa.
It is unclear whether Sykes-Picot or ISIS will outlive the other; Turkey has turned East
for a rapprochement with Russia;
and multi-contextual civil wars and vicious acts of terrorism plague numerous
Arab states. Most importantly, Russia
took charge in 2016 with not only the Kremlin’s fight in Syria but also by showing Moscow’s
prowess and ability to counter Washington
as a global power. The region is entering a new phase.
First, governance, and how economies evolve, are in flux. Although the Middle
East underwent a series of serious shifts in the ability to control contested
territory, the Gulf states
stepped forward, led by Saudi
Arabia’s entry of Vision 2030, with
ambitious plans for economic transformation.
What looked like a potential system-wide malfunction in Saudi Arabia’s
ailing economy is being reversed by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. During 2016, he made an impressive tour of the
US, France, Japan
and China, presenting Saudi Arabia’s
Vision 2030. With the release of the Saudi budget at the end of 2016 and
optimistic talk of Aramco’s IPO debuting in 2017, there is optimism.
Depressed oil prices
In 2016, depressed oil prices forced all Middle East states to make serious adjustments to their
economic policies by introducing robust plans, reforms, and vision. The
imbalance in the Middle East between
prosperity and poverty still exists, between urban and rural and areas, and
still in urban neighborhoods themselves.
Given the high probability for additional political and economic effects from
2016, several Middle East states from the Maghreb to the Levant – Algeria, Egypt,
and Jordan
– will face further domestic pressures.
Second, sectarian tension heightened this past year. Sectarian violence led to
unfathomable amounts of human suffering across Iraq,
Syria, and Yemen, along with sharpened rhetoric from the
leadership in Riyadh and Tehran. Iran’s
presidential election in June is obviously only going to embolden Tehran’s positions. Only
in the final months of 2016 did “the Egypt card” come up on this
sectarian front. Egypt’s
weakness means Tehran may seek an inroad to Cairo in the coming year.
The geopolitical costs and benefits of a new security architecture based on a
Trump administration is going to bring a new order to the Middle East that will
play out until 2020
Third, in 2016, urban warfare in the Middle East is in a continuing process of
destruction. Internationally-backed local armies and militias are fighting on a
multi-tiered chessboard, vying for land, power, and prestige. Operation
Inherent Resolve (OIR), as well as Russian, Syrian airstrikes, and later in the
year, Turkish jet fighters attacked urban areas in order to flush out extremists
of all stripes.
Yemen’s plight remains with Saudi Arabia’s Operation Restore Hope (ORH) and
the UAE’s fighting al-Qaeda Arabian Peninsula.
OIR Combined Joint Task Force Commander Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend stated that
the fight against ISIS will be two more years.
Reconstruction projects are still distant and that breeds discontent and
disease.
Fourth, terrorism will continue to spread its ugly impact with both al-Qaeda
and ISIS and their minions battling over their
own visions of achieving an apocalypse that is turning out to be more of a
mutation of extremism to meet current religious and ideological requirements.
Importantly, extremists are becoming more proficient at off the shelf military
technology to boost their UAV capabilities for both tactical and media
advantages.
This trend is likely to lead to more aggressive behavior by extremists and
their sympathizers. Low-tech high impact attacks may accompany more shootings,
bombings, and the use of heavy vehicles to mow over innocent crowds.
This past year witnessed the playing field between the Middle East and Europe
levelling out, meaning the ills and violence that bedevil the Middle
East for years now are embedded in European society as already
evidence by migrant issues and extremist violence.
Trump reset
By far, 2016 will be remember for Donald Trump. Trump,
who I wrote about winning in February 2016, is about to embark on a major reset
of relations with the Middle East through
transactional foreign policy.
The urban battles across the Middle East will continue with a resetting of the Middle East geo-political order by a Trump administration
willing to insert more resources into fighting extremism both with kinetics and
with a much-needed reboot of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs.
A Trump presidency that engages Russia,
Syria, Turkey, and Iran is going to cause an eruption
of support as well as despair from various quarters. To boot, Trump’s policy
toward Iran
in particular is going to enrage some and bring joy to others. These two
variants signal a tectonic shift is about to occur in the regional security
environment.
The geopolitical costs and benefits of a new security architecture based on a
Trump administration is going to bring a new order to the Middle East that will
play out until 2020. Clearly, leaving 2016 behind changes the regional security
picture; the New Year brings a more challenging, unprecedented moment.
Syria Will Stain Obama’s Legacy Forever
By David Greenberg/Foreign Policy/December 29, 2016
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/12/30/david-greenbergforeign-policy-syria-will-stain-obamas-legacy-forever/
https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/12/29/obama-never-understood-how-history-works/
The arc of history is long, but it won't ever judge the president's Syria
policy kindly.
Barack Obama’s impending departure from the White House has put many Americans in
an elegiac mood. Despite an average approval rating of only 48 percent — the
lowest, surprisingly, of our last five presidents — he has always been beloved,
if not revered, by the scribbling classes. Just as many prematurely deemed Bush
the worst president ever, so many are now ready to enshrine Obama as one of the
all-time greats.
Or at least they were until the fall of Aleppo.
Since the Syrian uprising began in 2011, Americans have regarded the carnage
there as essentially a humanitarian disaster. For Obama, contemplating his
legacy, the awful death and destruction that Syria has suffered — the 400,000
deaths, the wholesale wasting of civilian neighborhoods, the wanton use of
sarin gas and chlorine gas and barrel bombs, the untold atrocities — has raised
the old question of how future generations will judge an American president’s
passivity or ineffectuality in the face of mass slaughter.
Perhaps Obama has been hoping for a dispensation, since presidential
reputations have never suffered much for such sins of omission. With a few
notable exceptions, biographies, textbooks, obituaries, and even public memory
have dwelled little on George W. Bush’s inaction in Darfur, Bill Clinton’s
floundering over Rwanda, George H.W. Bush’s dithering about Bosnia, Jimmy Carter’s fecklessness in Cambodia, Gerald Ford’s cold realism toward East
Timor, or Richard Nixon’s complicity in Bangladesh. “Who,
after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” Hitler
reportedly said in 1939, predicting that the world’s amnesia about the Turks’
mass killings should allow his armies to proceed in all ruthlessness without
fear of judgment. We might think of those words in considering how little
attention in our history books is given to our presidents’ very limited roles
in standing up to atrocities overseas.
And yet now, as Obama’s presidency winds down, and a ceasefire begins to take
effect Syria that Washington played no role in negotiating, it’s becoming clear
that the loss of life and the humanitarian crisis represent just the first of
many consequences that historians will have to assess as they ask how the
United States, under Obama’s leadership, chose to deal, or not to deal, with
the Syrian Civil War. And if historians tend to give presidents a pass on
failing to arrest slaughter, they are not so generous in evaluating the loss of
American influence around the world.
Right now, the apparent loss of that influence seems to loom newly large.
The brutal Russian-backed assault in December crushed the Syrian resistance in
its main holdout city, Aleppo,
calling into question whether the rebel forces will still be able to carry on
any insurrection at all. President Bashar al-Assad is gathering with the
despots of Russia, Turkey, and Iran
to draw up the terms of resolution, pointedly excluding the United States
and the United Nations. Vladimir Putin seems high in his saddle.
For years, Obama has insisted that Syria
isn’t of great strategic importance to the United States. But that judgment
represents not just a break from decades of geostrategic thinking but a gamble
of considerable risk. If Obma is wrong, his miscalculation could have massive
implications. Should Russia displace the United States as the region’s
preeminent great power, it will affect America’s access to energy, its ability
to fight terrorism, its capacity to ensure Israel’s survival, and its
relationship with states like Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
Equally important are the implications of Obama’s Syria policy on Europe’s
immigration crisis. For decades the continent has struggled, with mixed
results, to assimilate Muslim arrivals from the Middle East and Africa, many of whom come bearing sharply alien cultural
values. But the new waves of Syrian refugees unleashed by the
failure to contain the civil war there has now created a crisis of
unparalleled magnitude. Countries from Turkey
and Hungary to Germany and France have been thrown into
turmoil. Cultural tensions escalated, empowering right-wing nationalist parties
across the continent and contributing to Britain’s vote to leave the
European Union. In the United
States this past year, Donald Trump
amplified his own pandering to anti-Mexican sentiment with new worries about an
influx of Syrian refugees — stoking anti-immigrant fears. Around the world, it
seems, the rise of noxious populist currents can be traced, at least in part,
to the deepening of the immigration crises by the Syrian war.
Yet a third result of Obama’s ineffectuality lay in the rise of the
Islamic State, a terrorist organization even more bloody-minded and bent on
conquest than the al Qaeda fragments from which it sprang. Obama obviously did
not create the Islamic State, contrary to Donald Trump’s absurd campaign-trail
slanders. But his administration was laggard in countering its gathering strength.
Although the terrorist outfit is on the defensive now, it continues to
orchestrate deadly strikes in Europe, and, indirectly, to inspire lone-wolf
attacks in the United States,
guaranteeing that terrorism will remain a major threat on both continents for
years to come.
Fourth, the failure to contain the Islamic State early on also forced the
United States to change its
strategy in Syria.
Turning his attention from Assad, Obama now chose to direct American military
assistance mainly into the fight against the radical Islamist group. Among
other effects, this reorientation of American policy made it much less likely —
if not impossible — for Obama to deliver on his August 2011 vow that Assad must
go.
Fifth and finally, it wasn’t only Assad who emerged emboldened.
Fatefully, in 2012 Obama had declared that if Assad were to use chemical
weapons, he would cross a red line that would require American military
intervention. A year later, evidence surfaced that Assad did precisely that,
firing rockets filled with sarin gas at towns around Damascus. But in the face of skeptical
congressional opinion at home, Obama backed down from reprisals. Instead he
settled for a Russian proposal that Syria merely dismantle its weapons
stockpiles, but face no punishment for its war crimes.
Obama has made clear that he disdains the concept of “credibility” — the
idea that the U.S.
must follow through on its commitments lest it get pushed around in the future.
But the reversal of policy in September 2013 on a clearly articulated principle
sent shivers from Seoul to Jerusalem to Tallinn — and may well have encouraged
America’s adversaries, including Russia, to test Obama further. Putin’s illegal
2014 seizure of Crimea and the ongoing fomenting of unrest in eastern and southern
Ukraine
were worrisome enough. But now evidence suggests that the Russian president
played a direct role in hacking Democratic Party officials’ emails in an effort
to tip the scales of the presidential election in favor of Trump. These
disclosures have shattered any claims that Obama showed sufficient resolve
against a formidable, confident, and completely immoral rival for geopolitical
influence.
How all of this will affect Obama’s reputation in the long run is
difficult to predict. Observers can only speculate, recognizing all the while
that we can’t know which elements of Obama’s policy future historians will
emphasize and which they will ignore, which they will esteem and which they
will scorn.
Sadly, it seems probable that Obama won’t be judged too harshly for
failing to arrest the carnage in Syria. For all our fretting,
inaction in the face of genocide or mass slaughter or humanitarian disaster has
never hurt our presidents much in the historical reckonings. It is true that in
the wake of the Holocaust, Americans grew conscious of the sufferings of
foreign peoples and of their own responsibility, as citizens of the world’s
mightiest nation, to try to do something. Looking at the past through this new
lens, even the sainted Franklin D. Roosevelt took a mild hit, as historians
learned more about and came to question his failure to assist the Jewish
refugees of Europe, to bomb the rail lines to Auschwitz, or otherwise impede or
retard Hitler’s killing machine. More recently, historians and journalists like
Samantha Power, Ben Kiernan, and Gary J. Bass directed historians’ attention to
other genocides and mass slaughters. Human rights advocates argued more
vociferously that the world’s mightiest nations had a duty to try to prevent
such atrocities.
But that consciousness peaked in the 1990s, and because military
interventionism has fallen out of fashion since the Iraq War, it has been
receding. Obama may have sought some solace in the fact that presidents’
reputations have not typically suffered for inaction in the face of mass
slaughter.
They do suffer, however, for frittering away American power and prestige.
Though Harry Truman wins high marks for his handling of the communist threat in
Europe, he and the Democratic Party were haunted for years by the question,
following Mao Zedong’s civil war victory in 1949, of “Who lost China?” — feeding a domestic political environment that arguably made his
successors keener to intervene in Vietnam,
Laos, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Similarly, Jimmy Carter’s inability
to deal effectively either with the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan
or the revolutionary Iranian government’s seizure of 52 American hostages
contributed to his defeat by Ronald Reagan in 1980 as well as to the low esteem
in which his foreign policy is held by scholars. Presidents can’t, of course,
always prevent the outbreak of conflicts and wars, but how they respond to
those wars — and whether the U.S.
emerges from them stronger or weaker, and the world
safer or more precarious — is a telling measure of leadership.
On the other hand, as Obama knows well, presidents also suffer for wars
gone badly. Lyndon Johnson should be remembered as one of America’s
greatest presidents, but his stubborn prosecution of the Vietnam War, despite
knowing it was unwinnable, has kept him out of the pantheon of greatness. (It’s
possible that when the Vietnam-obsessed Baby Boomers pass from the scene, LBJ
will be judged with greater balance and charity.) George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq,
similarly, with all its disastrous implications, is likely to remain the
central episode of his presidency for a long time, outranking even his more
successful response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
Indeed, Obama, entering office after Bush’s ruinous adventurism, made the
avoidance of another quagmire his primary goal. Encouraged by national security
aides who hailed from the realm of domestic politics, Obama let the fear of
crossing antiwar opinion dictate his path. Yet in treading lightly, Obama
misplaced his big stick. A conciliator by nature, he had reached the presidency
on promises to unite inimical groups — red-staters and blue-staters, whites and
blacks — and in his inaugural address he likewise pledged to bridge the gap
with the Arab world. But just as he wasn’t prepared for the implacability of
congressional Republicans, who scorned his outstretched hand in a bid to
bolster their own power, so he did not count on foreign adversaries taking
advantage of his aversion to conflict.
Obama’s Syria
legacy won’t be the only factor shaping how posterity regards his foreign
policy. The uneven efforts to wind down the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the
still-controversial Iran nuclear deal, the opening to Cuba, the weakening of al
Qaeda and other terrorist groups, the struggles to revive peace talks between
Israel and the Palestinians — these add up to a mixed and complicated record
whose implications will take time and thought to untangle. It may be that his
focus on building alliances in Asia will prove, despite the collapse of his
Trans-Pacific Partnership, to be of greater long-term significance than his
misadventures in Syria.
But for now it seems hard to escape the conclusion that in correcting for
Bush’s overly aggressive foreign policy, Obama went too far in avoiding confrontations,
and that in that halting and hesitant approach he wound up neither
strengthening his country’s influence and status nor its power to bring about
its ultimate goal of a safer and more peaceful world.
**David Greenberg is a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers. His most recent book is Republic of Spin:
An Inside History of the American Presidency.
What Is Behind the EU's Positions and
Appeasement Policies Toward Iran
Why Is the EU Defending Iran?
NCRI Iran News/December 30/16
Al Arabiya, today published an article in which
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh explores the EU policy towards Iran
in light of latest political developments, the following is the full text:
This week, some of Iran’s
Persian-language newspapers carried headlines boasting about European countries
defending Iran and robustly
aligning with Tehran.
European officials have even warned the US,
President-elect Donald Trump and the Republicans, that EU will not welcome or
tolerate tearing up the nuclear deal or re-imposing international pressure on Iran. Iranian
officials had made similar statements as well.
EU’s warnings highlight the notion that it does not desire to endanger
its improving ties with Tehran.
The EU desires to preserve its economic interests with Iran and the US simultaneously.
Despite the EU and Iran’s
warnings, which are aimed at changing US political calculations toward Iran through political posturing, Washington needs to strongly pursue its own objectives
and well-informed long-term orientated policies toward Iran. Then, the
EU will find no option than to follow the US footsteps because of the high
stakes involved.
What are the other reasons behind the notion that the EU is protecting
the Islamic Republic? What are the EU’s objectives? And what are the geopolitical,
strategic, and humanitarian repercussions of the EU’s appeasement policy
towards Iran?
Economic interests
The most prominent reason behind the EU’s
positions and appeasement policies toward Iran
involve preserving its economic interests and increasing trade with Iran.
The EU is dependent on Russia
in the energy sector. Iran’s
energy sector has seduced European countries. Iran possesses the world’s second
and fourth largest gas and oil reserves, respectively. European leaders are
planning to decrease Russia’s
political leverage over the EU by investing and upgrading Iran’s gas
sector.
But what the EU does not recognize is that, in the long term, by
strengthening the Islamic Republic’s establishment through trade, the EU is
actually bolstering the Iran-Russia axis in the Middle
East and beyond, tipping the balance of power against the EU.
Beside energy imports, the EU is benefiting from exports to Tehran as well as taking
advantage of accessing Iranian markets, which is the largest untapped market in
the world. Iran also has the
17th largest population in the world, the 2nd largest population in the Middle
East after Egypt; the second
largest economy in the Middle East and North Africa;
and enjoys a highly young and westernized population which prefer Western
products.
However, unfortunately, the major beneficiaries of EU trade with Iran are not
the ordinary Iranian people. Major industries in Iran such as the oil or gas sectors
are not privatized, but owned by the government. The EU’s major purchases from Iran are done
on the state level. Moreover, even those large Iranian companies that might
seem private, are owned indirectly by the IRGC or the
Supreme Leader.
The key beneficiaries are the Office of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei and Iran’s
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which have significant control over Iran’s
political and economic systems.
As a result, we can make the logical conclusion that a large amount of
these additional trade and revenues are channeled to be used to strengthen Iran’s military
complex and the hold on power by Khamenei and his Shiite cleric system. Iran is also
desperate for these dollars to continue expanding its influence in the region,
to support Bashar al-Assad, Shia militias, and shift the regional balance of
power in its favor.
Geopolitical and strategic factors
While trade is a critical factor for the EU,
geopolitical and strategic factors come next. The EU has not had an articulated
agenda addressing the nearly six-year war in Syria, or conflicts in other parts
of the region. The EU’s policy, similar to that of Obama’s administration, is
mainly anchored in the “wait and see” rather than a “proactive” foreign policy.
When a country, or political entity does not have a clear policy, it
generally tends to take the backseat and quietly allow another country, or
entity, which does have powerful, clear, and articulate strategy, to lead. Iran has very clear, consistent and articulate
policy towards Syria,
that of preserving the power of Assad and the Alawite-dominated state.
Furthermore, since ISIS has become the EU’s number one threat, causing
the Syrian war to become secondary, the EU is relying more and more on Iran to take
the lead. This is due to the notion that Tehran
has boasted about, and has successfully sold the idea, that Tehran
is the only country that has put forces on the ground in Syria or Iraq
to fight ISIS.
Finally, and unfortunately, the EU’s decision to view Iran solely from the prism of economic interests
and its primary goal of pursuing its trade interests,
inflicts harm on ordinary Iranian people and millions of Syrians who suffer
from Iran’s
military expansion and human rights abuses. The US and regional powers have the
power to alter EU’s calculations.
Iran: Rouhani's Demagogic and Cruel
Approach Toward Homeless "Grave-Sleepers"
NCRI Iran News/December 30/16
One Homeless: “Officers came this morning, beat us up, took our
belongings, kicked us out and left.”Following the rise of social turbulence
regarding the shocking phenomenon of homeless “Sleeping in Graves”
in the cold season, the Iranian regime’s president Hassan Rouhani tried to
evade accountability and justify the situation by stating, “Who can accept that
dozens of his countrymen who have suffered «social ills» take refuge in graves
at night because of homelessness?” Rouhani’s appointed Governor in Shahriar County promised to specifically deal
with the situation of the homeless sleeping in Nasir-Abad cemetery. However,
their approach toward addressing this problem was cruel and demagogic.
The state-run Shahrvand (Citizen) newspaper in an article titled
“Gathering Grave-Sleepers,” reported the ruling mullahs’ so-called plan and
their approach to organize and take care of the homeless sleeping in empty
graves: “Now, among 300 empty graves in Nasir Abad cemetery, only one
(homeless) person remains. His name is Behrouz. Alone in an empty grave beside
299 other empty graves, Behrouz explains: ‘Officers came this morning, beat us
up, took our belongings, kicked us out and left. And now I am the only one
here.’ These are the only words Behrouz could tell us from inside the empty
grave, a grave that is lightened by only a small flame (to warm him up in the
scorching cold).”
Instead of solving the problem by providing food and proper shelter,
Rouhani’s government through his appointed governor dispatch the police and
municipality agents to beat up and remove the homeless. They are in fact trying
to wipe out the problem without providing a fundamental solution to
homelessness and poverty. Indeed, they are trying to hide the shocking tragedy
and show the tragedy does not exist anymore or resolved by beating up and
dispersing the homeless.
“Some people came and tried to disperse us by kicking and beating us.
They were from the municipality and the police. However, those we saw were not
wearing uniform or certain outfit. They were not trying to help but just wanted
to disperse us. They took our things and left,” Behrouz said, according to
Shahrvand newspaper.
When asked why he doesn’t go to Garm-Khaneh or Warm House (a camp-like
shelter), Behrouz responded: “I used to go to Garm Khaneh, but each time I go
there it cost 25 thousand Tomans ($6.5 dollars) round trip. I cannot afford it.
I don’t have any money. What does it take for the government to build a shelter
here? It is as easy as pie for them. We are not foreigners? We are Iranian too.
Aren’t we human beings? What does it take for the governor or the mayor to
build a shelter here? It is as easy as drinking a glass of water for them.”
“In the last 40 to 50 days that the weather became cold, I built 5 shacks
as shelter so far but the police and security and municipality agents burned or
destroyed them each time, and now I have to sleep in the desert. I find a
plastic sheet and pull it over my head to protect myself against wind and
rain,” Behrouz added.
When asked if they were not afraid of sleeping beside the death, Behrouz
said: “No, we are not. Living beside the people who are alive is more difficult
than living beside the death. We realized this after they came in the morning
and kicked us out after beating.”
The state-run newspaper concludes the article by writing: “Grave-Sleepers
are neither organized nor taken care of, but dispersed. The authorities of
Shahriar county municipality, near Tehran,
announced yesterday that they have organized and taken care of these homeless
Grave-Sleepers but in fact they have not. They just beat them out, removed them
from the cemetery and dispersed them. They (the homeless) took everything that remained
for them such as torn and dirty blankets… and went away… They went to find some
sort of refuge in the dessert, a dungeon, corner of a collapsed wall or
unfinished buildings nearby away from the eyes of the police and municipality
and governorate.”
Through his demagogic statements regarding this problem, Rouhani is
apparently taking the plaintiff position as if he is a regime outsider and not
responsible for the fundamental problems of poverty and homelessness and its
consequences in Iran.
He states: “We had heard that some due to addiction, poverty, and destitution,
sleep in the streets, sleep under bridges… But we had rarely heard of grave
sleepers. We had rarely heard that a poor person sleeps in a grave due to
poverty and destitution.”
He does not explain that the real reason for the “social ills” that he
referred to in his statements and the real reason for the catastrophic social
and economic situation, including the shocking tragedy of homeless “Sleeping in
Graves” is nothing but the regime’s economic, social and foreign policies.
Indeed, Rouhani must be held accountable and must answer why he has spent
and is spending billions of dollars of unfrozen assets to fund IRGC’s terrorist
Quds force and affiliated militias and mercenaries to participate in the
massacre of innocent people in Aleppo and other Syrian cities, ballistic
missile production, continuing executions and internal suppression and allowing
the mullahs and their close circles to plunder a major part of the Iranian
national wealth, but has done nothing to provide a simple shelter for these
helpless people or to address the fundamental problems of poverty and
homelessness?
Ex-CIA director: I was sure if we
didn’t strike Syria’s nuclear reactor, Israel would
Ronen Bergman/Ynetnews/December 30/16
Gen. Michael Hayden provides an inside look into the attack that stopped
Assad’s nuclear ambitions in their tracks. From that fateful moment when Meir
Dagan entered his office with photos of the reactor, through the clash between
the Mossad director and the CIA’s analysts, who feared an all-out-war with
Syria, to the secret meeting at Bush’s residence in which Hayden announced:
‘Mr. President, the Syrians are building a nuclear reactor, and it is part of a
weapons program.’
“It was one of the most candid conversations I’ve ever had with him,” says Gen.
Michael Hayden as he recounts that fateful meeting with Mossad director Meir
Dagan on the seventh floor of the United States Central Intelligence Agency
headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It was in April 2007, at the
office of General Hayden, the director of the CIA at the time. When Hayden with
his broad smile talks about a “candid conversation,” he means one between two
people who have known each other for many years and had great respect for one
another. But at least in that conversation, there was total disagreement
between them. That charged conversation at Langley
revolved around one question: “How can this thing, which undoubtedly endangers
the peace in the region, be destroyed without starting an all-out war in the Middle East?”“This thing” was the Syrian nuclear reactor
that was secretly being built at the time in Deir ez-Zor, not far from the Euphrates River.
Several months earlier, Hayden recounts, at that very same desk, the late
Mossad director showed Hayden photos of that secret site, the first the Mossad
was able to obtain. Since then, the two nations’ intelligence communities have
mounted a worldwide covert intelligence gathering operation in an effort to
understand what exactly was happening in Deir ez-Zor and at what stage of the
construction was the reactor. The conclusion the two intelligence communities
reached, according to Hayden, were more or less the same: North Korea was
building a nuclear reactor in Syria that was similar to the one in its capital
of Pyongyang, and this clandestine project could only have one objective:
developing nuclear weapons.But the two intelligence chiefs were of different
minds regarding one question: What should their countries do with that
information?
Hayden says that Meir Dagan tried to convince him to walk into the Oval Office
and convince President Bush to send a squadron of B2 stealth bombers to destroy
the reactor. Hayden, who was basing his position on what he heard from the
CIA’s expert analysts, was sure that if the US did that, Assad would launch an
all-out-war.“In hindsight,” Hayden says, “it turns out
Meir was right to think Assad would actually show restraint and not retaliate,
and my analysts were wrong.”What happened next is no secret. In September 2007,
Israel
mounted an airstrike on the Syrian reactor and destroyed it. Despite the fact
nine years have passed and Syria
is currently being torn by a civil war, this complex operation, which remains
shrouded in mystery, still ignites the imagination of journalists from across
the globe, who continue publishing contradictory
reports about the strike. I met Hayden recently at his corner office,
overlooking Washington, DC’s
beautiful views, at Chertoff Group, one of the biggest security consultancies
in the US,
of which he is a partner. The meeting was in honor of the release of his
autobiography, “Playing to the Edge,” which includes a chapter on the discovery
and bombing of the reactor. Hayden agreed to share his fascinating testimony of
the Syrian reactor affair—from the moment Dagan showed up in his office with
the implicating photos, through the arguments at the top echelons of Israeli
and American leaderships, to the decisive meeting at the White House, the
attack on the reactor, and the series of events that followed it both in the
Middle East and in Washington. Hayden recounted every moment of one of the most
dramatic events of that time, with President Bush and Prime Minister Olmert at
the helm and Hayden and Dagan as the senior intelligence officers at their
side. On the agenda: Syria, an enemy state to Israel with close ties to Iran
and Hezbollah, which was working to obtain a nuclear bomb that would change the
balance of power in the Middle East. The stakes: Syria’s missile arsenal includes
chemical warheads that cover the entire Israeli territory. American analysts
warned that bombing this reactor could lead to a war whose outcome was unknown.
On the other hand, Dagan makes it absolutely clear: “Israel cannot accept a situation in
which an enemy state is armed with nuclear weapons.”And now, a fateful decision
had to be made that could alter the course of history.
The smoking gun, or: The Syrian ‘Godfather’ allegory
In 1991, then-Syrian President Hafez Assad made a military acquisition alliance
with the dictatorial regime in North Korea. He purchased missiles, as well as a
lot of knowledge on how to produce more advanced missiles. He viewed this
arsenal as a counterbalance to nuclear weapons he believed Israel had. For
many years, the Israeli intelligence community believed that the Syrian
leadership thought its chemical weapons were enough to maintain the balance of
power against Israel and
that Damascus
was not trying to obtain nuclear weapons.
But what Israel
did not know was that near the end of the 1990s, something changed for the
Syrian president. It might have had something to do with the tragedy that
befell him when his beloved elder son and heir, Bassel, was killed in a car
accident. Since his second son, Maher, was considered hot-headed (if not worse
than that), Assad senior was left with only one option for heir: His third son,
Bashar, who was in London
at the time, doing his postgraduate degree in ophthalmology.
Seen as the more absent-minded, timid daydreamer among his brothers, Bashar was
nevertheless summoned from London by his father
Hafez who, until his death in June 2000, trained his son to be the next leader
of Syria.
At the time—it’s unclear on whose initiative—the possibility arose for Assad
senior to buy a nuclear reactor from the North Koreans that would create
military-grade plutonium to be used in building a nuclear bomb. Assad
eventually signed a contract with North Korea to build that reactor,
but construction was done at a relatively slow pace. “It’s quite possible,” Hayden
says, “that the reason he started this project was because he was worried his
son was too weak and not really fit to lead Syria after his death, and he
sought to leave Bashar with a powerful weapon that would ensure his survival.”
Bashar Assad tied his fate to Iran
and Hezbollah. His representative in this alliance, the “Radical Front” as it
is referred to by the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate’s Research
Division, was a mysterious man called Gen. Muhammad Suleiman. He was so
mysterious that his name and appearance remained a secret until his death,
despite the fact he was a general. Suleiman was an engineering graduate of Damascus University,
underwent countless of technology and military training courses in the Soviet Union, and was a man whose great talent was
surpassed only by his extremism. The ties to Iran
and Hezbollah, Syria’s
involvement in terror activity and in drug trade, and its continued presence in
Lebanon
among other reasons, have all led the American intelligence community to underestimate
the new Syrian president. In the argument that would take place several years
later between Hayden and Dagan over what should be done about the Syrian
reactor, the CIA director told his Mossad counterpart that the Assad family
reminded him of the Corleone family from Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. “There is
no doubt the Assads, along with the Makhloufs who are tied to them in bonds of
marriage and partnerships, were just as busy with crime and committing
particularly cruel acts as they were with ruling over Syria,” Hayden told
Dagan.
Just like in The Godfather, the Assad family also lost its older son, the heir
apparent. In The Godfather, that son is Sonny, who in the movie is murdered by
assassins. But when Sonny was rubbed out, the Don had the gifted Michael to
replace him. When Basel Assad was killed in an accident, Hafez had to settle
for the one who represented Fredo, the weak and lazy brother, the one no one
had ever imagined would ever get to a position of power—Bashar.”Assad junior
was known in the CIA as a “serial miscalculator.” Hayden reveals that “we tried
to cooperate with him against the terrorists who were fighting us in Iraq, but
almost without success. The Syrians looked the other way when this activity
crossed into their territory.” Assad junior may have been a failed serial
gambler, but on one thing he took no chances: His fear of just how much the
Mossad and the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate knew about what was
going on inside his country. Bashar became truly obsessed with his loathing—and
admiration—to the Israeli intelligence community. He was convinced that any
phone call or digital message in Syria was being intercepted by
Israeli intelligence. “He truly believed that every time Mustafa was calling
Mohammad, Moishe’le was listening in,” says a senior intelligence officer in
the IDF’s elite 8200 unit with a smile. To evade the Israeli intelligence
community’s watchful eye, General Suleiman carried out his special clandestine
missions through a bureaucratic and operational body, which was completely
separated and isolated from the rest of the Syrian defense establishment. Assad
authorized Suleiman to keep knowledge of the existence and operations of this
body even from the most senior military figures in Syria, including the army’s chief
of staff and the defense minister. When Israel discovered this
activity—quite late in the game—officials in the Military Intelligence
Directorate would dub it “General Suleiman’s Shadow Army.”
Suleiman instructed his men to send any important message, any plan, only in
envelops sealed with wax, using a network of messengers on motorcycles. It
worked. Suleiman’s operations were kept completely hidden from the Israeli
intelligence community despite the great resources invested to ensure it missed
nothing important. General Suleiman kept the greatest secret of all hidden in
Deir ez-Zor, in northeastern Syria.
There, at an isolated and faraway area, construction was underway on the
nuclear reactor the Syrians bought from North
Korea with the help of Iranian funds (intelligence
officials both in Israel and
the US are still split on
whether or not Iran knew
what the money it was giving Syria
was being used for). Such a reactor could produce plutonium for a nuclear bomb,
which the young Assad believed would help Syria
reach strategic equality with Israel.
The nuclear reactor project was so clandestine and compartmentalized that even
Syrian Chief of Staff Ali Habib Mahmud didn’t know anything about it. When he
heard that Israel
attacked a facility in the area, he thought they had got the wrong address.
For many years, Israel
had no idea what was going on in the isolated compound in Deir ez-Zor. The fact
Israel
didn’t know the reactor was being built “is a failure akin to that of the Yom
Kippur War (the surprise attack in October 1973) for the Israeli intelligence
community,” one of the former intelligence heads told me. Hayden says that
already in 2001, the CIA began to gather scattered, unverified and ambiguous
information about nuclear ties between Syria
and North Korea.
It will be years before the real meaning of this information comes to light.
Only after Dagan came to Hayden with the photos of the reactor. In 2004,
according to Hayden’s notes, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency—an
agency in the US Defense Department whose primary mission is collecting,
analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence—discovered the reactor site
and marked it as “enigmatic,” but “we couldn’t exactly tell what it was,”
Hayden explains. That year, the US National Security Agency intercepted a
series of transmissions from the Deir ez-Zor area to North Korea, in a North Korean code
the CIA was unable to break. The turning point was when the Mossad was able to
obtain photographs that the head of the Atomic Energy Commission of Syria,
Ibrahim Othman, took with him on a trip to Europe.
The German weekly Der Spiegel claimed the Mossad managed to get the photos from
him in London, while the New Yorker reported it
happened in Vienna.
Either way, the knowledge that Syria
was at an advanced stage of its nuclear project and that Israel was
oblivious to it hit the Israeli intelligence community hard. “Meir came to me
with this material (the photos taken from Othman’s laptop),” recalled Ehud
Olmert, “and it was like an earthquake. I realized that from now on everything
would be different.”
The options on the table, or: Dagan’s brilliant trick
According to few reports, the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate and the
Mossad launched a wide-scale operation to gather intelligence about the
reactor, Suleiman, and his “Shadow Army.”A report by David Makovsky in the New
Yorker claimed that in June 2007, Olmert instructed to dispatch a special
operations unit to within a mile of the reactor to gather soil, water and
vegetation samples that would help determine whether the reactor had already
gone hot and to conduct observations of the security at the facility. At the
same time, Olmert sent Dagan, along with his chief of staff Yoram Turbowicz and
political advisor Shalom Turgemen, to Washington
to brief Hayden and the White House. By this time, when he rode the elevator up
to the seventh floor of CIA HQ at Langley,
he was already a familiar—and welcome—guest. Dagan first met with Hayden in
2003, when the latter was leading the NSA. “He was to the point, an
intelligence officer in every bone in his body, and he listened to what I
proposed,” Dagan said. The result was very impressive and initiated an era of
deep cooperation between the two agencies. Thus it came to pass that Dagan, who
lacked the niceties and polish of the American elites, and whose English was
pretty basic, succeeded in establishing the closest ever mutual trust between
the top echelons of the intelligence agencies of the two countries.
“I never felt being manipulated,” Hayden says of Dagan. “No, no. He was
representing Israel,
and he was representing Mossad, and he was representing Israeli policy. But I
never had the impression that he was trying to mislead me for Israeli
advantage.”Dagan, according to Hayden, was “straightforward, plain spoken,
bluntly honest, unpretentious, sincere and very knowledgeable.”The former CIA
chief also described the relationship between the two intelligence agencies:
“We’re big, we’re rich, technologically sophisticated, and we’re global,” while
the Israelis are “small, focused, culturally and linguistically smart and
relevant to the targets (Jihadist terrorism and attempts by Middle Eastern
countries to develop weapons of mass destruction).”When Hayden was named head
of the CIA in 2005, he further deepened collaboration with the Mossad. Every
time that Dagan came to visit, he brought with him sensitive information and
suggestions—some of them quite imaginative—for joint operations. But at that
April meeting, not even the experienced Hayden anticipated the bombshell.
“Dagan sat down, opened his briefcase and took out color copies of the pictures
of the reactor at Deir ez-Zor.” For an hour, Dagan “walked me through the
intelligence” and wanted to know whether the CIA experts agreed with the Mossad’s
analysis of the intelligence material. Dagan, Hayden says, realized that with
all due respect for the Mossad’s capabilities in Syria, his agency had almost
no information about what was happening at the other end of the nuclear
deal—North Korea. So he asked Hayden to take the information he had brought
“and plug it into the CIA’s broader knowledge of North Korea.” Incidentally, the
fact Dagan was sharing the Israeli intelligence’s top secret with his American
colleague surprised the CIA director, considering the “less-than-glamorous
record of the American administration with keeping secrets,” Hayden says.
During the interview, Hayden wonders aloud whether that generosity might have
had another reason, which Dagan did not state specifically. “He wanted me to
influence American policy on this matter,” Hayden offers. In other words, Dagan
wanted the American intelligence community to tell the decision-makers at the
White House that they share Israel’s
factual assessment of the situation, which could have an effect on the kind of
measures Israel was going to
ask the US
to take in light of this monumental development. After that meeting, Dagan left
the CIA headquarters and headed to the White House with Turbowicz and Turgemen
to apprise Stephen Hadley, the then-US National Security Council chief, of the
situation. Back at Langley,
Hayden was left with a group of his closest senior aides. “Meir never told me
where they got the photos from,” Hayden recounts. “Our guess was that they
downloaded them from the computer of a careless Syrian scientist. But none of
that really mattered. What Meir showed me was pretty convincing. The question
was only whether this was authentic material or a form of very sophisticated
forgery.”The first task Hayden gave his experts was to ascertain whether the
photos had been doctored. Hayden did not suspect the Mossad of doctoring the
photos, but because he did not know where Israel had obtained the photos
from, he instructed his experts to make every effort to determine whether the
photos were real. Hayden’s experts had doubts concerning one of the photos
Dagan had brought them. They zoomed in to closely examine the side of one of
the trucks in the photo, and thought the writing on it might have been
photoshopped. But the rest of the photos passed the strict examination and were
found to be authentic. The CIA’s photo lab even constructed three-dimensional
computerized models of the facility in Deir ez-Zor based on the photos and
compared them to other photos. Everything matched exactly.
The day after his meeting with Dagan, Hayden was called to the White House for
an urgent meeting. President Bush had already received a general update from
Hadley on the matter. While the gathered officials waited for Bush to join
them, Hayden turned to Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been claiming Syrian
was trying to obtain nuclear weapons for a long time, and whispered in his ear:
“You were right all along, Mr. Vice President.”Hayden presented Bush with the
photos he got from Dagan. “That was the very last thing he needed,” Hayden
recounts, “having to take action in a region where any action could spark a
war, with an ally that has the ability and the desire to work alone.”President
Bush already learned a sobering lesson when US
intelligence agencies had told him that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction, leading him into a long, bloody war in Iraq. He summed up the meeting with
two clear-cut but rather contradictory orders: “Number one, be sure. Number
two, this can’t leak.”Hayden went back to Langley
wondering how to corroborate the Israeli information without spreading the word
about. “To be sure, you want to get more people involved, but that increases
the risks of spilling the secret.”Hayden joked with his close aides that if
Assad learned that his reactor had been found out and that the Americans and
Israelis were investigating the matter, he’d immediately get rid of all of the
implicating evidence “and claim that this was a daycare center.” After all,
“the building itself,” Hayden says, “looked from the
air like a Walmart store.”But the head of the CIA was well aware that if the
information does leak, the joke would be at his expense. In an attempt to
reconcile the president’s two orders, Hayden formed an inquiry team, in what
was later described in a classified cable from Condoleezza Rice as “an
intensive, months-long effort to confirm and corroborate the information Israel provided
us on the reactor and to gather more details from our own sources and
methods.”The conclusions of the team—which included experts from the Pentagon,
the CIA and the NSA—were deeply troubling: “the facility is in fact a nuclear
reactor of the same type North Korea built indigenously at its Yongbyon nuclear
facility … We have good reason to believe this reactor was not intended for
peaceful purposes.”
Hayden says he had formed a “red team” that was instructed to “build an
alternative case as to why it’s not a nuclear reactor.” The team, made up of
analysts who had not yet been “read in” on the intelligence regarding the
Syrian reactor, received all of the data and intelligence, and after close
examination and thorough investigation came back with the following conclusion:
“If it isn’t a nuclear reactor, it must be a fake nuclear reactor.” In other
words: It’s a Syrian plot to make it appear as if they were covertly building a
nuclear reactor. Of course, such a thing would be highly unlikely, and so the
red team essentially confirmed the conclusion that what Syria was
building in Deir ez-Zor was indeed a nuclear reactor.In a meeting between
Olmert and Bush, recounted by the president in his autobiography, the Israeli
prime minister asked the Americans to bomb the Syrian reactor. When he returned
home, Olmert reported to a small group in his cabinet that it was his understanding
that Bush was going to bomb the reactor.
US President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert (Photo: Avi Ohayon, GPO)
US President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert (Photo: Avi Ohayon, GPO)
But during that time, a heated argument took place between Hayden and his
analysts and Dagan and his men. The background to that argument was the murder
of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri a year and a half earlier by Hezbollah
assassins who were sent by Syria.
The outcry from the international community and the immense pressure that Bush
and then-French President Jacques Chirac put on Assad have led to the
withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon. “Assad could not stand another
embarrassment after the (2005) withdrawal from Lebanon,” Hayden said. “Out of
weakness, he would have to show his strength and retaliate with war.”Dagan took
the exact opposite view: “You had to look at it from Assad’s point of view,” he
said. “On the one hand, he had always wanted to reach strategic equality with Israel, and therefore
get his hands on nuclear weapons. On the other hand, Bashar Assad always
preferred not to confront us directly. Furthermore, if he went to war after the
bombing, it would expose the existence of the nuclear installation—that he had
built an atomic facility in violation of his signature on the NPT—which even
the Russians, his allies, don’t know about, and for sure would not be happy to
know of it. If we were to attack covertly, and keep it totally under wraps
without publicizing it and embarrassing him, Assad would not do
anything.”Dagan’s recommendation was to bomb posthaste, before the reactor
becomes active and its destruction could cause radioactive pollution. Hayden
says that Dagan was very firm in his stance: “Israel cannot accept a situation in
which an enemy state is armed with nuclear weapons.”
On the other hand, if war with Syria
had broken out, it is safe to assume that while it would have ended in Israel’s
victory, this win would be costly: Thousands of victims and a significant
change of the political situation in the region. The dark prophecies of
Hayden’s analysts led to intense consultations at a series of forums in the
American intelligence community, at the National Security Council, and at the
White House. “It was clear to us that a strictly diplomatic approach would not
lead anywhere,” Hayden says. Theoretically, the Americans could make the
existence of the reactor public and hand over the information they had gathered
to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). But the Americans realized
that this would eventually lead to endless stalling by Assad, who would
repeatedly postpone visits by the IAEA’s inspectors to the reactor. The damage
would be enormous: The entire world would realize the US was sitting
on this information and failed to act decisively. Meanwhile, Assad would hide
the evidence so “eventually, we would have looked completely pathetic,” Hayden
asserts.
Another possibility that was raised was a commando operation of a Delta
Force—the Navy SEALs—or another American Special Forces unit. The advantage of
such an operation is, of course, that it is low profile, doesn’t point an
accusatory finger at anyone, and might stop Syria from launching an all-out-war
in retaliation. The downside is that Syria
will probably blame the United
States regardless, and that “it wasn’t clear
whether the force would be able to carry enough explosives to blow up the
entire facility. And, of course,” Hayden adds, “the danger the SEALs would be
caught.” A third operation on the table: Bombarding the facility. “B2 stealth
bombers that would take off from one of our bases in the Mediterranean or the Persian Gulf could reach the facility and destroy it,”
Hayden explains. “Syria’s
aerial defense was respectable, but nothing we couldn’t handle.”
But the American intelligence analysts believed that such a public attack risks
an all-out-war breaking out. “The more we thought about it, the more we reached
the conclusion a hybrid option was preferable: Diplomatic action that entails
an ultimatum of military action,” Hayden says. The American intelligence
community’s recommendation was “To démarche the Syrians with a threat,” to
publish the incriminating photos in a special White House statement, and give
the Syrians only a few days or weeks to dismantle the installation and to allow
IAEA inspectors access to the site to ascertain that this had been done. If the
Syrians refused—immediately follow up with an attack on the reactor. “The weak
point of this solution was that it gave Assad enough time to gather some of the
7,000 American citizens in Syria
and take them hostage.” With these options, Hayden went into the boss’s office.
It was time to make a decision.
Meeting in the Yellow Oval Room, or: ‘No Core, No War’
The crucial meeting took place at the White House. The matter was so secret
that the meeting wasn’t held in the West Wing, but on the second floor of the
White House’s residential area—in the Yellow Oval Room—to keep it out of the
president’s public schedule. The meeting included President Bush, his vice
president, the defense and state secretaries, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, the national security adviser, the heads of the American intelligence
community, and others. As the guests sank into the comfortable arm chairs, the
staff served them iced tea and then left. Stephen Hadley turned to Hayden and
asked him for the latest intelligence update. “Mr. President,” Hayden began, “I
have an update that contains four main points. The first: it is a nuclear
reactor; the second: the Syrians and North Koreans have been cooperating on
nuclear matters for about a decade; the third: the North Koreans are the ones
who built the facility in Deir ez-Zor; and the forth: the facility is part of a
(greater) plan to produce nuclear weapon.
“I imagined that after I said those things, everyone would think about the Iraq affair,”
Hayden remembers. That is why he quickly explained why the Syria case was
different and why this time there was a very high degree of certainty that the
facility is in fact a nuclear reactor. Hayden then explained that the nuclear
reactor was “an exact copy of the reactor in Yongbyon and that the Koreans were
the only ones to build these reactors since they purloined the designs from the
British in the 1960s.” At this point Hayden paused for a moment, allowing the
gathered officials to take a deep breath, and continued with a statement just
as dramatic: “But Mr. President, I was unable to locate the other parts of the
Syrian nuclear weapon program: Not the reprocessing facility (chemically
separating and recovering fissionable plutonium from irradiated nuclear fuel);
nor the “weapons group” (of scientists and engineers building the bomb itself
and its explosive mechanism). Therefore, Mr. President, there is only a low
degree of certainty regarding these parts.”
During the silence that followed, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said
she wished she had such intelligence officers several years earlier, referring
of course to the search for the Iraqi WMDs that were never found. Rice knew the
danger posed by the existence of a nuclear reactor, but objected to an American
attack against it. Vice President Cheney disagreed, arguing that the US must attack to send out a strong message to Syria, North Korea
and Iran—that the United States would
not tolerate such behavior.
Hayden said that one thing was clear to him, “that we kind of used up all of
our preemptive attack chips. And besides, we stuck to the mantra that: No Core,
No War (referring to an active nuclear core). I could not say with certainty
that the Syrians didn’t have a weapons group or a reprocessing facility but
neither I nor the Israelis had any proof those exist.” President Bush, who was
deeply entangled in two wars against Muslim nations, concluded the discussion
with: “What Mike (Hayden) just told me is this is not imminent danger, and
therefore, we will not do this.” The option that was then raised—and was
accepted by most of the officials present—was making an ultimatum to the
Syrians. But the implementation of this plan depended on the agreement of the
Israelis, who provided the US
with the photos and information, to make this knowledge public. But Dagan would
in no way allow that. Despite reaching a dead end, Hayden remembers that “I was
pretty comfortable that if we didn’t strike the Syrian reactor, Israel would.”
Olmert, President Bush reveals in his memoir, was bitterly disappointed by the
American decision not to strike. Many in Israel
saw the American refusal to take military action as a sign that the US was not willing to take too great a risk upon
itself to protect Israel,
especially in the era that followed the invasions of Iraq
and Afghanistan.
“We can only rely on ourselves,” the Israelis said during internal discussions.
The strike
On the night between September 6 and 7, 2007, Israel
Air Force warplanes bombed and completely destroyed the nuclear reactor under
construction in Deir ez-Zor. The Syrians suffered huge embarrassment as it
became known that they were advancing a project that blatantly contradicted the
Non-Proliferation Treaty they signed. The great victor of this operation was
Dagan, whose organization was the one to bring the information that exposed the
Syrian project and also the one “who truly understood President Assad more than
anyone else,” as Hayden put it. At first, Syria refused to give the IAEA
inspectors access the site of the bombed reactor. When it finally consented,
following immense international pressure, to allow the inspectors to visit the
site, it was months later, after General Suleiman and his men have had time to
clear the site and remove any implicating evidence of nuclear development.
Despite this, the inspectors found evidence of uranium and graphite and
concluded that the site bore features resembling an undeclared nuclear reactor.
Later, the UN nuclear watchdog asked to send its inspectors to three other
sites in Syria
that were suspected to be part of the nuclear project, but the Syrians refused.
On June 9, 2011, the agency announced that Syria failed to declare the
construction of a nuclear reactor and that it was in non-compliance with the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty it signed. Meanwhile, General Suleiman was
furious. Within a few months, he lost both Imad Mughniyah, his colleague and
close friend, and his life’s work—the nuclear reactor in Deir ez-Zor. According
to documents obtained by Wikileaks, Syrian’s mobile missile systems were on
high alert following the strike, but Bashar Assad decided not to pull the
trigger. This kind of behavior “requires self-discipline,” Prime Minister
Olmert will later tell the US House Minority Leader John Boehner, “Assad is not
stupid at all.”Olmert had a different opinion on Suleiman. “Suleiman was a
piece of shit, with extraordinary organizational and logistical abilities,” he
said. In April 2008, the CIA’s analysts reached the conclusion that Assad was
not going to war over the strike on the reactor and that there was no longer a
need to keep the matter a secret. They could use the material gathered for
other purposes. At the time, there was a heated argument in the American
administration on whether to sign yet another nuclear disarmament deal with North Korea,
the likes of which it had already violated several times in the past.
Israel,
Hayden remembers with a sigh, fiercely objected to making the photos from the
Syrian reactor public, but the CIA chief decided differently. “We needed to
make this (the Syrian reactor affair) more public because we were about to
enter into an agreement with North
Korea, that had been guilty of the greatest
proliferation crime in history. We had to inform the Congress,” he remembers.The CIA even prepared a video about the
discovery and bombing of the Syrian reactor. Michael Hayden, along with another
senior intelligence official, presented it to the Senate’s Intelligence
Committee and to a group of American journalists during a briefing. The
discovery of the reactor was an impressive triumph of intelligence, and the
agency was happy to be able to present a victory. To “add a dimension of drama”
and tie Damascus’s shadow operative to those in Pyongyang, the CIA also added a photo they obtained from
their own clandestine sources—General Suleiman with North Korea’s nuclear chiefs—and
included many details about the Syrian general, his influence and power. Except
that Suleiman was not long for this world. In August 2008, the head of Syria’s “Shadow Army” was assassinated while
having dinner at his summer home in the coastal city of Tartus
in Syria.
According to US cables made public by Wikileaks, the IDF’s Special Forces naval
commando unit Shayetet 13 was behind that assassination.