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The Angel Gabriel Appears To Virgin Mary
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 01/26-38: "In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.’Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her."

But the scripture has imprisoned all things under the power of sin, so that what was promised through faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Letter to the Galatians 03/15-22: "I give an example from daily life: once a person’s will has been ratified, no one adds to it or annuls it. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it does not say, ‘And to offsprings’, as of many; but it says, ‘And to your offspring’, that is, to one person, who is Christ. My point is this: the law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. For if the inheritance comes from the law, it no longer comes from the promise; but God granted it to Abraham through the promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring would come to whom the promise had been made; and it was ordained through angels by a mediator. Now a mediator involves more than one party; but God is one. Is the law then opposed to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could make alive, then righteousness would indeed come through the law. But the scripture has imprisoned all things under the power of sin, so that what was promised through faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 21-22/15
Lebanon Will Reclaim Its Confiscated Independence/By: Elias Bejjani/November 22/15
Will Beirut bombing spur Lebanon into finding a new president/Ali Hashem/Al-Monitor/November 21/15
Iran hedges its bets in Syria/Author Ellie Geranmayeh/Al-Monitor/November 21/15
Yazidis wary of going back to liberated Sinjar/Timur Göksel/Al-Monitor/November 21/15
After KRG formally welcomes Jews back to Iraq, will their numbers increase/Mustafa Saadoun/Al-Monitor/November 21/15
Despite Russian airstrikes, FSA continues to confront regime/Asaad Hanna/Al-Monitor/November 21/15
Can women and Copts make it to parliament without the quota/Ahmed Fouad/Al-Monitor/November 21/15
More Palestinian and Western Mistakes/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/November 21/15
On Syrian refugees, are the Liberals deliberately courting controversy/The Globe and Mail/Canada/Published Friday, Nov. 20, 2015
Syrian refugees victimized at home, demonized in America/Hisham Melhem/Al Arabiya/November 21/15
Why more women are needed in peace negotiations/Yara al-Wazir/Al Arabiya/November 21/15
Paris massacre exonerates the murderer, condemns the victim/Eyad Abu Shakra/Al Arabiya/November 21/15
Will Obama be a hawk or a dove after Paris/Andrew Bowen/Al Arabiya/November 21/15
Obama's Mideast Policy: Obituary by John Kerry/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/November 21/15
Putin Visits Iran/Brenda Shaffer/Washington Institute/November 21/15

Lebanon Will Reclaim Its Confiscated Independence
By: Elias Bejjani/November 22/15
Psalm 92:12: “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon”.
Today, the Lebanese back home in beloved Lebanon, as well as those living in Diaspora are all remembering with sadness, anger and frustration their country’s 72 Independence Day.
Although the country is practically not independent and savagely occupied by Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxy army, but every sovereign, faithful and patriotic Lebanese is hopeful and fully confident that this era of terrorism, evilness, oppression and hardship is ultimately going to end. By God’s will Lebanon’s freedom spring is on the horizon.
Lebanon through its deeply rooted history of 7000 years have witnessed hard times and all kinds of invaders, occupiers, dictators, and tyrants, they all were forced to leave Lebanon with humiliation and Lebanon maintained its freedom and sovereignty. There is no doubt that the fate of the current occupier is going to be any different.
There are numerous reasons behind the ongoing devastating internal and external wars that are being waged against Lebanon and his people. These reasons have varied throughout contemporary history with the changing instruments of fighting, circumstances, financiers and profiteers. However, the main reasons and targets were always and still are the privileged Lebanese distinctive identity, multiculturalism, freedoms and coexistence. Almost every nation and people in the Middle and Far East look upon Lebanon as a heaven for freedoms and as an oasis for the persecuted.
At the present time and since 1982, the Iranian armed terrorist militia, Hezbollah, which was created by the Iranians with its mini-state during Syria’s bloody occupation era of Lebanon (1976-2005) imposes an extremely serious and fundamental threat to all that is Lebanese: culture, identity, history, civilization, freedoms, coexistence, tolerance, democracy, peace, openness, order and law.
But as our deeply rooted history teaches us, this Stone Age armed terrorist group shall by God’s will be defeated as was the fate of all invaders, tyrants, dictators and occupiers whose sick minds fooled them that Lebanon could be tamed and his people could be subdued and enslaved. They all were disappointed and forced to leave with humiliation and disgrace. The Syrian occupier in 2005 and after almost 30 years of savage occupation had to face the same scornful fate. Hezbollah will have ultimately the same end sooner or later although its armed militiamen are Lebanese.
We thank God for the ultimate failure of all savage attacks which the faithful Lebanese shattered with stubbornness, perseverance, courage and self-confidence, and remained attached to their identity, and steadfast against hatred, foreign expansionism schemes and evil conspiracies.
The distinction of Lebanon is that it is a nation of diverse religious denominational groups and civilizations living together in agreeable coexistence, without coercion or oppression or becoming a melting pot, despite transient harsh confrontations at certain periods of history always instigated and orchestrated by external forces. Lebanon’s air of liberty has been made equally available to its extensive mosaic of communities to help them maintain freedom of their cultural and religious particularities and distinctions.
All Throughout history these distinctions gave Lebanon his pluralist flavor and made the majority of the Lebanese people into a homogeneous society attached heart and spirit to the one Lebanese identity that personifies their roots, cultures, hopes and civilizations.
The confessional diversity permits each of Lebanon’s 18 ethnic communities to express its original goodness within its core and the sanctity of its faith. Even though the communities’ perspective towards God may be different, they do not disagree on the truth of God’s essence, and He remains the All Mighty Creator and the source of all good to all people.
Accordingly, all Lebanese have learned that none of them should presume to monopolize God’s relationship through himself, or seek to acquire all God’s graces by eliminating others, because these others were also created by God and are also His children, and that He is the only ultimate judge.
All religions in Lebanon worship the same God, and He definitely accepts them all each according to their sincerity and trust. God knows the content of hearts and intents, and He is not fooled by the various rituals and styles of worship. The majority of the peace loving Lebanese people strongly believe that no one Lebanese community should claim that it is the best, or the closest, or the only path to God. They all trust in the fact that God knows all wants, and uncovers all intents. Hezbollah is an odd exception among the Lebanese communities.
Despite the ongoing Lebanese success of coexistence and diversity of civilizations, cultures and religions within the scope of the uniform Lebanese identify, and despite the good and civilized relationship that the Lebanese always endeavor to maintain with neighboring countries, Syria still keeps on trying by force, vicious interferences and terrorism to impose on them an alternative identity, life style, regime and ideology.
The Syrian Baathist regime has been, and still is, an actual disaster for Lebanon and his people and an ongoing annoying headache in all levels and domains. Syria has been ferociously behind all Lebanese problems, wars and sufferings for the last 30 years, including the creation of the Terrorist Hezbollah and its mini-state, as well as the status quo of havoc and disorder in the 13 Palestinian camps of which the Lebanese government has zero control.
To know Lebanon well and to understand his importance in the Middle East, one needs to review his rooted history. In this context, below are some historic excerpts that address Lebanon’s “particularity”, the spoken languages of his people and other related documented historical facts:
Lebanon has been known since ancient through modern times, as a crossroad of civilizations and peoples. Since 4000 BC, waves of people settled and fought on his land, including Kananites, Phoenicians, Aramites, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Europeans, and Syrians. Lebanon’s spoken language varied with the times. Originally, Phoenician was the mother tongue followed by the Egyptian and Babylonian languages for commerce.
During the Persian rule (539-332 BC), Aramaic was the official language of the empire, in addition to Phoenician in Lebanon. During Greek rule (322-63), ancient Greek became the official language equivalent to the Aramaic mother language. With the Roman rule, Latin became the language of law and administration, in addition to ancient Greek as the language of culture next to Aramaic which remained the mother language.
With the Arab conquest (625 AD), Arabic imposed by the Amawites rulers started to compete with the Aramaic/Syriac variations and replaced them. Then the Ottoman Turks taught Turkish, while schools of the era taught and continue today to teach French, English, and Armenian. Lebanon’s current official language is Arabic, although the Lebanese dialect language spoken is a combination of many languages, especially Aramaic and Syriac.
Union with diversity within the distinct Lebanese identity is Lebanon’s civilization and the choice of its multi-ethnic-religious people. This diversity is known as the “Lebanese particularity” and as Lebanon’s humanistic message to its neighbors, as well as to the whole world, and if it is lost, God forbid, Lebanon would lose the reason of his existence (his raison d’etre).
Lebanon’s “particularity” yielded his national covenant and his political system. The covenant is coexistence amongst Christians and Moslems. The Christian Lebanese adhere to it by abandoning their tendency for Western style secularism and by renouncing the protection of any Western nation, and the Lebanese Moslems, in turn, abandon their tendency to Islamic theocracy and cease their quest for protection under any Arabic or Islamic nation.
The National Covenant specifies the principles of “coexistence” from Independence and President Becaharra Khoury on the day of his election on September 20, 1943, as well as the first Governmental Communiqué issued by Prime Minister Riad Solh on October 7, 1943. The most important clauses of the Covenant are:
*Lebanon is an independent republic, with complete independence, and a final homeland for all his children, sovereign, free and independent in his internationally recognized borders.
*Lebanon is a founding active member of the Arab League and is adherent and committed to its principles. Lebanon is also a founding and active member of the United Nations and committed to its principles and to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
*There would be no hegemony requested, no protection sought, and no special privileges granted to any other nation, and no union nor unification with any other nation.
*Maximum cooperation with the Arab countries, by maintaining equilibrium with all of them, and maintaining friendship with all foreign nations that recognize Lebanon’s total independence and respect it. There will be no legitimacy to any authority that contradicts the covenant of national coexistence. It was on the basis of this covenant that the political system in Lebanon was conceived distinctively from all other political systems in the Arab and Western nations, and it is on this same basis that all Lebanese ethnicities agreed to unite within the scope of the Lebanese identity. This political system produced special attributes that distinguished Lebanon from its neighbors and they are:
*The democratic parliamentary system;
*the National Concord;
*the public liberties and most significantly the freedom of opinion, religion, and free enterprise. The system also yielded a dialogue without duress (conciliatory dialogue) about the affairs and politics of the nation as specified in the constitution, such as the modification of the constitution, war and peace and treaties with other nations.
This Lebanese civilization which constitutes the heritage of Lebanon, and which is the result of existential living and political dialogues among all successive cultures and civilizations on his land, has continued to allow the Lebanese to remain steadfast in the face of conspiracies of partition and settlement and regime change, and to survive his most critical stages during years of fierce wars.
“Lebanon First””, is the patriotic emblem under which the “Cedars Revolution” united the majority of the Lebanese people in 2005 against the Syrian occupation and liberated the country. The Lebanese identity which distinguishes Lebanon has held steadfast in the past and will prevail and be ultimately victorious. It will also firmly endure in the protection of our forefather’s inheritance, God willing. All the forces of hate and evil including Syria, Iran and Hezbollah shall fail to marginalize it or replace it with another identity.
In conclusion, for Lebanon, the land of the holy cedars to be victorious in the face of the Axis of Evil powers dirty and evil wars against his existence, Each and every Lebanese in both Lebanon and Diaspora has a patriotic and ethical obligation and a holy duty to preserve by all means Lebanon’s graceful identity and solidify its implantation in the conscience, hearts and souls of the new Lebanese generations and to root it in their awareness, as well as in Lebanon’s blessed soil.

Salam Marks Independence Day, Urges End to Vacuum
Naharnet/November 21/15/Prime Minister Tammam stated on Saturday that the challenges facing the country have reached a stage that no longer allow a slowdown in finding solutions for deadlocks, calling an end to the presidential vacuum, the National News Agency said. “Electing a new president restores a structural constitutional fault,” Salam said marking Lebanon's 72nd Independence Day in the absence of a president. The PM reiterated the necessity to elect a head of state, he said: “While such an election revives political life, blocking state functions by diminishing its prestige constitutes a crime against Lebanon.”“Maintaining a certain level of security helps prevent the infiltration of terrorists,” he added. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of President Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014.

Zaspykin Surprised at Russian Request: It Was not passed to the Embassy in Lebanon
Naharnet/November 21/15/Russian ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin expressed astonishment at the recent Russian request to divert air routes from Lebanon stressing that he had “no information on the subject,” al-Joumhouria daily said on Saturday. Zaspykin said that he was totally surprised by Russia's request that Lebanon ensures that flights from Beirut airport avoid an area over the eastern Mediterranean for the next three days. “I have no information about the issue. I was surprised,” said Zaspykin. On Friday, Russia has asked Lebanese authorities that planes leaving Beirut airport towards the west avoid overflying an area in Mediterranean territorial waters because of maneuvers on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The ambassador added: “I only knew about the new measures when I read it over the internet. The decision was not passed to the Russian embassy in Beirut.”He strongly denounced the act which he described as “strange and totally shrouded in mystery.”The ambassador stressed that he “has not been officially notified by Russian officials pointing out that he had sought for clarifications about it.”On Saturday, flights in and out of Lebanon were being forced to take longer routes, with some airlines canceling services after Moscow's request. Lebanese Transport Minister Ghazi Zoaiter said Moscow requested "that planes leaving Beirut airport towards the west avoid overflying an area in Mediterranean territorial waters because of manoeuvres on Saturday, Sunday and Monday."There was no confirmation from Moscow of the request, but a Lebanese airport official later said that departing flights would be directed to first fly south over Sidon and Sarafand to "keep them away from the perimeter of the manoeuvres."Lebanon's national carrier Middle East Airlines acknowledged the rerouting in a statement, saying its flights would be mostly on time but "some flights to the Gulf and the Middle East region might take (a) longer time due to a slight change in airways."Kuwait Airways said it was suspending its Beirut flights "as a precautionary measure" but most other flights were arriving and leaving normally. Turkey's Dogan news agency said two Turkish Airlines services to Beirut on Friday night were cancelled for "security reasons" due to the Russian request, but its Saturday flights were operating regularly.

Hollande Congratulates Salam on Independence Day, Reiterates France Support for Lebanon
Naharnet/November 21/15/Prime Minister Tammam Salam received a congratulation letter from French President Francois Hollande on Independence Day in which he confirmed “his country's support to Lebanon to overcome the challenges facing the nation,” the National News Agency said on Saturday. Hollande praised Salam's efforts in light of the difficult circumstances that the country is witnessing, saying that his country will continue its efforts to help Lebanon end the presidential vacuum. The French President extended his gratitude for the Lebanese solidarity with France after the attacks that rocked Paris last week. “France continues to support Lebanon to face the threats and unfortunate repercussions of the Syrian conflict to be able to defend its sovereignty, unity, stability and territories,” he said. “France will continue to help Lebanon to overcome the negative impacts of the crises as it will continue to take part with the UNIFIL and support the Lebanese Army and Security Forces that are playing an important role at the current stage,” concluded Hollande. He added that France will continue to help Lebanon handle the flood of displaced Syrians, “a heavy burden which the Lebanese would not be able to shoulder alone.”

Zoaiter Says no Israeli Intrusion on New Aviation Routes, as Kuwait Airways Cancels Two Flights
Naharnet/November 21/15/Public Works and Transport Minister Ghazi Zoaiter revealed on Saturday that Lebanon has taken assurances from Cyprus that Israel will not intrude upon Lebanon's new aviation routes, nor will it carry out maneuvers in light of the latest Russian demand to avoid overflying the eastern Mediterranean area. “Lebanon has taken assurances from Cyprus that Israel will not intrude upon Lebanon's aviation or carry out any maneuvers on the new air routes,” Zoaiter told al-Joumhouria daily on Saturday. “Rerouting will only bring a limited delay on some airlines,” he added. Meanwhile, Kuwait Airways has taken a decision to cancel two flights “as a precautionary measure” that were scheduled to land on Saturday at the Rafiq Hariri international Airport in light of the Russian request. On Friday, Russia, which is carrying out air strikes in Syria has asked the Lebanese authorities that planes leaving Beirut airport towards the west avoid overflying an area in Mediterranean territorial waters because of maneuvers on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. However, the Middle East Airlines, Lebanon's national carrier, said that all of Saturday's flights will take off on time, but some flights to the Arab Gulf countries and the Middle East will spend more time in the air due to the new air routes. Lebanese Ambassador to Cyprus Youssef Sadaqa said that negotiations between MEA's office in Cyprus and the Cypriot civil aviation directorate agreed on "a secure air route for Lebanese flights over the southern region of the Mediterranean." Lebanon's Directorate General of Civil Aviation reassured that "flight operations at Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport will not be interrupted."Rather than departing towards the west, or approaching from that direction, flights would be directed to first fly south above Sidon and Sarafand to "keep them away from the perimeter of the maneuvers," he said.

Hariri on Independence Day: Vacuum at Presidential Post an Insult
Naharnet/November 21/15/Former Prime Minister and al-Mustaqbal movement chief Saad Hariri stated on Saturday that Lebanon celebrates its Independence Day this year with sorrow and that the vacuum at the top state post is an insult to the Lebanese. “The vacuum at the presidential post is the biggest insult to the Lebanese people on their national day of Independence,” said Hariri via Twitter. He stressed: “The army and legality are the guarantor for independence, and the presidency is the guarantor for stability of the political system. “Congratulating the Lebanese on Independence Day will not be complete in light of the vacuum at the top state post.” Lebanon celebrates its 72nd Independence Day in the absence of a head of state. The country has been in a presidential vacuum since the term of President Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014. Conflicts between the rival March 8 and March 14 camps have thwarted all the attempts made so far to elect a successor.

Report: Franjieh-Hariri Meeting Happened, Did not Happen
Naharnet/November 21/15/Despite the statements negating that a meeting has taken place between head of al-Mustaqbal movement Saad Hariri and Marada leader MP Suleiman Franjieh, well informed sources assured that the meeting has happened and that the two man have met at the house of business man Jilbert Chagouri, al-Akhbar daily reported on Saturday. The sources added that mutual friends have arranged for the meeting at Chagouri's place in Paris during Suleiman's visit to the French capital last week. MP Ghattas Khoury, who has visited Franjieh about a month ago, and Nader Hariri, the adviser of the Mustaqbal Movement leader have also attended the meeting, the sources added. Last week, Hariri's media office and Franjieh's advisers issued statements and slammed reports that such a meeting took place. However, sources say that the overall political situation is in desperate need for common ground between the political factions to end the presidential vacuum, which pushed for a meeting between the two men away from media spotlight. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of President Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014. The conflicts between the rival political figures of the March 8 and March 14 camps have thwarted so far all the attempts aiming at electing a successor. Well informed sources said that in light of the diminishing possibility to garner agreement on the election of March 8 candidate MP Michel Aoun as president, has pushed the alliance to find an alternative.

Russia Pounds IS as Manoeuvres Force Flight Rerouting
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 21/15/Russia has bombed the Islamic State group in the heaviest strikes in eastern Syria since the war began, as Moscow's military manoeuvres in the Mediterranean forced Lebanon to reroute flights.
The United Nations meanwhile passed a motion calling for action against IS, a week after 130 people were killed in Paris, sparking international condemnation and fears of similar attacks elsewhere in Europe. Russian and Syrian warplanes carried out at least 70 strikes in eastern Deir Ezzor province on Friday, killing at least 36 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Britain-based group said the raids hit several cities and towns in the province, as well as three oilfields, and were the heaviest bombardment of the region since the conflict began in March 2011. Most of Deir Ezzor province, including large parts of its capital, is held by IS. The regime still holds the military airport and several smaller areas. Russia began its bombing campaign in support of President Bashar Assad on September 30, and pledged to step up the strikes after IS claimed a bombing that brought down a Russian passenger jet over Egypt last month, killing all 224 people on board. On Friday, Russia said it had fired cruise missiles from warships in the Caspian Sea and claimed to have killed 600 fighters in recent strikes. According to the Observatory, Russia's strikes have killed more than 1,300 people since they began, a third of them civilians. The group says 381 IS fighters have been killed in the strikes, along with 547 rebels from other groups including al-Qaida affiliate al-Nusra Front. It said 403 civilians had been killed, including 97 children.
Lebanon flights rerouted
Russia's military involvement in Syria has stirred tensions with Turkey, which backs the uprising against Assad and has accused Moscow of failing to respect its border and airspace in the campaign. And on Saturday, flights in and out of Lebanon were being forced to take longer routes, with some airlines cancelling services, after Moscow requested flights avoid a portion of airspace over the Mediterranean, a Lebanese minister said. Lebanese Transport Minister Ghazi Zoaiter said Moscow requested "that planes leaving Beirut airport towards the west avoid overflying an area in Mediterranean territorial waters because of manoeuvres on Saturday, Sunday and Monday."There was no confirmation from Moscow of the request, but a Lebanese airport official later said that departing flights would be directed to first fly south over Sidon and Sarafand to "keep them away from the perimeter of the manoeuvres." Lebanon's national carrier Middle East Airlines acknowledged the rerouting in a statement, saying its flights would be mostly on time but "some flights to the Gulf and the Middle East region might take (a) longer time due to a slight change in airways." Kuwait Airways said it was suspending its Beirut flights "as a precautionary measure" but most other flights were arriving and leaving normally. Turkey's Dogan news agency said two Turkish Airlines services to Beirut on Friday night were cancelled for "security reasons" due to the Russian request, but its Saturday flights were operating regularly. In France meanwhile, the president's office said Francois Hollande would meet British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday to discuss the Syrian conflict and the threat posed by jihadists. Hollande is also set to meet next week with US President Barack Obama, Russia's Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the wake of France's worst-ever terror attack. On Friday, the UN Security Council backed a French-drafted measure calling on member states to "take all necessary measures" to fight IS. The resolution, which does not provide a legal basis for military action, urges countries to "take all necessary measures, in compliance with international law... on the territory under the control of ISIL... in Syria and Iraq".

Will Beirut bombing spur Lebanon into finding a new president?
Ali Hashem/Al-Monitor/November 21/15
The last day Lebanon had a president was May 24, 2014. For a year and half, the country known for its sectarian-driven politics has gone not only without a president, but with a resigned, caretaker government, and a parliament that has twice extended its own term. The first time they did so was in May 2013, when the elections were postponed from June to November 2014. Lebanon’s parliament members voted again on Nov. 5, 2014, in favor of extending their mandate for another two years.Several challenges tripped up the country’s ruling elite and left it unable to make decisions. Even when dozens of military and internal security personnel were abducted by al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State (IS), no firm action was taken, nor was there when garbage flooded the streets.
It was only when thousands of Lebanese took to the streets over the garbage crisis under the umbrella “You Stink” that there was a move toward consensus on a way to calm the protests.
This and other activist groups gained momentum in the Lebanese street and gained influence among the youth. It was the first time that a nonpolitical movement was able to unite thousands of Lebanese from different sects and political affiliations. It didn’t take long for the protests to take a violent turn, and several activists were arrested. In response, the protesters changed direction and called for political reform and a new electoral law.
The war in Syria, the regional strife between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the internal differences over the presidential elections, the next government and the electoral law combined to fuel the agitation in Lebanon after it became clear that despite the ongoing dialogue between Iranian-backed Hezbollah and Saudi-affiliated Future Movement, there was nothing positive on the horizon. The more Hezbollah verbally attacks Saudi Arabia, the more the Future Movement and Iran attack each other and the further Iranian-Saudi relations deteriorate, the closer Lebanon drew to the edge of the abyss.
Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah spoke on Nov. 11, calling for a “comprehensive political settlement” on the presidential elections, the new government and the electoral law.
Then came the Nov. 12 twin suicide bombings in Beirut’s Shiite-dominated southern suburb of Burj el-Barajneh that killed 43 people and injured more than 200.
At that moment, the sounds of the explosions and the grieving voices of the families seemed to overtake the noise of politics. The country was in shock, and so seemed to be the political factions. Statements of condemnation filled the air while the funerals were held. Some positive messages came from mediators who, according to a high-profile Lebanese politician who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “agreed on calming down the tension to rid the country of additional chaos that might give IS and its likes a fertile environment to grow in.”
Lebanese political rivals started a new national dialogue amid the garbage crisis to try to solve these issues, including the long disputed electoral law that has been a matter of debate and discussion since the end of the Lebanese civil war. After the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, there were calls to introduce a new electoral law to replace the 1960 law, according to which the last election in 2009 was conducted. The differences are mainly over whether the election should happen in a proportional representation or a winner-take-all system.
On Nov. 14, two days after the explosion, Nasrallah gave another speech. Condemning the attacks in Beirut and Paris, he hailed the efforts of the Lebanese security forces, mainly the Information Branch, which is known for being very close to the Future Movement. Nasrallah praised “the achievement of the security forces, especially the Information Branch, in following up closely with the resistance security, in an extensive and professional manner.” He added, “For the upcoming days, we must continue to work closely together, as we have done previously in the face of car bombings,” concluding, “The international community is busy and we are able to face our problems and find solutions if there is a will and seriousness.” The ISF’s Information Branch succeeded in dismantling the network behind the Nov. 12 bombing, according to Lebanese Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk, who said, “There are seven Syrians who have been arrested, aside from the two suicide bombers. There are two Lebanese who have been detained, one of them a [would-be] suicide bomber and the other a trafficker who smuggled them across the border from Syria.”Machnouk, who is also a parliament member representing the Future Movement, added, “It is clear that there is a major decision to destabilize Lebanon.” He called on politicians to come together and look for solutions to the presidential vacuum, noting, “Lebanon is not on the international map, but Yemen and Syria are. We must realize this fact and act accordingly.”
Reading into both Nasrallah and Machnouk’s stances, it is clear that the two sides have already reached some common ground. In the meantime, however, no one is running Lebanon.
Hezbollah is backing the Free Patriotic Movement’s leader, Maronite parliament member Michel Aoun, in his bid for the presidency, while the Future Movement supports Aoun’s historic rival, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea. The two sides have been exchanging accusations of impeding the presidential elections. Now that there is a chance for a consensus, it is very likely that Aoun and Geagea will stand aside and a new candidate will step in, for either's victory would mean a win for one side over the other, and this won’t work for a settlement. Besides, Hezbollah and the March 8 Coalition won’t accept Geagea as president, given his stance on Hezbollah's presence on both the Israeli and the Syrian fronts. On the other side, the Future Movement and March 14 Coalition wouldn’t be happy with Aoun as a president, for that would make Aoun the main Christian leader in the country and give March 8 a chance at a double share in any future government. Such a candidate should be agreed on by Hezbollah and the Future Movement, but the two movements disagree on almost everything, from Hezbollah’s role in Syria to Hezbollah’s arms, the Future Movement’s support for the Syrian opposition, the Hariri tribunal and much more.
Many Lebanese see a consensus candidate as a miracle worker able to put the country back on the right track, despite the limited powers of the Lebanese presidency. The Lebanese president is the guarantor of the application of the constitution and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Yet he can’t choose a prime minister without consulting with the parliament speaker and other members, nor accept the resignation of ministers without the consent of the prime minister. Still, his presence is important for the government's workings, as he is the one who signs decrees and transfers them from the Cabinet to the parliament, not to mention the symbol of the country’s unity.
**Ali Hashem is a columnist for Al-Monitor. He is an Arab journalist serving as Al Mayadeen news network's chief correspondent. Until March 2012, he was Al Jazeera's war correspondent, and prior to that he was a senior journalist at the BBC. He has written for several Arab newspapers, including the Lebanese daily As Safir, the Egyptian dailies Al-Masry Al-Youm and Aldostor and the Jordanian daily Alghad. He has also contributed to The Guardian. On Twitter: @alihashem_tv

World unites ‘against ISIS death cult’ in U.N. vote
AFP, London Saturday, 21 November 2015/The unanimous U.N. Security Council vote on Friday backing action against ISIS shows the world is united against the "evil death cult", British Prime Minister David Cameron said. The United Nations Security Council authorized countries to "take all necessary measures" to fight the militant group, in a resolution a week after the Paris attacks that claimed 130 lives. Image taken from ISIS video footage shows a man identified in the subtitiles as Al Karar the Iraqi gesturing as he speaks. (Reuters). Cameron called the vote on the French-drafted text an "important moment". "The world has united against ISIL (ISIS). The international community has come together and has resolved to defeat this evil, which threatens people of every country and every religion," he said in a statement. "The U.N. Security Council has unanimously backed action against this evil death cult in both Syria and Iraq.... Today's vote shows beyond doubt the breadth of international support for doing more in Syria and for decisive action to eradicate ISIL."Britain is taking part in airstrikes on ISIS targets in Iraq and the government intends to seek parliamentary approval to extend these to Syria -- if it can secure a consensus across parties. However, Jeremy Corbyn, the pacifist leader of the main opposition Labour Party, is against any such action. In 2013, Cameron's government suffered a scarring defeat in parliament over its plan to join international military action over the use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "Britain will continue to support our allies who are fighting ISIL in Syria," Cameron said. "I will continue to make the case for us to do more and to build support in parliament for the action that I believe is necessary for Britain to take to protect our own security, as part of a determined international strategy. "We cannot expect others to shoulder the burdens and the risks of protecting this country."

Turkey-Backed Syria Rebels Take 2 Border Villages from IS
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 21/15/Syrian rebels backed by Turkey and the United States have seized two villages from Islamic State (IS) jihadists close to the Turkish border after fierce fighting, Turkish official media said on Sunday. The state-run Anatolia news agency said that ethnic Turkmen fighters had captured the villages of Harjaleh and Dalha in northern Aleppo province from IS forces. The ground offensive by the Turkmen fighters, strong allies of Turkey in its push to oust President Bashar al-Assad, was backed from the air by U.S. and Turkish fighter jets, it added. Six Turkish F-16s, four U.S. F-15s, an American AC-130 and three drones were involved, the report said, without specifying if any targets were hit. Some 70 IS jihadists were killed in the fighting, it added. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that the villages had been captured from IS but said the campaign had been waged by rebel and Islamist factions and not just Turkmen fighters. Turkish officials have in the last days said a major joint air operation against IS with the United States was planned, with Turkmen forces fighting on the ground. They said the aim is to clear of jihadists a 98 kilometre (61 mile) stretch of Syria's northern border with Turkey still controlled by IS. The special U.S. envoy for the anti-IS coalition, Brett McGurk, had on Friday also indicated that the operation was imminent. "Now we're going to start pushing them (IS) back," he said in Washington. Turkish media reports described the operation as the first step in Ankara's plan for creating a so-called safe zone in northern Syria that could eventually house some of the 2.2 million Syrian refugees hosted by Turkey. But American officials have expressed scepticism over the idea, with President Barack Obama saying at the G20 summit in Turkey on Monday that a true safe zone needed ground operations. "How would it work? Would it become a magnet for further terrorist attacks? And how many personnel would be required, and how would it end? There's a whole set of questions that have to be answered there," he said.

Obama Tries to Put Human Face on Syrian Refugee Debate
Associated Press/Naharnet/November 21/15/Brushing off refugee worries at home, President Barack Obama crouched alongside migrant children on Saturday and declared they are the opposite of terrorists wreaking havoc from Paris to Mali. Working to put a human face on the refugee crisis, he said, "They're just like our kids."The refugees Obama encountered at a school for poor children in Malaysia were not from Syria, and unlike the flood of Syrians meeting steep resistance in the U.S., these migrants had already been cleared to resettle in America. Still, Obama said their faces could have been those of kids from Syria, Iraq and other war-torn regions whose pursuit of a life free from violence led them far from their native homes. "They were indistinguishable from any child in America," Obama said. "The notion that somehow we would be fearful of them — that our politics would somehow leave them to turn our sights away from their plight — is not representative of the best of who we are."More than mere musings, Obama's comments were intended as a direct rebuke to those demanding a halt to Syrian and Iraqi refugees entering the U.S. in the light of the Islamic State's attacks in Paris. Obama said the U.S. had shown it can welcome refugees while ensuring security. "There's no contradiction," he said. Many Americans seem to disagree. Democrats in large numbers have abandoned their president and his opposition to stiffer screening measures; forty-seven of them voted against Obama on Thursday. Having secured a veto-proof majority in the House, supporters are now hoping for a repeat in the Senate, while Obama works to shift the conversation to milder visa waiver changes that wouldn't affect Syrian refugees. In a modest classroom where refugee children were learning English, Obama zigzagged among art projects, puzzles and a caged class rabbit as he asked children in crisp white uniforms and neckties about their aspirations for the future. Later, as he met with older refugees who will soon relocate to the U.S., he said these children "deserve love and protection and stability and an education.""You will see the degree to which they represent the opposite of terror, the opposite of the type of despicable violence we saw in Mali and Paris," the president said. He singled out one refugee from Myanmar — a petite 16-year-old in a bright yellow dress — and said she had been a victim of human trafficking until the U.N. intervened. Obama said the girl now hopes to advocate for those who have suffered a similar plight. The White House declined to name the girl out of concern for the safety of her parents still in Myanmar. "This is who we want to help," Obama said. "This is the face of people around the world who still look to the United States as a beacon of hope."Of the some 150,000 refugees in Malaysia, many if not most are Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group. Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled persecution by Myanmar's Buddhist majority and landed in Malaysia, where Obama was attending a regional economic summit. Obama's administration has played a central role in Myanmar's emergence from brutal military rule, a transformation Obama considers a key foreign policy success. Yet the continued persecution of Rohingya remains a stain on the country's record, and even opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, an Obama ally whose party triumphed in recent elections, has been sharply criticized for looking the other way. Driving the debate about accepting Syrian refugees in the U.S., as in Europe, are concerns that terrorists could exploit the system to enter the country and carry out more attacks. It's unclear whether that was a factor in the Paris attacks that killed 130, although Obama has insisted that's not a legitimate security threat. Since Paris, the refugee issue has reverberated on the 2016 presidential campaign trail, where fears about Muslims in the U.S. have been voiced with a level of openness not seen since 9/11. Obama has accused Republicans of politically driven fear-mongering, but strong support in Congress for tighter vetting measures has underscored how pervasive some of those concerns have become. "It is wrong to condemn a strong screening process using the language of charity and morality," said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. Obama also met in Kuala Lumpur with representatives of civil society groups, where he called for tolerance and universal freedoms while avoiding direct criticism of Malaysia's government. Before departing for Washington on Sunday, he planned to attend summit sessions with Asian leaders and meet separately with the leaders of Laos and Singapore.

Belgium Terror Alert Linked to Risk of 'Weapons and Explosives' Attacks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 21/15/Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel on Saturday said the decision to raise the terror threat level in the capital Brussels to the highest possible level was linked to an imminent threat of attacks.
Brussels shut its metro system, cancelled public events and urged residents to stay away from crowded areas, with a gunman still on the run after the Paris attacks which have sent jitters through Europe. "This was due to a threat of an attack by individuals with explosives and weapons at several locations in the capital," Michel told a news briefing in Brussels. Belgium's national crisis centre also added the Brussels airport, which is outside the city limits, and the immigrant heavy suburb of Vilvoorde to the top terror level. A concert by Belgian-born rocker Johnny Hallyday, a major star in France, was also cancelled. Early Saturday authorities warned of an "imminent threat" as Belgium-based jihadists have been increasingly linked to the devastating attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead. The security alert came hours after a suspect arrested in Belgium was charged with terrorist offences in connection with the Paris attacks.
The suspect, who has not been identified, is the third to be charged in Belgium over the deadliest terror attacks in French history.

Egypt’s top Muslim cleric says terrorism uses religion as front
Reuters, Cairo Saturday, 21 November 2015/Egypt’s top Muslim cleric said on Saturday that terrorism was a disease that used religion as a front and it was wrong to blame Islam for crimes committed in its name like last week’s Paris attacks. Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the head of al-Azhar, the center of Islamic learning in Egypt, told a meeting of the Muslim Council of Elders which he heads that he condemned the Paris bloodshed and an attack by Islamist militants on a hotel in Mali on Friday. But he said this violence had no link to authentic Islam.“It is a clear injustice, and blatant bias, to tie the crimes of bombing and destruction happening now to Islam just because those who commit them cry ‘Allahu Akbar’ as they commit their atrocities,” Tayeb said. He said terrorism was a life philosophy whose adherents were willing to die, but it was not the by-product of any Abrahamic faith. It was rather an “intellectual and psychological disease” that used religion as a front. Those who burn Qurans and mosques in the West are also “terrorists,” Tayeb said, and their actions served as fuel for Islamist militancy. Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants killed 130 people in Paris in a series of attacks a week ago and al-Qaeda affiliated militants killed 19 people on Friday in an attack on a top hotel in Bamako, the capital of Mali.

Turkey launches air strikes on PKK in Iraq and southeast Turkey
By Reuters, Ankara Saturday, 21 November 2015/Turkish warplanes struck Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant targets in northern Iraq and southeast Turkey on Friday night, the latest raids in a military campaign against the rebel group. The Turkish army said it hit 23 PKK targets, including shelters and supply points, in Zap, Avasin-Baysan, Hakurk and Qandil areas in northern Iraq with 22 fighter jets. The air strikes were carried out between the hours of 11 p.m. and 2 a.m., the army said. It also said it hit PKK locations in Sirnak province in Turkey’s southeast, including shelters and gun points. The PKK’s 31-year-old conflict with the state erupted anew in July, with Turkey launching air strikes on militant camps in response to attacks on its security forces, ending a March 2013 ceasefire. Hundreds have been killed in the latest fighting. Designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union, the PKK launched a separatist insurgency in 1984 in which more than 40,000 people have been killed. The state launched peace talks with its jailed leader in 2012.

Turkey-backed Syria rebels take two border villages from ISIS: report
Istanbul, AFP Saturday, 21 November 2015/Syrian rebels backed by Turkey and the United States have seized two villages from Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants close to the Turkish border after fierce fighting, Turkish official media said on Sunday. The state-run Anatolia news agency said that ethnic Turkmen fighters had captured the villages of Harjaleh and Dalha in northern Aleppo province from ISIS forces. The ground offensive by the Turkmen fighters, strong allies of Turkey in its push to oust President Bashar al-Assad, was backed from the air by U.S. and Turkish fighter jets, it added. Six Turkish F-16s, four U.S. F-15s, an American AC-130 and three drones were involved, the report said, without specifying if any targets were hit. Some 70 ISIS militants were killed in the fighting, it added. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that the villages had been captured from ISIS but said the campaign had been waged by rebel and Islamist factions and not just Turkmen fighters. Turkish officials have in the last days said a major joint air operation against ISIS with the United States was planned, with Turkmen forces fighting on the ground. They said the aim is to clear of militants a 98 kilometer (61 mile) stretch of Syria’s northern border with Turkey still controlled by ISIS. The special U.S. envoy for the anti-ISIS coalition, Brett McGurk, had on Friday also indicated that the operation was imminent. “Now we’re going to start pushing them (ISIS) back,” he said in Washington. Turkish media reports described the operation as the first step in Ankara’s plan for creating a so-called safe zone in northern Syria that could eventually house some of the 2.2 million Syrian refugees hosted by Turkey. But American officials have expressed skepticism over the idea, with President Barack Obama saying at the G20 summit in Turkey on Monday that a true safe zone needed ground operations. “How would it work? Would it become a magnet for further terrorist attacks? And how many personnel would be required, and how would it end? There’s a whole set of questions that have to be answered there,” he said.

Obama meets Malaysia refugees as bitter Syria debate rages
AFP, Kuala Lumpur Saturday, 21 November 2015/U.S. President Barack Obama said the world must offer haven to refugees, as he visited a Malaysian center for displaced children Saturday amid a bitter and racially tinged U.S. debate over the Syria exodus. During his stop at the Dignity for Children Foundation in Kuala Lumpur, Obama knelt down to chat to children aged between seven and nine years about their art work and hopes for the future. Many at the small, well-appointed center, complete with a pet bunny, were members of Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, which was at the center of a dramatic refugee crisis earlier this year. Obama later said the children "are just like our kids and they deserve love and protection and stability and education"."They are deserving of the world's protection and the world's support," he said. Back home, Obama's administration is coming under fire for advocating the acceptance of Muslim refugees from Syria and Iraq. The White House has rejected opposition to such refugees as "hysteria" and "un-American", but has struggled even to keep Democratic allies on board due to fears the fleeing masses could include dangerous militants. "Are you learning English?" Obama asked one girl after greeting her and shaking her hand.
"You're working so hard."
He later said kids like her were "the face of not only refugees from Myanmar -- that's the face of Syrian children and Iraqi children". "When I sat there and talked to them, they were drawing and doing their math problems; they were indistinguishable from any child in America." The House of Representatives voted Thursday to ban Syrian and Iraqi refugees from entering the United States until tougher screening measures are in place. Eyeing the 2016 elections, nearly four dozen Democrats have gone against their president to support the measure. Obama's White House has threatened to veto the proposal.

Britain’s Cameron sees U.N. resolution on Syria action as key moment
London, Reuters Saturday, 21 November 2015/British Prime Minister David Cameron said the United Nations Security Council’s resolution to redouble action against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Syria was an important moment, strengthening his bid to start air strikes against the militant group there. The Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on Friday drafted by France after a series of attacks in Paris a week ago that killed 130 people and were claimed by ISIS. “This is an important moment,” said Cameron in a statement soon afterwards. “The international community has come together and has resolved to defeat this evil, which threatens people of every country and every religion.” Britain is already involved in air strikes against ISIS militants in Iraq. Cameron wants to extend the operation to hit ISIS in Syria to fall into line with allies, and has said he will submit a plan to parliament to do so. He will meet French President Francois Hollande on Monday to discuss the fight against terrorism in Syria and Iraq, his spokesman said on Saturday. ISIS has seized large areas of territory in Syria and neighboring Iraq. A U.S.-led coalition has been bombing the militants for more than a year and Russia started air strikes in Syria in September.

Turkish police ‘detain suspected ISIS scout’ in Paris attacks
Reuters, Ankara Saturday, 21 November 2015/Turkish police have detained a Belgian man of Moroccan origin on suspicion that he scouted out the target sites for ISIS in attacks that killed 129 people in Paris a week ago, the Dogan news agency said on Saturday. Ahmet Dahmani, 26, was detained at a luxury hotel in the southern coastal city of Antalya, Dogan said, without citing its sources. Turkish officials could not immediately be reached for comment. The report said two other men, both Syrian citizens, were also detained on a nearby highway on suspicion that they had been sent by ISIS in Syria to ensure Dahmani's safe passage across the border and were planning to meet him.

At least 36 dead in bombing raids in eastern Syria
AFP, Beirut Saturday, 21 November 2015/At least 36 people were killed Friday in air strikes by Russian and Syrian jets on ISIS-controlled Deir Ezzor province, a monitor said, describing them as the heaviest in the region since the start of the war. “At least 36 people were killed and dozens more injured in more than 70 raids carried out by Russian and Syrian planes against several districts in Deir Ezzor,” Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group told AFP. He described the raids, which targeted several large cities and smaller towns in the province and three oil fields, as “the worst bombardment of the region since the start of the uprising in 2011”.The province and most of the provincial capital is held by ISIS militants, with the exception of the military airport and a few areas controlled by the regime. The U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS said Monday it had destroyed 116 fuel trucks used by the militant in eastern Syria, in one of the largest raids in weeks. ISIS reportedly makes millions of dollars in revenue from oil fields under its control, and the coalition has regularly targeted oil infrastructure held by the group. An investigation by British newspaper The Financial Times last month estimated the militants reap some $1.5 million a day from oil, based on the price of $45 a barrel. Russia, which is also stepping up its own air campaign against ISIS, on Friday unleashed cruise missiles from warships in the Caspian Sea at targets across Syria for only the second time since it started bombings in September. Moscow fired 18 missiles from ships in its Caspian Sea fleet at seven targets in the Raqa, Idlib and Aleppo provinces, defence minister Sergei Shoigu was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

France’s Hollande thanks Morocco for help after Paris attacks
Reuters, Paris Saturday, 21 November 2015/President Francois Hollande on Friday thanked the King of Morocco for the "effective help" the north African state had given France after the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people. Moroccan and French sources have told Reuters Rabat had given vital information that led to locating Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ISIS coordinator of the last week's attacks, to a flat in the Parisian suburbs. "The president thanked the King of Morocco for the efficient help given by Morocco following Friday's attacks," a French presidency statement said after the two met in Paris.

Saudi Arabia slams terror attack in Mali
Saudi Gazette, Riyadh Saturday, 21 November 2015/Saudi Arabia condemned on Friday the terrorist attack on a hotel in the country’s capital Bamako which resulted in killing, wounding and taking many hostages. In a statement to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the official source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed the Kingdom’s extreme denunciation and condemnation against this terrorist act. The source stressed Saudi Arabia’s firm stance against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, whatever its motives and justifications and whatever its source. The official source conveyed the Kingdom’s condolence to the families of the victims as well as to the government and people of Mali and wished the injured a speedy recovery. Meanwhile, at least 27 people were reported dead on Friday after Malian commandos stormed a hotel seized by extremist gunmen to rescue 170 people, many of them foreigners, trapped in the building, Al Arabiya reported. The militant group Al Mourabitoun, allied to al-Qaeda and based in the desert north of the former French colony, claimed responsibility for the attack. The former French colony has been battling rebels for years. More than seven hours after the initial assault, a security source declared the drama over, along with the deaths of two militants. But the security ministry said gunmen continued to hold out against Special Forces on the top floors of the seven-story building. “The attackers no longer have hostages. They are dug in in the upper floors. They are alone with the Malian special forces who are trying to dislodge them,” spokesman Amadou Sangho said. U.S. Special Forces helped in the rescue of at least six Americans, a military spokesman told reporters in Washington. Footage also showed French security forces at the scene and witnesses also saw U.N. troops.

Canada appalled by attack in Mali
November 20, 2015 - Ottawa, Ontario - Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada
The Honourable Stéphane Dion, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, today issued the following statement:
“We are deeply concerned by the attack at the Bamako hotel today.
“Such indiscriminate acts of violence against innocent civilians are unacceptable and are to be condemned.
“All Canadians known to be at the hotel are safe and we are providing assistance.
“The Government of Canada is working with our embassy and with our allies to ensure the safety of Canadians.”
Canadians who want to check on the safety of family and friends in Bamako can contact the 24/7 Emergency Watch and Response Centre at Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada by calling 613-996-8885 or toll-free at 1-800-387-3124 or by sending an email to sos@international.gc.ca.

Provincial support exceeds Canada's Syrian refugee target: immigration minister
'I have never felt so patriotic as a Canadian as I am today,' John McCallum says
CBC News Posted: Nov 20, 2015/Premiers across the country have indicated how many Syrian refugees their provinces will commit to taking in, and the total exceeds the federal government's goal of 25,000, Immigration Minister John McCallum said Friday. In Ontario alone, the goal is to welcome 10,000 Syrians by the end of 2016. "A commitment doesn't mean those people's feet on Canadian soil, but it's an immensely good start to have such enthusiasm, not only in words, but in numbers," McCallum said. The minister was speaking at an event in Toronto hosted by Humanity First, an international humanitarian relief organization, where he was joined by other speakers with expertise in the topic of refugee resettlement. All proceeds from the event will go toward assisting with the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Canada. McCallum did not provide any details about the government's resettlement plan, which the Liberals have promised to release in full on Tuesday. He would only say that Canada will bring refugees here quickly, and make sure to get the program right. "We will give every possible consideration to concerns based on security," he said. McCallum also expressed how proud he is to be involved in the Syrian refugee file. "I am an economist and I often deal with what you might call dollars-and-cents or bread-and-butter issues, but this one is different," he said. "This one is about values, this one is more emotional, and this one leads me to say I have never felt so patriotic as a Canadian as I am today, to be involved in bringing 25,000 people from the direst conditions on the planet here to our blessed country of Canada." Pressed for more details by reporters after his speech, McCallum — standing alongside a group of recent Syrian refugees — said Canadian will have to wait until Tuesday to understand the full extent of the plan.
"It will come. It will be clear. It will be transparent. Canadians, all members of the media, will know on that day what our plan is," he said. Earlier in the week, CBC News learned that the federal government is working with the Armed Forces to prepare for temporary housing at military sites in Ontario and Quebec.

Iran hedges its bets in Syria
Author Ellie Geranmayeh/Al-Monitor/November 21/15
The countries party to the statement of the International Syria Support Group, which was agreed to Nov. 14 in Vienna, seek to implement a road map to end the Syrian conflict under conditions most favorable to their own strategic interests. In the short term, the world and regional powers involved in this process are likely to maintain maximalist positions, in a bid to preserve their bargaining leverage, while fighting continues on the ground in Syria. Over time, however, this process could be crucial to ascertaining the red lines of four critical stakeholders: Russia, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Iran. A compromise among them is paramount to any lasting political settlement in Syria. The conclusion of the July 14 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between Iran and six world powers coupled with Moscow’s insistence that Tehran be involved in the Vienna talks mark a shift for the West. Rather than containing Iran on regional dossiers, there is now more openness to engagement. Iranian participation for the second time in the Vienna talks also indicates that its leadership does not want to be perceived as the spoiler on this new political platform. Iran’s endgame in Syria is detailed, complex and has dimensions that could change depending on how the conflict evolves. Yet two fundamental interests will drive Tehran’s negotiating position at the talks.
The first is preserving access to Lebanon and sustaining Hezbollah’s strategic depth against Israel and the US military presence in the region. The second is ensuring that, at a minimum, any future government in Damascus is not hostile to its regional interests. While these core interests are likely to be non-negotiable for Iran, the means of preserving them could be flexible. In an optimal scenario for Tehran, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would retain control of the central government and, with Russian air support, regain more of the core Syrian territory lost to the opposition. An acceptable alternative would be a post-Assad leadership able to assert control over Syria’s security apparatus while safeguarding Iran's core interests. Both of these scenarios are nonstarters for Syrian opposition groups and Saudi Arabia, albeit for different reasons. The opposition groups are demanding that Assad and his inner political circle step aside and be barred from running in future elections. By contrast, Tehran has so far insisted that Assad be allowed to stand in elections. At the Vienna talks, Iran pledged its support for UN-supervised elections and has for some time argued that if Assad has truly lost legitimacy, Syrians can express this through the ballot box. The bigger problem for the Syrian opposition groups is not so much that Assad might be allowed to run, but not being able to trust that the oversight mechanism, including one overseen by the United Nations, will be immune from tampering.
The Saudis' goal in Syria is less connected to Assad per se and more focused on upending Iranian ties to Syrian security organs. Saudi Arabia, alongside Qatar and Turkey, has supported both nationalist and Islamist opposition forces to counter Damascus and Tehran. In response, Iran is pursuing two parallel tactics to shield its interests: It continues assisting Assad and the Syrian army to fight opposition forces, while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is widely thought to be stepping up support to pro-regime paramilitary groups, notably the Syrian National Defense Forces (NDF), as a separate and long-term path to securing Tehran’s core interests.
The NDF rose to dominance in early 2013 as an umbrella organization merging pro-Assad armed militia groups and popular committees. The group consists of fighters from an array of Syrian ethnic and religious communities. It is in theory overseen, armed and trained by Damascus, but in practice — with the weakening of the Syrian regime — the IRGC is believed to be commanding and training it. Hezbollah remains Iran’s most reliable partner actively fighting in Syria, but eventually this force will need to return to its home base of Lebanon. When that happens, Iran will need alternative organizations, like the NDF, to protect its access to the Syrian highway to Hezbollah. Although Shiite forces are not the majority within the NDF, its structure and anti-insurgency operations are similar to those of other militia groups that Iran has backed, such as Hezbollah and various Iraqi Shiite militias. These have proven effective at protecting Iran’s strategic objectives in the region. It would thus be natural for Iran to hedge its bets in Syria with the NDF as a fallback in lieu of a strong and pro-Tehran future Syrian government. Forces like the NDF could also be Iran’s best means of protecting its interests if Syria is forced into partition, a scenario that all the stakeholders hope to avoid.
Given the aftermath of the Western military interventions in Libya and Iraq, both Washington and Moscow want to avoid a situation in Syria where nonstate actors and regional proxies dominate on the ground. Such a scenario risks imposing a state of paralysis on any future Syrian government. The West is concerned about the implications of the IRGC’s influence over NDF forces, believed to number 60,000 at the least, and its ability to undermine a post-Assad security establishment. Iran, however, seems more driven by the greater need to strengthen militias in Syria in the absence of meaningful external guarantees for how extremist opposition groups like Jabhat al-Nusra will be dealt with. Iran is unlikely to cut its ties to Syrian militia groups until factions like al-Nusra and the Army of Conquest are marginalized. The is no guarantee that Iran’s continued mobilization of militia groups in Syria will be compatible with Moscow’s longer-term vision for a Middle East ruled by centralized state structures. Russia and Iran share the common objectives in Syria of maintaining the so-called axis of resistance (Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah) against the West, strengthening Assad’s position in negotiations and preventing the collapse of Syria's security apparatus. For now, Moscow and Tehran appear focused on cooperating to achieve these immediate goals using Iranian boots and Russian planes. The extent to which Iran continues to back Assad and deepens its ties to militia groups in Syria will be directly linked to the reliability of guarantees, if any, that might be given to secure its core interests as part of a final Syria settlement. The surge in IRGC fatalities over the past month may force Iran to reconsider its means of retaining influence in a future Syria. The IRGC’s top brass, however, having fought a brutal conflict for eight years against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, is far from the threshold of making extensive concessions on Iranian red lines. Iran, like other countries at the Vienna talks, will therefore continue to negotiate under fire until one or both sides reach the necessary threshold for a meaningful compromise to emerge.

Yazidis wary of going back to liberated Sinjar
Timur Göksel/Al-Monitor/November 21/15
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — The Shengal Camp along the Diyarbakir-Mardin highway has been animated in recent days. A crowd of people — including Selo Karo, his wife and four children, who have been living in this refugee camp — were waiting at the camp entrance with their bags.They were waiting for their bus. That bus, however, will be taking them to Istanbul and not to Sinjar. Most of the Yazidis who have escaped to Turkey over mountain trails don’t have passports. They will first apply for passports at the Iraqi consulate in Istanbul. Then what will they do? “Sinjar has been liberated, but there are Arab tribes around it. We can’t go back. They can keep Sinjar. We are going to Europe. We will cross the sea. Either we will eat fish or fish will eat us,” Karo told Al-Monitor. “We had enough of this life. Sinjar was a proper town; they razed it,” Karo added. “We lived in our own houses, now in tents. Nobody has been asking us what happened to [us] for more than a year.” Karo boarded the bus with his family to start a trip for a new hope.People staying behind wave farewell. Havaf Hidir, 30, sent off his brother. He can’t decide whether to go. He is afraid. Nearly all Yazidis are afraid. It is not only the Islamic State (IS) attacks. Iraq has the biggest concentration of Yazidis in the world. Their holiest site, Lalish temple, is in the Iraqi Kurdish region. Yazidis had always been oppressed because of their religious beliefs. Muslims around them accused them of worshipping idols and harassed them.
Yazidis will tell you they have suffered 72 massacres in their history, and the 2014 IS attack was the 73rd massacre. Sinjar may have been liberated, but their fear remains. Navaf Hidir is also afraid. He told Al-Monitor that they are afraid of Arab tribes around Sinjar.
“We can’t go back now. We are afraid of Arab tribes and [IS]. We will go back only if we are allowed to rule our region and we are provided security. Otherwise, we stay here. If they take us, we will go to Europe,” he said. The popular belief is that the Arab tribes that Karo and Hidir mentioned are supporting IS. They quote eyewitnesses who say Arab tribes had joined IS in its attack against Sinjar. The biggest camp for Yazidis who escaped to Turkey after the IS attack is at Diyarbakir, where approximately 3,000 people live. Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality pays the camp's expenses.
Yazidis appear to have adjusted to camp life. With social facilities, an infirmary and schools, it resembles a small town. They may not be very comfortable, but at least they are not afraid of getting slaughtered. Although they were happy when the Kurdish forces liberated Sinjar, they were not really excited.
Zarif Halef, who reached Turkey after days of walking over mountains, was talking to neighbors in front of her tent. It is all about Sinjar. They are debating whether they should go back. According to Halef, Sinjar is not yet fully liberated. “We are afraid to go back. We are afraid of [IS]. If Sinjar is really liberated, where are our women and daughters? They razed our houses; we had to run away. We don’t know what will happen if we go back. Sinjar may be free today, but where are our women and girls?” she told Al-Monitor.
“As long as they stay in [IS’] hands, how come we talk of liberation? Sinjar is finished for us.”
Yazidis in the camp are angry with the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq after they had the peshmerga forces retreat when IS first attacked instead of having them stay and fight. This created a deep sense of distrust. Feleknas Uca, a Yazidi of Turkey who was elected to parliament on the Peoples’ Democratic Party ticket, emphasized the need to understand the psychology of the Yazidis. “They have lived through 73 massacres. Their neighbors have stabbed them in the back. People they trusted harmed them. Thousands of people died. They can never be free from their problems wherever they go,” she told Al-Monitor.“They now want to go to Europe to be free from their fears, but they won’t be. Those who attacked in Sinjar yesterday, today attacked in Paris. So many people got killed trying to get to Europe that doesn’t want them. This is not the solution. Yazidis have to understand this. Going to Europe is not their salvation.” For Uca, the solution is at Sinjar. “The center of Sinjar has been liberated, but not its attached villages. When they are liberated, they will have to be rebuilt. Yazidis and their friends can do this. Their homes must be reconstructed, and they should defend them. They should not allow anybody else to enter Sinjar,” she added. IS did not only kill thousands of Yazidis, but IS took their women prisoners. IS is estimated to be holding more than 5,000 Yazidi women. There were photographs circulating of these women being sold as slaves in Syria. After the Kurdish forces liberated Sinjar, about 15 mass graves were found around it. In one, there were bodies of 76 Yazidi women. Those hoping to reach Europe were not deterred when a group of Yazidis were turned from the Bulgarian border at Edirne and returned back to their camp. They said they have no choice but to try again.

After KRG formally welcomes Jews back to Iraq, will their numbers increase?
Mustafa Saadoun/Al-Monitor/November 21/15
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Many Iraqi Jews forced from their country or displaced following persecution and dispossession more than six decades ago still dream of returning to their homeland. They retain a nostalgia for their temples and the streets where they grew up. It may be difficult or ultimately impossible for a large number of them to turn this dream into reality, but some have begun to return thanks to a law recently passed in Iraqi Kurdistan. Last month, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced the opening of a Jewish representation office at the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs, increasing the number of officially recognized religions to seven. The others are Islam, Christianity, Yazidism, Yarsanism, Alawism and Kaka’ism. The history of the Jews in Mesopotamia dates back to the sixth century B.C. The Jewish community played an important role in Iraq’s economic and cultural life, but in the 1940s Jews became the victims of organized attacks under the Baathist regime. Many were murdered, and their homes and businesses looted and confiscated. Those who survived fled to Europe, the United States and Israel. The persecution of Jews in Iraq coincided with the rise of the Zionist movement, the expulsion of Arabs from Palestine and the establishment in 1948 of the State of Israel, with which the Jews of Iraq had nothing to do. Most Iraqi Jews lived in Baghdad, where they freely practiced their religion. After the founding of the Iraqi state in 1921, Sassoon Eskell, a Jew, became its first minister of finance. He remained in office for two years and was known for his commitment and professionalism while presiding over the ministry.
Mariwan Naqshbandi, spokesperson for the KRG Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs, told Al-Monitor, “The KRG parliament in April 2015 issued the Law of Minorities, which was unanimously approved before being signed by KRG President Massoud Barzani. This law confers to every religious community in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq the right to establish a representation office and practice its rituals freely.” According to Naqshbandi, more than 300 Jewish families live in the Kurdistan region. “The number of Jews in the Kurdistan region is increasing every day, and this led the KRG to open a representation office for them like with other religions and sects. Jews are now entitled to submit their projects to the KRG and to build temples through their representation office,” he said. “There are large numbers of Jewish families intending to return to live in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. They believe it is a safe place for them, especially after they confirmed their intention not to participate in the political process.” Saad al-Hadithi, a spokesperson for Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, told Al-Monitor, “The opening of the representation office for Jews in the KRG is a good step, provided this office remains free from the influence of the State of Israel, since Iraq rejects any relations with that country.”
On whether there has been a request to open a representation office for Jews in Baghdad and other areas, Hadithi stated, “I have no knowledge of any such request, but the number of Jews in Baghdad is not so high as to open a representation office for them like other religious communities. The opening of representative offices depends on the size of the population.”In 1950 the Iraqi government stripped Jews of their citizenship. The same government, headed by Nuri al-Said during the monarchy, also promulgated a 1951 law freezing the assets of all persons deprived of their citizenship. Araz Shukr, a pseudonym, is an Iraqi Jew living in the Kurdistan region. “Our presence in Iraq is not new. We have been living in this country for thousands of years. We were forced out of Iraq more than half a century ago, and we moved to other countries. We have the right to return to our country,” he told Al-Monitor. “There are Jewish families living in Israel who want to return to Iraq and live in the Kurdistan Region, as they feel that living in Iraq is part of their history and reaffirms their presence in this world. Despite everything available to them in Israel, Iraq is still their homeland.” Israa Khaled, who conducts research on the Iraqi Jewish community, told Al-Monitor, “The decision of the KRG [to open a Jewish office] should have been implemented immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003. Although the decision to open a representation office came late, it remains crucial. This decision benefits the Kurdistan Region, which includes the oldest communities in Iraq and the world. Numerous Kurdish Jewish families still reside in Kurdistan at the moment, but hide their religious affiliation for fear of societal oppression.”
Khaled called on the Baghdad government to also take action. She said, “[It should] open a private representation office for the Jews of Baghdad and other provinces since they are Iraqi nationals who unjustly left the country after being subjected to the ugliest acts of violence [and forced] to leave their homeland and migrate. These Iraqis still feel nostalgic for the land where [Jews have] lived for thousands of years.” She added, “The KRG must fulfill numerous tasks, including protecting Jews, recognizing their religious affiliation, providing them with the opportunity to participate in the political process, restoring their temples and shrines and ensuring their protection when they visit places of worship and practice their religious rituals, like other religions in the Kurdistan region.”The return of Jews to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq is a positive step and could continue. Such, however, is not the case in the near term for other Iraqi areas, where residents do not differentiate between Israelis, Jews and Zionists. The Baathist regime under Hussein had pushed the idea that the Jews were enemies of Iraq, conflating hostility toward Israel with hostility to Jews in general. This could take some time to change.

Despite Russian airstrikes, FSA continues to confront regime
Asaad Hanna/Al-Monitor/November 21/15
IDLIB, Syria — The Syrian revolution broke out in March 2011 as Syrians demanded freedom and democracy from an authoritarian totalitarian regime. This regime, however, confronted peaceful demonstrations with live ammunition that led to the killing and wounding of several demonstrators back then. Several months later, the situation in Syria evolved, and the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which was formed in July of 2011, turned into the Syrian revolution’s military arm that confronts the Syrian regime’s military machine.As the Syrian regime failed to put an end to the revolution, it subsequently resorted to its allies, namely Hezbollah and Russia, for military and political support, and it [seems to have] shifted from giving orders to receiving ones while serving Iran's and Russia’s interests. This impeded the FSA from making any decision to start or stop a battle before consulting its Iranian ally, as shown by the recent truce that was signed between the opposition and the regime in September 2015; the negotiating team was Iranian, and there were no regime representatives facing the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham movement. The Russian intervention that started in late September was a desperate attempt to defend the regime, which prompted the opposition FSA forces to announce full public mobilization aimed at confronting the Russian aggression, which they described as an occupation of Syrian territory, according to the FSA forces.
After it received Russian support, the regime braced itself for a major battle to try to regain the territory it had lost. It launched its first battle in the countryside of Hama — which had been under the opposition control — and it started a fierce ground campaign under Russian air cover on Oct. 7.
Surprisingly, however, the regime forces failed to advance and lost more than 27 armored vehicles in an attack dubbed the “Tank Massacre." The [regime] forces lost the battle and the FSA maintained its positions in Hama. Also, after the regime failed to advance toward the center of Hama’s countryside on Oct. 7 and after media outlets such as Al-Araby and All4Syria showed such abatement to the regime’s supporters, the regime opened several other fronts in the southern countryside of Aleppo, the northern countryside of Homs and the Latakia mountains as it desperately sought to advance and show its progress in the media as an achievement aimed at lifting the spirits of the regime supporters and forces.
For this instance, a video published by pro-regime Russia Today news outlet on Oct. 12 depicts the battles led by the Syrian regime forces in some small villages in Hama’s countryside, which are, however, still under the opposition’s control. However, despite all of that pressure, the FSA forces managed to preserve their regions and maintain their positions as they switched from offense to defense. While the regime machinery suffered significant destruction in all of the fighting areas, the term TOW missile was widely heard during the battles. The key player in this battle was the FSA, and this proved its ability to confront ground forces backed by Russian air cover. The name of the US-made TOW anti-armor missiles was widely used in these battles, as some FSA moderate units employed these precise and effective missiles in repelling armored tracked vehicles and heavy machinery. TOW missiles can be controlled even after grenades have been launched.
According to military experts who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, these grenades are very likely to strike their target as they rely on the grenadier’s skills. The TOW missile requires calm nerves. They require grenadiers who can completely disconnect from the tense and heated atmosphere of battle. Fighters with such characteristics have a very good chance of hitting their target as the missile has a range of 3,800 meters (about 12,500 feet), knowing that the grenade can be controlled through wires that connect the grenade to the base. The grenade’s direction can be shifted at a speed of 200 meters (around 656 feet) per second if the target moves or tries to hide.
Suhail al-Hamoud seems to be one of the most skilled TOW missile grenadiers in Syria, looking at the number of destroyed vehicles, and Al-Monitor met with him to further learn about this subject. Hamoud defected from the Syrian army in 2012 and served as an assistant in anti-tank battalions a year into the outbreak of the revolution. “I was trained in the Syrian army to use the Russian Malyutka and red-arrow anti-armor missiles, which are not so different from the TOW missiles but do not enjoy the same precision, so I gained experience in dealing with all anti-shield missiles both in terms of structure and trajectory and regardless of their points of strength or weakness,” he said. Hamoud enjoys wide popularity among Syrian dissidents who either know him personally or from social networking sites. He has chosen the nickname of “Abu TOW” (Arabic for "father of TOW"), given his passion for the missiles.
“Our generation lived a peaceful life full of love and joy, but what is happening in our country has forced us to engage in battles and take up arms. Despite all the violence we live in, we are still human beings, and we have not changed. We are waiting for the war to end to throw away the arms and get back to our previous lives,” he said. Speaking of what he achieved during the revolution years, Hamoud said, “I destroyed around 70 targets, of which 57 machineries were destroyed through TOW missiles and 11 machineries through the Malyutka missiles. These targets included planes [in Aleppo International Airport], tanks, armored vehicles and armored personnel carriers in addition to DShK machine guns.”
There were reports that the supply of TOW missiles has increased after the Russian military intervention in support of the regime, which opened several battles simultaneously in the southern countryside of Aleppo, the countryside of Hama and the countryside of Homs, in addition to other areas where the regime tried to make progress. Hamoud, however, said that reports of an increase in the supply of missiles are wrong. He added that the use of these missiles has increased as a result of the growing need for them in the battles. Hamoud also attributed this to the increased media coverage of the Syrian developments following Russia’s intervention in support of the regime.

Can women and Copts make it to parliament without the quota?
Ahmed Fouad/Al-Monitor/November 21/15
The current elections in Egypt are shedding light on segments of the population that are unable to compete for a large number of seats in parliament. A new electoral law is providing these groups with special representation in one-third of the parliament that is elected based on electoral lists. Among these categories are Coptic Christians, women, the disabled and youth. Perhaps the term “marginalized groups” does not apply to women and Copts on economic and social levels, but it has been engrained for decades in the political arena. Despite that view, there had been no political moves to improve their integration into the Egyptian parliament except through a percentage set by the president in the quota system. The 2015 parliamentary election law dedicated 24 seats for Copts and 56 seats for women. However, the real test is what was achieved outside the framework of these seats. By looking at the participation of Egypt’s Copts in the first parliamentary elections in 1924, it appears they started strong without the need for a quota, as they gained 16 seats out of 214 (7.48%). This representation faced slight ups and downs in the successive parliaments of 1925, 1926 and 1936, and then it reached its peak in the parliament of 1942, when Copts won 27 seats of 264 (10.23%). The successes can be explained by the fact that many of the Copts — like Wissa Wassef and Makram Ebeid, who were famous Christian politicians under the Kingdom of Egypt — belonged to the Wafd Party, which was the most popular among Egyptians and won the majority in most elections in which it participated from 1924 to 1952.
The Copts' party affiliation could also explain their declining representation in the two elections the Wafd Party boycotted: in 1931, when Copts got four seats out of 150 (2.67%), and 1945, when they got 12 seats of 264 (4.55%). Party affiliation also explains the elections in which the results were forged and manipulated by the king, the government of Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha and competing parties to keep the Wafd Party from winning the majority. One example of such election-rigging, according to a 1940 study by historians Ibrahim white and Tawfik Habib, is the race of 1938, when Copts got only six out of 264 seats (2.27%). Strong political parties and organizations such as Wafd have been absent since former President Gamal Abdel Nasser disbanded them in 1953. They have not regained their strength since former President Anwar Sadat once again allowed the formation of parties in 1977.
Bahaa al-Maghawiri, a political science teacher at Cairo University, agrees that those factors are probably behind the weak representation of Copts. He told Al-Monitor, “Perhaps minorities and marginalized groups need a strong party to support them.”
Maybe the political administrations during the days of Nasser, Sadat and former President Hosni Mubarak did not care about integrating Copts in the electoral process and that is why they were only appointed to 10 parliamentary seats that the president specified. There were no elected Coptic members of parliament in 1957 (the first parliamentary elections in Nasser’s days), in 1976 (the second parliamentary elections in Sadat’s days) and in 1995 (the fourth elections in Mubarak’s days). The highest representation they achieved under the eras of those three presidents was 1.34%, in the 1987 parliament.
The political administration’s disregard toward the Copts’ accession to parliament applies, to some degree, to women. However, the administration did try to improve women’s chances in some elections. In 1979, the first parliament stipulated the quota system for women and made it possible for them to have at least 30 seats. In 1984, the parliament was elected through the proportionality list.
In 1987, the Supreme Constitutional Court announced it was eliminating a quota for women, dismissing it as sexist. Nevertheless, the election of the majority of parliament members through the proportional electoral system supported women’s presence in parliament and they occupied 14 seats in the 1987 election without the quota. With the elimination of the lists system in 1990, women suffered marginalization once again, only to re-emerge strongly in the 2010 parliament thanks to the quota, which reached 64 seats. But their representation declined again in the 2012 parliament. The highest representation for women in the Egyptian parliament without the use of quotas and electoral lists was 2.29% in both 1964 and 1971 and 2% in 2012, but two thirds of this parliament was elected by electoral list.
Political experts and observers see the 2015 elections as a golden opportunity for women and Copts, with the absence of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and the Sunni Islamist's Gamaa Islamiya, and with the weakness of the Nour Party and the remaining Islamist currents.
The electoral law encourages most alliances and parties to push Copts and women to the quota seats. Independently, the Copts only won four seats (1.45% of seats outside the quota) and women only got five seats (1.92% of seats outside the quota) in the first round of this year's elections. This is not a victory compared with the 2012 parliamentary elections, when Copts only got 1.41%, also without the quota. It can't be considered a return to their glory days in the parliaments of 1924-1950, when elections were independent without the quota. Similarly, women's representation outside the quota isn't a victory compared with what they achieved in 2012 without the quota (2%, 10 seats). Perhaps this means that the two categories are unable to compete for representation outside the quota system.
The weak competition of the two categories for independent seats until 2015 must be explained, especially in terms of Copts who registered a high score in the parliamentary elections from 1924 to 1950. Maghawiri said, “The political Islam currents, mainly the Muslim Brotherhood, managed since the late 1940s to gain wide popularity after participating in the 1948 war against Israel. Their popularity surged when they claimed that they were persecuted by the authorities who succeeded them when [Egyptian Prime Minister] Mahmoud Fahmi an-Nukrashi disbanded the Brotherhood in 1948 and when Abdel Nasser arrested their leaders in 1954. This allowed their popular thought to take root, including their ideas that reject women’s and Copts’ participation in political action. The Brotherhood only allowed women and Copts to participate in their lists in the 2012 elections out of fear of being accused of sectarianism or misogyny.”Based on the above, it seems women and Copts are unlikely to get high representation without quotas in the second round of the current parliamentary elections. But women's and Copts' accession to the parliament through the quota system could help them make political gains that would push citizens to support them in the next parliament, without quotas.

More Palestinian and Western Mistakes
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/November 21/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6928/palestinian-western-mistakes
The Palestinian "victims" -- victims of their own credulousness -- are known as shuhadaa, martyrs for the sake of Allah, victims of the misconception that Allah wants us to die for him. But Allah forbids us to murder. Muhammad forbids us to murder. The Qur'an forbids us to murder.Europeans, in general, obviously want the Jews dead -- so long as the murder cannot be traced back to them. They seem to be hoping that their boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, combined with Arab and Iranian "hit men," will do the job for them.
Also tragically, it has taken Mahmoud Abbas too long to realize that the ultimate objective of Hamas, the local representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, after killing Israelis, is to have this violence cost the Palestinian Authority its existence in the West Bank. There, they openly plan to set up another Islamic emirate, like the one in the Gaza Strip.
The knife-wielding Palestinian children -- and the other young people who commit murder -- are also not a spontaneous occurrence. They do not simply "spring" full-blown from "imperialism," "Syrian bombings" or an "endangered Al-Aqsa." They are the product of a careful, methodical, ongoing tactic of brainwashing about how glorious it is to become a shaheed [martyr] by murdering.
We do need to liberated, but not from the people you think. We do not need help being liberated from Israel, which, even if it is harsh, has always been fair to us, but from the self-satisfied diplomats even now -- in our name -- swanning down the glossy halls of Europe.
The Palestinians have taken it upon themselves to sacrifice our younger generation -- on the altar of pointlessness -- again.
The Palestinians have been sending their children -- still in their teens, and intoxicated by hatred and lies as the assassins of old were intoxicated by hashish -- to the streets of Israel and the roads of the West Bank to murder Israelis again. And for what? Is Al-Aqsa mosque in danger? It is not. But the cynical, calculating Fatah, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hamas -- and the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement which has just been banned -- are desperate to bring the Palestinian issue back to the headlines. They hope it would displace the true catastrophe of the chaos in Syria and Iraq, which has led to the flood of refugees to Europe.
The Palestinian "victims" -- victims of their own credulousness -- are known as shuhadaa, martyrs for the sake of Allah, victims of the misconception that Allah wants us to die for him. But Allah forbids us to murder. Muhammad forbids us to murder. The Qur'an forbids us to murder.
The Palestinian terrorists that murder Israelis usually die in the process; the question is, does murder keep the Al-Aqsa mosque out of "danger" -- which it is not even in?
Do the senseless deaths on both sides advance the cause of a political solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state? No, only, apparently, to many Europeans -- anti-Semitic racists who love Muslims as much as they hate Jews. These Europeans probably love Muslims because they hate Jews.
Europeans, in general, obviously want the Jews dead -- so long as the murder cannot be traced back to them. They seem to be hoping that their boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, combined with Arab and Iranian "hit men," will do the job for them. Sadly, the Palestinians, instead of looking like people who want peace, look like the Muslim extremists to whom the European racists offer ever more help. It seems inconceivable to these Europeans that we may not want to live with these savages any more than they do.
We do need to liberated, but not from the people you think. We do not need help being liberated from Israel, which, even if it is harsh, has always been fair to us, but from the self-satisfied diplomats even now -- in our name -- swanning down the glossy halls of Europe.
The Palestinians are, not surprisingly, trying to avoid negotiating for peace. As any Palestinian leader will be killed, and go down in Palestinian history as a traitor unless he is able to come back with 100% of Palestinian demands, Mahmoud Abbas would only end up having to turn down any realistic offer -- in full view of the international community. The Palestinian leaders are clearly hoping, as anyone would, that these Jew-hating Europeans -- and others who breezily turn Jewish heritage sites into Muslim heritage sites -- will hand them the whole 100% on a plate, free of charge.
The knife-wielding Palestinian children -- and the other young people who commit murder -- are also not a spontaneous occurrence. They do not simply "spring" full-blown from "imperialism," "Syrian bombings" or an "endangered Al-Aqsa." They are the product of a careful, methodical, ongoing tactic of brainwashing about how glorious it is to become a shaheed [martyr] by murdering.
Do the dispatchers send their own children out to become suicide bombers? Do the dispatchers go themselves? No, the Palestinians and other terrorists prey on swayable, possibly depressed children -- looking for love or a "cause" in their lives to counteract the internal emptiness -- to commit murder.
These murders by our young -- and of our young -- are, tragically, the direct result of the inflammatory lies of Muslim extremists, both secular and religious. Here, these include the Palestinian Authority (PA), Fatah, Hamas, the Islamic Movement In Israel (banned last week), and ISIS.
Also tragically, it has taken Mahmoud Abbas too long to realize that the ultimate objective of Hamas, the local representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, after killing Israelis, is to have this violence cost the Palestinian Authority its existence in the West Bank. There, they openly plan to set up another Islamic emirate, like the one in the Gaza Strip.
Abbas seems to have woken up, but only after the genie was out of the bottle. He then had no choice but to appeal to his only lifeline, Israel, for support -- while at the same time threatening to end security coordination with it. His hate-propaganda nevertheless machine continues to promote the murder Israelis while carefully ignoring Israeli deaths. Abbas instead still focuses on the "martyrdom" of the terrorists and their supposedly "cold-blood executions" at the hands of Israelis whose "crime" is stop them as they are in the act of trying to slit Jewish throats.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, speaking on PA television, September 16, 2015.
During the past six weeks, more than 70 Palestinians have been killed while trying to murder Israelis, and 12 Israelis have been murdered. Israel's population, contrary to Palestinian expectations, has not collapsed and is, as usual, successfully moving to protect itself.
The real damage has been done to the Palestinian Authority's credibility and to the belief, now held by fewer and fewer Israelis, that a political solution is possible.
The main questions still need to be directed to those who invented the slogan, "Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger":
Is al-Aqsa mosque now less in danger? Given that, throughout the Middle East, mosques are being blown up one after another, Al-Aqsa mosque is not only in no danger, it is, on the contrary, eminently secure.
Has the recent Palestinian violence and terrorism moved the Israelis one inch toward surrendering?
Are the Islamists, including the Israeli-Arab members of Knesset, really working to benefit the lives and careers of the Palestinian people? Or, to benefit their own careers, are these politicians keeping their public whipped up like manipulated fighting dogs, and forever poor, to make sure that we will be forever dependent on them? This is a way you treat infants or animals, not people.
Fortunately, the attempt made by Hamas and its subcontractor for collective suicide, Ra'ed Salah's Islamic Movement, to incite a religious war around the totally false slogan "Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger," in order to oust Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies from the West Bank, the way they did in the Gaza Strip, has not succeeded. To begin with, their timing was off. The Arab and Muslim world is too busy engaging in mutual slaughter to bother itself with the lies of a gang of Palestinians. The Arab and Muslim world cannot be bothered with Israel, and it certainly cannot be bothered with preventing the overthrow of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.
Even if the Israelis would like nothing better than to see Al-Aqsa mosque destroyed, a notion for which there is no evidence, they still protect it with the best of their police force, out of respect for others, as we all wish others would respect us. Protecting Al-Aqsa mosque guarantees Israel's security by respectfully honoring the religion of people different from them. It is also a reminder that all of us might actually benefit from respectfully honoring the religions of others different from us.
It is absurd and offensive that after the Palestinians initiated -- and then tried to justify the current wave of terrorism as "a legitimate non-violent peaceful protest against the occupation" -- that they now cry crocodile tears about the supposed "Israeli executions" of Palestinian youths who take their knives and go Jew-hunting, but who then get killed in the process. Dimitri Diliani, of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, even had the effrontery to claim, falsely, to Russia Today TV, that Israelis, to justify their crimes, tried to plant knives near the bodies of the purportedly innocent Palestinians to frame them.
Mahmoud Abbas denied the Jews any access to the Temple Mount on the fabricated pretext that the Jews were defiling Al-Aqsa mosque. The Temple Mount, however is as sacred to Jews and Christians as to Muslims. To Jews, the Temple Mount is the location of their two Temples (the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E.); to Christians, it was at the Second Temple where Jesus expelled money-changers and those who sold doves (Matthew 21:12).
Ultimately, the American secretary of state, meeting with the King of Jordan and the Israeli prime minister, concluded that it was Israel that guarded Al-Aqsa and would continue to maintain the status quo. Thus the status quo was confirmed in Israeli's favor.
The Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the Islamic Movement were left with nothing to say.
The upshot was that Mahmoud Abbas's claim of defilement was rejected, and that Jews would still be allowed to visit. The Palestinians no longer serve as active participants; the Jordanians will continue to serve as religious administrators of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Israelis will continue as sovereign, and manage the security of the Temple Mount and Jerusalem.
Secretary Kerry's repeated reference to the "Temple Mount, that is Al-Aqsa mosque" (Alharam Alshareef) to define the holy site struck a blow to both Mahmoud Abbas and the Islamists trying to deny the rights of the Jews. The Palestinian Authority has also -- embarrassingly to many -- been claiming that Jesus was a "Palestinian," and trying to use the Temple Mount as an Islamic religious fulcrum for its baseless nationalist demands.
Secretary Kerry also put a stop to France's pathetic attempts to curry favor with the Muslims living in its ghettoes when it proposed an international commission of inquiry to examine events in Al-Aqsa mosque. As Israel preserves full freedom of access throughout Jerusalem, the French can enter Al-Aqsa mosque and argue among themselves, but their attempts to enter Jerusalem through the back door was rejected by the Palestinians as an attempt to internationalize Jerusalem into a "Crusader city."
When the Palestinians torched the Tomb of Joseph, it became clear that under Palestinian Authority control, Jewish and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem would be reduced to ashes, and that the Palestinians in the West Bank were no better than ISIS or the Taliban, which destroyed Palmyra and the ancient statues of the Buddha in Bamiyan.
The Jews, who dealt with two previous intifadas, are not particularly terrified by the thought of a third one. We have repeatedly seen that every violent Palestinian attempt has backfired and caused far more damage to us than to the Jews. The Palestinian Authority's approval of Hamas's incitement not only threatened its own downfall, but also looked as if it would precipitate the installation of an Islamic emirate in the West Bank -- an event that would effectively have killed any dream of a Palestinian state.
Yes, the recent wave of stabbings and shootings has, to a small and transitory extent, diverted the world's attention from the real tragedies of the Middle East. However, the millions of refugees in the Middle East (many knocking at the gates of Europe), will keep pushing to the sidelines the Palestinian cause; the slaughter; the mosques blown up; the churches burned down, and the genuine persecution of minorities, as opposed to the fairy tales invented by Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas and the seditious Israeli Arab members of Israel's Knesset.
The other real loser is the trust between Arabs and Jews. Trust -- with special thanks to Palestinian groups working fiercely against "normalization" rather than toward peace -- has been totally eroded. Again, the only people we have hurt are ourselves: the demand of Israeli Arabs for equality is rapidly slipping down the list of public priorities. As the old Arab proverb says, "Ask someone with experience, not the doctor."
At the end of the current violence that we began, will be left, as usual, with nothing to show for it, while the Israelis, who always rebound, will continue to thrive, prosper and move forward.
Clearly the time will soon come again for direct negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis -- but the use of force, instead of than wresting concessions from the Israelis, will, as always, do just the opposite.
**Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.

On Syrian refugees, are the Liberals deliberately courting controversy?
The Globe and Mail/Canada/Published Friday, Nov. 20, 2015
In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt told Americans that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” That summed up the dynamics of an economic downturn where people stopped borrowing and spending, for the simple reason that they were afraid. The Great Depression was so miserable because policy-makers repeatedly failed to understand the enemy, that most basic of human emotions: fear. In fighting terrorism, fear is not the only thing we have to fear. There really is an organization that calls itself the Islamic State, and there really are a small number of madmen across the world, some with no connection to IS, dreaming of Armageddon. They are driven by nihilism and death-lust, and yes, they do wish us a violent end. But excessive fear of them is dangerous and counterproductive. A fringe cult can’t harm our tolerant, liberal society – but our fear can. Terrorism is not powerful enough to defeat us. But if we are not careful, we may be weak or foolish enough to hurt ourselves. IS, a successor group to Al-Qaeda, can kill and murder. It is doing a fine job of destroying parts of Syria and Iraq (though others, notably the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, have authored more death and destruction). It may even have been involved in exporting terrorism to the West in the Paris attacks. It will almost surely try to do so again. But IS poses no existential threat to any Western country. It isn’t remotely strong enough. It can’t conquer Canada, and the only way it can change our society – our tolerant, open, law-abiding society where all are welcomed and respected – is if, in reacting to the threat, we overreact.
This week, many American politicians decided to see what electoral benefit they could get out of overreacting. The governors of more than half the states of the United States said they did not want any Syrian refugees. They don’t have the legal authority to make that stick, but one of the bodies with that power, the U.S. House of Representatives, this week overwhelmingly passed a bill to halt the White House’s extremely modest plan for bringing in 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year. A lot of lawmakers think that miserly response to the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis is in fact too generous. The bill, supported not only by Republicans but also by many members of President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party, would compel senior administration officials to personally sign off on each individual Syrian refugee admitted to the U.S. Such a roadblock will kill the refugee program. The bill is not likely to become law, because it still has to get through the Senate, and unless it receives two-thirds support in both houses, Mr. Obama can veto it. But it passed with a supermajority in the House of Representatives. Meanwhile, leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he favours setting up a database to register and track all American Muslims. The American bias against Syrian refugees, because of an exaggerated fear that a terrorist might be hiding among them, is that pronounced. Last year, Canada accepted 260,000 landed immigrants. That’s 5,000 people a week, every week. About 10 per cent of them were refugees. Canada has been taking in these numbers for decades, and the process has become so smooth and banal, and so much part of the underlying hum of the country, that it’s barely noticed.
The banality of Canada’s immigration and refugee flow is the program’s greatest success. There is no fuss, no controversy and no chaos. Five thousand arrivals a week is to news as January snow is to weather. What a contrast to Europe, where immigration evokes heated passions on both the right and left, with the far right increasingly making gains on the claim that immigration is chaos. Repeated mishandling of the immigrant and visible minority files in many European countries, and growing fear of people of different backgrounds, provide ammunition for that view. In Canada, in contrast, immigration has long happened quietly, steadily and Canadian-ly. It works without controversy, because most of us don’t even notice it’s working. Happy is the country where immigration’s as boring as running water.
Over the next five and a half weeks, however, the Liberal government plans to make immigration considerably more “exciting.” To meet a rushed political deadline no one wants it to keep, Ottawa plans to land 25,000 Syrian refugees before Jan. 1. The 25,000 figure is if anything too modest – over the coming months and years, Canada can take many more. But the exceptionally tight time frame is courting trouble. Is the Liberal government hoping to create its own wedge issue out of the refugee crisis, and betting it can whip up public sentiment opposite to that which the U.S. Congress is counting on?
Canada takes in 260,000 immigrants a year without breaking a sweat and without needing to create special camps to house and hold people. The Liberal refugee plan, largely still under wraps as we went to press, apparently will not follow that model. Instead, the government is making plans for temporarily housing thousands of Syrians on military bases. Ontario’s health minister this week mused about having to reopen decommissioned hospitals. The fear of terrorists hiding among the refugees is vastly overblown. The fear that a rushed movement of people will be even a little bit chaotic, and for no good reason, thereby undermining support for immigration and refugees, is not. The refugees fleeing terror in Syria deserve to be welcomed to Canada. They deserve to have a chance to live in freedom, in our society of peace, order and good government. There’s a refugee crisis in Syria. But only if the Trudeau government plays games with the issue will there be a crisis over refugee arrivals in Canada.
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Syrian refugees victimized at home, demonized in America
Hisham Melhem/Al Arabiya/November 21/15
There is an element of pornographic debasement of an entire people and their religion in the crass competition among Republican candidates and congressional leaders about who would be the most creative in dehumanizing the Syrian refugees. These refugees are fleeing the killing machine of the Assad regime and the murderous hordes of the ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS). In the span of one week the political discourse in the United States, following the Paris massacre perpetrated by ISIS, reached an unprecedented nadir. The immediate excuse stemmed from reports that a Syrian passport was discovered near the body of one of the terrorists involved in last Friday’s attacks that may have crossed through Greece as a pretend refugee. French authorities disclosed later that the passport was fake. Compassionate and benevolent America was nowhere to be found in that cold and unwelcoming universe most elected Republicans and an increasing number of Democrats inhabit. There was very little in the posturing, grandstanding and fear mongering expressed by the leaders of the Grand (or Gallant) Old Party, that was grand or gallant, rational or thoughtful. Americans heard a cacophony of urban legends, deceptions, exaggerations and downright lies about the potential threat of Syrian refugees; and at times the whiff of prejudice against people who are an ocean away was suffocating. There was a distressing willful ignorance of American history and constitution. The Syrians that the Republicans have never met, were described as ‘rabid dogs’, and ‘rattlesnakes’ who may deserve, in case they stormed our shores to be interned in camps, like the Japanese-Americans in the Second World War, after the Christians among them were exempted. After all, in the past the U.S. adopted immigration laws that excluded certain races and ethnicities, and we even turned back Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. A Bitter irony was lost on the candidate who is mulling the idea of establishing a database of Muslims in the United States, after they are issued special identification cards; which is the digital equivalence of the infamous ‘ badge of shame’ Jews were forced to wear for centuries in some European and Muslim lands as a form of identification. Compassionate and benevolent America was nowhere to be found in that cold and unwelcoming universe most elected Republicans and an increasing number of Democrats inhabit.
The shrill
The anti-Syrian refugee fever moved quickly from the Republican candidates, then to the Republican governors and finally to the members of congress. And at each stage it gained strength by playing up many American fears and uncertainties; fear of illegal immigration, the long hands of ISIS, and uncertainty about America’s leadership in a changing world. In such an environment, it is not surprising to see candidates like Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson and Chris Christie whipping up Americans’ fear of real and imagined international and domestic daemons, and posing as the would be savior of the Republic and the destroyer of the barbarians at the gates. In the mind of Trump, the barbarians in their current incarnation as Muslims are already inside the city, hence the need to ‘watch and study’ the Mosques and mull the idea of closing some suspicious ones. In Trump’s scheme, Muslims should not enjoy the freedoms – including freedom of religion guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Trump’s attempts at being coy and cunning are woefully transparent. ‘Well, I would hate to do it, but it’s something that you are going to have to strongly consider because some of the ideas and some of the hatred – the absolute hatred – is coming from these areas’. Trump speaks as if there is a river of Syrian refugees about to flood and submerge the American plains, and he has no problem inventing his own statistics about the refugees. ‘To take in 250,000 people –some of whom are going to have problems, big problems- is just insane’. According to the State Department Refugee Processing Center statistics, only 2164 Syrian refugees were admitted into the U.S. since the Syrian uprising erupted in March 2011. President Obama announced a plan to allow 10 thousand Syrian refugees in 2016. The U.S. has one of the strictest vetting processes in the world, ranging from 18 months to two years.
Another shrill voice in the anti-Syrian refugee chorus was that of Senator Marco Rubio, who saw the Paris attacks as part of a ‘clash of civilizations’ matrix, thus reducing the Muslim Civilization to ISIS vs Western Civilization. Not to be outdone in the push to blur one of the most important tenants in the Constitution, the separation of Church and State, Ohio Governor John Kasich had the temerity to propose the establishment of a new (missionary?) federal agency to spread ‘Judeo-Christian Western values’ in the Middle East. Kasich’s proposal reflects his ignorance of both the American constitution and the Middle East. In a week full of ironies, many critics, including President Obama pointed out the fact that both Senators Cruz and Rubio are descendants from parents who fled the communist regime in Cuba.
…The wicked
For Senator Ted Cruz, bringing ‘to this country tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees, particularly in light of what happened in Paris, that’s nothing short of lunacy’, because the U.S. intelligence agencies ‘cannot determine if they are terrorists here to kill us or not’. But Cruz would like to have a waiver for one stratum of refugees. ‘Now on the other hand, Christians who are being targeted, for genocide, for persecution, Christians who are being beheaded or crucified, we should be providing safe haven to them’. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush while not calling explicitly for the exclusion of Muslim refugees, he wants to give priority to the Christians. ‘I do think we have a responsibility to help with refugees after proper screening, and I think our focus ought to be on the Christians, who have no place in Syria anymore’. Bush claimed Syrian Christians are being ‘beheaded, they are being executed by both sides.’ The exaggerations and hyperbole aside, both Cruz and Bush were essentially calling for a religious test for refugees. The Syrian regime terrorizes its opponents regardless of their religious background, but it is not persecuting Christians because of their religion. During one debate, Bush claimed cavalierly that Christians in Lebanon were being beheaded, a shocking claim that went unchallenged. It seems that Jeb Bush is oblivious to one of the many sad ironies of the American invasion of Iraq, ordered by his older brother George W. Bush – a breathtaking imperial enterprise to create democracy in an arid political culture- which set in motion the unraveling of the ancient Christian presence in Mesopotamia. In the presence of tens of thousands of American troops, Radical Islamist groups assassinated Christian clergymen, torched churches, and terrorized Christian towns, causing the uprooting of half of the Christian population of Iraq, estimated in 2003 to be a million strong, many of them the direct descendants of the early Christian communities in the region.
More than 25 Republican governors pledged to resist housing Syrian refugees in their states. Some of them wrote letters to President Obama warning him against such plans. It was ironic that Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan (home of the Largest Arab-American community in the U.S. was the first to announce that he would block the resettlement of Syrian refugees. He was followed by the Republican Governors of some of the largest states in the Union including Texas, Ohio, Louisiana, Alabama, and Indiana among others. The former Governor of Indiana, from 2005 to 2013 was Mitchell Elias Daniels, whose paternal grandfather emigrated from Syria. On Thursday the House of Representatives by a majority of 289 to 137 voted to impose stronger controls on refugees from Syria and Iraq, in what Republican lawmakers claimed was a strong response to the terrorist attacks in Paris. The majority included 47 Democrats, which makes the resolution veto proof. It is expected that the Senate will vote on the resolution within two weeks.
…And the ugly
It was left to the blunt talking Governor of the state of New Jersey Chris Christie to deliver an offense to the numerous orphans of Syria. In a radio interview Christie said that he does not trust the Obama administration to effectively vet the Syrian refugees, ‘so I would not permit them in’. When he was asked ‘what if they were orphans under the age of five?’ his answer came thundering: ‘I don’t think orphans under five, should be admitted into the United States at this point’. The mounting hostility to Muslims was not limited to the Republican presidential candidates, or governors. The elected (Republican) agricultural commissioner of Texas likened the Syrian refugees to the venomous rattlesnakes that are found in abundance in his state. There were few elected Democrats who joined the Republican anti-Syrian refugee chorus. New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan (not of Arab descent) became the first Democratic governor to call for a ‘pause’ on Syrian refugees entering the U.S. to make sure that the vetting process is effective. But the Democratic mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, a city of 100,000 did spark national outrage when he invoked the internment of Japanese Americans in camps during World War II, whose loyalty was suspect because of their race, claiming ‘that the threat of harm to America from Isis now is just as real and serious as that from our enemies then.’But by far, the honor of the most offensive voice in the anti-Syrian refugee chorus goes to the leading Republican Presidential candidate Ben Carson who likened Syrian refugees to rabid dogs. During a campaign stop in Mobile, Alabama, Carson was asked about Syrian refugees. ‘ If there’s a rabid dog running around in your neighborhood, you’re probably not going to assume something good about that dog, and you’re probably going to put your children out of the way’. The retired neurosurgeon who sprinkles his speeches with quotes from Christian scripture added ‘It doesn’t mean that you hate all dogs by any stretch of the imagination, but you’re putting your intellect into motion.’
A shameful week
The bloodiest terrorist attacks in Paris in recent memory, did not alter French President François Holland’s commitment to resettle 30,000 Syrian refugees in France in the next two years. But it seems that this message of courage and hope was lost on Republican leaders in the U.S. None of the Republican officials would admit that their offensive anti Muslim and anti-Syrian rhetoric would re-enforce the narrative of ISIS, which claims that the Muslim communities living in the heart of the ‘Crusaders’ nations can never be integrated as full citizens. The studied and opportunistic fearmongering of Republican leaders in an election season cannot obscure certain facts that make their claims bogus. Most terrorist acts in Europe and the United States since the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by citizens, many of them were born in those societies, not refugees given asylum or immigrants. The shameful prejudice towards the Syrian refugees, reflect the ignorance of most of these politicians about the tremendous contributions of the Syrian-American community (both Christians and Muslims) in the fields of science, art, literature, business, and politics, or the fact that Syrians and Lebanese emigrated to America in waves beginning in the 1860’s fleeing violence and seeking freedom and a better economic future. One of the most iconic photos of Syrian immigrants in the late 19th century was that of the family of Professor Yusif Arbili, taken in 1878 and sent to relatives in Damascus. The Arabic caption says it all: ‘here I am with the children exulting in freedom’.
The shameful week, was also a reminder that America’s greatness was marred by shameful deeds against immigrants, minorities and refugees seeking shelter, safety, dignity and freedom. Republican leaders can claim correctly that their opposition to Syrian refugees reflects the views of the American people. Unfortunately, recent opinion polls show that a (simple) majority of Americans oppose the resettlement of Syrian refugees.
The voyage of the damned
In the last few days, the rejections of the Syrian refugees, who are an ocean away languishing in refugee camps in neighboring countries or wandering the highways and byways of Europe, many of us remembered the story of another group of wanderers who were tragically rejected by America. In 1939, on the eve of WWII, more than 900 Jews left Nazi Germany on the cruise liner S.S. St. Louis seeking refuge in the United States by way of Cuba. The heartbreaking journey across the Atlantic would become known as ‘the voyage of the damned’. When the Cuban authorities refused to allow the passengers to enter the country, the ship sailed towards Florida in the hope that the U.S. will accept the refugees. The ship was not allowed to dock and sailed around the Florida coast for 72 hours while Jewish leaders in Washington tried frantically to convince the Roosevelt administration to accept the refugees. The ship of the damned was turned back. The passengers disembarked in four European countries. More than 250 of them were killed by the Nazis when they stormed Western Europe. Like the internment of Japanese-Americans, the tragedy of the passengers of S.S. St. Louis will live in infamy.
Last week I found myself repeatedly saying: this is not the America I wanted to be part of.

Why more women are needed in peace negotiations
Yara al-Wazir/Al Arabiya/November 21/15
Never underestimate the power of involving women in peacekeeping negotiations. The probability of a peace agreement lasting 15 years is 35% more likely if women are involved, according to a 2015 report by the International Peace Institute. Despite this, just two percent of chief mediators and nine percent of negotiators in peace processes are women between 1992 and 2011. So the question here is clear – why isn’t the United Nations involving more women in global peace keeping negotiations, and more importantly, why is gender equality and the protection of women’s rights in conflict areas not being given enough attention? Only 15 percent of agreements signed between 1990 and 2010 directly referenced women’s rights or gender equality. Before these statistics came to light, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution in 2008 to end violence and abuse against women during war and to involve women into peace talks. Yet this resolution, in terms of its application, has failed greatly. Several resolutions have been passed since then to protect women in conflict areas, the most recent of which is resolution 2242 passed last month. While this addresses many needs women have in conflict areas, it fails to set strategic and achievable goals to involving women in the negotiation process, which statistically has astounding affects.
The United Nations must practice what it preaches when it comes to protecting women from violence in conflict areas
Clause 8 of the resolution promises to double the number of women in military and police contingents of U.N. peacekeeping operations over the next five years, yet fails to set a goal when it comes to appointing women in senior positions that would allow them to take part in negotiations. Instead, it vaguely brushes on the need to “prioritize” the appointment of women. This is not to belittle the importance of female members of U.N. peacekeeping operations, as they also undoubtedly have the ability to protect women on the ground. However, in order for a long-term peace process to be achieved, I believe women need to be at the forefront of negotiations. Without a set blueprint, in five years the Security Council will undoubtedly find itself in the same predicament that it is in today. Debates and resolutions will continue to be held until achievable goals are set.
Civil society involvement is key
I believe the threat of violence against women within conflict areas is one of the barriers that keeps women far from diplomacy and peace processes. The value of women from conflict areas, who are actively involved in the development of civil society, is priceless when it comes to involving them in negotiations.
The very same women who were involved in negotiating resolution 2242 must be involved in negotiating peace in their home countries. This includes Yanar Mohammad of Iraq and Alaa Murabit of Libya, both of whom made statements at the United Nations supporting this resolution.
The U.N. must practice what it preaches
In a conflict zone, women mostly bear the least responsibility over the destruction of their areas, yet are left to deal fully with the issues that arise. Whether it’s a civil war or foreign intervention, women in conflict areas are subject to harassment, rape, and physical abuse, as well as the emotional trauma they have to endure. The United Nations must practice what it preaches when it comes to protecting women from violence in conflict areas. U.N. peacekeepers have been accused of rape in the Central African Republic, in Congo and in Kosovo, as well as Liberia, Haiti and South Sudan. This issue has been ongoing since the 1990s, and is seemingly yet to be controlled. So while it is helpful that Resolution 2242 “welcomes efforts” to introducing a zero-tolerance policy to misconduct, it is not enough to beat around the bush. The issue of sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeepers deserves its own resolution, as well as solid action to deal with gross misconduct, and not just leaving it to governments to prosecute. Ultimately, resolution 2242 is a step in the right direction. The support it received at the Security Council was overwhelming, but then again, it would be difficult for any country to defend its position if it had voted against protecting women in conflict areas.

Paris massacre exonerates the murderer, condemns the victim
Eyad Abu Shakra/Al Arabiya/November 21/15
As expected it didn’t take ISIS long to claim responsibility for the Paris terrorist mass murders.
The evening of ‘Friday the 13th’ of November 2015 is not a date the people of France will forget. I dare say too, it will neither be forgotten by every Arab and Muslim living in France, nor any Syrian still waiting in vain for some justice. The heinous massacre that killed and injured hundreds of innocent people is the product of the ‘inverted logic’ of a suspect organization, horrible in choosing its targets, and even more horrible in timing and executing its carnage. This ‘inverted logic’ does not harm anyone except the groups that it claims to defend and uphold, and benefits none but those that it claims to be its enemies.
Indeed, if we review what ISIS has done so far we find that both in Iraq and Syria its prime victims have been – next to innocent geographically isolated minorities – the Sunni Arab regions of northern and north-western Iraq and northern Syria as well as its major cities; which has been politically, economically and demographically ruined by ISIS.
ISIS’ inverted logic
These Sunni Arab regions have been the targets of assaults from Iran’s expansionist project, Kurdish secessionist ambitions, and Russia’s full cover for and sponsorship of the sectarian sedition instigated by Syria’s regimes and its backers, against virtual disinterest from Israel, the U.S. and the European Union with one exception .. France! Yes, France; Europe’s bravest and most sincere supporter of the Syrian popular uprising, the most consistent in seeking an end to Bashar Assad’s dictatorship, and the most honest backers of legitimacy in Yemen. Yet, despite all this, France was and still is ISIS’ prime target! Conspiracy theory aside, only through ISIS’ ‘inverted logic’ choosing France makes sense. Firstly, France is a major country in the heart of Europe that was a founding member of both the European Union and NATO, and home to the largest Arab and Muslim communities – mainly, from West Africa. Thus, if ISIS aim is embroiling Islam – as a global religion – in a suicidal war against the West; indeed, against the whole humanity, then France becomes a suitable target.
The ‘war against ISIS’, if the international community is truly serious about it, needs to be carried out differently
Secondly, France has powerful extreme right wing political parties that are a serious challenge for power, and get ever more popular whenever they get the chance to be belligerent against Arabs and Muslims. These parties are the ideal ‘detonators’ that speed up this suicidal war that ISIS discourse is striving to launch. It is obvious that those who planned the Paris massacre knew beforehand the likely political, social and cultural consequences of their outrage, but in their calculations the more ‘racist’ or xenophobic the reaction against the French Arabs and Muslims gets the more frustrated and wronged gangs would emerge from their communities, thus, making easier the job of recruiting extremists and terrorists for their future ‘grand war’. Thirdly, if one does not discount the conspiracy theory, let’s go no further than the main beneficiary from the timing of the Paris massacre. It was committed a few hours before the convening of the ‘Vienna 2’ meeting aimed at finding a solution to the Syrian crisis. This act of awful violence serves first and foremost the interests of those who have insisted in shifting the ‘Vienna 2’ meeting away from finding a political solution for Syria based on President Bashar al-Assad stepping down. It is a well-known fact that the Assad’s main backers, Russia and Iran, are still calling to regard the Syrian crisis merely as a ‘war against terrorism’, and see Assad as an integral part of it. Reports that one of the assailants in Paris mentioned the word ‘Syria’, and then that a Syrian passport (anybody can buy a fake passport) was found near an assailant’s body means that the suspect had intelligence-inspired intentions to link responsibility to the Syrian people’s uprising, although the carnage took place without its knowledge or blessings.
Fourthly, a well-coordinated and logistically perfected murderous operation like the Paris massacre totally rules out the notion of naïveté or stupidity, at least at the planners’ level, even though those who executed it were willing to become ‘human bombs’ and were brain-washed and dehumanized individuals. Here we are confronting a highly organized network led by sophisticated and knowledgeable authorities that pulls its strings and manages its budget, in a way similar to someone trading in oils and antiquities; buying brand new Toyota trucks and advanced weapons, and successfully handling smuggling, training, media and publishing. Thus the ‘war against ISIS’, if the international community is truly serious about it, needs to be carried out differently. The suspect role played out by ISIS’ actions and battles – both genuine and theatrical – deserves to be encountered in a way congruent with international pronouncements, instead of turning a blind eye to the tragic realities the extremist organization is forcing on the ground through a frightening partition, that sooner or later will destroy the Near East’s political entities, and sow the seeds of endless animosities and catastrophes.
Major landmarks
The Paris massacre, as well as any crime perpetrated by terrorist ‘sleeping cells’ or ‘lone wolves’ in Europe, or any other place on Earth in the name of Islam, is a major landmark in the war against terrorism. However, it is incumbent on any serious analyst to study past incidents of this nature.
In Lebanon particularly, there are amazing examples. Terrorist acts, as well as aborted acts, whose perpetrators – from various religious sects –were discovered, were indeed linked to certain intelligence agencies. Perhaps the most infamous of those were the so-called ‘Abu Adas case’ intended to divert the investigation of the Rafiq Hariri assassination, and ‘the Michel Samaha scandal’ pertaining to attempts to carry out explosions and political assassination with the intention of causing a bloody sectarian conflict. The Syrian regime’s intelligence agencies were later uncovered to be behind both.
Thus, with regards to the cleansing intended to facilitate redrawing of the political maps of the Region, some observers link the recent terrorist explosions in Lebanon – the latest of which was carried out in the Beirut Shiite suburb of Burj al-Barajeneh – to justifying the long term plan of uprooting the populations of Sunni towns that are as yet delaying the emergence of one of the desired maps. This is, actually, what was exposed by Iran’s push for population exchange between the Sunni population of the town Zabadani and neighbouring towns and villages west of Damascus and the population of the Shiite enclaves in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib in northern Syria. One last note; ISIS and those who have created and are now exploiting it are two faces of the same coin!

Will Obama be a hawk or a dove after Paris?
Andrew Bowen/Al Arabiya/November 21/15
U.S. President Barack Obama entered office with a commitment to end his country’s over-expansive involvement in the Middle East. In the twilight months of his presidency, however, he faces the stark reality that the United States and its partners’ security cannot be guaranteed with a hands-off approach to regional problems. Obama’s legacy may not be so much defined by a rapprochement with Iran or a free-trade tilt to Asia, but how he responds to the challenge of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the wake of the Paris attacks, and what risks he is willing to take to secure America’s future and prosperity. Events, which often shape opinion polls and drive Obama’s foreign policy more than strategic design and intent, may force him to take more risks than he initially expected.
Wrong bet
While it is too early to say to what degree he will go to respond, it is hard to see how, with deepening Russian and French involvement in the anti-ISIS campaign and a public outcry at home, Obama could sit on the sidelines when the security of the United States and its allies is threatened.
Obama risks leaving a legacy defined more by inaction than pro-active and sustained American leadership to confront common global challenges. The most hawkish response so far has been a call to send U.S. ground forces into Syria and Iraq. For Obama, who has defined his legacy on ending two wars in the Middle East, he is unlikely to take such an option - even if it is necessary - based on his stated proclivity against such an option, and the risks he faces in response from his Democratic Party base. Washington arguably has placed too big a bet on trying to suspend Iran’s nuclear program without investing time and resources to confront larger challenges to international security: ISIS and Iran’s regional behavior. These two challenges are arguably interrelated. Tehran’s expansive behavior, from Yemen to Syria, helped stoke the sectarianism that has helped fuel ISIS. Iran’s mismanagement of Iraq, and its support of the Syrian regime, have enabled ISIS to form a state in both countries.
Sustainable path
A more sustainable path would be to reinvigorate ties with regional and international partners, and enhance current assets employed, including expanding military options. One critical area is the need to rebuild and strengthen the critical alliances that have underwritten security in the region since the end of the Cold War. Obama has devoted too many resources and time to building new relations with Iran, at the expense of maintaining strong partnerships with America’s longstanding regional allies. In the aftermath of Paris, Obama should reinvigorate cooperation with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan against the common threat of global extremism. Washington should enhance its support for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in its efforts to resolve Yemen’s civil war. Yemen’s future stability is essential for ensuring that the state does not become a deepening outpost for ISIS.
Washington should more robustly support Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in his efforts to bring stability and economic prosperity to his country, and also to address the deepening crisis in the Sinai. The United States should also continue to back efforts to resolve Libya’s civil war, and work with Egypt and the UAE to roll back ISIS’s territorial expansion. Washington should increase diplomatic pressure to make the Vienna talks a sustainable path for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s eventual departure from power. Equally, more pressure needs to be put on Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi’s government to make meaningful reforms to empower Sunni communities in Iraq. Without inclusive governance in Syria or Iraq, ISIS’s reign of terror will be seen by some as a better alternative to sectarian rule from Damascus and Baghdad. Washington needs to deepen its support for GCC security through enhanced military cooperation and deepening investment in member states’ counter-insurgency capabilities. Without such action, Obama risks leaving a legacy defined more by inaction than pro-active and sustained American leadership to confront common global challenges.

Obama's Mideast Policy: Obituary by John Kerry
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/November 21/15
http://english.aawsat.com/2015/11/article55345643/obamas-mideast-policy-an-obituary-by-john-kerry
The other evening in New York when Secretary of State John Kerry came to talk about President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, everyone thought he had come to praise it. An hour and 6000 words later, it was clear that he had come to bury it.
The expected encomium became an unintended obituary.
Kerry started by building an edifice of excuses for what he knew, and didn’t want to admit, was failure on a grand scale. To heighten his profile, Kerry told the audience that he had just had lunch with Henry Kissinger who had admitted that the world was more complicated today than in the good old days.
Henry, Kerry asserted, “never had it coming to him with the number of different places and crises” that the current boss of Foggy Bottom has to face. In Henry’s old “bipolar Cold War world with the former Soviet Union, the United States and the West was (sic) pretty clear about what choices were.” Today’s world, Kerry went on, is “multipolar”, making choice difficult.
However, the fact is that in linguistic terms the term “multipolar” is non sequitur: no system can have more than two poles. Irresponsible use of vocabulary can cause confusion. But never mind.
Kerry started by trying to put the case for US remaining interested in the Middle East.
“We have to remember that the Middle East is home to some of America’s oldest friends, including our ally Israel, but also our many Arab partners.”
This means that while Israel is an “ally”, Arabs are just “partners”. Even then neither Israel nor Arabs have been treated as allies or partners.
Two days after he started his first presidential term, Obama appointed Senator George Mitchell as peace envoy for the Israel-Palestine conflict. He also boasted that, “when we meet next year” there would be two sates: one Israeli and one Palestinian.
Seven years later, Kerry offers a much reduced version of Obama’s ambition. The lofty aim of creating two states is not even mentioned. Instead he says:” We are trying to reduce violence around the Temple Mount-Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem.”
The aspiring architect is reduced to the level of a fireman trying to put out the flames; so far without success.
As for “Arab partners”, there is no more mention of grand schemes for associate-membership of NATO and collective agreements for trade and technological exchange. What Kerry offers is mediocre poetry.
He says: “Just imagine a future where people from the Nile to Jordan and Euphrates are free to live and work and travel as they choose; where every boy and girl has access to quality education; where visitors are able to flock without fear.”
Well, imagination costs little. (By the way, one may wonder why Kerry’s imaginary world stops at Euphrates; does it mean that no one should go to Baghdad on the Tigris?) Anyway, what is the Obama administration doing to achieve that Utopia?
Kerry’s answer is this: “We’ve asked the McKinsey Company to study the economic prospects of Jordan, Syria, Israel, Egypt and the West Bank. Interestingly, my good friend the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Abdullah bin Zayed, recently also commissioned a separate study” to look at “every sector from farming to tourism.” In other words, instead of developing a foreign policy, the US buys marketing studies while the whole region is in flames.
The farce doesn’t stop there. Kerry goes on to write a mini brochure about the region’s tourist attractions. He says: “I mean, think of that- the world’s greatest tourist attractions. I have driven them…. The place where John the Baptist christened so many people including Jesus, the temple near it, a Muslim mosque which is one of the oldest in the region… There is something there for everybody- even an atheist who is a budding architect would have trouble not having an interesting time.”
Any suggestions for at least re-starting “peace talks” between Israel and Palestinians? None.
Any idea about how to end the Syrian tragedy? None.
What about a policy to defeat and destroy ISIS as Obama promised 18 months ago? Kerry’s answer: “We have seen that ideas transmitted by terrorists in Raqqa and Mosul can reach impressionable minds in Minneapolis and Mississippi. We are well aware that events in the Middle East can affect perceptions on every single continent because people are influenced by spiritual and ethical traditions that have their roots in those ancient lands.”
So, ISIS represents “spiritual and ethical traditions”. OK. But what do you intend to do about it? Obama has no answer.
Obama had promised to “destroy” Daesh. No sooner had he made that promise than he wrote to the Congress saying he was not envisaging an “endurable” (sic) military campaign against the terrorist outfit, implying that the whole thing would be wrapped up quickly.
Kerry, however, invents another word to dispel Obama’s illusion. This is going to be a “multiyear” (sic) fight, Kerry says.
This is what Kerry cites as the administration’s achievements so far: “We have launched more than 7300 airstrikes. We have forced Daesh to change how it conducts military operations… We’ve secured the Turkish-Syrian border east of Euphrates. That’s about 85 per cent of the Turkish border. The president is authorizing further activities (sic) to secure the rest…. We’ve made it harder for Daesh to resupply its fighters in Ramadi.”
Kerry spent some time boasting about Obama’s “Iran deal” as the administration’s only achievement in the Middle East. This is why Obama said in 2008:” We cannot allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon… I will do everything required to prevent it.”
However, under the “deal” Kerry was boasting about, Iran retains full capacity to build a nuclear arsenal within one year. Even then, Iran hasn’t signed anything and refuses to approve the “deal” through its legal processes.
The only “success” Kerry cites is one that has nothing to do with the US. “To sceptics I reply with one word: Tunisia.” Well, Tunisia is doing rather well, for the time being. But what has it got to do with Obama?
Kerry’s obituary of Obama’s Middle East policy, presented at a session in the Carnegie Endowment for Peace in New York, is full of gems.
Here are a few:
• “Israelis have to be secure; Palestinians have to be secure; people in Gaza have to be secure; everybody has to be secure.”
• “Violence hurts everyone: the innocent and their families; the Jewish and the Arab residents of Israel…. Hurts everyone.”
• “In Iraq, Daesh has been auctioning off women and girls, teaching- teaching people that the rape of underage non-Muslim females is a form of prayer.”
• “The president has made clear that we are determined to degrade Daesh more rapidly.”
• Please don’t accept the view of those who say that the Middle East has to be divided along sectarian lines.”
• “We all have to be doing more, because people are beginning to simply lose faith in any of their leader.” Only beginning?!
http://english.aawsat.com/2015/11/article55345643/obamas-mideast-policy-an-obituary-by-john-kerry

Putin Visits Iran
Brenda Shaffer/Washington Institute/November 21/15
To reap the benefits and avert the dangers of Moscow's latest developments with Iran, Washington and Europe should adopt a strategy that allows them to cooperate on Syria and antiterrorism efforts, while continuing pressure on issues such as the Ukraine conflict and S-300 deliveries to Tehran.
On November 23, Russian president Vladimir Putin opens a three-day trip to Iran, his first since 2007. The visit will encompass multilateral and bilateral components. On the multilateral front, he will participate in the summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) and hold multiple meetings with the heads of state convening there. He will also hold separate bilateral meetings with Iranian leaders. These meetings and the sundry Russian-Iranian issues that underlie them could create new opportunities and dangers for U.S. policy on the Middle East and Ukraine.
BILATERAL FRICTION
Putin's visit takes place amid increasingly complicated relations between Iran and Russia. The P5+1 nuclear deal has ended Iran's political isolation, opening up opportunities for Tehran to cooperate diplomatically and economically with Europe and, to a certain extent, the United States. These new options pose a challenge to Russia's political alliance with Tehran.
At the same time, Russia's own political and economic options are expanding as well. Moscow may be able to leverage three related factors -- its role in Syria, its potential contribution to the anti-ISIS fight, and its ability to slow the refugee flow into Europe -- to forge a new relationship with the EU and the United States, perhaps removing the limitations they put in place after the Ukraine crisis. Consequently, additional issues of contention may develop between Tehran and Moscow going forward.
First, while Putin and Iran are still projecting a united front as allies of the Assad regime, Russia's Syria deployment has nevertheless created tension. Tehran is unhappy about Moscow usurping its dominant role in Damascus and the potential part it could have played with the West in delivering a peace settlement. Furthermore, Moscow's recent firing of cruise missiles into Syria from the Caspian Sea was surely unsettling to Iranian leaders.
The two countries have also disagreed on the status of bilateral arms sales. During the nuclear negotiations, Moscow froze implementation of a number of signed arms deals with Iran; now that the nuclear agreement has been finalized, Tehran wants Russia to fulfill these contracts immediately. Moscow may indeed be tempted to deliver sophisticated weapons to show Tehran the advantage of staying connected to Russia instead of warming up to rival powers. Iran is especially eager to receive the sophisticated S-300 air-defense system. Moscow has threatened to transfer this system more than once over the past decade, refraining from actual delivery after eliciting concessions from Israel and, at times, the United States. Delivering it now would be problematic for Russia -- in addition to creating additional tension with Washington and Israel, supplying the system would reportedly carry some technical difficulties.
Another point of conflict is Iran's return to full global energy trade, which threatens Russia's interests. Tehran's intention to ramp up oil exports will increase the downward pressure on oil prices, adding to Moscow's serious economic challenges. On the natural gas front, Moscow is worried that Iran's tremendous reserves may threaten its long-term supplier dominance in several markets.
Meanwhile, much to Tehran's chagrin, Russia has been expanding ties with a number of Iranian rivals in the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia. Putin also enjoys excellent security cooperation with Israel -- in fact, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was the first foreign leader to visit Moscow after Russia's Syria deployment was made public.
GECF SUMMIT: MORE ABOUT DIPLOMACY THAN ENERGY
In addition to regular ministerial meetings, the GECF has held two previous Gas Summits involving heads of state and other officials from member countries, which include Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Qatar, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela, among others. The 2013 summit was held in Moscow, with former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in attendance. Given the presence of numerous leaders from key Middle Eastern and Caspian states -- including the presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, who will attend as guests for the first time in GECF history -- Monday's summit will give Putin a good platform for public diplomacy, potentially increasing his influence in the region at this crucial juncture.
The GECF was originally established to coordinate policy between gas-exporting countries, with Iran and Venezuela as the driving forces behind its formal creation in 2007. At the time, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei promoted the idea that Tehran and Moscow should establish "an organization of gas cooperation like OPEC." Yet the GECF has failed to implement any cartel coordination in gas markets for a number of reasons.
First, the bilateral nature of gas trade within specific long-term contracts does not lend itself to coordination between producers. Second, the GECF's two founding countries are not actually gas exporters -- Venezuela is focused on the oil business, obviously, while Iran is a net gas importer, taking in a bit more from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan than it exports to Turkey and Armenia. Furthermore, major gas producers such as the United States, Canada, and Australia are not associated with the organization, while most of its member states are constantly attempting to expand their individual gas exports and attract investments regardless of wider GECF policy. Bottom line: in an era when OPEC no longer has much influence over the global oil market, there is little basis for imagining that a "Gas OPEC" will gain sway over natural gas markets.
CONCLUSION
Putin is visiting Iran at a time when a number of moving policy pieces and regional developments will affect their relationship. Previously, when Iran was under heavy nuclear-related sanctions, the two countries fell back on a solidarity of sorts, in part because several arenas of strategic competition between them were frozen. Today, however, both parties have new options for economic and political cooperation with other partners. Russia also has strong incentive to leverage Europe and Washington's need for intelligence and security cooperation, whether in countering ISIS and other Middle Eastern terrorist groups or stabilizing Syria in order to stop the flow of refugees. Indeed, European states seem tempted to remove or reduce Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia in order to facilitate this cooperation.
If Moscow does help Europe on Syria-related issues, it may find itself at further odds with Tehran. Alternatively -- or perhaps simultaneously -- Russia may decide to finally deliver sophisticated weapons to Iran in order to remind its leaders that the partnership carries benefits currently unattainable from Europe or the United States.
To reap the benefits and avert the dangers of these developments, Washington needs to adopt a holistic approach toward Russia. American policies on Syria, Iran, and Ukraine are interconnected and cannot be compartmentalized: U.S. actions in one arena will affect Russia's actions in another. The United States and Europe need a strategy that will allow them to cooperate with Russia in Syria and other parts of the Middle East without abandoning key goals in Ukraine and the former Soviet region. Moreover, Washington should leverage its evidently renewed security cooperation with Moscow to prevent delivery of sophisticated arms to Iran.
**Brenda Shaffer is an adjunct professor at the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies at Georgetown University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Center.

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