LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
February 28/16

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

Bible Quotations For Today

Fourth Sunday of Great Lent: Sunday of the Prodigal Son

The Parable Of The Lost Son
Luke15/11-31/:"He said, “A certain man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of your property.’ He divided his livelihood between them.  Not many days after, the younger son gathered all of this together and traveled into a far country. There he wasted his property with riotous living. When he had spent all of it, there arose a severe famine in that country, and he began to be in need.  He went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed pigs.  He wanted to fill his belly with the husks that the pigs ate, but no one gave him any.  But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough to spare, and I’m dying with hunger!  I will get up and go to my father, and will tell him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight.  I am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants.”’ “He arose, and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe, and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.  Bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat, and celebrate;  for this, my son, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.’ They began to celebrate. “Now his elder son was in the field. As he came near to the house, he heard music and dancing.  He called one of the servants to him, and asked what was going on.  He said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and healthy.’  But he was angry, and would not go in. Therefore his father came out, and begged him.  But he answered his father, ‘Behold, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed a commandment of yours, but you never gave me a goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.  But when this, your son, came, who has devoured your living with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.’  “He said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But it was appropriate to celebrate and be glad, for this, your brother, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found."

Agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Second Letter to the Corinthians 13/5-13: "Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? unless, indeed, you fail to pass the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed. But we pray to God that you may not do anything wrong not that we may appear to have passed the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. For we rejoice when we are weak and you are strong. This is what we pray for, that you may become perfect. So I write these things while I am away from you, so that when I come, I may not have to be severe in using the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down. Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 28/16
The Lost Son Parable and Repentance/Elias Bejjani/February 28/16
Israeli Army preparing to meet Hezbollah's next challenge/Yossi Yehoshua/Ynetnews/February 27/16
Hezbollah’s Enmity against Saudi Arabia/Salman Aldosary/Asharq Al Awsat/February 27/16
Saudi Arabia and holding Hezbollah accountable/Mshari Al Thaydi/Al Arabiya/February 27/16
Why did Riyadh cancel $4 billion in aid to Lebanon/Madawi Al-Rasheed/Al-Monitor/February 27/16
What's next for Hamas/Hazem Balousha/Al-Monitor/February 27/16
Enough denial, Trump is made in America/Hisham Melhem/Al Arabiya/February 27/16
Arab women in boardrooms – what gets in the way/Yara al-Wazir/Al Arabiya/February 27/16
The Arab world needs independent think tanks/Samar Fatany/Al Arabiya/February 27/16
Iran's Melting Factions and Failing Institutions/Mehdi Khalaji/Washington Institute/Frebruary 27/16
Kerry Neither Rules Out nor Supports Safe Zone Concept/James F. JeffreyWashington Institute/Frebruary 27/16
Three Fires That Burn Syria/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/February27/16
Feige Stern, Eti Abramov/Ynetnews: When war comes a-knocking/Feige Stern, Eti Abramov/Ynetnews/February 27/16

Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News published on February 28/16
The Lost Son Parable and Repentance
Israeli Army preparing to meet Hezbollah's next challenge
Geagea Slams Syria’s ‘Remnants,’ Says State has No Strategic Decision-Making
Qaouq: Saudi Arabia Wants to Make up for its Regional Losses by Attacking Lebanon
Reports of Booby-Trapped Car in Dahieh Dismissed as Rumors
Berri: Achieving Peace in Syria Will Enable Lebanon to Overcome its Crises
Report: Saudi Urging Hariri to Reconcile with Political Foes
Hariri Postpones Riyadh Visit until Berri Returns to Beirut
Opposition Lawmaker Hints Israel behind Quntar Murder, Warns Nasrallah
Report: Rifi's Resignation Cannot Be Accepted without President's Consent
Hezbollah’s Enmity against Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia and holding Hezbollah accountable
Why did Riyadh cancel $4 billion in aid to Lebanon

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 28/16
Syria ceasefire agreement comes into effect
Syrian rebels blame regime for ceasefire breaches
Syria Truce Takes Hold despite Limited Violations
Russia Halts all Syria Bombing Sorties to Avoid 'Mistakes'
Pentagon points to Syria gain as tactical vindication
ISIS attacks Kurdish-held town on Turkish border
Iran President, Top Ally Lead after Vote for Key Body
Iran signals lawyer yet to be appointed for detained Iranian-American
Rouhani on Course for Major Gains in Iran Elections
Reformists take lead in Iran parliament vote
Iran briefly overstepped a limit set by nuclear deal, IAEA says
Iran uses Syrian truce to deploy hundreds of Palestinian terrorists on Golan border

Links From Jihad Watch Site for February 28/16
Germany admits that it has lost track of 130,000 asylum seekers
Jerusalem: 14-year-old “Palestinian” Muslim girl prayed, went to school and then went to stab Jews
Thailand: Muslims injure 7 police officers and 2 civilians with jihad car bomb, Islamic State cell active in south
Pakistan: Christian women converted to Islam and married off to their kidnappers
Saudi court gives man 2,000 lashes and 10 years jail for denying existence of God and ridiculing Qur’an
Hugh Fitzgerald: Saudi Arabia’s Sauve Qui Peut
Islamic State kills two in jihad-martyrdom suicide attacks after Syria ceasefire begins
UK: Rotherham, city that covered up Muslim rape gang activity, steps up police patrols against “Islamophobia”
Florida man could get life in prison for mosque bacon attack
Robert Spencer in PJ Media: U.S. Muslim Woman Stops Wearing Hijab, Because She Fears … Republicans
UK journalist decides not to report Islamic State sympathizer to police because he was so nice
Video: Kerry on Gitmo detainee who returned to jihad: “He’s not supposed to be doing that”
Somalia: Islamic group murders four in jihad attack on presidential palace

The Lost Son Parable and Repentance
Elias Bejjani
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/02/27/elias-bejjani-the-lost-son-parable-and-repentance/
Lent is a prime time for spiritual change through genuine praying, serious and in depth self-examination, return to the roots of faith, repentance and forgiveness.
Almighty God is ready and always willing to turn everything around and take the hands of those who seriously and honestly pursue His mercy with perseverance forgiveness and repentance. He, with love and extreme happiness leads their steps towards all virtues of righteousness. He who in the Cana Wedding changed the water into wine and cleaned the Leper is willing all the time also to transform our minds and consciences from wickedness to goodness and salvation if and when we call for His help.
In our Maronite Catholic Church's rite, on the Fourth Lent Sunday we recall and cite the biblical Lost Son's parable that is known also as The Prodigal Son. This impulsive, selfish and thoughtless son, as the parable tells us, fell prey to evil's temptation and decided to take his share of his father's inheritance and leave the parental dwelling.
He travelled to a far-away city where he indulged badly in all evil conducts of pleasure and corruption until he lost all his money and became penniless. He experienced severe poverty, starvation, humiliation and loneliness. In the midst of his dire hardships he felt nostalgic, came back to his senses and decided with great self confidence to return back to his father's house, kneel on his feet and ask him for forgiveness. On his return his loving and kind father received him with rejoice, open arms, accepted his repentance, and happily forgave him all his misdeeds. Because of his sincere repentance his Father gave him back all his privileges as a son.
The Lost (prodigal) Son's parable: Luke15/11-32: He said, “A certain man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of your property.’ He divided his livelihood between them. Not many days after, the younger son gathered all of this together and traveled into a far country. There he wasted his property with riotous living. When he had spent all of it, there arose a severe famine in that country, and he began to be in need. He went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed pigs. He wanted to fill his belly with the husks that the pigs ate, but no one gave him any. 15:17 But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough to spare, and I’m dying with hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and will tell him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight. I am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants .”’ “He arose, and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe, and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. Bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat, and celebrate; for this, my son, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.’ They began to celebrate. “Now his elder son was in the field. As he came near to the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the servants to him, and asked what was going on. He said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and healthy.’ But he was angry, and would not go in. Therefore his father came out, and begged him. But he answered his father, ‘Behold, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed a commandment of yours, but you never gave me a goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. 15:30 But when this, your son, came, who has devoured your living with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.’ “He said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But it was appropriate to celebrate and be glad, for this, your brother, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.
This parable is a road map for repentance and forgiveness. It shows us how much Almighty God our Father loves us, we His children and how He is always ready with open arms and willing to forgive our sins and trespasses when we come back to our senses, recognize right from wrong, admit our weaknesses and wrongdoings, eagerly and freely return to Him and with faith and repentance ask for His forgiveness.
Asking Almighty God for what ever we need is exactly what the Holy Bible instructs us to do when encountering all kinds of doubt, weaknesses, stumbling, hard times, sickness, loneliness, persecution, injustice etc. Matthew 7/7&8: "Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened" All what we have to do is pray and to ask Him with faith, self confidence and humility and He will respond. Matthew 21/22: "All things, whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”
We are not left alone at any time, especially when in trouble, no matter how far we distance ourselves from God and disobey His Holy bible. He is a Father, a loving, caring and forgiving Father. What is definite is that in spite of our foolishness, stupidity, ignorance, defiance and ingratitude He never ever abandons us or gives up on our salvation. He loves us because we His are children. He happily sent His only begotten son to be tortured, humiliated and crucified in a bid to absolve our original sin.
God carries our burdens and helps us to fight all kinds of Evil temptations. Matthew11/28-30: "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
God is waiting for our repentance, let us run to Him and ask for forgiveness before it is too late

Israeli Army preparing to meet Hezbollah's next challenge
Yossi Yehoshua/Ynetnews/February 27/16
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/02/27/israeli-army-preparing-to-meet-hezbollahs-next-challenge/
Analysis: In the Third Lebanon War, Hezbollah will have 100,000 rockets at its disposal and special forces seeking to capture border towns; the IDF is preparing with advanced interceptors, border barriers, and deep intelligence.
The starting assumption is that Hezbollah currently has no interest in launching the Third Lebanon War. Its operations stretch from Yemen to Syria, where 7,000 of its fighters remain and where it lost 1,300 of them to the Syrian Civil War.
The organization may be gaining significant operational experience in all departments, but has still not changed its deployment of forces in preparation for conflict with the IDF – not even at a single post.
The threat from Hezbollah includes the ability to launch 100,000 rockets at Israel at a rate of 1,200 a day from batteries that are spread out and carefully hidden in dozens of villages in south Lebanon. The other step of which Nasrallah spoke was conquering the Galilee. He does not mean an operation involving divisions penetrating deep into Israeli territory, but rather taking over towns near the border fence – and there are plenty of these along the northern border.
Anyone who knows that front knows that the organization needs no tunnels in order to penetrate towns – and up until new deployments by the Northern Command, this could even be done with excessive ease. The IDF is ready with a three-pronged strategy: precise, broad, and disproportionate firepower; building a protective obstacle along the border, and rapid redeployment of all divisions to south Lebanon.
The Second Lebanon war that broke out in summer 2006 lasted for 33 days – much longer than what Israel will be able t endure under a barrage of rockets covering every spot in the country, and at a dizzying rate of fire. In order to deal with this threat, the aerial defense system has been upgraded with Iron Dome batteries, the David’s Sling system that is soon to become operational, and the Arrow system. In addition, a joint Israeli-US aerial defense drill is currently being conducted.
An especially important element in Israel’s capabilities is accurate intelligence regarding thousands of “quality” targets collected over the past decade, in comparison with only 200 targets possessed by the IDF when the Second Lebanon War began. Offensive capabilities have also been improved dramatically, and a senior IAF officer said that the new capabilities will permit the same attacks as in the Second Lebanon War min a short time and with much better results.
“It’s firepower that we never had before,” says the officer, “and in such a conflict where the home front will be attacked, all restrictions will be lifted. We will not call houses before we attack.” According to the officer, Hezbollah’s expansion makes it much more vulnerable and exposed new points of weakness. The chief of staff also says that Hezbollah will be surprised by the IDF’s intelligence capabilities.
The second important element is building a defensive line. No one who drives along the northern border can ignore the new line of cliffs which are carved out of the hills next to the border communities. This week ended with the third such project, where barriers were built across from the town of “Matat” –1,700 meters long and ten meters high – which is aimed at preventing infiltrations of Special Forces operatives from Hezbollah’s Radwan unit into the towns. The IDF is also building a series of additional lines of barriers across from other towns in order to defend them better.
The idea is that the attacking forces will be held up because of the barriers, which will enable the IDF to prepare and counterattack. According to threats made by Hezbollah, the terrorist organization will arrive at the towns with large forces with dozens of soldiers in each unit – which will detract from their stealth and their chances of success. The IDF believes that Hezbollah has no use for tunnels, both because of the difficult terrain and because of the short distance between the border and communities such as Shtula, Metulla, and Shlomi, all of which are just a couple hundred meters from the border.
The IDF’s third most important move is to strengthen its ground maneuverability – something which the IDF failed to do in the Second Lebanon War. The IDF’s ability to maneuver on the ground is not at the same level as its ability to collect intelligence or the level of the air force. Additionally, during the next round of violence in the north, the entire area will be a giant target for hundreds of rockets every day. Therefore, the IDF has developed a plan to evacuate the border communities during wartime.

Geagea Slams Syria’s ‘Remnants,’ Says State has No Strategic Decision-Making
Naharnet/February 27/16/Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea said on Saturday that Lebanon’s decision-making on strategic affairs is “confiscated” by the “remnants” of the Syrian regime. “There are still remnants of the (Syrian) hegemony era” in Lebanon, Geagea said in a speech. “Strategic decision is confiscated and Constitutional deadlines are not respected,” he said in a indirect reference to Hizbullah. The release on bail of former Information Minister Michel Samaha is a clear sign on the presence of such remnants in Lebanon, Geagea stated. Samaha, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, was released on bail last month despite being convicted on terrorism charges. The move angered the anti-Syrian March 14 camp in Lebanon. Geagea spoke following a mass that was celebrated at his residence in Maarab on the 22nd anniversary of the Our Lady of Deliverance Church bombing. Geagea was arrested in 1994 and served time in jail for allegedly masterminding the deadly bombing of the church in Zouk Mikael. He was also sentenced to life in jail over his alleged involvement in assassinations during the Civil War. But he was released in 2005 when parliament passed an amnesty law after the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. Geagea said that after Lebanon’s Civil War ended in 1990 and the arms of militias “were handed over to the authorities, the Syrian regime began replacing the true Lebanese state with the state of hegemony.” “Unfortunately all officials did what the Syrian regime wanted except for the LF,” he said. “Dictatorships like the Assad regime cannot tolerate the LF and cannot tolerate opposition against it,” he added. Geagea recounted that during the era of hegemony, the Syrian regime arrested LF officials under any excuse. Then it assassinated three LF officials. “The Syrians later resorted to attempts to assassinate me and then tried to frame the LF by committing crimes and accusing it,” said Geagea. Geagea stressed that the Syrian-Lebanese security system carried out the church bombing. He also said that despite no evidence in LF’s involvement in the crimes it was accused of, the party was dissolved.

Qaouq: Saudi Arabia Wants to Make up for its Regional Losses by Attacking Lebanon
Naharnet/February 27/16/Hizbullah deputy Secretary General Sheikh Nabil Qaouq remarked on Saturday that Saudi Arabia has reached a “desperate” stage following its losses in the region. He said: “The kingdom wants to make up for its losses in Syria and Yemen by attacking Lebanon.” “Five years have passed since the eruption of the Syrian crisis and Damascus is still standing,” he added. Saudi Arabia is “reaping the rewards of its failure in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.”“It seeks to humiliate and extort the Lebanese and push them towards internal strife,” declared Qaouq. “Riyadh is mistaken however... because Lebanon is immune to strife and the identity of the Lebanese army is also immune to extortion,” he said. Saudi Arabia halted last week an army grant to the Lebanese army in wake of Hizbullah's antagonistic stances towards Riyadh and in wake of Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil's abstention from voting in favor of Arab League resolutions condemning an attack against the Saudi embassy in Tehran. The kingdom also urged its citizens to avoid travel to Lebanon, a measure adopted later by Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Lebanese officials have throughout the week exerted efforts to improve ties with Riyadh amid reports that Prime Minister Tammam Salam would soon embark on a Gulf tour. Qaouq added: “Saudi Arabia did not target a party, the army, or any sect, but it assaulted the dignity and sovereignty of all Lebanese. The Saudi regime has therefore embarked on a dangerous adventure with Lebanon.” “It is now in a crisis and it does not how, when, or where to end this unjust attack against Lebanon, which will only end in failure for the kingdom, because the resistance has proven that battlefields are more powerful and will not be susceptible to anyone's extortion,” he said. “Those waiting for us to make an apology for condemning the Saudi assault on Yemen will wait a very, very, very long time,” he vowed.

Reports of Booby-Trapped Car in Dahieh Dismissed as Rumors
Naharnet/February 27/16/Claims that a booby-trapped vehicle had made its way to Beirut's southern suburbs of Dahieh created a stir in the country on Friday. The allegations were however dismissed as rumors by a prominent security source, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Saturday. The car was reportedly sent from the eastern Bekaa town of Brital. “Such a claims are fantastical, because Brital is under very tight security measures by the army, as is the road leading to it,” explained the source.“One must also not forget the presence of the security forces in the town. Furthermore, the hills near the area are part of the Syrian al-Qalamoun region and the forces ensuring the security of that area are the same ones monitoring Dahieh,” it added. The source also warned against rumors that are speaking of a state of alert among Hizbullah and the party's intention to carry out a security operation similar to the one that occurred in May 2008. On May 7, 2008 Hizbullah launched a military takeover of Beirut that sparked armed clashes in the capital and other areas in the country. The party took the step in protest a number of measures taken by the government at the time, which was headed by Prime Minister Fouad Saniora. The southern suburbs are a Hizbullah stronghold and several deadly bombings claimed by extremist groups have rocked the region in recent years.

Berri: Achieving Peace in Syria Will Enable Lebanon to Overcome its Crises
Naharnet/February 27/16/Speaker Nabih Berri voiced on Saturday his support for the ceasefire deal that was reached in Syria, hoping that it will pave the way for peace in the neighboring country. He said in a statement: “Peace in Syria will allow Lebanon to overcome its crises.”“Peace in Syria is a great Arab, Islamic, and Middle Eastern necessity and it is a guarantee for world ad regional peace, because Syria, as history and the present have demonstrated, is a portal for peace and war in the region,” he continued. “Syria's exit from its current reality and its entry to a prosperous spring will restore the Palestinian cause as the central Arab and Muslim issue,” Berri stressed. “We hope that God will ensure the success of the Syrian ceasefire test as the extinguishing of its fire and the return of its people to their homeland will emphasize Lebanon's peace,” he declared. Calm prevailed Saturday across much of war-ravaged Syria on the first day of a landmark ceasefire, as a task force led by Moscow and Washington prepared to begin monitoring the truce. The nationwide cessation of hostilities, which does not include jihadist groups, is the first pause in a five-year civil war that has claimed 270,000 lives and displaced more than half the population.

Report: Saudi Urging Hariri to Reconcile with Political Foes
Naharnet/February 27/16/Saudi Arabia is persuading Mustaqbal Movement leader MP Saad Hariri to hold talks of reconciliation with various rival political figures, reported al-Akhbar newspaper on Saturday. This was demonstrated by a meeting he held on Friday with former Minister Abdul Rahim Mrad. Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq played a key role in bringing the two officials together. Al-Akhbar said Riyadh had urged the Mustaqbal Movement to adopt openness in its approach to its rivals “on condition that the stances made afterwards are positive towards Saudi Arabia.”Ties between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia reached unprecedented lows recently after the kingdom decided to halt an aid grant to the army in wake of Hizbullah's antagonistic stances towards Riyadh and in wake of Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil's abstention from voting in favor of Arab League resolutions condemning an attack against the Saudi embassy in Tehran. The kingdom also urged its citizens to avoid travel to Lebanon, a measure adopted later by Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Lebanese officials have throughout the week exerted efforts to improve ties with Riyadh amid reports that Prime Minister Tammam Salam would soon embark on a Gulf tour.

Hariri Postpones Riyadh Visit until Berri Returns to Beirut
Naharnet/February 27/16/Head of the Mustaqbal Movement MP Saad Hariri postponed a trip to the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh until the return of Speaker Nabih Berri from Belgium, reported al-Akhbar newspaper on Saturday. Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) said that the two officials are expected to hold a meeting. A date for these talks has not been set yet. The speaker is set to return to Lebanon on Saturday.

Opposition Lawmaker Hints Israel behind Quntar Murder, Warns Nasrallah
Naharnet/February 27/16/An Israeli opposition lawmaker hinted on Saturday that the Jewish State was behind the assassination of senior Hizbullah operative Samir Quntar, the Jerusalem Post reported. During a town hall meeting in Beersheba, Zionist Union lawmaker Omer Bar-Lev was asked about Hizbullah and its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in the wake of recent threats to attack chemical facilities in Haifa, said the daily. "I would not recommend to Nasrallah that he leave his bunker," the lawmaker said. "Why? Because he's an enemy, and he's a target. He needs to be a target, so on a personal level I would advise him to look after himself." When the moderator of the discussion asked if Nasrallah would be targeted just like Quntar, Bar-Lev tried to avoid giving a direct answer, said the newspaper. "I certainly do not want to make operational statements of the kind," it quoted Bar-Lev as saying. Moments later, Bar-Lev was asked if the Quntar killing could be considered "a tremendous success for Israel." "Yes, certainly," the lawmaker replied. Hizbullah said Quntar was killed along with eight others in December in an airstrike in Jaramana, a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus. Israel welcomed news of Quntar's death without claiming responsibility for the air strike that killed him.

Report: Rifi's Resignation Cannot Be Accepted without President's Consent
Naharnet/February 27/16/The resignation of Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi is likely to be rejected by cabinet in wake of the presidential vacuum, reported the daily An Nahar on Saturday. It said that a head of state is needed to accept the resignation. The government does not have such jurisdiction, ministerial sources told the daily. Prime Minister Tammam Salam had accepted Rifi's written resignation letter on Monday. The sources revealed that head of the Mustaqbal Movement MP Saad Hariri is holding talks with Rifi to persuade him to return to his post. Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014 when the term of Michel Suleiman ended without the election of a successor. Ongoing disputes between the rival March 8 and 14 camps over a compromise candidate have thwarted the polls. Hizbullah also recently announced that its lawmakers would boycott the elections until it receives guarantees that its candidate, Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun, will be elected president. Meanwhile, al-Joumhouria newspaper on Saturday reported that Minister of the Displaced Alice Shabtini has assumed her role as acting Justice Minister. Informed sources said that she had previously played this role when Rifi was traveling abroad. She had signed numerous decrees and forms that could not wait for his return to Lebanon, they explained. The sources later said: “Shabtini will wait before completely taking over the new ministerial portfolio in order to allow Rifi some time to change his mind about the resignation.” Rifi announced on Sunday that he is stepping down from his post over the release of former Minister Michel Samaha from prison and over Hizbullah's “usurpation of the government's decision-making power.”He made the move to protest the party's “crippling of the state and its institutions.”He vowed however to carry through with efforts to refer Samaha's case to the International Criminal Court. Samaha was arrested n 2012 after being caught red-handed while smuggling explosives from Syria to Lebanon to carry out attacks in the country. He was sentenced to four-and-half years in jail in May 2015, but in June the Cassation Court nullified the verdict and ordered a retrial. He was released on bail in January.

Hezbollah’s Enmity against Saudi Arabia
Salman Aldosary/Asharq Al Awsat/February 27/16
Hezbollah supporters waiting for militants coming back from Syria
Evidence and proof; deliberately presented to the public showing Hezbollah’s execution of terrorist operations on Saudi borders and those that breach Riyadh as well. Hezbollah’s exercised-targeting is not recent to those who actually have been in keep with its regional activity; the organization has had spread cells that prove its line of work in each of Bahrain, Kuwait, and Yemen. The only difference today is that Hezbollah’s going after the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as an enemy is documented on both record and taping. Hezbollah is not different from al-Qaeda or ISIS. To be frank, Hezbollah surpasses the other two by enjoying the merit of possessing diplomatic tools, a government that accredits its works, and a foreign minister whose policy has its guidelines put into effect. Personally, I believe it’s about time things are called out for what they really are, diplomacy has rendered incapacitated. Hezbollah is an arch enemy to Saudi Arabia. Moreover, it is an enemy which relishes with freedom of work, and has struck an official inter-governmental deal with an administration which claims to be a friend to the Kingdom. Although the government claims to follow a self-seclusion approach, the truth is all it does is isolate itself from Hezbollah’s party crimes and terrorism, which are covered-up by the whole of the Lebanese administration.
Those who believe that Riyadh had decided on the bilateral relationship revision with Lebanon, for the mere reasons of Lebanese media clamping down on Saudi Arabia are deeply mistaken. The Kingdom’s policy is broader and better built than to make a decision based on this type of attack; regardless how low it stoops. The true case here lies in the fact that the Lebanese government has provided Hezbollah’s terrorism against the Kingdom with authorized armament, that is all there is to it in short. There isn’t a single country in this world which accepts to deal with a government that sweet-talks it publicly, only to harbor a main subject who plans and conspires against its security and stability. Added to that is Hezbollah’s hostile contribution to the Arab-nations best interest and the carrying-out of the Iranian agenda in each of Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. To all Lebanese signors, you must understand that Saudi Arabia is not seeking for an apology or for those who apologize; the Kingdom doesn’t want those who sympathize either. What Saudi Arabia is looking for is a grounded political work that frees Lebanon from Hassan Nassrallah’s cloak’s dominance and restores the country’s Arab identity. Saudi Arabia wants a true severance between Hezbollah’s activities and the administration’s work. The government should top the party, and not the other way around.
Ever since Hezbollah began climbing up the ladder, it has envisioned Saudi Arabia as a direct threat for its continuation. That was clarified early on when it had stood against Riyadh for the sake of exporting the Iranian revolution’s mission first, and later in the Iraqi-Iranian war. Hezbollah takes pride in representing the Iranian revolution in Lebanon and in answering to Wilayat al Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist). The organization has enthusiastically supported Ayatollah Khomeini’s initiative for overthrowing the Kingdom’s government in the mid-80. Let alone Hassan Nasr Allah’s speeches which have always prejudicially put Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in one grouping. Hezbollah had always used political prudence when dealing with the Kingdom, however, its dissimulation has failed in covering up actions perpetrated gradually to reach to planning terrorist operations. It is regrettable that Hezbollah’s doings confirm that the Lebanese administration with all its ministers, parties, and forces have ended up being accomplices by their continuous silence against the terrorist actions Hezbollah undertook with an official governmental cover.
Thus, Lebanese forces must choose either to have their country under Hezbollah’s flagship, or for Hezbollah to return beneath national jurisdiction. As for when a country is formed by a terrorist party, then countries will not accept dealing with such governance. Last but not least, it is unsuited for a country in Lebanon’s value to reach at such an ending.

Saudi Arabia and holding Hezbollah accountable
Mshari Al Thaydi/Al Arabiya/February 27/16
Two days ago, Al Arabiya and Al-Ekhbariya TV aired a video showing a Lebanese Hezbollah leader - referred to by the nickname Abu Saleh al-Libnani - sitting in a tent explaining to Houthi militants the tactics of terrorism and destruction. He was coaching them how to bomb Saudi cities and carry out suicide attacks in Riyadh, which he considered to be “martyrdom operations.” This video is only the tip of the iceberg. When discussing the identity of the Hezbollah trainer with Yemeni journalist Fahd Taleb al-Sharfi, who comes from Saada city, he recalled a meeting with the former governor of Saada, famous arms dealer Fares Manaa, where the Lebanese terrorist was introduced as an arms dealer from Lebanon.The Souq al-Taleh is the most renowned gathering of arms dealers in Yemen, and Manaa threw a luxurious banquet for his Lebanese guest.
Confirmation
While Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah denies the existence of his party in Yemen, Riyadh “has had evidence for a long time that Hezbollah mercenaries are training Houthi rebels,” said Saudi Brigadier Ahmed Asiri.
There are dead members of Hezbollah in Yemen, as confirmed by recently-resigned Lebanese Justice Minister Ashraf Riffi, and by the Yemeni government, which has raised the issue with the United Nations. This may have legal and international ramifications.
Whoever says the reason for the Saudi suspension of aid to Lebanon’s army is the pro-Iran stance of the latter’s Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil is simplifying the situation
Whoever says the reason for the Saudi suspension of aid to Lebanon’s army is the pro-Iran stance of the latter’s Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil is simplifying the situation. Hezbollah has plunged into a real war and dominates the Lebanese government.
Party member and Lebanese Agriculture Minister Hussein al-Hajj Hassan said: “I don’t understand the equation at hand. Either we apologize for a mistake that didn’t happen, or a collective punishment will befall Lebanese allies before enemies. What does this great equation entail? Someone answer me.”
This description of the Saudi position is absurd.

Why did Riyadh cancel $4 billion in aid to Lebanon?
Madawi Al-Rasheed/Al-Monitor/February 27/16
It was only a matter of time before the latent tensions brewing between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon boiled over, given the current rivalry between Riyadh and Tehran and the rising influence of the Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon. But it seems Saudi Arabia is truly acting in an erratic manner that, instead of bringing Lebanon back into its sphere of influence, is likely going to create more of a rift in an already-strained relationship. On Feb. 19, the Saudis announced they were canceling $3 billion in aid to the Lebanese army and a further $1 billion for security services. The money had been earmarked to buy military equipment from France for use by the Lebanese military. The announcement stated that the punitive measure was a response to Lebanon’s failure to condemn the attack on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran in January.
Hezbollah, however, blamed the cancellation on financial concerns, citing Saudi Arabia’s expenditures in Yemen and the low price of oil. A couple of days later, the Saudi Foreign Ministry asked its citizens not to travel to Lebanon. Soon after, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain announced they supported the move. A Saudi investment official announced that Gulf nationals started selling their assets and holiday estates in Lebanon. He said there are about 300,000 Lebanese workers in the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia specializing in middle management for construction companies, hotels and other sectors.
Given the range of Saudi commercial, political and media networks managed by the Lebanese, both countries will be affected by this drastic Saudi decision, although the Saudis are convinced only Lebanon will feel the pressure. Lebanon has always been important for Saudi Arabia despite the former’s small size and lack of resources. In addition to Lebanon’s former position as the banking capital of the Middle East before its 17-year civil war, Lebanon has mediated Saudi political interests since the Saudi state was established.
Because it is small, in the 1960s, Lebanon became a buffer zone between big Arab hegemonies. During the Arab Cold War between nationalist regimes and traditional monarchs, Lebanon was where the tension unfolded. The country was a place where Saudi Arabia could operate to shield itself from inflammatory and empty revolutionary rhetoric. Although the Beiruti and Sidonian Lebanese Sunnis were strong Arab nationalists, their commercial and trading interests with Saudi Arabia overcame their enthusiasm for revolutionary action against the monarchs in Riyadh. They relentlessly promoted Saudi interest among their communities and tied Lebanon to a subservient relation to the kingdom.
But the assassination of Lebanese-Saudi Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 and the subsequent weak premiership of his son Saad reflected a serious drawback to Saudi influence in Lebanon. Lebanon had already been sliding slowly but steadily into the camp of Saudi Arabia’s arch enemies, namely Iran and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The final straw came during the 34-day Israeli-Lebanese war in 2006 that resulted in several hundred deaths and the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure. While Hezbollah, the Lebanese government and the majority of Arabs from Morocco to Iraq considered this war an onslaught on all of Lebanon, the Saudi regime saw it through the prism of sectarianism and tense relations with Iran. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah emerged as an Arab leader at the time, making the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques nervous in Riyadh. Nasrallah maintained this glorified position until his latest intervention in Syria in support of Assad, which resulted in many Arabs rethinking their early enthusiasm for the “Hero of Resistance,” as he came to be known.
The Saudis blamed Hezbollah for provoking Israel after the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers that preceded the war. Saudi religious scholars issued opinions outlawing charitable donations to the Lebanese Shiite, who came under heavy bombardment in southern Lebanon and the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh. Saudis who denounced a sectarian interpretation of the war at the time, such as intellectual Muhammad al-Ahmari, came under Salafi Wahhabi attack, labeled as misguided individuals who had fallen under the spell and charisma of Nasrallah. While in 2006 there were still reasonable nonsectarian voices in Saudi Arabia, today the platform is open for intolerant opinions when it comes to Lebanese relations.
The worsening tensions are not only a geopolitical time bomb waiting to explode in new locations — in addition to hot spots in Syria, Iraq and Yemen — but they also threaten cohesion between and within Arab states. Lebanon is the last casualty of this ongoing tension. The cost is high for a small country like Lebanon, which depends heavily on expatriate remittances from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Under the new leadership of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia seems to have abandoned diplomacy in favor of a hawkish approach to relations with historical Arab allies like Lebanon. Perhaps the prince can learn lessons from simply looking at how superpowers are often compelled to use diplomacy instead of punitive force. Managing and containing difficult political crises may be more conducive to re-winning old friends than simply using aid as pressure to force other countries to succumb to the Saudi agenda. A regional power like Saudi Arabia whose sectarian policies are so divisive can benefit from abandoning its “discipline and punish” approach in dealing with Lebanon. Let us hope the Saudi leadership will realize before it is too late that might may not always be right.

Syria ceasefire agreement comes into effect
Reuters and AFP Friday, 26 February 2016/A cessation of hostilities in Syria came into effect at the agreed time of midnight on Saturday (2200 GMT Friday), under a U.S.-Russian plan whichwarring sides in the five-year conflict have said would to commit to. Syria's government and insurgents warring against it have said they would respect the halt to fighting. The truce does not apply to ISIS and al Qaeda affiliate the Nusra Front, and the Syrian government and Moscow have said they will not halt combat against those militants. The UN Security Council threw its weight Friday behind a ceasefire agreement for Syria and demanded that it be upheld. The council unanimously adopted a resolution drafted by Russia and the United States that endorses the ceasefire deal and "demands that the cessation of hostilities to begin at midnight (Damascus time)" (2200 GMT). UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said Friday Syria's government and rebels will re-start peace talks on March 7 if a ceasefire holds and more aid is delivered. Barely two hours before the Syria ceasefire was due to go into effect, the United States warned Russia that it was time to "put up or shut up." State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said Washington had received assurances from Moscow that it would not bomb the "moderate opposition" after the truce. "I don't know how to put it any better than saying: 'It's put up or shut up time,'" Toner told reporters. "It is time for them to show through action rather than words that they are serious about what they profess to be serious about, which is a ceasefire, a cessation of hostilities and a political process that leads to a transition." As he spoke, intense Russian bombing of rebel bastions was continuing in Syria in the runup to the ceasefire. Earlier in the day, Russia’s foreign minister said it expects the U.N. Security Council to back a resolution endorsing the planned ‘cessation of hostilities’ in Syria, but nobody can give a 100 percent guarantee that the ceasefire plan will be implemented. Sergei Lavrov also used a news briefing to call on the Unites States and its allies to avoid “ambiguity” about any “Plan B” for Syria and to give up any idea of conducting a land operation there. The U.N. Security Council voted Friday on a US-Russian draft resolution endorsing the Syria ceasefire. The draft text welcomes the truce as “a step towards a lasting ceasefire” and endorses the U.S.-Russian agreement on the truce.It “demands the cessation of hostilities to begin at midnight (Damascus time)” and renews a call to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered. The measure urges all countries, in particular those involved in the Syrian peace process, to “use their influence with the parties to the cessation of hostilities to ensure fulfillment of those commitments.”The deal is between President Bashar al-Assad's regime and rebel forces, but excludes ISIS and the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front, which control large swaths of territory in Syria.

Syrian rebels blame regime for ceasefire breaches
By John Davison Reuters, Beirut Saturday, 27 February 2016/Syrian rebels in the country's northwest said they came under attack from government ground forces at 4 a.m. (0200 GMT) on Saturday in what they called a breach of a cessation of hostilities plan that came into effect at midnight. Three fighters from the rebel Second Coastal Division were killed while repelling the attack in the Jabal Turkman area near the Turkish border in Latakia province, Fadi Ahmad, spokesman for the affiliated First Coastal Division, told Reuters. The First and Second Coastal Divisions are part of a loose alliance of rebel groups known as the Free Syrian Army. Also, at least two people were killed when a car bomb exploded at the entrance of a town in the Syrian province of Hama on Saturday, state television reported. The Syrian military could not immediately be reached for comment. The Syrian government has said it will respect the agreement drawn up by Russia and the United States, but has said it will continue to fight the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and ISIS which are not covered by the deal. A monitoring group and the United Nations reported only isolated fire in western Syria after the temporary ceasefire began at midnight on Saturday. The United Nations said it expected breaches in the temporary truce and urged restraint in curbing any new outbreaks of fighting. "Let's pray that this works because frankly this is the best opportunity we can imagine the Syrian people has had for the last five years in order to see something better and hopefully something related to peace," said U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura. Damascus and its ally Russia, as well as a range of insurgent groups fighting against them, have said they would take part in the plan. The temporary truce does not apply to ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliate the Nusra Front, and the Syrian government and Moscow have said they will not halt combat against those militants. Other rebels seen as moderates by the West say they fear this will be used to justify attacks on them. Nusra Front, one of Syria's most powerful Islamist rebel groups, on Friday urged insurgents to intensify their attacks on President Bashar al-Assad and his allies, adding to dangers facing the agreement.
Fighting raged across much of western Syria right up until the cessation came into effect, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. There was calm in many parts of the country shortly after midnight, it said. "In Damascus and its countryside ... for the first time in years, calm prevails," Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said. "In Latakia, calm, and at the Hmeimim air base there is no plane activity," he said, referring to the Latakia base where Russia's warplanes operate. Some gunfire had been heard shortly after midnight in the northern city of Aleppo, and there were some blasts heard in northern Homs province, but it was not clear what had caused them, Abdulrahman said. The United Nations unanimously demanded late on Friday that all parties to the conflict comply with terms of the plan as part of efforts to end a war that has killed more than 250,000 people and driven 11 million from their homes. De Mistura said he intends to restart peace talks on March 7, provided the halt in fighting largely holds. On Friday, at least 40 government soldiers and allied fighters and 18 insurgents were killed in battles and air strikes in Latakia province, the Observatory reported. Six people were also killed in an air raid in western Aleppo province in the hours before the halt, it said. Near Damascus, dozens of air raids hit the besieged suburb of Daraya. Rescue workers said at least five people were killed in Douma, northeast of the capital. Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed on Friday that combat actions against ISIS, the Nusra Front and other groups the Syrian government regards as terrorists would continue. The United States said it was time for Russia to show it was serious about halting fighting by honoring a commitment not to strike Syrian groups that are part of the moderate opposition.

Syria Truce Takes Hold despite Limited Violations
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 27/16/Fighting subsided across much of Syria Saturday as the first major ceasefire of the devastating, five-year war appeared to broadly hold despite sporadic breaches in parts of the battle-scarred country. The truce, brokered by Washington and Moscow, is seen as a crucial step towards ending a conflict that has claimed 270,000 lives and displaced more than half the population. It faces formidable challenges including the exclusion of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group and al-Qaida's Syria affiliate Al-Nusra Front, which control large parts of the country. "Honestly, I was surprised that the calm lasted through the night," said Ammar al-Rai, a 22-year-old medical student in Damascus. "I think this is the first time we've woken up without the sound of shelling."U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said peace talks would resume on March 7 if the ceasefire prevails and more aid is delivered -- a key sticking point in negotiations. A special international task force, co-chaired by Moscow and Washington, was due to meet behind closed doors in Geneva on Saturday to monitor the truce. De Mistura said it was important that any incidents are "quickly brought under control" and a military response should be the "last resort". Russia, which has waged nearly five months of intense air strikes against rebels in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said it had halted bombing in all areas covered by the truce. Moscow has vowed to keep striking IS, Al-Nusra and other "terrorist groups", but said it would ground all its warplanes in the Syria campaign on the first day of the truce to avoid potential "mistakes".
'First chance' for peace
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the lull in fighting was "the first chance to put an end to violence on the ground and should not be missed". "If it holds, it will create the conditions for full, sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access throughout Syria," she added. Among the limited ceasefire breaches, state media said "terrorist groups" fired a number of shells on Damascus but caused no casualties. Rebels also accused the government of intermittent "truce violations" in parts of the country. In Aleppo, Syria's second city, two people were killed and four wounded when shells hit the majority-Kurdish neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsud, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor. Syrian state media said one person was killed by sniper fire in the same district.Aleppo city is now almost completely encircled by pro-regime troops after a massive Russian-backed offensive that has caused tens of thousands to flee in recent weeks. But on Saturday, children played in parks. "I hope the truce continues even for a limited time so we can get back part of our old lives from before the war," said Abu Nadim, a father of four. Jihadists attacked the border town of Tal Abyad in Raqa province, sparking clashes that killed at least 45 IS members, 20 Kurdish militia fighters and two civilians, the Observatory said. U.S.-led coalition warplanes launched at least 10 air strikes to try to drive back the jihadists, the monitor reported. Twin suicide bombings meanwhile killed six people outside the town of Salamiyeh in Hama province, where IS is present, state news agency SANA said.
Skepticism remains
The complexities of a conflict which escalated from anti-government protests into a full-blown war drawing in rival world powers make brokering a lasting halt to the fighting a huge challenge. Assad has been bolstered by the support of Russia and Iran while the West, Turkey and Gulf states back rebel groups. "The pressure being placed by Russia and the U.S. on regional actors is such that many of these regional actors can't reject the political process entirely," said Firas Abi Ali, an analyst for IHS Country Risk in London. "This is putting them in a bind where they're compelled to behave as if they're part of the process regardless of what they actually want from it." Syria's top opposition grouping, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said Friday that 97 opposition factions had agreed to respect the truce, for two weeks initially. In a particularly encouraging sign, a commander in the hardline Islamist faction Ahrar al-Sham said his group -- allied with Al-Nusra -- had not conducted any military operations since the truce started. "But the ceasefire is stillborn, because it began with violations from the regime. It will be very difficult for the ceasefire to hold," Hussam Salameh warned.

Russia Halts all Syria Bombing Sorties to Avoid 'Mistakes'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 27/16/The Russian military said its warplanes suspended all sorties over Syria on Saturday in line with a ceasefire deal brokered by Russia and the United States, to avoid any "bombing mistakes". The Russian and American militaries also exchanged maps of Syria, while fighting stopped in 34 Syrian settlements, the military said."Russia's air force fully halted bombing in the green zone," a senior representative of the General Staff, Sergei Rudskoi, told reporters, referring to the areas and armed groups that expressed interest in observing the ceasefire deal. He added that "on February 27, sorties of the Russian aviation in Syria including long-range aviation, are not being carried out". He said this was being done to rule out "any possible bombing mistakes" and in accordance with a U.N. Security Council resolution. A ceasefire agreement brokered by Moscow and Washington called for the cessation of hostilities from 2200 GMT Friday between Russian-backed Bashar Assad's forces and opposition groups. The deal does not however include the Islamic State and Al-Nusra Front jihadists. Rudskoi said 17 armed groups -- those who fight alongside regime forces or independently -- contacted Russia's ceasefire coordination center at the Hmeimim airbase and pledged to honor the ceasefire deal. He also said that within the framework of the ceasefire deal the Russian and U.S. militaries exchanged maps of Syria.Rudskoi said more than 6,000 fighters had joined the truce deal, saying the Russians handed their lists to the U.S. counterparts. He added that the Americans also received a list of 74 settlements and areas which should not be bombed. "During consultations we received a similar map prepared by the American side," Rudskoi said. "We've made the first step on the path to halting fighting on Syrian soil," he added."We are honoring an obligation to observe the ceasefire in full. However it does not mean that ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra jihadists can breathe a sigh of relief," he said, referring to the Islamic State and Al-Nusra Front by other names."We are in full control of the situation across the whole of Syria," he said, adding that Russian forces were using at least 70 drones and space surveillance for monitoring purposes. Speaking by video link from the Hmeimim airbase, Sergei Kuralenko, head of Russia's coordination center in Syria, said fighting had stopped in 34 Syrian settlements. "Work to rebuild Syria is being carried out round the clock," he said, adding that humanitarian aid was being sent to the areas where the ceasefires have taken hold. Over the past two days, 2.5 tonnes of food supplies have been sent to two settlements in the provinces of Homs and Latakia, Kuralenko added. Moscow launched a bombing campaign in Syria in September, saying it needed to target jihadists before they cross into Russia, but the West has accused it of targeting moderate rebels.

Pentagon points to Syria gain as tactical vindication
AFP, Washington Saturday, 27 February 2016/The Pentagon highlighted Friday a recent victory against ISIS in Syria as evidence its tactical plan to defeat the extremists is working. The U.S.-led coalition’s strategy in Syria and Iraq is to bomb ISIS targets using drones and warplanes, while also deploying specialized commandos on the ground to train and arm local anti-ISIS fighters. In Syria, about 50 U.S. commandos are working with anti-ISIS fighters including a largely Kurdish group called the Syrian Democratic Forces. In perhaps the SDF’s most significant victory yet, the local fighters encircled the town of Al-Shadadi in Hasakeh province between February 15 to 22, then moved in and recaptured it from the extremists. The SDF were backed up by U.S.-led bombardments, and U.S. special operations forces were in the vicinity offering tactical advice, calling in air strikes and helping with logistics and resupplies, Baghdad-based military spokesman Colonel Chris Garver said in a phone briefing. About 20 SDF fighters and 260 ISIS members were killed in the battle, which saw heavy ISIS resistance outside Al-Shadadi but less in the town itself.“Not only did the advancing fighters have to contend with remnants of Daesh fighters, but they also have to contend with significant amounts of IEDs throughout the liberated areas,” he said, using an Arabic abbreviation for the ISIS group. “All told, the SDF overwhelmed ISIS forces around Shadadi and isolated the city in just six days, which was much faster than the SDF had estimated for the operation.” Garver said U.S. commandos had played a “pretty significant role” in winning the fight. Al-Shadadi was strategically important for the ISIS group, who used it as a logistics hub and a waypoint for rapid movement between Syria and Iraq. “The loss of Shadadi increases the time, difficulty and risk to Daesh as it attempts to move between Syria and Iraq,” Garver said. “Our operations are reducing freedom of movement to Daesh and increasing the difficulty to their operations.”Pentagon officials have suggested Al-Shadadi’s recapture marks an important milestone as local forces prepare for an assault on Raqa, the ISIS group’s de facto capital in Syria.

ISIS attacks Kurdish-held town on Turkish border
By Reuters Beirut/Diyarbakir, Turkey Saturday, 27 February 2016/ISIS militants launched an assault on a Kurdish-controlled town on Syria’s border with Turkey on Saturday, prompting air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition to try to drive them back.
The hardline Sunni fighters attacked Tel Abyad, which is controlled by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, and the nearby town of Suluk in the early hours of Saturday, YPG spokesman Redur Xelil and Turkish security sources told Reuters.
Coalition war planes carried out 10 air strikes to try to repel the assault, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. It said at least 45 Islamic State militants and 20 Kurdish militia fighters had been killed. The attack was launched hours after a “cessation of hostilities” came into effect under a U.S.-Russian plan, although the temporary truce does not apply to ISIS and Al-Qaeda affiliate the Nusra Front, meaning the Syrian government, Moscow and the coalition reserve the right to strike them. The truce appeared largely to be holding across much of Syria. Xelil said the YPG and Syrian Kurdish internal security forces were able to “crush this attack and encircle the attackers,” although he gave no casualty toll. The YPG captured Tel Abyad from ISIS last year in an offensive backed by U.S.-led air strikes. The town lies north of Raqqa and had been a key supply line for the militant capital. The Turkish security sources said the attack was launched on two fronts and that the sound of gunfire and explosions, audible from the town of Akcakale on the Turkish side, had continued for several hours. Intermittent gunfire could still be heard. The security sources and a witness in Akcakale said war planes thought to be from the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS struck the militant positions and that the Turkish army had increased patrols on its side of the border. While not directly addressing the Tel Abyad attack, 14 Turkish F-16s patrolled the Turkish-Syrian border on Friday, Turkish military said. Xelil said some of the attackers infiltrated from the Turkish border to the north, reiterating accusations that Turkey was supporting the group. Turkey has consistently denied those accusations and the security sources said recent measures to stop illegal crossings meant it was impossible that the attackers had entered from Turkey. Other attackers infiltrated from the south, Xelil said. He said dozens of Islamic State fighters had been killed.

Iran President, Top Ally Lead after Vote for Key Body
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 27/16/President Hassan Rouhani and his main ally were the front-runners Saturday after one third of votes cast in Tehran in elections to Iran's powerful Assembly of Experts were counted. Rouhani and Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president, had the most votes in the capital for the 88-member committee of clerics that appoints the country's supreme leader. In Tehran, voters are electing 16 members to the assembly from 28 candidates. With 1.5 million ballot papers counted out of 3.9 million cast, Rafsanjani was in first place with 692,000 votes. Rouhani was just behind with 652,000. The figures were published by the semi-official ISNA news agency, citing the interior ministry which is responsible for managing Friday's elections to the assembly and to parliament. In another significant element, three hardline conservative ayatollahs that the pro-Rouhani "List of Hope" had urged voters to avoid backing would keep their seats on the assembly, according to the initial results. Supporters of the List of Hope used social media to encourage voters to reject Ahmad Jannati, Mohammad Yazdi and Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi. All three have adopted positions hostile to reformists. However Mesbah-Yazdi's position is still endangered, as he came 16th in the early polling, the last position that would see him re-elected to the all-male assembly. Jannati, who chairs the Guardian Council that excluded thousands of candidates for the parliamentary election and hundreds from the assembly race, was in 10th position. Yazdi, the current head of the assembly, was in 12th place. Final results are expected on Sunday.

Iran signals lawyer yet to be appointed for detained Iranian-American
Reuters, Dubai Saturday, 27 February 2016/Iran's judiciary signaled on Saturday that Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi, detained since October in a case being watched internationally, had not been given access to a lawyer.
The businessman was on a list published last month by the official Islamic Republic News Agency and the Tabnak website of four prisoners to be freed in a prisoner exchange with the United States. His name was later withdrawn from the list with no explanation. Five Iranian-American groups have written to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urging him to work to release Namazi, who they said was "left behind" after the prisoner swap. Namazi was detained by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while in Iran visiting family. Officials have yet to announce charges against him. Namazi's 80-year-old father Baquer Namazi was arrested on Monday after traveling to Iran to try to visit his son in Evin prison. On Saturday, judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei mentioned the case in answer to international media reports that Siamak Namazi had been denied access to a lawyer, Tasnim news agency reported. He was quoted as saying: "According to the criminal code, lawyers should be approved by the head of the judiciary in security cases ... therefore if a lawyer is presented according to these rules he will be accepted, whether on this case or any other." "There is one law for all accused," Ejei added. Iran does not recognize dual nationality. Last week, the younger Namazi's attorney and family said he had been denied access to his lawyer, Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei. Tabatabaei said he was representing Namazi but had not been informed of the charges his client faces. Iran released four Iranian-Americans and one other U.S. citizen last month in a prisoner swap with the United States, which granted clemency to seven Iranians and dropped arrest orders for 14 others. Iran is believed to be holding several other dual nationals, including Iranian-British citizen Kamal Foroughi, who was arrested in 2011 while working in Tehran as a business consultant. Iran's judiciary spokesman said this month that most of the detained dual nationals face espionage charges.

Rouhani on Course for Major Gains in Iran Elections
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 27/16/Iran's moderate President Hassan Rouhani is on course to make sweeping gains against conservatives in parliament according to partial election results which Saturday showed his allies winning decisively in Tehran. The List of Hope, a pro-Rouhani coalition of moderates and reformists, is ahead in all but one of the capital's 30 seats, with 44 percent of votes counted. The projected rout in Tehran was in marked contrast to earlier initial results from across the country which showed seats split between the main conservative list, Rouhani's allies and independent candidates. Coming just a month after sanctions were lifted under Iran's nuclear deal with world powers, the outcome of Friday's vote is being seen as a de-facto referendum on Rouhani's administration. The president joined forces with reformists to try and curtail conservative dominance of parliament and create space to pass social and political reforms on which he has so far been blocked. Early declarations published by the semi-official ISNA news agency, quoting electoral officials, suggested that no one faction would win a majority in parliament. Out of 56 constituencies outside the capital, 19 went to the main list of conservatives, nine to the pro-Rouhani list, and 14 to independent candidates.
Of the independents six had ties to conservatives, five to reformists and three were undeclared. None of the remaining 14 seats had a clear winner, meaning a second round, not to take place until April or May, would be needed. Turnout in the election was solid at 60 percent, but slightly less than the 64 percent of 2012. There was further good news for the president in the second election that took place on Friday, for the Assembly of Experts, a powerful committee of clerics that monitors the work of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Rouhani and his close ally Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former two-term president, held the first two places among the 28 clerics seeking one of the 16 places reserved on the assembly for Tehran. Thirteen of those on the Rouhani-Rafsanjani list for the assembly were in the top 16, with around one third of votes counted.
- Reformists back at polls -
The assembly election is especially important because should Khamenei, who is 76, die during its eight-year term, its 88 members would pick his successor. Polling stations were kept open late Friday to allow millions of latecomers to participate.
Even after all votes are counted by the interior ministry's officials, final results of both elections must be confirmed by the conservative-dominated Guardian Council -- and are not expected for several days. Khamenei was among the first to vote on Friday and he urged the entire electorate to follow suit, saying casting a ballot is "both a duty and a right". If turnout proves no higher than in 2012 but the parliamentary election produces a radically different result it could be because different parts of the electorate voted this time around. Many moderate voters stayed away in the last parliamentary polls in protest at the re-election three years earlier of hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But the domination of Tehran by the List of Hope suggested they turned out heavily on Friday. Known as the "diplomat sheikh" because of his clerical credentials and willingness to negotiate, Rouhani was the driving force behind the nuclear deal, which he delivered despite political pressure at home. The agreement with powers led by the United States, the Islamic republic's bete noire, raised hopes of recovery in Iran. But although the economy exited a deep recession in 2014-2015, growth has stagnated in the past year. The run-up to polling day was largely overshadowed by controversies over who was allowed to stand. Thousands of candidates were excluded. Reformists said they were worst hit, with the barring of their most prominent faces leaving them with untested hopefuls. A total of 4,844 candidates, about 10 percent of whom are women, stood in the parliamentary election. Only 159 clerics -- a fifth of the applicants before vetting -- were vying for the Assembly of Experts.

Reformists take lead in Iran parliament vote
The Associated Press, Tehran, Iran Saturday, 27 February 2016/Reformists and moderate conservatives were leading in parliamentary elections according to early results Saturday, an indication President Hassan Rowhani may face a more friendly house to pursue his domestic agenda. Early returns from Friday’s polls show that none of the three competing political factions will win a majority in the 290-seat parliament. But reformists seeking greater democratic changes are heading toward their strongest presence since 2004 at the expense of hard-liners. Officials are yet to release early results but reports in the semiofficial Fars and Mehr news agencies and a count conducted by The Associated Press show that hard-liners are the main losers of the vote. Friday’s election for Iran’s parliament and a powerful clerical body known as the Assembly of Experts was the first since Iran’s landmark nuclear deal with world powers last year. Reformists seeking greater democratic changes and moderates supporting Rouhani appear to be cashing in on the lifting of international sanctions the moderate president achieved under last summer’s historic agreement. Nearly 55 million of Iran’s 80 million people were eligible to vote. Participation figures and other statistics were not immediately available, though Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli predicted late Thursday there would be a turnout of 70 percent.Polls were closed at midnight and officials immediately began counting the ballots afterward. As more ballots are counted, reformists appear to be on the path to expand their presence from the fewer than 20 they currently hold to a majority with the moderate conservatives and reduce the number of hard-liners. Partial results emerging from about 50 small towns across Iran, show reformists and their moderate allies were leading the vote with moderate conservatives and hard-liners trailing behind them. In the capital Tehran, officials counting the ballots at three different districts confirmed to The Associated Press that reformists were leading far ahead of their hard-line rivals. The hard line camp is largely made up of loyalists of Rowhani’s predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who during his two terms in office avidly stoked tensions with the U.S. and cracked down on internal dissidents. In a bid to squeeze them out, reformists have allied with moderate conservatives, many of whom split with the hard liners because of Ahmadinejad.Reformists stormed to power with the 1997 election of President Mohammad Khatami, followed by 2000 parliamentary elections that brought a reformist majority in parliament for the first time. The movement pressed for an easing of Islamic social restrictions, greater public voice in politics and freedom of expression and better ties to the international community. But that hold was broken in the next election in 2004, when reformist candidates were largely barred from running. Ahmadinejad’s election victory in 2005 sealed the movement’s downfall. Reformists were all but shut out of politics for nearly a decade until Rouhani was elected.

Iran briefly overstepped a limit set by nuclear deal, IAEA says
Reuters, Vienna Saturday, 27 February 2016/Iran briefly exceeded a limit set by a deal with major powers under which sanctions against it were lifted, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday, but Tehran then came back within the permitted bounds. Under its July deal with the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany, Iran is allowed to have 130 tons of heavy water, a moderator in reactors like the one it has disabled at Arak and a chemical it produces itself. “On 17 February, the agency verified that Iran’s stock of heavy water had reached 130.9 metric tons,” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which polices the deal, said in a regular report on Iran's nuclear program sent to its member states. By Wednesday, however, 20 tons of heavy water had been shipped out of the country, bringing the stock back under the threshold of 130 tons, apparently in keeping with a soft limit under the terms of the July 14 deal, which is formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). “All excess heavy water which is beyond Iran’s needs will be made available for export to the international market,” one of the annexes in the deal stipulates, adding: “Iran’s needs are estimated to be 130 metric tons.” In Washington, a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity played down the incident. “Iran briefly exceeded its 130 metric ton heavy water stockpile limit under the JCPOA by less than one ton. The IAEA has now verified that Iran has shipped out 20 metric tons and is back well under this limit,” said the U.S. official. “Iran made no effort to hide anything it was doing from the IAEA. Because of the enhanced monitoring and verification provisions in the JCPOA, the IAEA immediately became aware of this issue and raised it with Iran, and Iran fixed it,” he said. “It is not surprising that there are challenges for Iran in ensuring it is meeting all of the many nuclear commitments in the early stages of implementation of the JCPOA, but again, this issue has been resolved,” the U.S. official added.

Iran uses Syrian truce to deploy hundreds of Palestinian terrorists on Golan border
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 27/16/
Under cover of the Syrian ceasefire that went into effect Saturday, Feb. 27, and the Russian air umbrella, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps finally managed to secretly install hundreds of armed Palestinian terrorists on the Syrian-Israeli border face-to-face with the IDF’s Golan positions. This is reported exclusively by debkafile’s military and intelligence sources. These Palestinians belong to Al-Sabirin, a new terrorist organization the Iranian Guards and Hizballah are building in the refugee camps of Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Their agents clandestinely recruited the new terrorists from among young Palestinians who fled the Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus and sought refuge in Lebanon. Hizballah organized their return to Syria through south Lebanon – but not before training and arming them for penetration deep inside Israel to carry out mass-casualty assaults on IDF positions, highways and civilians.
So Iran and Hizballah have finally been able to achieve one of the most cherished goals of their integration in the Syria civil war, namely, to bring a loyal terrorist force right up to Israel’s border. Israel’s military planners went to extreme lengths to prevent this happening. Last December, Samir Quntar, after being assigned by Tehran and Hizballah to establish a Palestinian-Druze terror network on the Golan, was assassinated in Damascus. Twelve months before that, on Jan. 18, an Israeli air strike hit an Iranian-Syrian military party surveying the Golan in search of jumping-off locations for Hizballah terror squads to strike across the border against Israeli targets. The two senior officers in the party, Iranian General Allah-Dadi and Hizballah’s Jihad Mughniyeh, were killed. The hubbub in the run-up to the Syrian truce, coupled with Russia’s protective military presence, finally gave the Islamic Republic and its Lebanese proxy the chance to outfox Israeli intelligence and secretly bring forward a terrorist force to striking range against Israel. This discovery was one of the causes of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s urgent phone call to President Vladimir Putin Wednesday, Feb. 24, two days before the ceasefire went into effect. He reminded the Russian leader of the understandings they had reached regarding the deployment of pro-Iranian terrorists on the Syrian-Israeli border. He also sent emissaries to Moscow to intercede with Russian officials.
Putin’s answers to Israel’s demarches were vague and evasive, on the lines of a promise to look into their complaints.
He also tried to fob Netanyahu off by inviting President Reuven Rivlin for a state visit to Russia. Putin promised to use that occasion for a solemn Russian pledge of commitment to upholding Israel’s security in a tone that would leave Tehran in no doubt of Moscow support for the Jewish state.
The Rivlin visit has been scheduled for March 16. But it is clear that the prime minister and defense minister Moshe Ya’alon were too slow to pick up on the new terrorist menace Iran had parked on Israel’s border. Now their hands are tied, say debkafile’s sources. An IDF operation to evict the pro-Iranian Palestinian Al-Sabirin network from the Syrian Golan, before it digs in, would lay Israel open to the charge of jeopardizing, or even sabotaging, the inherently fragile Syrian ceasefire initiated jointly by the US and Russia.

.What's next for Hamas?
Hazem Balousha/Al-Monitor/February 27/16
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — During a Shura Council meeting of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan Feb. 14, the group decided to dissociate from the mother organization in Egypt. The decision surprised some Muslim Brotherhood leaders elsewhere, including Hamas, which represents the Brotherhood’s Palestine branch. The decision also raised questions on whether Hamas could take the same step. Hamas’ links to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has been one source of tension with the current Egyptian regime. Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since mid-2007, has seen its relationship with Egypt go up and down. But the golden age of the relationship between the two sides was during the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood. That rule ended with the removal of President Mohammed Morsi from power in June 2013. Hamas’ relationship with Egypt has been tense ever since, with constant Egyptian incitement against it.
The move by Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood resonated with some Brotherhood leaders in Palestine and revived discussion of the need to change Hamas’ charter, which some see as out of date and in need of substantial changes. It explicitly states in Article 2 that the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, is a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.
There are disagreements within the group about the causes and motivations behind the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood's decision to amend its charter and dissociate from Egypt’s Brotherhood.
The Turkish Anadolu news agency reported Feb. 14 that Murad al-Adaileh, a member of the Shura Council of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, said that the council amended Article 1 of the charter, which had defined "the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan as a branch of the organization founded by Hassan al-Banna in Cairo." In the amended version, the group is called simply “the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.”Regarding the reasons and timing of this amendment, Adaileh was reported as saying, "This amendment is a formality. This definition has existed since the founding of the group in Jordan in 1945. This amendment has been on the group's agenda for three years, but disagreements within the group prevented its supporters from reaching a majority within the Shura Council, as the decision requires the approval of two-thirds of the council's 53 members."A Hamas official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that there had been a lot of talk about the need to amend some of the charter’s articles after certain political developments in the region as well as the practical change that took place in Hamas’ political philosophy — namely the movement’s relations with regional and international institutions — since its inception in 1987.
The source said, "For years, there has been talk within the movement’s corridors and institutions on amending some of the movement’s charter but this talk had not reached the level of real change because the conditions were not suitable.”He noted that the Muslim Brotherhood organization in each country has its own specificities and independent decision-making, and that the relationships among the various organizations across countries are about coordination and solidarity but not about policy or events on the ground. Walid al-Mudallal, a professor of political history at the Islamic University in Gaza, explained that the decision by Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood was just a formality, not a practical step, and came as a result of pressure and accusations that the Muslim Brotherhood is a cross-border organization. He told Al-Monitor, “The global organization of the Muslim Brotherhood — which groups all Brotherhood leaders in the world — is more like a global forum, not a direct and actual leadership structure of the Muslim Brotherhood in the world. And therefore, the decision of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood was to remove the pretexts.”
Hamas felt that the Arab Spring revolutions will spread, that its allies represented by the Brotherhood or political Islam had won and that the Arab revolutions and the arrival of Islamists to power will lead to recognizing Hamas as a key player in the Arab region and the Palestinian arena. The Hamas official added, “Some leaders within the movement wish to bring about change, especially after the collapse of the Islamist regimes in the Arab world, but this change requires a major effort and may not happen at the moment. Hamas may need something in return for it to change, including its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood. No Arab regime is able to provide this concession for the time being because of the global and regional political conditions and Hamas' position on the conflict with Israel."
Before Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine was organizationally tied to the Brotherhood in Jordan. This relationship continued for years after Hamas’ emergence and before the movement in Palestine became an independent branch. The source pointed out that Hamas has succeeded in establishing relations with some countries despite those countries’ regimes banning the Muslim Brotherhood, as is the case in Syria. He noted that the Muslim Brotherhood was against Hamas’ relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran in previous periods. Ibrahim al-Madhoun, who writes for the Hamas-affiliated Al-Resalah newspaper in Gaza, said that Jordan’s Brotherhood dissociating from the mother group in Egypt will have little impact on Hamas. He added that Hamas does not follow the Muslim Brotherhood but has only a formal link to it. He told Al-Monitor, "Hamas’ internal institutions and the movement’s composition differ from the structure of the Muslim Brotherhood in any other country. Hamas is divided into three wings: the political wing, the military wing and the dawa wing. Hamas is not in a crisis like some Muslim Brotherhood groups in some Arab countries are. Hamas’ priority is the Palestinian cause. The Muslim Brotherhood is no more than Hamas’ intellectual incubator." It seems that Hamas is not about to announce any fundamental change in its ideology or links to the Muslim Brotherhood because it believes the region is in crisis and would thus prefer to wait until these crises are resolved and choices have been made.

Enough denial, Trump is made in America
Hisham Melhem/Al Arabiya/February 27/16
“The mass crushes beneath it everything which is different, everything that is excellent, individual, qualified and select. Anybody who is not like everybody, who does not think like everybody, runs the risk of being eliminated.”
José Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses (1930).
There is something rotten in the land. Masses are wildly cheering for ruthless gladiators to mercilessly dispatch their opponents. But before they move for the kill, they are expected to taunt, ridicule and bleed their enemies. In these cruel arenas, all weapons are available as long as they are sharp and deadly.
Now that the games have been going on for months the audiences have become numbed to the revolting, surreal spectacles. But every once in a while, the raucous rumble produces new surprises, deadly swift tactics, unexpected maneuvers and strange rhythms. And the insatiable masses keep asking for more. Last Thursday evening, America’s version of Rome’s “bread and circuses” was in full swing, and what an exotic night it was.
The spectators oscillated between extremes of excitement, astonishment and horror. The champion gladiator, Donald Trump scion of a family that accumulated its wealth by questionable means, from the rich province of New York defending his title against the relentless attacks by junior gladiators fresh out of training camp: Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, hungry descendants of poor immigrants from the once protectorate Island of Cuba, where they settled in the low lands of Florida and the endless deserts of Texas, the two Southernmost provinces of the Empire. The nimble challengers circled their towering opponent thrusting their lances against his chain mail defenses, and with each little cut the masses went wild approving or denouncing, but the defending gladiator was breathing fire while lashing at his attackers, hitting and missing, at times losing his balance, or even flailing.
When a culture glorifies a man like Trump, as a model of the successful mogul, as a celebrity with his own reality television show without taking him to task about his shady business dealings and practices, it allows him to live in a universe of his own
The young attackers, Cruz and Rubio while they did not deliver the lethal blow, were delighted with their performance, with Rubio smelling blood and intoxicated like never before. Trump of New York survived the bout, and briefly withdrew to lick his wounds before emerging the following day along with a new ally and a former foe, Chris Christy the governor of New Jersey, a small province that lives in the shadows of New York, who once enjoyed taunting and humiliating Marco Rubio in a public spectacle.
The making of a demagogue
It is no longer enough to call Donald Trump a scoundrel, charlatan or a demagogue. In this space I even said that he is the scoundrel we deserve. Many a commentator called Trump vulgar, mediocre, deceitful, and morally unmoored. But Trump the bombastic phenomenon, who if told about Rome’s concept of Bread and Circuses would proffer to buy the trademark, is not self-made as he would like to claim, but was manufactured, packaged, signed, sealed by a political culture and a specific environment, then unleashed on the American people and the world.
When a culture glorifies a man like Trump, as a model of the successful mogul, as a celebrity with his own reality television show without taking him to task about his shady business dealings and practices, it allows him to live in a universe of his own untouched and ungoverned by what applies to others.
The audiences cheering and shrieking at his large rallies are one step away from a riot. At times he pathetically looks as if he is trying to imitate the populist leaders of a bygone era, with his exaggerated gestures and contortions. He is the contortionist-in-chief of his generation. This was on full display during the last debate. Trump is the end product of the long metamorphosis of the Republican Party in the last half century from a Party that included then moderate and centrist wings that managed to rein in its extremists and cultural warriors with few exceptions, such as the disastrous Goldwater campaign of 1964.
The best and worst in America
Trump is not a lifelong Republican; he is a lifelong opportunist and scoundrel. And in these uncertain times he found his home in a party that was thrown into a maelstrom following the election of an African American named Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th President of the United States. That election brought to the fore the best and the worst in America. Obama’s election was celebrated by many and resented by many. His election helped spawn the Tea Party, and the so-called birther movement which denied that the president was an American citizen, or claimed that he is a clandestine Muslim.
Trump was a rabid leader of these fire breathing denialists. As I wrote recently in this space, “populist demagogues like Trump are not created instantly. They are the product of slow moving cultural and political trends. In the last few decades we turned what should be healthy skepticism of central authority to hatred of government, anti-taxation into a quasi-religion. And a cultural war was waged against those who dared to be different, socially and culturally. Trump is the product of such trends’.
Recently, conservative scholar and historian Robert Kagan wrote an insightful and brutally honest analysis of how the Republican Party’s obstinacy and obstructionism created its own Frankenstein in the form of Trump, who was brought to life “by the party, fed by the party and now made strong enough to destroy its maker”. The screeds, insults and rants exchanged by the three combatants during and after the debate are unprecedented in recent decades. These would be commanders–in-chiefs, the potential healers of national wounds in dangerous times, were calling each other liar, con man, choke artist, low life, and nervous wreck. And like the “bread and circuses” of Roman times, the spectators on the whole enjoyed the brawl.
Masses in times of uncertainty
It is not politically correct to criticize the prejudices and parochialisms that animate many people politically and culturally. That’s one orthodoxy that should be challenged repeatedly. Trump is seen by many alienated people, and voters fearful of fundamental societal and demographic changes, as their savior, as the leader who will deliver them from the fear of the unknown. And public figures like Trump who flourish in the darkness know how to manipulate them and exploit their fears. And the masses in turn show their loyalty to their leader by becoming more susceptible to his machinations.
The history of the 20th century is full of dictators, autocrats and strong men manipulating gullible masses. Trump and his supporters at times wallow publicly and crassly in their contempt of different social groups. Once again, Trump displayed his contempt to free speech, when he threatened the American media the day after the debate. “We’re going to open up those libel laws folks and we’re going to have people sue you like you never got sued before.” Trump added: “we have many things to do. We have many, many things to do.” Trump’s supporters hate the media because they are told it is part of the establishment. When I say there is something rotten in the land, I mean that I see it afflicting some leaders and the masses that follow them.
A recent NBC News survey of Trump supporters shows that 67 percent of them have an unfavorable view of American-Muslims (versus 35 percent of all voters who say this); and 87 percent support a temporary ban against all Muslims who aren’t U.S. citizens from entering the United States (versus 47 percent of all voters). The survey also showed that 55 percent believe illegal immigrants working in the United States should be deported (versus 29 percent all voters).Only 50 percent of Trump supporters want to raise the minimum wage to either $10 or $15 an hour (versus 72 percent of all voters and 49 percent of Republicans).
In The Revolt of the Masses, a collection of essays published in 1930, the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset warned against the conformity of the masses, their tendency to negate individual creativity and freedom. He was prescient, anticipating the great and crushing mass movements of ideologies that dominated Europe (and the world) for a long time. One could say that Ortega y Gasset had in mind men like Donald Trump when he wrote the following: “The characteristic note of our time is the dire truth that, the mediocre soul, the commonplace mind, knowing itself to be mediocre, has the gall to assert its right to mediocrity, and goes on to impose itself where it can.”

Arab women in boardrooms – what gets in the way?
Yara al-Wazir/Al Arabiya/February 27/16
When it comes to female Arab leaders, the numbers are sparse. From politics to the boardroom, the participation of women trails well below the international average. In the gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries, a study by Hawkamah showed that women occupy a mere 1.5 percent of board seats across companies in the GCC, compared to the global average of 15.3 percent. Keeping in mind the structure of private and public companies in the region, whereby many of them are family-run or family-started, one must raise the question: what is getting in the way of women entering leadership positions, and more importantly, what can be done to grow the region’s women and economy.
Family support
Recognizing the main factors that influence the way in which Arab women lead their lives, one must consider the impact of family, society, culture, politics, and economic mobility into the equation of creating a successful career. Not surprisingly PwC’s Arab Women Leadership Outlook report showed that direct family members, namely a woman’s mother, father, and husband, have the greatest influence in career progression. Family members are at least 60 percent positive about the career progression of their daughters or wives. Clearly, behind closed doors, women are being encouraged to progress and pursue their careers, however, once outside of their homes, they are negatively influenced by their community, their bosses, and by religious figures. A total of 42 percent cited that their own bosses had a negative influence on their career progression. The negative influence of the bosses is greater than that of any other influencers, including religious figures, siblings, children, or even the community. Women have an excellent support system at home to aid their career progression – bosses and company executives need to recognize that and allow women to thrive. The issue of bosses getting in the way of career progression is an interesting one. Although more comprehensive research is not available on the root causes of this obstacle, one would imagine the thoughts going through the boss’s mind in the career-planning and development process of his employees. Geographic mobility, work and family-life balance, as well as educational background are factors that are taken into account.Family members – who the same research says are generally positive about career progression among women – heavily influence these factors. Clearly, bosses are missing the point and assume how a woman’s family would react to events such as moving cities for her job or the ability to balance work and family life. Women have an excellent support system at home to aid their career progression – bosses and company executives need to recognize that and allow women to thrive.
Catching up
Structural legal reforms are required to encourage female participation in the economy, and specifically in the boardroom. Countries in the GCC offer localization policies to encourage companies to employ local citizens. There is no reason why the same type of policy can’t be introduced to encourage companies to offer women the chance they deserve, rather than living the land of assumptions. The fact remains that although women play a prominent role in leading families, the region simply hasn’t experienced women in leadership positions outside of the family home. Therefore, the very concept is alien to companies, and without a direct incentive offered by the local government, the region won’t move as fast as it needs to. Additionally, women’s leadership abilities must be targeted at early education levels. The same opportunities that young boys are encouraged to participate in, such as sports and networking opportunities, which help develop leadership qualities, must be offered and pushed for in young women. Encouraging women to join the boardroom is not about giving women more power, rather about empowering the economy. On average, companies with the highest number of women board directors outperformed those with the lest by 53 percent on return on equity, 42 percent on return on sales, and 66 percent on return on capital investment, according to 2007 research sponsored by The Chubb corporation. The opportunity cost associated with relying on an all-male board is far too high for the region to risk. If companies in the Arab world want to grow to be international global competitors, they need more women on board.

The Arab world needs independent think tanks
Samar Fatany/Al Arabiya/February 27/16
Our region is facing alarming threats and there is a need to support independent civil society think tanks that can provide innovative solutions to our political, economic and social challenges. Political experts assert that in times of crisis and threatening situations and when decisions are highly consequential, a thorough understanding of evolving realities is very critical. Think tanks can certainly play a vital role in addressing these challenges. The Saudi-based think tank and research center, Al-Aghar, the brainchild of Prince Faisal Bin Abdullah, the former deputy commander of the National Guard in the western region and the former Minister of Education, is one of the few Saudi research centers that has succeeded in creating an impact on the national front.
The nonprofit think tank held a workshop on Feb. 13 at the Hilton Hotel in Jeddah to review the future direction of the organization and empower it with a new strategy combining think tank research with international consulting expertise. A.T. Kearney an American consulting firm based in the Middle East was commissioned to provide expert advice to help position Al-Aghar as a reliable Saudi think tank. The experts identified the necessary tools to make the think tank more effective and came up with ideas to promote a better strategy for a sustainable future. The success of any think tank is based on the relevance of its research to real challenges and the trust of decision makers in the advice provided
The workshop included researchers, intellectuals, economists, professionals and media experts who identified the main weaknesses of Arab think tanks. They stressed the need to upgrade the quality of research that suffers from limited resources, inadequate expertise and restricted means of influence. They also pointed out that in Saudi Arabia society is not familiar with the culture of research which makes it difficult for researchers to access information and hinders their efforts to conduct research. The Saudi experts concluded that Arab and Saudi think tanks are required to build trust by enhancing their capacities and expertise to produce high quality data and policy papers. They need to build a strong communication network that is more diversified and independent. In order to boost their chances for recognition, they need to upgrade their services and learn from the experiences of more advanced professional agencies.
Real challenges
The success of any think tank is based on the relevance of its research to real challenges and the trust of decision makers in the advice that a think tank provides. It is unfortunate that Arab governments and the majority of stakeholders do not trust local think tanks to produce valuable research and knowledge, or are unwilling to consider that their analyses are as reliable as those of American consulting firms. Foreign research centers often have their own agendas and their findings may not always have our interests in mind. It is critical for our nation to support Saudi think tanks and to come up with more reliable homegrown solutions to our problems. Al-Aghar has conducted valuable research and presented a national strategy to transform Saudi Arabia into a knowledge-based society. It has conducted workshops nationwide and produced projects that are relevant to the current economic and social context. The research agenda of the home-based think tank is focused on engaging global experts and civil society experts to formulate national strategies that can boost the Saudi economy and address key issues to support reforms.
Members of the board of Al-Aghar, who include former ministers and Saudi intellectuals, are committed to making home-based think tanks more credible and reliable. Our country is in need of sincere expert recommendations that are based on scientific research to address social conflicts and economic challenges. Our policy makers today are under greater public scrutiny and need to review a wider range of potential solutions to current challenges. The intellectual in-depth Saudi think tank is keen to provide the necessary research to address the complex challenges that continue to threaten our security and national stability. Independent Saudi-based think tanks are in a better position to provide valuable research to support public policy, build consensus and advance the interests of citizens in all their diversity. It is time we put our trust in our own think tanks and support their role in addressing our challenges.

Iran's Melting Factions and Failing Institutions
Mehdi Khalaji/Washington Institute/Frebruary 27/16
Given the absence of sharp ideological differences and the growing irrelevance of old political categories, those who win office this week may have little actual influence on important issues such as succession, economics, or the next presidential election.
As elections for parliament and the Assembly of Experts played out this week in Iran, the traditional divisions between the country's various factions -- principalist, conservative, moderate, reformist, hardliner -- have been of little importance. The grounds for coalition or contention between these camps are less clear, and the boundaries between rival figures and groups are blurring; they can no longer be differentiated so easily based on ideology or agenda. The Islamic Republic's institutions are weakening, leaving major decisionmaking in the hands of influential personalities and power circles, yet these actors seem to be operating under a more indistinguishable collective mindset.
IDEOLOGICALLY GROUNDLESS POLITICS
The success of the nuclear negotiations has tremendously increased the pressure on President Hassan Rouhani's government. Such pressure was clearly manifested when the Guardian Council disqualified many candidates associated with him and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, barring them from even running in the elections because they did not sufficiently prove their utter loyalty to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. This included the overwhelming majority of applicants from Rouhani's Development and Moderation Party.
Yet these disqualifications cannot be filed under a simple "hardline vs. reformist" label. Rouhani's party was founded in 2000 but still lacks any clear ideology, agenda, or organized network. Consider the two prominent party members who serve in Rouhani's government: cabinet spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht is known for his unapologetic association with conservatives, while influential economic advisor Akbar Torkan is close to prominent reformists and was active in Mir Hossein Mousavi's failed 2009 presidential campaign.
The nuclear deal has caused confusion and division in the conservative camp as well, in large part due to Khamenei's ambiguous positions throughout the negotiating process. Ali Larijani, the Majlis speaker who used to be seen as a powerful conservative figure, exposed himself to harsh criticism from hardliners by bending toward Rouhani on the nuclear issue. He was punished by being removed from the primary list of conservative candidates in Qom, where he had hoped to run for parliament again. Another example is Kazem Jalali, head of the "Principalists and Followers of Velayat" faction in the Majlis. Long known as an uncompromising hardline critic of Rouhani, he was nevertheless placed in the top list of candidates by pro-Rouhani groups and denounced by his hardline peers leading up to election day, all because he advocated for the nuclear deal. Other well-known hardliners were disqualified, spurring some of their supporters to back "enemy" factions -- an approach that disturbed other hardliners.
Thus while pro- and anti-Rouhani groups both sought to polarize the election, neither side was able to form a meaningful consensus over a single candidate list, further intensifying the political disorientation. One of the main reasons for this failure is that ideological differences between the factions are becoming hardly recognizable. On regional policy, Rouhani regards himself as one of the main architects of the longstanding Iranian doctrines developed in the Supreme National Security Council, an institution he was assigned to create and run in 1989 by Khamenei; in fact, he served as the Supreme Leader's representative on the council until 2013. Likewise, there is hardly any serious dispute on the country's main economic objectives, partly because Khamenei supplies all three branches of government with the major economic outline. For instance, the regime's policy on privatization and international trade is not a matter of contention -- the main quarrel between various groups is over how such an agenda should be implemented and whose interests must be secured first.
The election campaign reflected this situation, with scarcely any debate on major economic and foreign policy issues. Instead, rival candidates and their supporters explicitly -- and correctly -- accused each other of corruption. On February 9, Rouhani reiterated his complaints about massive systemic corruption and implicitly identified the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as the main source of the problem, asserting that its large-scale smuggling enterprises were spoiling government efforts to boost domestic production: "When companies want to produce, one corrupt machine -- which I do not want to name right now and say how -- can import smuggled black market goods, and companies cannot grow." On February 16, anti-Rouhani parliamentarian Alireza Zakani responded by arguing that the president is focused on clientelism rather than the people's true interests and comfort. "In my opinion," he said, "our president, instead of tracking corruption and corrupt institutions...should look at his own brother [Hossein Fereydoun]. In my opinion, he should look at his own office. In my opinion, he should pay attention to the oil ministry. Mr. Hosseini and elements related to [Oil Minister Bijan] Zanganeh, in the new oil contracts, what fiction are they spreading?"
Preventing factions from developing a consistent and powerful political identity has been the core of Khamenei's approach to domestic policy. In a public speech on February 24, he rejected the idea that the election is between pro- and anti-Rouhani groups. "In Islamic Iran, there are two poles: Revolution and Arrogance," he stated, drawing the line between "those who do not believe in the very principle of revolution or the regime and those who do." He claimed that "foreign propaganda" has fabricated the pro/anti-Rouhani binary: "The Iranian nation wants neither a pro-[Rouhani] Majlis nor an anti-[Rouhani] one. What the Iranian nation wants is a Majlis that knows its duties...is committed to the constitution and Islam, and is brave and unintimidated by America." He then explained why using "enemies' vocabulary" is a mistake: "From the first day [of the revolution], enemies have coined terms like 'moderate' and 'hardliner'...In their view Imam [Ruhollah Khomeini] was more hardline than anyone else then. Today they see me as the most hardline. Moderate is a sweet word, but Islam does not speak with such language...When outsiders say 'hardliners,' they mean people who are enduring and decisive in their revolutionary approach...'Moderates' are the people who submit to them…Fortunately, they admit themselves that there is no moderate in Iran; everyone is a hardliner. This is correct."
In short, the elections seemed to show that the old concepts and categories for describing Iran's factional politics are outdated and misleading. Given the absence of sharp ideological differences and the fact that the regime's unelected core has an interest in preventing the formation of powerful parties, it is not clear on what basis future coalitions and groups will be created and how sustainable they will be.
WEAK INSTITUTIONS
As discussed in other recent PolicyWatches, this year's Assembly of Experts election has attracted unprecedented attention because the elderly Khamenei may die or abdicate during its eight-year term. Yet while the constitution names the assembly as the sole body responsible for appointing a successor, the real decision may already be made beforehand by other influential personalities and circles, including the IRGC.
The Islamic Republic has created hundreds of new political and government offices over the years, but its revolutionary nature has resulted in a persistent anti-institutional mindset. Hence, the constitution does not help much in understanding the topography of today's main decisionmakers. The manner in which Khamenei made arrangements for filtering assembly candidates for this election was another clear indication that institutions are mostly used as a cover to justify or legitimize regime decisions. For instance, Guardian Council spokesman Nejatollah Ebrahimian recently attempted to step down from his post following an internal dispute over the qualification process for candidates, but chairman Ahmad Jannati did not accept his resignation. On February 10, Ebrahimian told state media that not every council member was included in that process, hinting that Jannati was the main decisionmaker on the issue. More scandalously, he confessed that the legal and executive procedure for qualification was not even clear to him.
WHAT NEXT FOR ROUHANI?
As with any other institution in the Islamic Republic, the history of the Majlis shows that power stems not from government posts and offices, but from other actors and networks. Therefore, even if a considerable number of newly elected legislators claim to support Rouhani's government, institutional dysfunction will still exacerbate the difficulties he has faced in changing certain domestic policies. He has been frustrated in his efforts to fight deep corruption networks, which expanded under former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in order to bypass sanctions, and on which the government now depends to function. Similarly, an inability to deliver on promises regarding social, political, and human-rights issues has made Rouhani more vulnerable. His government is still trying to adjust public expectations that the nuclear accord will have a drastic, direct, and swift impact on daily living conditions. Accordingly, whatever pro-Rouhani faction might emerge in the next Majlis, it will face serious problems shielding him from challenges in the run-up to the next presidential election in 2017.
**Mehdi Khalaji is the Libitzky Family Fellow at The Washington Institute.

Kerry Neither Rules Out nor Supports Safe Zone Concept
James F. JeffreyWashington Institute/Frebruary 27/16
he assertion that such an effort would require up to 30,000 U.S. troops, and that it could risk a direct confrontation with Russia, requires a much closer look.
The situation in Syria dominated Secretary of State John Kerry's congressional budget testimony this week. Kerry frankly refused to "vouch" for the Russians and others adhering to the ceasefire agreement he had negotiated in Munich on February 13, with a new start date of February 27, moved from a week earlier. But he was under considerable pressure, particularly in the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, to explain what would happen if Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah backers did not live up to their side of the agreement. Kerry did repeatedly speak of a Plan B, which he asserted was under "significant discussion" within the administration. When challenged, he argued that it would be a mistake to assume that President Obama would allow these parties "impunity" if they once again violated commitments. But he provided no details on what the Plan B would entail and did not even indicate whether it would be military in nature.
And when pressed on the possibility of a no-fly or safe zone as a component of a Plan B, Kerry argued that to be a "safe zone" it had to be "safe," asserting that this could require taking out Assad regime and presumably Russian air defenses, patrolling the zone with a combat air patrol (CAP), and deploying some ground force to drive out the Islamic State (IS) and then defend the zone. Thereafter, he said that the Pentagon believes this would require "up to" 15,000 or 30,000 troops. He ended the discussion by asking rhetorically whether Congress would be willing to authorize such a U.S. presence.
Assessing Administration Troop Estimates, Russia Claims
This exchange characterizes the "wrestle the greased hog" problem in assessing administration arguments on anything related to military force. Be it a more aggressive posture against IS ("quagmire," thousands of casualties, ten years of war), safe zones (15,000 or 30,000 troops, conflict with Russian aircraft), or arming the anti-Assad opposition (farmers, dentists, and folks who have never fought), the president and his top advisors denigrate any concrete idea, and cite often anonymous "Pentagon findings" or senior generals' assessments, without providing supporting details. Nor does the administration shed any light on the (possibly excessive or unnecessary) political constraints and contingencies the military was tasked to consider in making its assessments. In such a situation, deleterious to political debate, the only course of action is to take the administration at its word and analyze as best one can the validity of its statements.
In the case of the safe or no-fly zone, a good start is with the new figure of "up to" 15,000 or 30,000 troops. The first problem, assuming Kerry was right on the Pentagon figures, is this: on what basis did the Pentagon draw them up? For example, if U.S. forces committed to such a zone were restricted to the same limited rules of engagement that the current anti-IS campaign is under, then a much larger ground force would be needed to ensure force protection. But even in this case, there is a huge difference between "up to 15,000" and a total of 30,000 troops. That is, the actual recommendation could be as low as 10,000 troops in some contingencies. Then what are those contingencies?
Furthermore, the Islamic State is now considered by some reports to have only 15,000-plus combat troops under its command spread over thousands of square miles in Syria and Iraq. And it faces hundreds of thousands of Iraqi central government fighters, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Peshmerga, Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD) Kurds, Syrian Democratic Forces' Sunni Arabs, and Assad central government forces. It thus is hard to see why a force about one-third (30,000) the 100,000 Peshmerga troops holding 1,000 kilometer swath of terrain against IS in northern Iraq would be needed along a 90-kilometer stretch between the Kurdish enclave of Afrin and the Euphrates River.
Even more relevant, was the Pentagon talking of U.S. troops -- the impression Kerry gave with his mischievous question to the committee -- or troops from any and all sources? Why, in fact, would this force need to be predominantly American? To be sure, U.S. troops, or other ground forces equally trained, experienced, and equipped, are needed for any serious offensive against IS in dug-in locations such as Mosul, Raqqa, or Fallujah. But there is a major difference between taking ground strongly held and defending ground. Especially with U.S. air support, local forces considerably less capable than U.S. troops have generally held territory against IS. Why couldn't the ground force to hold the safe zone comprise, to maintain the "up to" 15,000 criteria, several thousand U.S. troops, an equal or perhaps larger contingent of Turkish troops -- Turks have been pushing for such a zone for years -- and levies from the local U.S.-armed Sunni forces, including from the Syrian Kurdish PYD's Syrian Democratic Forces allies. Some other NATO forces might contribute given the growing receptivity to such a zone by European leaders such as German chancellor Angela Merkel. More broadly on this subject, Kerry's assertion that nobody has offered any troops carries no weight. As seen repeatedly in the campaign against IS and many others dating back to the Korean War, only when the United States steps up and in do other countries start volunteering.
Assuming the United States can mobilize such a ground force, Kerry's argument about dealing with the Russians must be answered. First, if the depth of this 90-plus-kilometer zone is 40 kilometers or less from the Turkish border, then "fire support" into as well as defense of the air over the zone could rest primarily with long-range artillery and surface-to-air-missile (SAM) units located in Turkey, rather than aircraft in Syrian airspace. But even if U.S. aircraft were committed to policing the zone or to close air-support missions, what makes the U.S. government think these aircraft would be challenged by Russian aircraft or SAM units? U.S. and coalition units strike Syrian targets daily in range of the Russians without incident. Putin would be highly unlikely to shoot at U.S. aircraft not attacking his units or aircraft.
Important to remember here is that Putin has put a mere thirty-plus aircraft, along with some SAM batteries, into a region dominated by the United and its allies, with their thousand-plus aircraft. Likewise, Putin's deployment put him close to or within range of NATO, U.S., or Israeli SAM batteries to his east (Jordan), north (Turkey), and south (Israel). Meanwhile, to the west, a highly capable U.S. Aegis anti-air-missile-equipped ship is continuously off Israel's coast, while an advanced U.S. phased-array radar in Israel greatly advances U.S. target acquisition and fire control. Putin knew all this but clearly -- and correctly -- did not concern himself with a possible military challenge from Washington. The question follows as to why Washington, with far greater local and global military capabilities, so worries.
Countering Regional Suspicions
Again, if valid military considerations argue against such an assessment, the administration owes the American people -- and its ever more concerned regional allies -- an answer. Absent one, suspicions, already high especially in the region, will grow that the administration really has another rationale. Some of those suspicions focus on a possible U.S. plan enabled by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the Iran nuclear deal is known, to "flip" Tehran into a status quo power and possible informal regional partner.
Another suspicion, fueled in particular by Kerry's comments, is that the administration still thinks the Russian and Iranian intervention in Syria is a quagmire. Kerry returned in his testimony repeatedly to the "they can't win against the Syrian opposition" argument, suggesting that this is his real Plan B -- perhaps with a bit more U.S. weapons deliveries. If Putin and his Iranian and Syrian friends fight the rebels like the United States fights counterinsurgencies, Kerry could be right. But if they fight like Russia did in Chechnya and the Assad regime has in Syria -- carpet bombing, scorched-earth tactics, and mass ethnic cleansing -- they could well win.
**James Jeffrey is the Philip Solondz Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute.

Three Fires That Burn Syria
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/February27/16
Those who have closely followed President Obama’s foreign policy over the past seven and a half years know that he has always been concerned about two things. The first is how things look rather than how they are; in other words, the triumph of form over substance. The second is an almost obsessive determination to appease adversaries by offering them even more than they ask for. One instance that brings Obama’s two concerns together is the Syrian tragedy which has already claimed some 300,000 lives and turned half the population of that nation into refugees inside and outside the country.
It is against that background that the so-called ceasefire, initiated by Russia and quickly endorsed by Washington should be examined. I suspect that Obama is intelligent enough to know that there is not going to be a ceasefire for at least two reasons. First, a ceasefire is installed only when all parties to a war agree to it which is certainly not the case in Syria today.
In Fact, the joint sponsors of the “ceasefire”, that is to say Moscow and Washington, have expressly excluded the Al-Nusra Front, and the Islamic State or Daesh. Implicitly exempt are ethnic Kurds who now hold almost as much territory as President Bashar Al-Assad’s government, albeit with a smaller population. The position of others involved in this imbroglio, notably the Lebanese and Iraqi Hezbollah units under Iranian command and the Afghan and other central Asian “volunteer” units controlled by Tehran, remains unclear. The closest hint to it has come from Muhammad-Javad Zarif, the Islamic Republic’s foreign minister, who says there will be no stop to “action against terrorist groups.” Since Tehran regards all those opposed to Assad as “terrorists”, that could mean anyone and everyone.
At the other end of the spectrum, the cluster of anti-Assad forces that are not labelled “terrorist” by Washington and Moscow have made their acceptance of an eventual ceasefire conditional to a cessation of attacks on their positions and the lifting of sieges that are starving large civilian populations.
In other words, Obama and his new-found partner, Vladimir Putin, have invented a new form of ceasefire; one could call it a la carte for good measure. The second reason why there isn’t going to be a ceasefire is the diverse nature of fires that are burning Syria. There are in fact three sorts of fire in Syria.
The first is fire from air which remains a monopoly of Assad’s air force, and recently, that of his Russian allies. People forget that more than 90 per cent of those killed in the past five years were victims of air attacks by Syrian and Russian air forces, especially barrel bombings and the use of chemical weapons. If Putin really wanted, that fire could cease immediately.
The second fire is the one exchanged in engagements on the ground between Assad’s forces and allies, including the Iranian bloc, which has claimed far fewer victims than Assad’s air attacks and Putin’s carpet bombing campaign. In fact, since the autumn of 2014 when the so-called civil war reached its peak, the two sides have fought a total of only 17 battles of significant size and scope.
Neither Assad nor his opponents have the manpower needed for large-scale ground operations in the context of positional warfare. Even if they make temporary territorial gains they do not have the human resources to hold on their conquests. The Syrian civil war has produced a draw and a de facto partition that no one is strong enough to alter. Some analysts believe that Assad’s refusal to resist advances made by ISIS is a sign of collusion between the two criminal outfits. We don’t know whether or not that is the case. However, we know that Assad ceded chunks of territory to ISIS without much of a fight while ISIS, breathing down his neck close to Damascus, has not chosen to enter the capital. In other words a de facto ceasefire between Assad and ISIS has been in place for almost a year.
The third kind of fire that is burning Syria comes from terrorist attacks in urban areas, notably car bombs and suicide operations. The Putin-Obama deal is not going to cease that kind of fire anytime soon, especially when the groups behind them are not given any incentive to change tactics.
The Putin-Obama deal will not stop the Syrian tragedy or even alter its course for the better. But it will give Obama a narrative with which to pay until the next US presidential election in nine months’ time. He would have a “peace process” in place as he has had one between Israel and the Palestinians since 2009. He would sell his Syrian “peace process” the same way he sold his non-existent “nuclear deal” with Iran with the claim that appeasing the mullahs would help “moderates” like former President Hashemi Rafsanjani win power in Iranian elections (Held today!)
The Putin-Obama deal will also suit the master of the Kremlin. There are signs that Putin is beginning to understand that his Syrian adventure wouldn’t be a cakewalk. With the Russian economy heading for a meltdown, partly because of low energy prices, Putin is finding it harder to sell his empire-building project to the oligarchs who provide the backbone of his regime. He has also understood that, without boots on the ground in substantial numbers, he could not impose his desired order on Syria. But where would those boots come from? Having already suffered incredible losses, the mullahs of Tehran dare not send large numbers of their own troops especially when they need them to quell the insurrections they fear inside Iran itself. As for the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah, it has already seen its forces decimated and any bigger deployment to Syria could deprive Hassan Nasrallah of the critical mass he needs to terrorize his political enemies inside Lebanon.
As for Assad, he has no choice but to live on a day to day basis, indulging in all manner of illusions including the “parliamentary elections” he has just announced as his April Fools’ Day contribution.
The tragedy is that, all the while, in Syria people die, every day.

Feige Stern, Eti Abramov/Ynetnews: When war comes a-knocking
Feige Stern, Eti Abramov/Ynetnews/February 27/16
Israelis living near the Gaza border have had enough with the constant - and seemingly inevitable - rounds of violence. They went out on the streets of Tel Aviv to find supporters for their demand from the government: Find a solution both military and diplomatic in nature.
Upon hearing an unexpected knock on the door, the family members look at each other, trying to remember if they invited someone over. They wait - perhaps it's a mistake - but then more knocking is heard, and they get up to open the door. "Good evening, you may not feel this, but war is on the way." Undoubtedly a strong opening statement. And now what?
While most of the country enjoys relative quiet - sometimes disrupted by stabbing attacks - the residents of the Gaza border communities have been living in a state of war for years now. Even when rockets and mortar shells are not raining down on them, they know it's only a matter of time before violence resumes: The IDF's abysmal assessments, knowing that several dozens of terrorists are digging their way to their homes, the odd rocket. They've had enough.
Before another round of fighting can begin, they've decided to try and explain their reality to those living further away from the frontline. Their goal is to recruit support for some sort of action, whatever it may be, by the government. They plan to do that by going door-to-door in order to bring the winds of war to every home, as well as setting out to main spots around the country to collect signatures on a petition in support of a diplomatic move, done alongside military operations against terror organizations.
We've recently joined them at their stalls across the country and during their door-to-door campaign in Givatayim and Tel Aviv.
On the surface, convincing people was not hard: Not even a single person was found, on the left or right, who thought the Israeli government was doing anything to stop Hamas from gaining more power, or to prevent the next round of fighting. The problem is that even in the heart of Tel Aviv, most of the people they encountered supported violent solutions to the situation. Activists from The Movement for the Future of the Western Negev and Darkenu (formerly known as V15) do not support violent solutions, which led to many arguments discussions that led them to despair.
Kill or be killed
Adele Ramer, an English teacher from Kibbutz Nirim, has experienced several difficult situations in her life. As a resident of the western Negev, her family and her have been suffering for years now from rocket fire coming from above, and can feel the tunnels being dug below - and yet they remain optimistic. But when she was standing on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv this week, she felt embarrassed.

"Do I bother you?" she asks two men having a conversation.
"My only problem with you is that you live in an area that's part of the State of Israel, and you can't be so left wing," one of them answers. Adele raises an eyebrow. "Perhaps I should move to Ashkelon? But rockets fall there as well. Perhaps I'll move to Ashdod. Ah, but there as well..." "No, no, no, under no circumstance should you move," the man, embarrassed, says. "I just have a problem with people complaining about the situation but voting Meretz."
"So far, the right wing hasn't provided us with solutions," Adele responds. "We're here to ask the government to at least present us with a solution, do something! Besides, do you think the country is divided into right wingers who don't want rockets to fall on them and Meretz voters who do want rockets to fall on them?"
"We need to reach an agreement with the Egyptians, and make all the Palestinians leave through...""Does this seem practicable to you? Logical? Ethical? Causing 2.5 million people to leave their homes?"
"Yes."
The conversation is at a dead end. Both sides agree to disagree, shake hands, and say goodbye.
"I moved to the Negev because of the situation, to show solidarity. But this is also about the quality of life," another man Adele stops on the street tells her with enthusiasm.
"If you're like us living in the western Negev, then you know the next war is coming. What can we do?"
"Hit them hard. Once and for all."
"We've done it already. We do it every year. Does it work?"
"No, not really. But maybe this time we can uproot (terrorism)."
"But that's what they say every time!" Adele says in anger, raising her voice for the first time.
"Look, I'm on your side. Whatever you decide, I'm in favor. The government, excuse my language, is impotent." Despite the disagreements, he signs the petition, perhaps only in an effort to politely end the conversation.
The volunteers seem confused. This isn't the reception they expected at the bastion of the white left-wing. Instead of bouquets and conversations about the end of the occupation, they're being confronted over creative ways to turn Gaza into a parking lot. We turn from Rothschild Boulevard to Allenby Street. Right on the corner, Adele sees a dusty clocks store, one that still sells walkmans and video tapes. She decides to go inside. The store owner is busy reading through a large pile of newspapers. There must not be such a large demand for alarm clocks and video tapes these days. "We need to destroy their television, their broadcasting stations, their propaganda. If there's no media, there's no way to get information across, and then there's no incitement. And the electricity, too. Take down everything," he says.
"But then everything will blow up in our face," Adele tries to argue. "Two million people will simply head for the border fence. What are you going to do, kill them all?""Well, and what do you think they do in Syria these days?"
"Do you really want us to be like Syria?"
"If you don't get them, they'll get you. Do you want to die?"
"I believe most people living in Gaza want what I want - to live."
"They don't. They want you to die. What year did you come to Israel? I've been here since 1943, and they've always wanted to throw us out to sea. You have to understand their mentality. They need someone to control them. That's it. There're no solutions. Kill or be killed."
Between anemones and Qassam rockets
Adele and her fellow volunteers knock on the door of an apartment building in Givatayim. "Who's there?" a voice on the other side of the door asks. Adele responds. Quiet on the other end. The woman on the other side of the door, Rina Ram, is wary of opening the door to strangers. Eventually, she gets up and opens the door only a little bit, trying to understand what exactly do the three people standing outside in white shirts that say "We're all with the Gaza border communities" - one of them even wearing sandals in the middle of winter - want from her.
"Hello," Adele says. "We're from the Gaza border communities, and we've come to ask for your support." After the exchange of a few more pleasantries and a short ideological discussion, not only did Rina sign the petition, but also insisted on bringing them something cold to drink, and later even relented and agreed to have her photo taken with their sticker, promising to put it on her car.
"What I think will happen is that the tunnels will reach all the way here," Rina says. "The solution, in the coming decade, is a security solution. We need to exercise a firm hand with them, the carrot and stick method." "So according to what you're saying," one of the other volunteers, Gali, jumps in, "I am guaranteed to become a refugee in my own country every two years and move from one friend's home to another." Rina: "It's delusional to think that if you throw money at the problem, it'll pass."In hindsight, Rina turned out to be a relatively hard nut to crack in Givatayim. The rest may not have felt like war was just around the corner, but they at least tried to express solidarity with the volunteers. One floor up, Michal Haim opens her door to the volunteers. "I keep hearing on the radio that (Gaza border residents) can hear the digging (of tunnels), and my heart goes out to them," she explains. "It's very frustrating that they live inside Israel, but we still need to be worried about them."
"My daughter is 32 years old and still afraid to leave the house," Adele responds emotionally.
Later, she talks about meeting many people who were evacuated from Gush Katif (area of Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip evacuated in 2005 - ed.) during the "Red South Festival." She asks them to sign the petition as well. "The only ones I'm having a hard time with are those among the evacuated who tell me I deserve every rocket I endure," she says.
At every opportunity, whether it's canvassing door-to-door, during "Red South Festival" events, and at the movement's stalls at the Friday market in Sderot, the volunteers ask for support to their demand for another solution - one that combines military action with a diplomatic arrangement, with Hamas. They recruit to their cause top IDF officers, and even politicians like Naftali Bennett, who recently surprised many when he said he was more or less in favor of the "reconstruction in return for quiet" formula.
In addition to Adele - the teacher, medical clown and masseuse - there are also David Drori, the dairy farmer from Kibbutz Sa'ad, and Gali Basodo from Sderot, who is part of the governing council of the Movement for the Future of the Western Negev.
When I try to understand the difference between the Gaza border area and the western Negev, she tells me frankly, "The western Negev is anemone flowers, the Gaza border area is Qassam rockets. Our goal is to get everyone to join us in demanding the prime minister to present a clear plan. To look us in the eye and tell us what his plans are for our future."She turns to Ariel, a guy from Givatayim whose ex-girlfriend is from Kissufim. Ariel doesn't shrink back. He stops his bike, and like every other Israeli, he obviously has his own ideas. "I have a solution!" he declares.
"Well?" the three dreamers from the Gaza border area ask.
"But it's not practical."
"Everyone has impractical solutions," Gali tells him. "Come on, let's hear it."
"Will you allow me to destroy the entire Gaza Strip, make it into a parking lot, and transfer everyone to Egypt?" he smiles, knowing well this isn't what the three volunteers mean when they ask for a solution. "If I were the prime minister, I wouldn't let them off easy. Gaza is small - every rocket that falls, I say we take over another area. There's no future for that area, and there will never be peace."
'I feel sorry for you'
Outside the Givatayim mall, a pleasant taxi driver approaches them. "What party are you from?" he asks. He takes a sticker, gladly puts it on his car and declares: "Bibi can't find a solution for Sara (his wife - ed.), so you expect him to solve the country's problems? I feel sorry for the people living in your area, ma'am, I really do." Polly Bronstein, the head of the Darkenu Movement, carefully chooses her words. "We have no time to waste," she says. "Everyone knows the next round of fighting is just around the corner and threatens us all, and primarily the residents of the Gaza border communities. We're all loving citizens, willing to carry the burden and know how to show endurance, but, at the same time, we demand to see a government initiative for a long-term solution to the rocket and tunnel threats in Gaza." Back in Tel Aviv, Adele stays optimistic. The volunteers decide to give it one more go. One of them points to two hipsters sitting at a bar and smoking cigarettes. "Is this... a left wing thing?" the younger of the two asks hesitantly. "We've had signatures from people on the right, the center, and the left. What do you think could be the solution to the situation in the western Negev?"
"Legalization. That's the only solution for the Middle East."