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Bible Quotation For Today/The kingdom of God is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.
Luke 13/18-21: "He said therefore, ‘What is the kingdom of God like? And to what should I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches. ’And again he said, ‘To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."

Bible Quotation For Today/ It is for the sake of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain
Acts of the Apostles 28/16-22:"When we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself, with the soldier who was guarding him. Three days later he called together the local leaders of the Jews. When they had assembled, he said to them, ‘Brothers, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our ancestors, yet I was arrested in Jerusalem and handed over to the Romans. When they had examined me, the Romans wanted to release me, because there was no reason for the death penalty in my case. But when the Jews objected, I was compelled to appeal to the emperor even though I had no charge to bring against my nation. For this reason therefore I have asked to see you and speak with you, since it is for the sake of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain.’ They replied, ‘We have received no letters from Judea about you, and none of the brothers coming here has reported or spoken anything evil about you. But we would like to hear from you what you think, for with regard to this sect we know that everywhere it is spoken against."

LCCC Latest analysis, editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 13-14/15
Hezbollah conspiciously missing from FPM protest/Gulf News/By: Joseph A. Kechichian,Senior/August 13/15
Iran Debates the IAEA Roadmap/Nima Gerami/Washington Institute/August 13/15
Iraq's Political Crises Could Stall the Anti-ISIS Campaign/James F. Jeffrey/Washington Institute/August 13/15
ISIS is not America’s fault and airstrikes won’t defeat them/Joyce Karam/Al Arabiya/13 August/15
A decisive choice awaits Yemen’s Houthis/Manuel Almeida/Al Arabiya/13 August/15
Why has Turkey suddenly become so violent?/Mahir Zeynalov/Al Arabiya/13 August/15
Lessons from the Gulf War: defeating ISIS/Andrew Bowen/Al Arabiya/13 August/15
A decisive choice awaits Yemen’s Houthis/Manuel Almeida/Al Arabiya/13 August/15
Remember the kidnapped in Syria/Nigel Baker/Al Arabiya/13 August/15
Europeans Rush to Profit from Iran Deal/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/August 13/15
Former US ambassador, Stephen Rapp: There won't be peace in Syria without prosecution of Assad/Author Barbara Slavin/AlMonitor/August 13/15
Kuwaiti Columnist, Abdallah Al-Hadlaq: The Gulf States' Real Enemy Is Iran; Israel Is A Friendly Country/MEMRI/August 13/15

Lebanon's file in Washington
Walid Phares DC/Face Book/August 13/15
From an assessment of where is Lebanon's file in Washington, and in the midst of the deep divide between the Administration and Congress on the Iran deal, the projection is that no serious move away from the current status quo is to be expected before January 2017, depending on which party and candidate would win in November 2016. So one year and five months before a possible new consensus is reached. Meanwhile, Lebanon is perceived by the Administration as a second level issue to address -other than the security issues related to ISIS on the border- under the vast umbrella of the Iran deal arrangements. However two factors can change this reality. One factor, most likely, related to possible military developments in Syria, and the other, less likely, would relate to an internal development in Lebanon resulting from a reaction to events in Syria.

REPORT TO NATO LAWMAKERS ON ALTERNATIVE AIRPORTS IN LEBANON
Walid Phares DC/August 12, 2013 ·Mideast Newswire
Dr Walid Phares, Congressional advisor and Co-Secretary General of the Transatlantic Parliamentary Group on Counter Terrorism (TAG) is preparing a "report about interim alternative airports to the Beirut International Airport (Rafiq Hariri IA) to members of the US Congress and the European Parliament as a result of the Terror threat and kidnappings menace targeting the Beirut Airport. "The alternative airports in Lebanon are Rayak, Qleiaat and Hamat, all three manned by the Lebanese Army. However according to the best assessment we have received, Hamat seems to be most suited at this point, on security and transportation levels" said Phares. "The International Airport south of Beirut may continue to operate, but since its environment has become a Terror and security risks, another international airport must be opened soon, not just for Lebanese passengers but for international companies as well. Hamat has excellent technical, structural, and could have rigorous security, requirements. We will inform the lawmakers about this alternative, hoping Western and other embassies in Lebanon will inform the executive branches in the West and the international community of this necessity."
Archive Photo: Congressional advisor Dr Walid Phares and Secretary of Transportation in the Obama Administration, Ray Lahoud at a Lebanon celebration in Congress

"Jible'.."
Walid Phares DC/Face Book/August 13/15/Possibly the oldest Phoenician city, but certainly the urban center where the original 19 letters of the Alphabet were carved before they became a universal human legacy. This is no light heritage for any nation. Byblos, or Jible' in Phoenician, later becoming Jbeil. Did the first written texts in the known Alphabet originate from there and sailed around the Mediterranean? Very possible. The city should be a destination for cultural pilgrimages, but obviously not in this day and age, between the modern day Khilafa and Wilaya. Forget about big dreams of culture at this point. Focus on lesser dreamy things, like carving up an area of full freedom with Byblos in its midst, until the world is ready. Even this is a tall order.
I spent an amazing year in Jbeil in at St George school before the war. There I had the opportunity to have long conversations with guest speakers such as Said Aql and Imam Musa Sadr. For months I had the joy of exploring the ruins, sites and get educated in Phoenician history, but also Marada and Crusader eras. A brief time under the Mameluks before the Lebanese Emara. This photo is by family members strolling in today's Jbeil and its souks. More on this in a forthcoming interview to be published soon

Hezbollah conspiciously missing from FPM protest
Gulf News/By: Joseph A. Kechichian,Senior Writer
Beirut: A few thousand Lebanese supporters of presidential hopeful Michel Aoun gathered Wednesday night in Martyrs’ Square in downtoan Beirut following his call on Saturday to protest against the extension of terms of top security posts.
However, conspicuously missing from the rally were Hezbollah supporters, traditional allies of the FPM.
Their lack of presence could be explained by a recent meeting between Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Zarif with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, of which the details were not revealed.
However during a meeting with Lebanese foreign minister Gebran Bassil (also Aoun’s son-in-law), Zarif stressed his support for the current government, in a move that signaled a possible change in tactics by Iran from instigator to mediator.
The protest was rather festive as several demonstrators opened bottles of champagne and smoked cigars, in a jibe at Lebanese army chief Jean Qajwaji, who was photographed a few days prior celebrating his term extension.
Bassil asserted that he was “struggling like the FPM youth [and that] tomorrow, [he would] struggle inside the Cabinet.” He hammered: “The country is ours and we will stay in it,” even if no one said the opposite, adding, “by taking to the street, the FPM supporters are demanding the Christians’ rights, which concern all the Lebanese in general because water, electricity, oil and garbage are issues that concern all the Lebanese without exceptions.” General Michel Aoun’s son-in-law told the National News Agency: “The presidency is the right of Christians and the Free Patriotic Movement has the biggest share in Parliament,” which was interpreted as an Aoun call to arms against the government.
Ironically, Speaker Nabih Berri—who earlier declared that he would not vote for Aoun—did not even bother to attend the parliamentary session to hold a presidential election, as he was busy with his meeting with Zarif. For the 27th time running, lack of quorum essentially meant that no one could be elected to succeed former President Michel Sulaiman, whose term ended on May 25, 2014. FPM and Hezbollah deputies have thwarted quorum since April 2014 by boycotting parliamentary sessions, but two of its tenors, Bassil and Education Minister Elias Bou Saab, joined demonstrators outside parliament to step-up pressure on the government. While neither Bassil nor Bou Saab were deputies—as Bassil never won an election—and, therefore, could cast a ballot, it did not occur to the FPM officials to mobilize their deputies and actually proceed to vote for their candidate.
On Thursday Prime Minister Tammam Salam convened the Cabinet to discuss urgent issues, though FPM ministers planned to raise their two main concerns, the government’s working mechanism and the appointment of top military and security personnel. Salam, for his part, held a different agenda, which includes the growing garbage management crisis and 740-million-dollars worth of international loans that need approval before Lebanon looses them permanently. Given these diametrically opposed perceptions of what were the country’s priorities, observers expected the latest session to be contentious. Under the circumstances, and if no agreement could be reached, it was unclear whether Aoun would then give the green light for his supporters to resort to the streets once again. According to the pro-Hezbollah daily Al Safir, however, a high-ranking FPM source confirmed that the movement’s next moves hinged on “how others will deal with our known demands.”

No Decision inside Cabinet as Dispute Grows
Naharnet/August 13/15/The cabinet failed on Thursday to take any decision as ministers traded blame and accusations on several issues, including the extension of the terms of top military brass, despite a relatively calm session. Before the session, Prime Minister Tammam Salam insisted to discuss urgent issues, but the Free Patriotic Movement ministers wanted to stick to the government's working mechanism and the appointment of top military and security officials. Salam was holding onto the agenda of the session, which included the growing garbage management crisis and 740-million-dollars worth of international loans that need approval. But Information Minister Ramzi Jreij said following the session that all ministers expressed their viewpoints on several issues and the cabinet was not able to take any decision. According to media reports, the FPM ministers blamed Defense Minister Samir Moqbel for extending the terms of three top military officials last week. In remarks to al-Joumhouria daily, Education Minister Elias Bou Saab rejected the “marginalization of a certain team,” saying “we are partners in the government.” Both Bou Saab and Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil, who are FPM officials, want the cabinet to first discuss the decision-making mechanism and the appointments of top military and security officials before moving to other items on the agenda. FPM chief MP Michel Aoun and Salam have been for months locking horns over the mechanism that would govern the cabinet's work and the appointments. The cabinet convened a day after FPM supporters held street protests against what they claim is the marginalization of the rights of Christians and the recent extension of the terms of top military officials. It was also not clear if Aoun would give the green light to his supporters to resort to the streets again. But high-ranking FPM sources told As Safir newspaper that the movement's next move hinges on “how others will deal with our known demands.” “The FPM would be compelled to increase the dose of protests if the flaws were not fixed,” the sources said. In his statement at the start of the session, Salam lamented that "the vortex of paralysis" has not ended. He said the vacuum at the Baabda Palace was causing the paralysis of the parliament and the government. This prompted Telecommunications Minister Butros Harb to announce that he will no longer attend cabinet sessions.

Hariri, Jumblat Discuss Measures to Remove Obstacles Facing Institutions
Naharnet/August 13/15/Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri and Progressive Socialist Party chief MP Walid Jumblat have discussed ways to “remove the obstacles” facing state institutions, Hariri's press office announced on Thursday. The statement said the meeting took place at Hariri's residence in France on Wednesday night. The meeting “was an opportunity to discuss the developments in the region, ways to protect stability in Lebanon and remove the obstacles facing the work of constitutional institutions,” it added. Lebanon plunged in a political crisis in May last year, when MPs failed to find a successor to President Michel Suleiman. The crisis led to a stop in parliamentary sessions and growing dispute in the government that have paralyzed the work of constitutional institutions.

Aoun, Bassil Press for Demands and Issue Fresh Warnings
Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun said Thursday that he would take more escalatory measures if needed but stressed that he would give dialogue a chance amid fresh warnings by his son-in-law Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil. “We will resort to escalation if needed, but we back dialogue,” Aoun was quoted as telling reporters at his residence in Rabieh. “We won't allow our Christian and patriotic rights to be violated,” he warned in a chat with the reporters. Aoun spoke a day after he mobilized his supporters to hold street protests against what he terms as the violation of the rights of Christians and Defense Minister Samir Moqbel's decision to extend the terms of top three military officers. FPM members held motorized protests and later gathered in downtown Beirut's Martyrs Square. The FPM has accused Prime Minister Tammam Salam of infringing on the rights of the Christian president in his absence. The movement's ministers want to amend the cabinet's working mechanism to have a say on its agenda. They also reject the extension of the terms of security and military officials, calling for the appointment of new ones. But they failed to pressure Salam during Thursday's cabinet session, which was not able to take any decision. Bassil, who is one of two ministers representing the FPM, said “by remaining silent to the defense minister's move, the government made a violation.”“No decision can be taken by the cabinet without consensus in the absence of a president,” Bassil said at a press conference he held in Bustros Palace. “There was a disregard to our popular representation during today's cabinet session, and a disregard to our popular movement,” he said, adding “this is an insult to us, to all those who took to the streets and to all those who will resort to the streets in the coming days.” “We will not allow to be marginalized,” he stressed, warning “there would be a bigger explosion outside the cabinet.”

Saqr Charges 5 Lebanese and a Palestinian for Belonging to Terrorist Groups
Naharnet/August 13/15/State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr charged on Thursday 5 Lebanese and a Palestinian for planning terrorist attacks against the army, the state-run National News Agency reported. Four of the Lebanese are already under arrest while the Palestinian is at large. The suspects belong to al-Nusra Front and have been incited by Shadi al-Mawlawi and Bilal Bader to plan and carry out terrorist attacks against army positions and the Internal Security Forces in the north after the killing of Osama Mansour. Early this week, the Lebanese army intelligence arrested Abdul Rahman Tareq al-Kilani, a member of Osama Masnour's terrorist group, upon his return to Lebanon from abroad. He admitted to belonging to Mansour's group and participating in attacks against army positions in the northern city of Tripoli. He also confessed that while he was abroad, he was tasked by fugitives Bilal Bader and Shadi al-Mawlawi, to recruit teenagers to carry out terrorist attacks against the military and Internal Security Forces. Mansour was shot dead by security forces in Tripoli in April, while al-Mawlawi remains a fugitive. They have led armed groups that engaged in deadly gunbattles with the army in Tripoli and its surrounding areas in October.

Police Arrest Suspected Rapist of Teenage Girl
Naharnet/August 13/15/Security forces said on Thursday that they have arrested the suspected rapist of a 14-year-old girl in the Metn town of Rawda. A communique issued by the Internal Security Forces said a man complained to police in Bourj Hammoud on July 18 that a 34-year-old man had kidnapped his minor daughter. Following the girl's return to her parents' house three days later, the medical examiner confirmed that she had been raped, said the communique. The girl claimed that she was drugged by the suspect and taken from Bourj Hammoud in a car to an unknown location where she was raped. Following a thorough investigation, officers from the Jdeideh police station located the man's whereabouts and arrested him on Wednesday, the communique said. The man is also wanted on drug charges, it added.

Beirut Port Employees Protest Decision to Dump Trash in Block AB
Naharnet/August 13/15/Employees of the Beirut Port held a sit-in on Thursday protesting an alleged government decision to use a nearby real estate as a dump site. MTV said that more than 100 employees staged the sit-in and prevented trucks transporting goods from entering the port causing long queues at the Port entrance. Reports have said that a decision was made to use block AB in the Port as a dump site for the waste that has been accumulating in several areas. Head of the Union of Beirut Port Employees Beshara al-Asmar told LBCI: “Today's move is only a warning against dumping wastes in the Port's vicinity.”“We will not accept the capital's trash to be accumulated in the Port. Moreover it will affect the employees' health,” warning of escalatory measures. In July, a waste-management crisis swept through the capital and Mount Lebanon after the closure of the Naameh landfill that received trash from the said areas. Streets overflew with waste and the air filled with the smell of rotting garbage. The government pledged last year that Naameh landfill would be closed on July 17 and an alternative site be found, which never happened. A temporary deal was found later on to begin taking trash to several landfills in undisclosed locations. The chosen locations have filled with trash in light of the absence of a substitute for Naameh, triggering a major concern. Last week, three private companies submitted bids to manage Beirut's waste without declaring a disposing ground. Despite the good signals that a solution to the trash crisis may be looming, the lack of finding a disposing ground poses a major risk and heralds a long way ahead for a radical solution, as municipalities dump wastes in populated areas, valleys and forests.

You Stink' Activists Dump Trash outside Mashnouq's Residence
Naharnet/August 13/15/Activists from the You Stink anti-trash movement dumped a number of trash bags Thursday outside the residence of Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq in protest at authorities' failure to address the garbage crisis. “In response to the government and Minister Mashnouq's policy of concealing the garbage and killing us with it instead of subjecting it to treatment … and because we have the right to defend ourselves against the deals of death, groups from the You Stink campaign have taken the trash to where it belongs – to Minister Mashnouq's house,” said a statement issued by the movement. “This is only the beginning,” the movement warned, reiterating its call for Mashnouq's resignation. In the statement, the activists clarified that they support “transparent tenders and solutions” and reject “vile deals and corruption.” “Our move today is aimed at defending our lives and health,” said the campaign in a Facebook post. “The minister thought that he could deceive us and turn our homes and forests into secret dumpsters,” it added. The campaign has held several protests in recent weeks to press for an eco-friendly solution for the unprecedented garbage crisis. Earlier on Thursday, employees of the Beirut Port held a sit-in protesting an alleged government decision to use a nearby location as a dump site. Reports have said that a decision was made to use block AB in the Port as a dump site for the waste that has been accumulating in several areas. In July, a waste-management crisis swept through the capital and Mount Lebanon after the closure of the Naameh landfill that received trash from the said areas. Streets overflew with waste and the air filled with the smell of rotting garbage. The government pledged last year that Naameh landfill would be closed on July 17 and an alternative site be found, which never happened. A temporary deal was found later on to begin taking trash to several landfills in undisclosed locations. The chosen locations have filled with trash in light of the absence of a substitute for Naameh, triggering a major concern.
Last week, three private companies submitted bids to manage Beirut's waste without declaring a disposing ground.

Sources: Salam, Jordanian Officials Discussed Lebanese Export through Aqaba
Naharnet/August 13/15/Sources close to Prime Minister Tammam Salam have said that Jordanian authorities expressed readiness to facilitate the export of Lebanese products through the Port of Aqaba. The sources told al-Mustaqbal daily published on Thursday that the pledge was made during Salam's one-day visit to Jordan a day earlier. Trucks have been unable to transport agricultural and industrial produce to Gulf countries since April when rebels seized the Syrian side of the crossing with Jordan, prompting Amman to close it. The Lebanese government approved last month a $21 million treasury loan to subsidize the maritime export of the produce. The sources also said Jordan's interior minister informed the Lebanese delegation accompanying Salam that Jordanian authorities seized this week one million Captagon pills stashed in a truck coming from Lebanon.Jordan has in the past made similar discoveries, the minister said.

Rifi: Our Muslim-Christian Convictions Steadfast, Aoun's Actions Will not Change them
Naharnet/August 13/15/Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi emphasized on Thursday that the Free Patriotic Movement led by MP Michel Aoun will not succeed in widening the gap between the Christians and Muslims, al-Mustaqbal daily reported. “Aoun will not be succeed to drag us against our convictions of Muslim-Christian partnership,” said Rifi in an interview to the daily. “We will not be dragged against national unity or national coexistence,” stressed the Minister. Rifi's comments came against the backdrop of the street mobility that kicked off on Wednesday to protest Defense Minister Samir Moqbel's decision to extend the terms of top military officials and the alleged marginalization of Christian rights. The FPM rejects the extensions and instead calls for the appointment of new officials because Aoun wants his son-in-law Commando Regiment chief Brig. Gen. Chamel Roukoz to become army chief. Aoun has also been at loggerheads with Prime Minister Tammam Salam over the cabinet's working mechanism which was adopted after the end of the tenure of President Michel Suleiman in May 2014. Aoun wants to introduce amendments to the government’s working process, saying Salam is infringing on the rights of the Christian president in his absence.

Hizbullah 'Backs Aoun in Cabinet and the Street'
Naharnet/August 13/15/Sources close to Hizbullah have stressed that the party backs all of the moves taken by its ally Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun inside and outside the cabinet. Hizbullah “supports all of Aoun's moves inside the government and even on the streets,” the sources told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat published on Thursday. “We are holding onto our stance regarding our ally,” said the sources although Hizbullah supporters did not participate in street protests ordered by Aoun. FPM supporters resorted to the streets on Wednesday to protest Defense Minister Samir Moqbel's decision to extend the terms of top military officials and the alleged marginalization of Christian rights. The FPM rejects the extensions and instead calls for the appointment of new officials because Aoun wants his son-in-law Commando Regiment chief Brig. Gen. Chamel Roukoz to become army chief. Aoun has also been at loggerheads with Prime Minister Tammam Salam over the cabinet's working mechanism which was adopted after the end of the tenure of President Michel Suleiman in May 2014. Aoun wants to introduce amendments to the government’s working process, saying Salam is infringing on the rights of the Christian president in his absence.

Fugitive Held Trying to Smuggle 'Chemical Substances' to Arsal Outskirts
Naharnet/August 13/15/A Lebanese fugitive was arrested Wednesday as he was trying to smuggle “chemical substances that could be used in bomb-making” to the outskirts of the northeastern border town of Arsal. “Today, army forces in the Arsal region arrested the fugitive Ahmed Khaled al-Hujeiri as he was trying to smuggle chemical substances that could be used in bomb-making to the town's outskirts,” the Army Command said in a statement. Arsal lies 12 kilometers from the border with Syria and has been used as a conduit for weapons and rebels to enter Syria, while also serving as a refuge for people fleeing the conflict. Jihadists from the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front groups, who are entrenched in the outskirts, stormed the town in August 2014 and engaged in deadly battles with the army following the arrest of a top militant. They withdrew from Arsal at the end of the fighting, but kidnapped a number of troops and policemen. A few have since been released, four were executed, while the rest remain held. Separately, the Army Command said in its statement on Wednesday that Syrian national Abdul Rahman Sheikh Moussa was apprehended in the Bint Jbeil town of Aytaroun on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist group.

3 Hurt as Grenade Hurled at Jabal Mohsen Cafe
Naharnet/August 13/15/Three people were injured Thursday evening when a hand grenade was hurled at a cafe in the Tripoli neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen, state-run National News Agency reported. “Security forces immediately arrived on the scene and launched an investigation,” NNA said. MTV meanwhile identified the wounded as Salah al-Raffah and a man and his son from the al-Zayni family. Nine people were killed and more than 30 were wounded in January when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in the Abu Omran Cafe in Jabal Mohsen. The attack was claimed by the Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front.

Qahwaji Meets Roukoz over Lunch, FPM Lawmaker Downplays Move
Naharnet/August 13/15/A lunch meeting on Thursday gathered Army chief General Jean Qahwaji and Commando Regiment commander Brig. Gen. Chamel Roukoz, several TV networks and newspapers reported. The meeting took place at a restaurant in downtown Beirut, the reports said.LBCI television said the two generals did not tackle the thorny issue of security and military appointments. It also said that the meeting had been scheduled 48 hours prior to its occurrence. In remarks to Akhbar al-Yawm news agency, MP Ziad Aswad of the Free Patriotic Movement said “these social ties are not of concern to the FPM and its policies.” “The FPM's objections are not targeted against certain individuals, but are rather aimed at ensuring the regularity of the rotation of power in all institutions,” said Aswad. Defense Minister Samir Moqbel has recently extended the the terms of the army commander, chief of staff and the head of the Higher Defense Council despite months of objections by the FPM, which rejects the extension of the tenures of high-ranking military and security officials. Prior to Qahwaji's term extension, Aoun was reportedly lobbying for political consensus on the appointment of Roukoz, his son-in-law, as army chief. The Qahwaji-Roukoz meeting comes a day after FPM supporters held street protests against what Aoun terms as the violation of the rights of Christians as well as Moqbel's decision to extend the tenures of the top three military officers.

Kuwait Breaks Up 'Terror' Cell
Naharnet/August 13/15/Agencies/Kuwait has broken up a new three-member "terror" cell and seized large amounts of weapons, ammunition and explosives, the interior ministry said on Thursday. Three Kuwaiti citizens were arrested and have confessed to joining a "terror" group, a statement said. Security forces seized "19 tons of ammunition" as well as 144 kilos (316 pounds) of TNT, as well as rocket propelled grenades, hand grenades, firearms and detonators, the ministry said. It said the explosives were found in a farm in Abdali, near the border with Iraq, and in two houses in undisclosed locations. At the end of July, Kuwait said it had broken up a five-member cell of alleged members of the Islamic State group.In June a Saudi bomber blew himself up in a Shiite mosque in Kuwait City, killing 26 people and wounding hundreds. The jihadist IS group claimed responsibility for the attack. Last month, Kuwait said it had broken up a five-member cell of alleged IS militants.

Zarif, Assad discuss fight against ‘terror’
By AFP | Damascus/Thursday, 13 August 2015/Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Wednesday, and called on regional countries to “fight terrorism and extremism”.Assad, in turn, thanked key ally Iran for its support in a four-year civil war that has cost more than 240,000 lives. “I say to the other (regional) players and to our neighbours that now is the time to care about the truth, answer the aspirations of the Syrian people and work to fight terrorism, extremism, and sectarianism,” Zarif said. He did not give details on his discussions with Assad on finding a solution to the war, only describing the exchange of views as “good”. An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman had said a new Iranian peace plan was based on “respect for the Syrian people’s legitimate right to reforms and to decide their own future”. Assad, quoted by state news agency SANA, expressed his “appreciation for Iran’s strong support for Syria”. He welcomed “the sincere efforts made by Iran and friendly countries to stop the war against Syria and to preserve the sovereignty and integrity of its territory”. Zarif arrived in Damascus on Wednesday after morning meetings in Beirut with officials including his Lebanese counterpart, Gebran Bassil. “We are ready to cooperate, exchange ideas, and work together with these nations to fight extremism, terrorism, and sectarianism,” he told reporters in Beirut. “We hope that the people of this region and the Lebanese people will benefit from this cooperation.” Late Tuesday, Zarif met Prime Minister Tammam Salam and Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah. Iran, Hezbollah and Russia have been the biggest backers of the Assad regime throughout the conflict.

Yemeni president arrives in the UAE for talks
AP, Dubai/Thursday, 13 August 2015/The Yemeni president has arrived for a visit in the United Arab Emirates, one of the key backers of a Saudi-led coalition attempting to roll back gains by Iranian-backed Houthi milita in the deeply impoverished country. State news agency WAM says exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi arrived Wednesday for a two-day working visit. Officials had no further details. Hadi has been living in neighboring Saudi Arabia after he and much of his government fled advances by the Shiite Houthi rebels earlier this year. The Emirates has been participating in a Saudi-led, American-supported campaign targeting the rebels and their allies since March. It and Saudi Arabia have supplied pro-government forces with tanks and other fighting vehicles, and the Emirates has lost soldiers as part of the campaign. Military and security officials in Yemen say a suspected U.S. drone strike has killed five suspected al-Qaeda militants traveling in a vehicle near the extremist-held coastal city of Mukalla. The officials said the attack Wednesday happened east of the city. Al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch, considered by Washington to be the most dangerous offshoot of the terror network, has made gains in the sprawling eastern Hadramawt province, capturing its capital, Mukalla, in April. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters. Al-Qaeda has made advances amid the civil war now engulfing Yemen. Washington meanwhile has kept up its drone attacks there targeting al-Qaeda militants, including one that killed the group's top leader in Mukalla in June.

Iraq PM sacks senior official in reform push
AFP, Baghdad /Thursday, 13 August 2015/Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has sacked a senior cabinet official who was a close aide to his predecessor and rival Nouri al-Maliki, the premier’s office said in a statement Wednesday. Abadi issued an “order to relieve the secretary general of the cabinet and his two deputies from their positions,” the statement said, referring to Mohammed Khalaf Ahmed, who headed Maliki’s personal office during his premiership. The statement did not provide a reason for the dismissals, but the announcement comes during a major reform drive by Abadi aimed at curbing rampant corruption and streamlining the government. Khalaf’s responsibilities included providing advice and support to the premier, administrative services to the cabinet and managing state properties, according to a description of the post on a government website. Maliki served two terms as prime minister and is widely viewed as having exacerbated sectarian tensions between the country’s Shiite majority and Sunni Arab minority. Widespread discontent among Sunni Arabs, who say they were marginalized and targeted by Maliki’s government, played a major role in worsening the security situation in Iraq, culminating in a disastrous jihadist offensive last year. Despite having the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group overrun a third of the country during his second term, Maliki nonetheless tried for a third. But he stepped aside last August under major international and domestic pressure, ushering in Abadi’s term in office.

U.S. launches first anti-ISIS airstrikes from Turkey
Agencies /Thursday, 13 August 2015/The U.S. on Wednesday launched its first airstrikes by Turkey-based F-16 fighter jets against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) targets in Syria, the Pentagon said. The airstrikes mark a limited escalation of a yearlong air campaign that critics have called excessively cautious. Previously, the U.S.-led coalition bombing the jihadist group had used unmanned drones for missions launched from Turkey, with jets flying from carriers and other bases in the region. “Today, the United States began flying manned counter-ISIL missions from Incirlik Air Base, Turkey. Strikes were conducted,” Pentagon spokeswoman Commander Elissa Smith said, using another acronym used for ISIS. “This follows Turkey’s announcement last month that it would open its bases to United States and coalition members'’ air operations against ISIL, as part of deeper U.S.-Turkey counter-ISIL cooperation,” she added. Pentagon officials have said the main advantage of using Incirlik is its proximity to ISIS targets in northern Syria, although a senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday that the F-16s may also be used on missions over Iraq. The official was not authorized to discuss F-16 mission details publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Most U.S. aerial combat missions over Iraq and Syria are being flown from more distant air bases in Qatar and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region, although the U.S. also is flying F-16s from Muwaffaq Salti air base in Jordan. Separately, a military spokesman confirmed that the strikes launched from Incirlik had targeted the ISIS group in Syria, one of the most powerful factions in the country’s complex civil war. The United States is leading a coalition of Western and Arab powers carrying out strikes against ISIS fighters in territory they have seized in Syria and Iraq.

U.S. officials: We will know if Iran cheats on deal
AP, Washington /Thursday, 13 August 2015/U.S. intelligence officials say they are confident they can verify Iran’s compliance with the recently completed nuclear deal, despite a track record of misjudgments about weapons of mass destruction. The main reason, according to a classified joint intelligence assessment presented to Congress, is that the deal requires Iran to provide an unprecedented volume of information about nearly every aspect of its existing nuclear program, which Iran insists is peaceful. That data will make checking on compliance easier, officials say, because it will shrink Iran’s capacity to hide a covert weapons program. “We will have far better insight (into) the industrial aspects of the Iranian nuclear program with this deal than what we have today,” James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told an audience last month at the Aspen Security Forum. Outside experts don’t dispute that. But they question - considering past analytical blind spots in the Middle East - whether American spying will really be able to catch every instance of Iranian cheating. “The intelligence community can rarely guarantee, ‘We’re going find the secret site,’” said David Albright, a former weapons inspector who heads the Institute for Science and International Security. “They have found them before in Iran and that’s good, but I think they are going to have to do more work and bolster their capabilities to find secret sites in Iran in an environment when Iran is taking counter measures against them.”Skeptics of the deal note that Iran is one of the world’s hardest places in which to spy. Iran’s intelligence agencies have penetrated CIA front companies, executed Western agents and captured a sophisticated U.S. drone. The CIA has never had much success developing and keeping good intelligence sources in Iran, says Reuel Marc Gerecht, who worked as a CIA operations officer. “The truth is that the CIA and the NSA are largely flying blind inside the Islamic Republic on the nuclear question,” he wrote recently in the Weekly Standard. Intelligence officials dispute that, saying their insights into Iran have improved considerably in recent years. The CIA has “a reasonably high degree of confidence that we would be able to detect Iran if it were trying to deviate from the requirements that they’ve signed up to,” David Cohen, the agency's deputy director, said at the Aspen Security Forum.
The United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany reached the agreement with Iran on July 14 that would curtail its nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from economic sanctions. The U.S. Congress is expected to vote next month on a resolution rejecting the agreement. As part of the deal, Iran agreed to disclose nearly every element of its nuclear supply chain, including people, places, companies and infrastructure – “their entire nose-to-tail process for uranium production and processing,” as one U.S. intelligence official put it, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. Those disclosures would vastly increase the chances that intelligence agencies would catch cheating, officials told Congress in classified briefings. That’s because any illicit activity would have to take place outside the established network that had been laid bare to the West. Once the CIA knows all the places Iran has been importing and processing nuclear material, the country would have to develop new avenues to evade detection- a major undertaking. The briefings and the assessment were described by officials only on condition of anonymity. The intelligence assessment presumes Iran will try to cheat, say officials familiar with it. Even after 15 years, when restrictions on Iranian nuclear activities are lifted, Iran will still be prohibited from developing a nuclear weapon, and the U.S. will have more ability than it does now to detect any attempt, officials insist. History provides reasons to be skeptical of U.S. ability to detect and gauge secret Iranian nuclear activity. Foremost among them are the massive misjudgments in intelligence that helped justify the Iraq war. Nearly every U.S. spy agency concluded with some level of certainty that Saddam Hussein possessed active chemical and biological weapons programs. They were flat wrong.
Officials point out that the Iraq war debacle led to changes. On Iran, for example, agencies brought in “red teams,” both from inside and outside to probe for weaknesses, question assumptions and ponder unlikely scenarios. The Iran analysis has withstood such probing, officials say. Still, the American intelligence community has misjudged a number of major developments since then, including the Arab Spring, the Russian move into Ukraine and the swift military advance of the Islamic State. The record on nuclear weapons development is particularly spotty. The CIA missed India’s plan to test nuclear weapons in 1998, for example.

ISIS claims huge truck bombing in Baghdad
By Agencies /Thursday, 13 August 2015/Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed responsibility on Thursday for a truck bomb attack at a crowded marketplace in the Baghdad district of Sadr City which killed at least 76 people and wounded more than 200 others. In a statement posted online, the Sunni Muslim militant group said it had targeted the army and militia fighters in the Shiite neighborhood. However, Iraqi police officials told the Associated Press that the bombing killed at least 54 people. The two police officials said the truck detonated in the Jameela market in Baghdad’s crowded Sadr City neighborhood shortly after dawn on Thursday. They say at least 86 people were wounded in the attack. “On Thursdays the market is especially crowded because people come from the other provinces to stock up on food for the weekend,” one of the officers said. Residents of the Shiite community rushed to the market to help the victims, carrying corpses in garbage bags and sending the wounded to local hospitals in ambulances or in personal cars. Three hospital officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, but Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), ultra-radical Sunni Muslim militants who seized swathes of northern Iraq last year, have claimed similar attacks targeting Shiite neighborhoods. (With AP and Reuters)

Zawahiri Pledges Allegiance to New Taliban Chief
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 13/15/Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri on Thursday pledged his group's allegiance to new Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour who is facing a bitter struggle over his leadership. "As emir of al-Qaida, I pledge to you our allegiance, following the path of Sheikh (Osama) bin Laden and his martyred brothers in their allegiance to Mullah Omar," Zawahiri said in a recording, referring to the former al-Qaida leader and to the longtime Taliban chief, whose death was confirmed last month.
Mansour, a longtime trusted deputy of Omar, is taking charge as the movement faces growing internal divisions and is threatened by the rise of the Islamic State group, which is making inroads in Afghanistan. Zawahiri's pledge comes as al-Qaida also faces a growing rivalry for preeminence in the global jihadist movement with IS, which has seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq. The recording was featured in a video that opens with images of bin Laden -- who was killed by U.S. special forces in Pakistan in 2011 -- pledging allegiance to Omar.The recording then plays over a picture of Zawahiri, who is believed to be in hiding in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. He says that the "Islamic emirate" established by the Taliban in Afghanistan was the "first legitimate emirate after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and there is no legitimate emirate in the world apart from it."He pledged to Mansour to "implement sharia law" and to continue "jihad until every part of occupied Muslim land is free."Mansour was announced as the new Taliban chief on July 31, after the movement confirmed the death of Omar, who led the Islamist insurgency for some 20 years.
'True to Islamic tradition'
But splits have emerged in the Taliban following the appointment, with some top leaders, including Omar's son and brother, refusing to pledge allegiance to Mansour. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid acknowledged the news of Zawahiri's pledge of allegiance, but told AFP: "We will react about it later.... We don't want to comment on it now." Pakistani analyst Imtiaz Gul, an expert on al-Qaida and the Taliban, said "Zawahiri's announcement is logical and true to the Islamic tradition of governance and succession, which is to say that whoever commands the majority of the Taliban should rightfully be the successor. "This is in keeping with their political ideology. These organizations contest the idea of hereditary succession," he added. Just two days after the succession announcement, the late leader's son Mullah Yakoub, and his brother, Mullah Abdul Manan, refused to pledge allegiance to Mansour, calling on religious scholars to settle the rift. Yakoub and several other members of the Taliban's ruling council walked out of the meeting at which Mansour was declared leader, refusing to pledge loyalty to him, a Taliban source told AFP. The Taliban have not revealed when Omar died but the Afghan government said he passed away in Karachi in April 2013. But official Taliban statements in the name of Omar, who had not been seen in public since the Taliban were toppled from power in 2001, were released as recently as July. Mullah Mansour is one of the founders of the Taliban movement and is seen as a moderate, pro-peace, pro-talks leader.
However, he has faced powerful rivals within the Taliban who are strongly opposed to peace talks with the Afghan government, with some insurgents also unhappy at the thought he may have deceived them for more than a year about Omar's death.

Germany: Iraqi Kurdish Forces Hit with Chemical Weapons
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 13/15/Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State (IS) jihadists in northern Iraq have reported being attacked with chemical weapons, the German defense ministry said Thursday. "We have indications that there was an attack with chemical weapons" against the peshmerga fighters that left many suffering from "respiratory irritation," a ministry spokesman told AFP. A senior official from the peshmerga told AFP the attack happened two days ago and wounded several dozen fighters. "Last Tuesday afternoon, peshmerga forces in the Makhmur area 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of the city of Arbil were attacked with Katyusha rockets filled with chlorine," the official said on condition of anonymity. The defense ministry in Germany, which is providing arms and weapons training to the Kurdish forces, said that "American and Iraqi specialists from Baghdad are on their way to find out what happened."A ministry spokesman had said earlier "there was a chemical weapons attack" near Arbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. A second ministry spokesman later stressed that German forces were not present during the attack, but that "we have indications that there was an attack with chemical weapons". Germany has been supporting the Kurdish peshmerga fighters since September to back their push against IS jihadists, and currently has about 90 personnel on the ground. "German soldiers were not affected or in danger" during the reported attack, the spokesman said. "The protection of our soldiers in northern Iraq is already at the highest level." IS has previously been accused of using chlorine against Kurdish forces in Iraq. In March, the autonomous Kurdish government in northern Iraq said it had evidence that the jihadist group used chlorine in a car bomb attack on January 23. Last month, the Conflict Armament Research group and Sahan Research group said IS had also targeted peshmerga with a projectile filled with an unknown chemical agent on June 21 or 22. The chemical used had characteristics and clinical effects "consistent with a chlorine chemical agent," the groups said. The organizations said they had also documented two such attacks against Kurdish fighters from the People's Protection Units in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province on June 28. It said that upon impact, the projectiles had released a yellow gas "with a strong smell of rotten onions." There were no deaths but troops exposed to it had experienced burning of the throat, eyes and nose, severe headaches, muscle pain, impaired concentration and mobility, and vomiting. "Although these chemical attacks appear to be test cases, we expect IS construction skills to advance rapidly as they have for other IEDS (improvised explosive devices)," said Emmanuel Deisser, managing director at Sahan Research, at the time.

New rules: Israeli troops must fire in the air when engaging terrorists
DEBKAfile Special Report August 12, 2015/New rules of engagement were handed down Tuesday, July 11, to the Israeli military, police and Border Guard units serving in Judea and Samaria that effectively prohibit them from shooting Palestinians found hurling firebombs, carrying out knife attacks or other acts of terror. Henceforth, security forces are restricted to firing in the air. The new orders came from OC IDF Central Command Ronnie Numah. They are a radical departure from the present rules and the first broad restrictions to be imposed on the troops since 15 years ago, then prime minister Ehud Barak forbade security forces to shoot at Palestinian terrorists or their bases – only to turn their fire on vacant ground nearby. The second intifada had erupted by then.
The new directives are as follows:
Troops are restricted to firing in the air when they - or any other Israeli targets - come under Palestinian firebomb attack.
Ditto in the case of knifing attacks - even if this means letting the assailant get away.
They may open direct gunfire on armed terrorists only when they are caught red-handed on the scene. Once they escape, only firing in the air is permitted.
In general, troops and police are not allowed to shoot Palestinian terrorists in almost any circumstance unless their own lives are clearly in danger.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gady Eisenkott have changed the rules in an attempt to reverse the rising spiral of Palestinian deaths in the course of recent violent engagements. It is also an attempt to cool flaming Palestinian tempers on the West Bank – especially since the arson murder of a Palestinian toddler and her father in the village of Duma earlier this month. The perpetrators have not so far been found or identified.
It is not known whether Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu endorsed the new rules of engagement.
According to our sources, they went down badly with many of the soldiers and policemen serving on the West Bank in security capacities. They believe they are being put in harm’s way and maintain that the new rules will open the door to an upsurge of Palestinian terrorism and cause many more Israeli deaths. One IDF officer commented wryly: “It has been decided that an increase in Israeli casualties is preferable to high statistics of Palestinian terrorist deaths.”

House Majority Leader McCarthy: Netanyahu ‘not interfering' on Iran Prime
TOVAH LAZAROFF/J.Post/08/13/2015
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is advocating for his country's best interests when he opposes the Iran deal and has not interfered in Washington politics, Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters in Jerusalem on Thursday.
“I do not see where Benjamin Netanyahu was interfering with anything,” said McCarthy, just one day after he and 35 other visiting Republican congressmen met with Netanyahu. The prime minister held a similar meeting on Sunday with a visiting delegation of 24 Democratic congressmen. McCarthy said that his group’s Wednesday conversation with Netanyahu lasted for 90 minutes. Netanyahu listened to the group and answered its questions, McCarthy said.
Congress is expected to vote by September 17th on the deal to curb Iran's nuclear program that was worked out between Tehran and the six world powers — the US, Russia, China, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. In advance of the vote, the tension between US President Barack Obama and Netanyahu has increased. On Sunday, Obama told CNN that Netanyahu has interjected himself into Washington politics more forcibly than any other foreign leader. But on Thursday, McCarthy said that Netanyahu was simply doing his job as Israel's leader. “He is elected by the State of Israel and voices the opinion of the state on security,” McCarthy said. Netanyahu “did not tell us how to vote. Much like every other leader of any other country, he conveyed what he sees. He was very open and I thought he was more concise than I have ever seen him,” McCarthy said. “I think from concerns that he has about the agreement the majority of the room has the same concerns,” McCarthy said.
Netanyahu spoke of what would happen 13 years into the future, when Iran has billions of dollars and the ability to produce atomic weapons, particularly in light of their support of terrorism today, McCarthy said.Given "everything I have seen from Iran, their policies have not changed,” he said. Iran has only increased its funding of terror organizations, McCarthy said. “One of the biggest concerns is the the billions more Iran would have [with the deal] what will they do with it, who would fund it,” McCarthy said. The Republican politician later told ABC Radio, that Netanyahu had spoken to his group about the danger a nuclear Iran posed to the US, when it had missiles that could reach the American shores. “I felt he made some of the strongest arguments [about the danger Iran posed] for America and the rest of the world. If we want to have security and a safe world, this agreement does not do it,” McCarthy said.

Jimmy Carter says he has cancer, revealed by recent surgery
Associated Press/Published: 08.13.15/Israel News
ATLANTA - Former US President Jimmy Carter announced he has been diagnosed with cancer in a brief statement issued Wednesday. "Recent liver surgery revealed that I have cancer that now is in other parts of my body," Carter, 90, said in the statement released by the Carter Center. "I will be rearranging my schedule as necessary so I can undergo treatment by physicians at Emory Healthcare." The statement makes clear that Carter's cancer is widely spread, but not where it originated, or even if that is known at this point. The liver is often a place where cancer spreads and less commonly is the primary source of it. It said further information will be provided when more facts are known, "possibly next week."Carter announced on August 3 that he had surgery to remove a small mass from his liver. Carter, a Democrat, served as the 39th president from 1977 to 1981 after defeating Republican incumbent Gerald Ford. He was defeated for re-election in 1980 by Republican Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, he founded the center in Atlanta in 1982 to promote health care, democracy and other issues globally. He has remained active for the center in recent years, making public appearances at its headquarters in Atlanta and traveling overseas including a May election observation visit to Guyana cut short when Carter developed a bad cold. Carter Center spokeswoman Deanna Congileo called the surgery earlier this month "elective" and said Carter's "prognosis is excellent for a full recovery." She declined to answer further questions at the time.

Iran Debates the IAEA Roadmap
Nima Gerami/Washington Institute/August 12, 2015
The Rouhani administration is insisting on the confidentiality of its 'roadmap' with the IAEA in order to quell domestic criticism of the JCPOA and bolster the nuclear program's security.
In a side deal to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) reached in Vienna, Iran concluded a joint "roadmap" with the International Atomic Energy Agency to resolve longstanding concerns about the possible military dimensions (PMD) of its nuclear program. In contrast to previous agreements with the IAEA, Iran's nuclear negotiators are insisting on keeping important parts of this roadmap confidential, an issue that has raised considerable attention not only in the U.S. Congress, but also in Iran's parliamentary debate on the JCPOA.
BACKGROUND
One of the most contentious issues in the congressional debate over the JCPOA is the efficacy of its proposed transparency and confidence-building measures, particularly with regard to questions about PMD issues that emerged during a comprehensive investigation launched by the IAEA in 2003 (see PolicyWatch 2269, "Background on the 'Possible Military Dimensions' of Iran's Nuclear Program").
Hours before Iran and the P5+1 negotiators announced the JCPOA on July 14, Iran and the IAEA signed a roadmap containing two confidential agreements: one to resolve the agency's PMD questions, and the other to address concerns about Iran's Parchin military complex, where high-explosives testing relevant to nuclear weapons research is believed to have occurred. The roadmap sets out a "sequence of activities" by both parties to resolve these concerns by October 15; the IAEA will then issue a final assessment by December 15. On August 5, in a rare closed-door meeting with the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, IAEA director-general Yukiya Amano reportedly claimed that he could not share details about this roadmap, in accordance with the agency's rules on safeguards confidentiality.
In Iran, the Rouhani administration has submitted the JCPOA text to its parliament, the Majlis, for review. While the U.S. Congress has until September 17 to vote on the agreement, Iran's legal process for approving it has no fixed timeline and is still under debate (see PolicyWatch 2460, "Iran's Security Concerns and Legal Controversies Over the Nuclear Deal"). Rouhani's team favors approving the JCPOA through the Supreme National Security Council (chaired by the president) rather than the Majlis before the deal is officially endorsed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Conversely, Iranian critics of the JCPOA demand that the Majlis approve it, and they have challenged the Rouhani administration for brokering the IAEA roadmap without informing parliament in advance.
Khamenei, who will ultimately decide whether Tehran implements the nuclear deal, has yet to adopt a public position on either the JCPOA or the roadmap, instead opting for debate in the Majlis to sidestep responsibility. Accordingly, Rouhani has issued an executive order to enforce legislation requiring the Foreign Ministry and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) to brief the Majlis every six months on implementation of the nuclear accord.
IRANIAN REACTIONS TO THE ROADMAP
In an unprecedented departure from previous censorship on the nuclear issue, Iranian media publicly broadcast the first of the Majlis hearings on the JCPOA, held July 26. During a two-hour session with deputy nuclear negotiators Abbas Araghchi and Majid Takht-Ravanchi, parliamentarians raised concerns about the confidentiality of the IAEA roadmap and questioned whether IAEA inspections would cross the Supreme Leader's redlines. In reply to questions on the roadmap, Araghchi stated, "Iran has no desire for [the roadmap] to be published," noting that the IAEA is "obligated to protect Iran's intelligence and nuclear secrets." In an additional session with the Majlis on July 28, AEOI president Ali Akbar Salehi claimed, "The roadmap per se is not confidential. What is confidential is how IAEA inspectors access our sites once they are here, and that is pretty common in other parts of the world."
IAEA director-general Amano's meeting with Washington lawmakers also elicited a sharp response in Tehran. In an August 16 editorial, hardline newspaper Kayhan, the Supreme Leader's mouthpiece, claimed that the visit "decreased confidence in the impartiality and credibility of the IAEA." Even the more moderate daily Hamshahri warned that "Amano's trip may lead to failed implementation of the deal between Iran and the P5+1," urging that he be asked to testify before the Majlis to ensure that he did not disclose "confidential secrets."
Tehran's reaction to the confidentiality issue stems from its belief that the IAEA previously leaked information about the nuclear program that enabled foreign espionage, sabotage, and the assassination of four nuclear scientists who have since been venerated as "martyrs." For example, in an interview with Fars News, Majlis deputy Hamidreza Taraqqi warned that the IAEA may use Iran's confidential information for "political and military purposes," adding that "the issue of confidentiality is invalid and meaningless" because the Rouhani administration signed onto the roadmap without first informing parliament. Interestingly, members of Rouhani's negotiating team have privately echoed the concerns of their domestic critics in expressing mistrust for the IAEA's ability to protect confidential information. During a recent meeting with the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Araghchi reportedly stated: "We do not have an optimistic view of the [IAEA]. There is no doubt that they will release the information [that we are giving them]. We need to be careful in the information that we supply to them...We are not only dealing with the agency and these spies. We are dealing with all the countries that own nuclear programs. There are formulas and methods to prevent supplying information to the agency's inspectors. We did not know about these methods in the past and supplied some information that should not have been supplied." On August 2, the Iranian government removed the report containing these comments.
Notwithstanding this deep-seated mistrust of the IAEA, the Rouhani administration's insistence on confidentiality also underscores its perception that the agency's roadmap for resolving PMD issues is independent from the JCPOA, contrary to the U.S. view that the agreements are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Araghchi and Salehi have repeatedly asserted that Iran's agreements with the IAEA are not part of the JCPOA and thus not subject to international scrutiny. Despite signing onto the roadmap, Iranian officials consider the resolution of PMD issues to be more of a political formality than a necessary precondition to implementing the JCPOA.
This distinction is tied to Iran's broader strategy of strongly rejecting allegations of past military nuclear activity and portraying PMD allegations as fabricated -- despite the fact that Tehran previously agreed to work with the IAEA on resolving these concerns in 2007 and 2013 (Iranian officials even circulated the 2007 work plan to all IAEA member states and made the text available to the public). In a July 21 interview, Salehi stated: "We do not accept the PMD issue...We are resolving this [issue] in a political-technical framework in order to deny [the West] any pretext...If the IAEA was not meant to be convinced in the regular track, it would never be convinced, regardless of what we did." He added, "The technical issues are now being resolved in a political framework. They have a set timeframe, and God willing, the issue must be resolved by December 15. In short, [the IAEA] will be the losers. As I have said, the issue has received political backing. The work [of the IAEA] must be reasonable. They cannot do anything unreasonable."
Beyond the roadmap's near-term challenge of resolving PMD issues, the IAEA will need to reach a so-called "broader conclusion" within eight years that all of Iran's nuclear material remains in peaceful use. Obtaining this assurance depends on Iran's provisional implementation of the Additional Protocol, an enhanced inspections regime that gives the agency expanded access rights at declared and undeclared sites. That implementation is not expected to begin until sometime in 2016 according to the JCPOA timeline -- in other words, the protocol's enhanced access provisions will not apply to the four-month period during which the IAEA roadmap must resolve concerns regarding PMD and Parchin. Therefore, if the IAEA requests access to sites, personnel, or information in order to resolve a PMD-related question, it will have to rely on Iran's full cooperation.
CONCLUSION
Although the IAEA's confidentiality principle is enshrined in its founding statute and its safeguards agreements, the P5+1 could have pushed Iran to make its agreements with the agency public as a condition of the JCPOA, allowing for greater confidence in how the parties resolve PMD issues. In particular, they could have pointed to the precedent set in 2007 when Tehran circulated its PMD work plan with the IAEA; instead, they appear to have given Tehran a face-saving solution to closing the PMD file.
On the Iranian side, the Rouhani administration appears to be insisting on confidentiality in order to quell domestic criticism of the JCPOA and bolster the security of the nuclear program. To the extent that Tehran views the roadmap as independent from the JCPOA, Washington and its partners can dispel ambiguity by asking for further Iranian commitments on cooperating with the IAEA and satisfactorily addressing PMD concerns by the December 15 deadline. Despite the risks of acquiescing to the roadmap's confidentiality, the IAEA, Iran, and the P5+1 all have a vested interest in ensuring that, contrary to previous attempts, Tehran will be held accountable to its promises of transparency and fully resolve PMD concerns.
**Nima Gerami is a research fellow at the National Defense University's Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Defense Department, or the U.S. government.

Iraq's Political Crises Could Stall the Anti-ISIS Campaign
James F. Jeffrey/Washington Institute/August 12, 2015
As bold reform efforts and political deadlines roil Baghdad and Erbil, Washington should help resolve the crises as soon as possible so that Iraq can turn back to the urgent fight against ISIS.
While the world's attention has been focused on dramatic developments in the Iran nuclear negotiations, the war in Yemen, and Turkey's new confrontations with ISIS and the PKK, several major developments have burst onto the scene in Iraq. Taken together, these developments could change the face of Iraqi politics and -- for better or worse -- affect how the international community prioritizes the fight against the so-called "Islamic State."
In Baghdad, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi faces an ever angrier public, joined by the country's most powerful Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, all of whom are demanding reforms in service provision and the fight against corruption. Meanwhile, a couple hundred miles to the north, Kurdistan Regional Government president Masoud Barzani is facing his biggest challenge since assuming leadership over the KRG more than a decade ago.
Both leaders are addressing their internal problems with considerable resolve, but neither is out of the woods yet. The sometimes-reticent Abadi has responded to the latest public and clerical protests with bold steps that signal a new determination to take charge. This includes injecting new life into anti-corruption institutions and policies, as well as calling for the elimination of seemingly extraneous government posts: namely, Iraq's multiple deputy prime ministers and vice presidents (which would remove former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and former parliamentary speaker Usama al-Nujaifi, two powerful, resourceful, and often-obstructionist figures). Abadi is also proposing to end the quota system in government positions (which has allowed parties and individual politicians to perpetuate rampant cronyism) and eliminate the virtual private armies of bodyguards surrounding each major actor.
Some of these steps would require parliamentary action or even constitutional amendments, both of which are terribly difficult to secure in Iraq. But with Sistani's strong endorsement of Abadi's program, and with Maliki, Nujaifi, and the KRG at least publicly supportive, the prime minister might be able to pull off at least a partial victory. This would not end corruption or government inefficiency, of course, but it might reduce them significantly. And even partial success would strengthen Abadi's hand against the party barons who run parliament (Maliki, still sore at being dumped from his prime minister perch by Abadi, heads the latter's own political party, Dawa). But if the legislature stymies Abadi, the public and Sistani could blame him for the government's inaction. Therefore, while the current crisis gives the prime minister his best chance yet to emerge as a popular and powerful leader, his inherent political vulnerability makes his position more precarious than that of his colleague in the north, President Barzani.
Barzani's problems stem from the absence of a de jure constitution for the Kurdish region. The KRG is subject to the Iraqi national constitution, but that instrument grandfathered many de facto Kurdish governing mechanisms from before 2005. As a result, the autonomous region's political environment is three-tiered: a presidential republic headed by Barzani (a legendary Peshmerga leader whose father was a Kurdish national hero); the two traditional Kurdish factions, Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and former Iraqi president Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), each with their own Peshmerga forces and control of bureaucracies in their respective citadels of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah as well as de facto division of regional sinecures; and a democratically elected parliament trying to enforce its will.
The proximate cause of the current KRG crisis is that Barzani is technically supposed to step down in two weeks due to the expiration of the two-year grace extension of his second and supposedly last presidential term, a past arrangement worked out between the KDP and PUK. Normally another backroom deal would have already resolved this contretemps. Barzani wants to stay in office, he is personally popular, and his clan is well represented in regional positions and holds some posts in Baghdad. More important, the majority of his constituents know that no one else could navigate the KRG through the existential threats of ISIS, massive refugee flows, and financial meltdown.
So why no deal this time? The culprit is the gradual weakening of the PUK, which is a function of Talabani's major health problems since 2012, poor election results, and the splitting off of a reformist wing, the Gorran Party, half a decade ago. These developments have left Barzani's KDP with no partner for the backroom bargaining required to re-extend his term. Instead, the parliament -- dominated by Gorran, several Islamist parties, and the weakened PUK -- has insisted on its own right to decide who will be the next president. Barzani has rejected this demand and called for a presidential election on August 20, essentially bypassing parliament.
Although Barzani's electoral push has less legal legitimacy than Abadi's anticorruption drive, Barzani currently has far more military, financial, and populist power than the prime minister. He is thus far less likely to stumble in his parliamentary battle than Abadi in his -- though in this era of uncertainty not even Barzani can be sure. In principle, the two leaders could support each other, but such cooperation has been hampered by Baghdad and Erbil's continued bickering over military, territorial, and oil questions.
The main U.S. interest in the midst of this crisis is for Abadi to stay in power and, if possible, gain from the reform efforts. Washington also relies on a stable Kurdistan, and that means helping Barzani find a way to remain in power without smothering parliamentary democracy. Ironically, Turkey and Iran see things the same way and have been lobbying KRG political leaders to stick with Barzani.
One way or another, the United States is engaged in finding solutions for both of these Iraqi allies, since the struggle against ISIS would take a bad turn without stability in Baghdad and Erbil. Yet even in the best scenario, this latest set of political crises will at least temporarily divert attention from the anti-ISIS campaign -- demonstrating once again the Obama administration's folly in not treating its goal of "destroying" the group as an urgent priority. In this dynamic, unstable, and uncertain Middle East, America's allies of today may not be around tomorrow, though ISIS may well be if the administration's timeline does not change.
**James Jeffrey is the Philip Solondz Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute and former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Turkey.

ISIS is not America’s fault and airstrikes won’t defeat them
Joyce Karam/Al Arabiya/13 August/15
With the start of the “silly season” in the U.S. Presidential elections, the partisan blame game over the rise of ISIS is only heating up between Republicans and Democrats. The GOP candidate Jeb Bush has accused the Democrats’ frontrunner Hillary Clinton of “standing by“ as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) declared its “caliphate” last year, while the Clinton campaign responded by attributing the rise of the notorious group to George W. Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq.
Undoubtedly, the Iraq war of 2003 and the disbanding of the Iraqi army putting 400,000 soldiers out of work, has set the stage for the emergence of ISIS, the same way that ignoring the Syrian crisis prompted its comeback in 2011.
However, it is politically flawed to solely blame the rise of ISIS on successive U.S. administrations while ignoring the internal and regional factors. The realities that converged and led to the ISIS “caliphate” in 2014 are numerous, including the Assad regime crimes and Syria’s implosion, the wave of radicalization in the MENA region, the funding for extremists, and bad governance. It is those elements that collectively share the blame for the rise of ISIS and unless they’re by and large tackled, the air strikes won’t stop the spread of “the pandemic.”
U.S. mistakes in context
Except for former President Bush and his Vice President Dick Cheney, the overwhelming majority in Washington’s political elite today has come to acknowledge that the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 was a strategic mistake. And while the many Pinocchios leading up to the war have been discredited, it’s an exaggeration to say its outcome created the ISIS “caliphate” in Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul in June of last year.
More than outside funding, foreign recruits, or U.S. withdrawal, it’s the internal political paralysis and bad governance in both Iraq and Syria that took under its wings the creation of ISIS
The ISIS “caliphate” did not emerge in 2014 just because Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003, it had many godfathers by then and a major lifeline from Syria. The chaos in Syria facilitated ISIS’ comeback to Iraq and offered it the strategic depth to recruit, redeploy and rearm. Were it not for the Syrian war, ISIS could not have reinforced its forces in Mosul or stationed its most senior leaders in Raqqa or used the Assad brutality against the population as a tool for recruiting in the Sunni world.
Those recruits offer an insight to ISIS’ geographic and ideological strengths, with Tunisia as a major breeding ground for them. The Tunisia magnet exposes the problem of youth radicalization that fuels the growth of ISIS, arguably more than a hypothetical number of U.S. troops stationed in Iraq post-2011. Foreign fighters make up a large contingent of ISIS (estimated at more than 20,000), whereas funding for the group continues regionally in particular from wealthy donors in Kuwait and Qatar.
But more than outside funding, foreign recruits, or U.S. withdrawal, it’s the internal political paralysis and bad governance in both Iraq and Syria that took under its wings the creation of ISIS. The failure of both former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq (2006-2014) and President Bashar Assad in Syria in addressing major grievances of their respective populations, and their attempt to lead by marginalization and sheer terror in the case of Assad invited all kind of jihadists to their countries.
Partisan blame game
The partisan blame game for the rise of ISIS inside the United States comes almost a year into the air strikes campaign that the Obama administration and allies started against the group. In one year, more than 900 airstrikes have been carried out in Iraq and Syria, but they did not reverse its major gains nor halted its progress. Just last week ISIS took a strategic town near Homs, and its strongholds in Raqqa and Mosul are not threatened. ISIS also added the Iraqi city of Ramadi to its column last May.
Regionally the group has also significantly expanded its presence in Libya, where U.S. Ambassador Deborah Jones estimated its numbers between 3000-5000. In Yemen as well, the chaos since the Houthis took over Sanaa in September has attracted ISIS, and even in Gaza where the notorious group is now a challenge to Hamas while remaining very much a threat in Sinai, Egypt.
The big picture encompassing ISIS’ rise today brings to light the limits of U.S. military action to defeat it. From Iraq to Syria to Libya and Yemen, addressing political grievances is more important than access to airbases in marginalizing ISIS. That translates into establishing a national guard force in Iraq that includes the Sunni tribal force of Anbar, pushing for a political solution in Syria that ends Assad’s impunity, and reaching agreements to strengthen the remnants of legitimate institutions in Tripoli & Sanaa.
Blaming the U.S. for the rise of ISIS or waiting for its airstrikes to destroy the group is a fool’s errand, and misunderstands both the strengths and weaknesses of the “Caliphate”. Unless the political, financial and ideological contingents that are behind the surge of ISIS are addressed, the debate over its “pandemic” will be with us for a long time.

A decisive choice awaits Yemen’s Houthis
Manuel Almeida/Al Arabiya/13 August/15
Next month will mark a year since the northern Houthi militias, aided by security forces loyal to the deposed leader Ali Abdullah Saleh, took control of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and placed the internationally recognized government of Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi under house arrest. Emboldened by what they misleadingly took as an unequivocal demonstration of their unmatched power, the pro-Houthi forces embarked in March this year on a military offensive toward the south.
It is evident that the Houthis’ military route, disastrous for Yemen as a whole, has also brought no benefits to the group. The Houthis’ fortunes took a decisive turn for the worse when pro-government and southern separatist forces recaptured the former southern capital of Aden late last month.
Backed by the Saudi-led coalition, which has now deployed ground forces and armed vehicles, the pro-government military units and southern militias took advantage of the momentum to press forward against positions controlled either by the Houthis or military units loyal to Saleh.
Over the last couple of weeks, pro-government forces have taken al-Anad military airbase (Yemen’s biggest) and together with southern militias regained control of various southern provinces including Abyan, Lahj and al-Dalea. With the recapture of much of the central Ibb province on Sunday, pro-government forces are now less than 100 miles away from Sanaa. As a result, the Houthi leadership has declared a state of emergency in the capital.
While it is now clearer than ever that the militarism of the Houthis and its so-called revolutionary ideology will not pay off, it is far from guaranteed that the group’s hardline leadership will acknowledge this fact any time soon, even with its key alliance with Saleh already hanging by a thread.
Not decisive
That stubbornness might not be decisive to the outcome of the conflict, but it can prove to be very costly, especially for Sanaa and its people. Dislodging the pro-Houthi forces from the capital and its surroundings by force would be an extremely messy business, with an inevitable heavy toll on civilian lives and property. The same holds if the ground war spreads further north into the Houthi’s strongholds.
Realistically speaking, the Houthi’s inclusion will most likely depend on their next steps and their ability to offer serious guarantees their diplomatic priorities no longer reside on cultivating close ties with Iran and Hezbollah
As usual, rumors abound regarding current events in the Yemeni capital. Some believe that pro-Saleh security forces are ready to turn against the Houthis at any moment. Such a twist of events would not be unexpected, given that the alliance between Saleh’s cohort and the Houthis is purely circumstantial, dictated first and foremost by necessity and the former president’s desperate attempt to regain power for his faction.
The withdrawal by pro-Saleh Republican Guard and Special Forces from the outskirts of Aden in the end of June, which left Houthi fighters on their own, is one of the various indications that the reports about the faltering Houthi-Saleh alliance have at least some degree of truth to them.
Old process
Another big question, which will arise sooner or later, is whether or not the Houthis will be allowed to return to the GCC-backed political transition process they have once embraced. So far, there are divergent indications from Yemeni government figures and GCC officials about this matter. This decision the Houthi leadership will need to make, between “fighting till the end” and fully embracing negotiations to find a political solution to the crisis and respecting the demands of UN Security Council resolution 2216, may play an important role in defining the Houthi’s future role in Yemen’s political process.
There should be an effort to include the Houthis in any future political process, as well as a genuine attempt to address some of the grievances that led them to wage successive wars against Saleh’s government, provided they show a real flexibility and willingness to compromise.
Sceptics should think about how Saleh and his government’s sidelining of the Houthis for years contributed to their radicalization. Yet, realistically speaking, the Houthi’s inclusion will most likely depend on their next steps and their ability to offer serious guarantees their diplomatic priorities no longer reside on cultivating close ties with Iran and Hezbollah. The group’s young leader, the irreverent Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, faces a stark choice between pragmatism and radicalism.

Why has Turkey suddenly become so violent?
Mahir Zeynalov/Al Arabiya/13 August/15
Two months ago, soft-spoken Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtas made headlines after the strong electoral showing of his Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) dealt a heavy blow to the rule of Turkey’s Islamist-rooted party.In the run-up to the elections on June 7, when his party garnered 13 percent of the vote, Demirtas adjusted his rhetoric, forsaking a narrow Kurdish-oriented discourse and rallying for other minorities. He gained the crucial backing of liberals and disillusioned youths. His charm appealed to many, due to his efforts to distance himself from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is very unpopular among many segments of Turkish society.As talks to form a coalition government remain at a stalemate, the government seeks to defame Demirtas as part of its strategy to regain its lost majority in parliament in possible snap elections. With violence escalating, he finds himself between a rock and hard place, and needs to walk a fine line to preserve his image.
Punching bag
With scores dead in armed skirmishes across the country, Turkish pro-government newspapers decorate their front pages with articles and photos portraying Demirtas as the PKK’s pawn in parliament. However, he has so far succeeded in staying calm in the face of this smear campaign.He called on the PKK to take its finger off the trigger, and even visited the mourning family of a Turkish soldier. The latest poll published on Wednesday shows that the HDP’s vote remains unchanged, while the ruling AK Party (AKP) gained 2 percent since June. There is no doubt that the PKK desperately wants to resume peace talks, which allowed it to expand its activities in Turkey and send more fighters to Syria Nationalists have praised the AKP for bombing Kurdish rebels inside Turkey and in their strongholds in northern Iraq. The AKP’s war against Kurdish insurgents, however, is deeply unpopular in the West. Many newspaper editorials said Ankara’s declared intention to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is an excuse to crack down on Kurds.American officials have so far been supportive of what they say is Turkey’s “right to self-defense.” They highlight the incident that triggered the latest bout of violence, when two Turkish servicemen were murdered by PKK militants. This line of argument, however, is unconvincing.
Not self-defense
Similar incidents, even more outrageous ones, took place in the past two years of relative peace. In Hakkari, for example, three Turkish soldiers were gunned down in broad daylight on Oct. 25 last year. Three days later, a Turkish soldier was killed in Diyarbakir, another Kurdish-populated city. The army chose to exercise restraint then. Starting a vicious cycle of violence that helps neither party is hardly self-defense, but a calculated political strategy. The U.S.-led coalition tacitly approved Ankara’s bombing of PKK camps in Iraq, claiming that the Syrian Kurdish fight against ISIS is separate from the cause of the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States. However, no matter how Washington interprets the war on the PKK, there is little distinction between the Kurdish YPG militias in Syria and the PKK. Thousands of Kurdish fighters have crossed into Syria from Turkey to fight alongside the YPG, which celebrates jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan as its leader. Turkey’s crackdown on the PKK undeniably hurts coalition efforts to defeat ISIS. Kurdish militants can hardly fight a two-front war, especially if one of them is the largest army in the region. The current pace of violence has not been seen since 2011, when dozens of Turkish soldiers were killed in massive operations against the PKK. Violence was sparked when then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sought nationalist votes by sharpening his tone against the Kurds. The Turkish state-run news agency reported Sunday that at least 400 PKK militants have been killed in month-long operations, while nearly 40 members of the security services have been killed in PKK violence. Only on Tuesday, the army said it hit 17 PKK targets in southeastern Turkey.
Violence unsustainable
The PKK is using various tactics to terrorize civilians and stage ambush-style attacks against Turkish security services. Police stations are being attacked with rockets almost every day. Hardly a day passes without a Turkish casualty. Beside security strains, this is a tremendous emotional burden on society. The current pace of violence is unsustainable for both sides. Turkey, after decades of armed conflict, understands that there is no military solution to this lingering problem. The PKK, which has garnered international sympathy for holding peace talks with the Turkish state and fighting ISIS, is wary of mounting anger over its attacks against security forces. There is no doubt that the PKK desperately wants to resume peace talks, which allowed it to expand its activities in Turkey and send more fighters to Syria. The Union for Kurdistan Communities (KCK), the political umbrella group of the PKK, called on the Turkish state this week to resume negotiations. “The talks are in the refrigerator,” Erdogan responded a day later. Critics say the war will continue until the AKP reclaim its parliamentary majority.

Lessons from the Gulf War: defeating ISIS
Andrew Bowen/Al Arabiya/13 August/15
As the world marks the twenty-fifth anniversary since the U.S. led a robust coalition of regional and global powers to roll-back the Iraqi army in response to their illegal intervention into Kuwait and their attempts to attack the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Washington and its regional and global partners are soon to mark the one year anniversary of their less than successful efforts to roll back the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s advances. A former senior Department of Defense official who served as an advisor to Generals Petreaus and Odierno in Iraq, Matthew McInnis, who is a Resident Fellow now at the American Enterprise Institute, notes, “The 1991 Persian Gulf War demonstrated to the world the effectiveness of modern American military power and the importance of US leadership at a time of great uncertainty at the end of the Cold War. The successful employment of precision-guided munitions and US air-land warfare doctrines set a new standard for fighting that our adversaries like China and Iran have spent 25 years trying to reach, or at least to mitigate.” In contrast to the Iraq War of 2003, Mcinnis observes, “The war showed the importance of fighting with strong coalition partners and having well-defined and thought-through objectives, something we did not really have in 2003 in Iraq.”
A stalemate
In contrast to the Gulf War’s victories, U.S.-led efforts to defeat ISIS have produced mixed results nearly a year later. While Turkish President Erdogan’s commitment to fully join the anti-ISIS coalition is a welcome change, ISIS is still on the march and the state failure in Iraq and Syria has produced a breeding ground for this group. U.S. Army Chief of Staff, Ray Odierno, admitted this week that Coalition efforts to counter-ISIS are “at a stalemate.”In contrast to the Gulf War objectives of liberating Kuwait and pushing the Iraqi army back into Iraq, this Coalition critically lacks a defined end goal: is it to contain ISIS or is to defeat the terrorist organization?However, there a number of key differences between the Gulf War of 1990 and the present U.S.-led Coalition efforts against ISIS: namely the former was a large conventional military operation against a state with a broad coalition of support and strong U.S. leadership while the later is presently an open ended counter-insurgency operation, with less international support and the absence of a clear strategy, against an insurgent group operating in two states -- Syria and Iraq –which the U.S. has challenging relations with.
Three lessons
A quarter century later, four big lessons can be drawn from the Gulf War, which can be applied today to more effectively fight ISIS:
First, pro-active and engaged American leadership is needed which seriously addresses the threat ISIS poses to the region. President Obama was too slow to react to the surge of ISIS in the summer of 2014. Since the fall of 2014, Washington has upped its efforts to rollback ISIS, but has been reluctant to commit the resources (as evidenced by the costly and paltry efforts to train Syrians to fight ISIS) to robustly fight ISIS. At the same time, the President’s disinterest in substantively and pro-actively addressing the root causes of ISIS’s surge, namely Syria’s state failure and Iraq’s governance since 2010, has only compounded these challenges. Obama’s leadership is in stark contrast to that of President George HW Bush and his Secretary of State James Baker who moved decisively to support America’s allies in the region and marshal international support to build a UN Security Council-backed Coalition.
Rivalry
Second, Washington and its partners need shared strategic objectives while knowing what their limits are (for example, not going all the way to Baghdad in 1991). While Secretary Baker was able to build a Gulf War Coalition that was able to mobilize around clearly defined objectives, Obama’s efforts to build a strong anti-ISIS Coalition have been a less successful endeavor. Despite increased cooperation recently, this Coalition is still driven by multiple states pursuing their own interests and at times, in rivalry with one another.
In contrast to the Gulf War objectives of liberating Kuwait and pushing the Iraqi army back into Iraq, this Coalition critically lacks a defined end goal: is it to contain ISIS or is to defeat the terrorist organization? Are these efforts a back door effort to target Assad? Neither Washington nor its partners can come to such an agreement and have yet to make the call Bush made of whether or not to go all the way to Baghdad.
Wary
Third, Washington should try to build a broad of coalition of support but remain wary of letting its opponents with some common interests from driving too much of the strategy at the expense of American interests and those of its allies. While Washington was able to bring on board long-time opponents including the Soviet Union and Syria to support a shared mission during the Gulf War, the U.S. and Iran haven’t reached this understanding. Instead, Iran’s a “partner” in this anti-ISIS effort who is more interested in undercutting the U.S. and its allies in the region than defeating ISIS. Instead Tehran has pursued a strategy of more managing ISIS than competently rolling it back. This certainly isn’t the type of partner Washington had in 1990. President Obama should invest instead in bringing on board more regional and international partners in fighting ISIS who have common objectives.
Finally, Washington and its coalition need an effective ground strategy to accompany its air campaign. The Gulf War Coalition didn’t roll back Saddam Hussein’s conquest of Kuwait only through the air. Neglecting a ground strategy, Obama and his Coalition partners have relied too much on an air campaign without an effective ground campaign. While Washington and its partners have few reliable partners on the ground to fight ISIS, Obama has tended to use that as more of a reason for not acting than seriously exploring alternative ground options, including pushing for an Arab League force. While this certainly doesn’t mean Washington should commit ground forces, the U.S.’s training program in Syria and its arming program in Iraq have been a complete failure.
A long war
In contrast to the present Coalition efforts to counter-ISIS, the Gulf War Coalition importantly had both strong, concerted leadership and unity in confronting common challenges and a well-defined strategy. These characteristics are desperately needed as the U.S. and its partners face a long-term confrontation with an enemy, who is different in character and whose eventual defeat will be arguably, more complex. As policymakers and military strategists mull the next steps in rolling back ISIS, they should heed these lessons of the Gulf War and prepare for a long war against this group.

Remember the kidnapped in Syria
Nigel Baker/Al Arabiya/13 August/15
“How do you define an extremist?” I once asked this question of a wise friend of mine, who was always critical of imprecise language used by journalists to describe people who held different views. “An extremist”, he said, “is someone incapable of seeing the good in the other. He must therefore dedicate himself to attacking and destroying all that is different from himself and which does not align with his beliefs”.This definition came to mind as I contemplated the anniversary on 29 July of two years since the kidnapping of Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, by extremists. Father Dall’Oglio, an Italian Jesuit priest, has dedicated his life and work to Syria, his adopted country, and to dialogue between Christians and Muslims. At a time of terror, warfare, suspicion and misunderstanding, reaching out to “the good in the other” is ever more important if Syria is to be rebuilt, and if its great tradition of coexistence between the different faiths born in the Middle East is to continue. And that is why the extremists are doing their best to prevent that happening. Extremists also target moderate Islamic voices. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has kidnapped and killed many respected Muslim scholars because they refuse to pledge allegiance to it. At a time of terror, warfare, suspicion and misunderstanding, reaching out to “the good in the other” is ever more important if Syria is to be rebuilt. Kidnapping, and even killing priests who have the courage to remain at the forefront of this effort, is one of their trademarks.
Remembrance
As we remember Paolo Dall’Oglio, we also remember Archbishop Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim, Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo, kidnapped on 22 April 2013, and Archbishop Paul Yazigi, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Aleppo, seized at his side. We remember Father Michel Kayal, Armenian Catholic priest of Aleppo, kidnapped on 9 February 2013 with Father Maher Mahfouz, Greek Orthodox priest of Aleppo. And we remember Father Jacques Mourad, Prior of the Monastery of Mar Elian, kidnapped two months ago on 21 May 2015. When asked how he remains in Aleppo despite the war, a Franciscan Father, Ibrahim Alsabagh replied that he stays in Syria “to be with the people”. His work is to help all who need his support, Christians or Muslims alike. He admits to being afraid every day, but that “my fears are overcome by the grace of God”. As he goes about his daily work of charity and giving to the most vulnerable, he asks for our prayers. And he asks not to be forgotten.
It is right that we do not forget. And we should continue to use every opportunity to call for the release of the kidnapped, alongside all others of any faith held captive in Syria because of who they are, what they believe and what they do. It is their example of dedication to the other, not that of the extremists, which will build the new Syria from the ashes of the old.
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Nigel Baker is Britain’s ambassador to the Holy See. He took up his post there in 2011, after serving 8 years in Latin America, as Deputy Head of Mission in the British Embassy in Havana, Cuba (2003-6) and then as British Ambassador in La Paz, Bolivia (2007-11).

Europeans Rush to Profit from Iran Deal
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute
August 13, 2015 at 5:00 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6339/iran-deal-europeans-profit
Middle East expert Ilan Berman points out that for Iran, trading with Europe is actually the perfect self-defense, a virtual guarantee that it will not face military attack if it cheats on its obligations under the nuclear deal.
Sanctions will also be lifted on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's $95 billion business empire, as well as on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which operates a vast network of companies and industries. No wonder European media outlets are referring to Iran as the "new El Dorado," the "chance of a century," and the "last untapped market."
"Conducting business with the Iranian regime means to finance the nuclear program, the annihilation threats against Israel, Holocaust denial, the export of Islamist terror and the oppression of the Iranian population." — Stop the Bomb, Austria.
"Everyone is looking at Iran with greed." — Senior French official.
European politicians and business leaders, resembling the running of the bulls in Spain, are falling over themselves in a rush to secure the "first-mover" advantage in Iran's $400 billion economy.Under the nuclear deal reached in Vienna on July 14, international sanctions will be removed on Iran's banking, energy and trade sectors if Tehran agrees to certain curbs on its nuclear program.
The lifting of sanctions on Iran, a market of 80 million consumers (the second-largest market in the Middle East after Turkey in terms of GDP) creates the potential for staggering business opportunities. Iranian officials say that investments of $185 billion are required in the oil and gas sector alone during the next five years. The mining sector requires $29 billion between now and 2025. Iran hopes to triple the number of cars manufactured in the country to three million a year by 2025. Sanctions will also be lifted on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's $95 billion business empire, as well as on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which operates a vast network of companies and industries. No wonder that European media outlets are referring to Iran as the "new El Dorado," the "chance of a century," and the "last untapped market." Although the United States Congress will not vote on the accord until September, Europeans appear to be operating on the premise that Iran is now open for business. Within days of the agreement's signing, the European Union approved the deal, and senior officials from Germany, France, Italy and the European Union rushed to Tehran to pursue business deals; leaders from Austria, Spain and Sweden are planning to lead trade missions to Iran in September and October.
On August 12, Switzerland — a neutral country that is not a member of the European Union — announced it would unilaterally lift sanctions on Iran effective immediately, presumably providing Tehran with access to technology and the Swiss banking system. Analysts say the flurry of European activity implies that international sanctions on Iran are crumbling, and if Tehran violates its commitments under the nuclear deal, efforts to re-impose them are unlikely to succeed. Saeed Ghasseminejad, an Iran analyst with the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said: "President Obama's promise about the snapback sanction has no truth in it. When international companies go to Iran and commit themselves and their shareholders to long-term multi-billion dollar investments, there will be no snapback sanction mechanism. "It took the U.S. almost a decade to convince Europeans to leave Iran's market, as the European companies were deeply invested in the country. Those who promise an immediate return of sanctions in future are either naïve or they are not telling the truth."In an interview with the New York Times, Philip Gordon, the Obama Administration's former coordinator for the Middle East who is now with the Council on Foreign Relations, admitted that American negotiators had deliberately left vague the procedures over sanctions snap-back, which means that if Iran fails to comply with the agreement, not all sanctions will necessarily be reapplied.According to the Times, "The accord stipulates, for instance, that renewed sanctions 'would not apply with retroactive effect' to contracts signed before a potential violation is flagged. European companies and governments could argue that contracts signed now would be excluded from any future sanctions."
Addressing a meeting at Iran's Strategic Council on Foreign Relations on August 3, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif bragged that the international sanctions regime against the country has collapsed and will never again be re-imposed. He said: "The structure of the sanctions that the US had built based on the UN Security Council's resolutions was destroyed and like the 1990s when no other country complied with the US sanctions against Iran, no one will accept the return of the sanctions in the future." In an essay for Politico Europe, Middle East expert Ilan Berman pointed out that for Tehran, trading with Europe is actually the perfect self-defense, a virtual guarantee that it will not face military attack if it cheats on its obligations under the nuclear deal. "The end result is a situation in which Europe's growing political and economic stake in the Islamic Republic virtually guarantees that Iran won't return to its old status as an international pariah, whether or not it ends up abiding by the terms of the JCPOA," Berman wrote. "The lesson, it seems, is that trading with Europe means never having to say you're sorry."Following is a brief country-by-country round-up of key European trade delegations seeking to open business opportunities with Iran.
Germany. German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel was the first senior European official to visit Iran after the signing of the Vienna agreement. On July 19, Gabriel, who also serves as Economy Minister, led a delegation of high-ranking German business leaders to Iran to build bilateral trade relations. He said there was "great interest on the part of German industry in normalizing and strengthening economic relations with Iran."The German Federation of Industries (Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie, BDI) believes exports to Iran could rise to more than 10 billion euros ($10.9 billion) within three to four years, up from 2.4 billion euros in 2014. Gabriel insisted that Iran must improve relations with Israel if it wants closer economic ties with Germany. "For Germany this much is clear: Anyone who wants sustainable relations with us cannot question Israel's right to exist," Gabriel said. But Iranian officials flatly rejected Gabriel's plea. "We have totally different views from Germany on certain regional issues in the Middle East, and we have explicitly expressed our viewpoints in different negotiations," a foreign ministry spokesperson said.France. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was the second senior European official to visit Iran after the nuclear deal was signed. Arriving in Tehran on July 29, Fabius proclaimed: "We are two great independent countries, two great civilizations. It is true that in recent years, for reasons that everyone knows, links have loosened, but now thanks to the nuclear deal, things are going to change."
Imports from Iran to France fell to just 62 million euros in 2013 from 1.77 billion in 2011. French exports to Iran in 2013 fell to 494 million euros from 1.66 billion euros in 2011, according to French foreign ministry estimates. Fabius, who denied accusations that France's primary motivation in signing the Iran deal was to create business opportunities for French companies, also conveyed an invitation from French President François Hollande to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to visit France in November. Fabius' visit was marred by Iranian hardliners, who blame him for the spread of AIDS in the country. Some 300 Iranians were infected with tainted blood supplies that were exported to Iran in the mid-1980s, when Fabius was the Socialist prime minister, and when France's national blood transfusion center knowingly distributed HIV-contaminated blood products. Fabius was charged with manslaughter in 1999 but was later acquitted. Iranian protesters greeted Fabius with flyers depicting him with blood on his hands and the pledge: "We will not forgive or forget."
Representatives from France's largest employer federation, MEDEF, are due to visit Iran on September 27-29 to explore investment opportunities and re-establish commercial ties. In February 2014, more than 100 French business leaders — with representatives from companies including Airbus, Alstom, Citroën, GDF Suez, Lafarge, Peugeot, Renault and Total — visited Iran "in an exploratory capacity." It was the largest of trade delegation of its kind from Europe since Iran signed an interim agreement in November 2013 promising to limit its nuclear program. At the time, French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said the visit was intended to "convey the message that, if the situation improves, there will be significant commercial opportunities for France in Iran."Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius says: "Trade is very important. It fosters growth. It's important for the Iranians, it's important for us," adding that regarding the current nuclear deal with Iran, "we did not take it for commercial reasons, but for strategic reasons..." Above, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif hugs Fabius at the close of nuclear talks in Geneva, Nov. 23, 2014. (Image source: ISNA)
Italy. Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni and Economic Development Minister Federica Guidi led a high-level trade mission to Iran on August 4-6, aimed at opening export opportunities for Italian companies. According to forecasts by SACE, the Italian export credit company, Italian exports to Iran are expected to grow to €3.8 billion ($4.1 billion) in 2018, up from €1.2 billion currently. Companies in the oil and gas industry and the machine tool industry, the two sectors most adversely affected by sanctions, are hoping to recapture market share lost due to the trade embargo. Companies active in the machine tools sector (which accounts for nearly 60% of current Italian exports to Iran) have seen their exports drop to €700 million from €1.3 billion during the past five years, according to SACE.
Gentiloni and Guidi met with Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh on August 6. After the meeting, Zanganeh said that Iran had invited the Italian oil and gas giant Eni, as well as other Italian companies, to participate in projects in the Iranian oil industry.
On August 4, SACE, together with the Italian Ministry of Economic Development and Mediobanca, the leading investment bank in Italy, announced the finalization of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Iranian Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Central Bank of Iran, aimed at facilitating the development of future economic and trade relations between the two countries.
Under the agreement, "the parties will collaborate to evaluate short and medium-long term projects of mutual interest implying Italian export and investments and to identify local financial institutions that could benefit from credit lines provided by Mediobanca, and guaranteed by SACE and the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Iran, to support the financing and payment of such transactions."Also on August 4, Finmeccanica, Italy's main industrial group, announced that it had signed a €500 million ($543 million) contract with Iran's Ghadir Investment Company to build a power plant in the country. Ghadir is 80% owned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards' Corps (IGRC). The IRGC, through its elite Quds Force, is responsible for the deaths of at least 1,000 American troops in Iraq.
Austria. Austrian President Heinz Fischer is set to become the first European head of state to visit Iran since 2004 when he travels to Tehran on September 7-9. Fischer will be accompanied by Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Reinhold Mitterlehner, Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, as well as a delegation of high-ranking Austrian business leaders. Mitterlehner said he hopes that Austrian exports to Iran will reach one billion euros per year by 2020, up from 232 million euros today. On July 23-24, the Austrian Economic Chamber (Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, WKÖ) organized a major EU-Iran trade conference that was attended by nearly 400 Austrian and Iranian business leaders, including Iranian Industry Minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh.
According to Nematzadeh: "We are no longer interested in unidirectional importation of goods and machinery from Europe. We are looking for two-way trade, as well as cooperation in development, design, engineering and joint investment for production and export."
Not all Austrians are happy about the government's rush to embrace Iran. The Austrian branch of the activist group "Stop the Bomb" organized a protest outside the WKÖ's headquarters on July 23. In a statement, the group said: "While the implementation of the nuclear deal with the Iranian has not even started and the sanctions on Iran are still in place, Iran trade lobbyists are set to host the 'EU-Iran-Conference' at the Austrian Economic Chamber WKO in Vienna. Among the participants are WKO-President Christoph Leitl and the Iranian Industry & Trade Minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh. 70 years after the Shoah, Austrian and German companies are in the first row to boost business ties with the anti-Semitic Iranian regime. "This conference shows that billions of Euros are going to flow to the Iranian mullahs as a result of the Vienna agreement. This will enable the regime to sponsor its terror proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah and to enforce its aggressive expansion in the region in unprecedented ways. The terror against the Iranian population will not decrease, but increase. Already now more people have been executed under supposedly 'moderate' President Rouhani than under his predecessor Ahmadinejad.
"Conducting business with the Iranian regime means to finance the nuclear program, the annihilation threats against Israel, Holocaust denial, the export of Islamist terror and the oppression of the Iranian population."Spain. Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo, Industry, Energy and Tourism Minister José Manuel Soria and Development Minister Ana Pastor will lead a high-level trade delegation to Iran in early September. The objective is to open doors for Spanish companies in the energy, telecommunications and infrastructure sectors. After the sanctions are lifted, Spain hopes to double its exports to Iran to 600 million euros, up from 300 million euros today, according to the Chamber of Commerce. The key sectors of interest for Spanish companies are petroleum, petro-chemical, mining, automobile, infrastructure and rail transport.
Despite the embargo, more than 350 mostly small- and medium-sized Spanish companies are currently active in Iran. On July 19, the newspaper El Mundo reported that more than a dozen Spanish companies sold so-called dual-use materials that could have been used to help Iran build weapons of mass destruction. Since 2011, Spanish authorities have carried out nearly a dozen police operations aimed at disrupting illegal weapons sales to Iran. One such operation blew the lid off a scheme to sell nine helicopters to Iran. Another operation discovered that a company ostensibly dedicated to importing Persian rugs was trying to sell missile casings to the Iranian military.A report published by Gatestone Institute in April 2014 found that in addition to Spain, companies or individuals in more than a dozen European countries — including Belgium, Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland — have been involved in illegal dual-use exports to Iran.
A senior French official interviewed by the Reuters news agency summed it up this way: "Everyone is looking at Iran with greed."
**Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.

Former US ambassador, Stephen Rapp: There won't be peace in Syria without prosecution of Assad
Author Barbara Slavin/AlMonitor/August 12, 2015
The expression “no justice, no peace” is usually associated these days with US demonstrations against police killings of African-Americans. But it also applies to Syria, according to Stephen Rapp, who has just stepped down as US ambassador-at-large and chief of the State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice.
In Stephen Rapp's first interview since leaving office, the recently resigned US ambassador-at-large and chief of the State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice says progress is being made on amassing documentation of the "hell" in Syria.
In his first interview since leaving office Aug. 7, Rapp told Al-Monitor that any diplomatic effort to end the civil war in Syria would fail unless accompanied by a process of transitional justice that targets the worst offenders, including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“You can’t even get to peace unless a justice process is developed that’s going to give people confidence that the authors of mass rape and killing are going to be held to account,” Rapp said in the Aug. 11 interview. “Anything else won’t last.”
In the job for six years, Rapp said that “a great deal has been accomplished” in collecting and organizing evidence of crimes in Syria, even though no officials have been prosecuted so far. He pointed to the work of a UN commission whose mandate has repeatedly been renewed, the creation with US support of the Syrian Justice and Accountability Center and work by grantees of that body including the Commission on International Justice and Accountability.
The latter group, headquartered in Brussels but with 135 field workers primarily in southern Turkey, has amassed more than 600,000 documents showing crimes by the Assad regime, he said. Rapp said the only bright spot in the civil war, which has now gone on for more than four years and killed a quarter of a million people and displaced half of Syria’s population, is the way the regime generated so many “documents with stamps on them” that have fallen into the hands of the opposition. Even now, Rapp said, such documentation “can be purchased by the kilogram from one group or another in various parts of the country.”
Rapp was also instrumental in publicizing more than 50,000 photos taken by a Syrian defector code-named Caesar of torture and murder of detainees in military hospitals Mezzeh and Tishreen. Rapp said Caesar, a former police photographer, “didn’t expect the impact the photos had” in dramatizing the abuses of the Syrian government.
The dossier shows the bodies of 11,000 Syrians, many of them with gruesome signs of torture and starvation. Rapp said work is ongoing to identify victims and that so far 600 families have stepped forward to identify relatives.
Frustrated by the Obama administration’s cautious policy toward intervention in the Syrian war, some once-prominent US officials, such as former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, have quit. Rapp said he was not leaving out of protest, noting that he had been in the position longer than usual for such a job and that he intends to continue his involvement by working with “a couple of organizations in Europe and the US on the challenge of accountability where no court has jurisdiction.”
“I never had any proposed talking points or speeches edited in the slightest,” he said of his government tenure. “What I said all the time and kept pushing — and never ran into any resistance — was the need to document the hell.”
Rapp said a successor has already been chosen but would not be announced until Congress returns from its summer recess.
Mohammad Al Abdallah, executive director of the Syria Justice and Accountability Center, praised Rapp for reaching out to Syrian opposition groups, providing technical advice and encouraging President Barack Obama and his administration “to do more than depositing the Caesar photos with the FBI.”
But Abdallah told Al-Monitor that “without a comprehensive policy from the administration” on Syria, Rapp’s contributions were welcome but insufficient.
“The less push for accountability, the more tendency to be violent,” Abdallah said of the Syrian conflict. “People would say that nobody cares.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry, in announcing Rapp’s departure, said in a statement that Rapp “has engaged in tireless outreach and energetic diplomacy — working with foreign governments, civil society, national and international courts, victims and survivors and our partners within the US government and in Congress — that has delivered progress on seemingly intractable challenges and helped lay the groundwork for a more just and peaceful future. Whether it was concluding a successful, yearslong effort to locate long-time fugitives like [Bosnian Gen.] Ratko Mladic and Bosco Ntaganda [a militia leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda] and see them brought to justice, or working to ensure that atrocity crimes in more recent conflicts like Syria are documented for a day when justice can prevail, Stephen brought the tenacity of a former prosecutor and the persistence of a diplomat to his work.”
Fred Hof, a former senior State Department official dealing with Syria who left the Obama administration in 2012 out of frustration at its reluctance to increase support for opposition forces, told Al-Monitor that Rapp “did a superb job of marshaling literally tons of evidence that ultimately may prove very useful in prosecuting Assad and others for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Rapp broke some bureaucratic crockery in 2012 by making criminal accountability a major agenda item in successive Friends of the Syrian People conferences,” added Hof, who is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “To the best of my knowledge it was largely his own initiative: He did not have to be ordered to do his job. He was aided immeasurably by the habit of the Assad regime to record in writing many of its atrocities and victims and the willingness of decent Syrians to smuggle the incriminating documentation out of the country.”
In a 2012 interview with Al-Monitor, Rapp said, “Our interest is making sure that we do this in a professional way that protects the sources and builds the skills of the Syrians … to connect the dots to make the kind of case that you have to if you are going to bring a Charles Taylor to trial,” in a reference to the former Liberian president sentenced in May 2012 to 50 years in prison by the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
While it may be many years before such a case can be brought against Assad and his top henchmen, Rapp noted that there are other ways to begin to bring some accountability for Syrian victims of both the regime and of opposition forces, including the group that calls itself the Islamic State.
The Syrian Justice and Accountability Center in a recent report wrote, “In Syria in the pre-transition period … criminal prosecutions in foreign national courts can have a positive impact … as long as investigations are not restricted only to opposition figures and counter-terrorism cases.”
So far, Rapp said, the only cases prosecuted involve relative small fry such as a former member of the opposition Free Syrian Army tried in Sweden for crimes against a Syrian soldier. While foreign fighters are “easier to prosecute,” more than 80% of the war crimes committed in Syria have been carried out by the Assad regime, he said.
Rapp conceded that focusing on Assad’s removal could further complicate delicate diplomacy among Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United States that has intensified in recent weeks about how to organize a transition and better confront IS and other militant Sunni groups. But Rapp insisted that without engineering Assad’s ouster, “It doesn’t work. You can’t get the Sunni community to sign any peace that keeps him in place.”
Asked how long he thought Assad would remain in power, Rapp noted that the Syrian leader now presides over a much-reduced amount of territory and said it was possible that Syria would follow a path similar to what occurred when the former Yugoslavia imploded. One of its components, Bosnia, after a brutal three-year war that included many human rights atrocities, was further split into a Muslim-Croat entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a Serbian enclave, Republika Srpska, whose former president, Radovan Karadzic, is now on trial before a special tribunal in The Hague.

Kuwaiti Columnist, Abdallah Al-Hadlaq: The Gulf States' Real Enemy Is Iran; Israel Is A Friendly Country
MEMRI/August 13, 2015 Special Dispatch No.6132
In an article titled "A Prudent Enemy Is Better than An Imprudent One" in the Kuwaiti government daily Al-Watan, columnist 'Abdallah Al-Hadlaq wrote that the real enemy of the Gulf states is not Israel, whom he called "a friendly country," but rather Iran. He argued that Iran's Rule of the Jurisprudent regime is fascist, and that if it attains nuclear weapons it will not hesitate to use it against the Gulf states, whereas Israel, which has possessed such weapons for years, has never used them in its wars against the Arabs. Al-Hadlaq even called upon the Gulf states to sever their ties with Iran and form an alliance with Israel by strengthening their ties with it on the political, commercial and even military levels.
This is not the first time Al-Hadlaq has expressed concern regarding Iran and, conversely, support for Israel. In fact, his position led him to be included on a blacklist of Arab writers who espouse such views, published in 2009 by papers and websites that support the resistance axis.[1]
The following are excerpts from Al-Hadlaq's recent article:[2]
"To all those who think the Persian state (Iran), and the regime of the Rule of the Imprudent,[3] [namely] the dictatorial fascist Persian regime which controls it, is a friendly country, whereas Israel is an enemy country, I say that a prudent enemy is better than an imprudent one. The state of Israel and its various governments have waged more than five wars with the Arabs, yet never in the course of these wars did Israel think to use its nuclear weapons against its Arab enemies. Conversely, if the Persian state, with its stupid, rash and fascist regime that hides behind a religious guise, ever develops nuclear weapons, it will not hesitate to use nuclear bombs against the Arab Gulf states in the first conflict that arises.
"Israel is a friendly state that does not endanger us in the Arab Gulf region and we have nothing to fear from it. The one who threatens us, carries out acts of terror and destruction against us, and aspires to occupy us is the arrogant Persian enemy, represented by the regime of the Persian state (Iran), which is the incubator and supportive environment for global terror.
"Hence, I repeat my call to form a Israel-Gulf friendship society, as a first step towards developing and strengthening [our] ties with the friendly state of Israel in the domains of politics, diplomacy, trade, education and military and civilian cooperation. The rapprochement between Israel and the Gulf should be accompanied by a gradual distancing and severance of all ties with the Persian state (Iran) and its fascist Persian regime, now that it has been proven beyond all doubt that the Persian Iranians are involved in acts of terror, destruction and bombing in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait and the UAE, and after it has been proven that they incite and support the Shi'ite Houthi rebels in Yemen, and that the Shi'ite Persian Iranian militias are involved in all the hotspots of terror and conflict in the Arab Gulf and the Middle East, such as in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and throughout the world.
"I do not rule out – in fact I anticipate – that the servants and agents of Iran in the region, who have Persian blood running in their veins,... will accuse me of 'Zionism, collaborating with Israel, harboring hatred for Islam and Arabism, betraying the Palestinian cause and being hostile towards the Arab ummah.' [But now that] the world has become a village thanks to communications [technology], the scales have dropped from the eyes of the Arab and Muslims peoples, and they have realized... that their only bitter enemies are the Persian Iranians, not the friendly state of Israel..."
Endnotes:
[1] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 635, "Concerns in Kuwait, Gulf over Iranian Threat to Gulf States," September 8, 2010;
Special Dispatch No. 5061, "Arab Columnists Criticize Firing Of Rockets From Gaza As Reckless Escapade Serving Iran, Not Palestinians," November 20, 2012; Special Dispatch No. 2319, "Arab Media Publishes Blacklist of Writers," April 27, 2009.
[2] Al-Watan (Kuwait), August 1, 2015.
[3] A play on the term "Rule of the Jurisprudent."

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