LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
October 10/15

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletins05/english.october10.15.htm

Bible Quotation For Today/ And when day came, Jesus called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 06/12-19: "Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

Bible Quotation For Today/ We have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge & patience.
Second Letter to the Corinthians 05/20-21//06/01-07: "We are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, ‘At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.’ See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left;

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 09-10/15
How Obama Lost Afghanistan/Vijeta Uniyal/ Gatestone Institute/October 09/15
First Step to Resolve the Palestinian Problem: Eliminate UNRWA/Part One/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/October 09/15
Russia's Cruise Missiles Raise the Stakes in the Caspian/Farzin Nadimi/Washington Institute/October 09/15
Russia Pursues a New Baghdad Pact/Ehud Yaari/Times of Israel/October 09/15
Iran's Post-Deal Economic Stagnation Challenges Rouhani/Patrick Clawson/Washington Institute/October 09/15
The AKP's New Face: Assessing the September Board Vote Ahead of November's Elections/Soner Cagaptay, Cem Yolbulan, and Angelica Kilinc//Washington Institute/October 09/15
ISIS In New Video To Christians In Qaryatayn, Syria: Pay Jizya – Or You Will Be Executed And Your Wives Enslaved/MERI/October 09/15
Iran: Soft power with the West, hard power in the Mideast/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Al Arabiya/October 09/15
Betting on Syria conflict thwarts dialogue in Lebanon/Nayla Tueni/Al Arabiya/October 09/15
Breaking the bonds of rural poverty, once and for all/José Graziano da Silvai/Al Arabiya/October 09/15/

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin for Lebanese Related News published on October 09-10/15
Cabinet to Convene on Waste Crisis but Faces Dark Future
Bassil Says Wants Appointments 'Under the Law', Criticizes Moqbel, Army Command
Arrests, Injuries as Police Fire Tear Gas, Water Cannons at Martyrs Square Protesters
Arrest Warrant against al-Atrash for Belonging to IS, al-Nusra
Protest Near Military Tribunal to Press for Release of Detainees
Berri Says Cabinet, Parliament Paralysis is a 'Myth'
U.S. Delivers Hellfire Missiles, Precision Munitions to Lebanese Army
Families of Arsal Servicemen Block Road near Interior Ministry, Central Bank
Army Carries Out Raids in Bekaa, Shoots Syrian in an Escape Attempt
Shorter Hopes Russian Meddling in Syria Won't Affect Lebanon's Presidential Polls
Report: Richard Jones to Temporarily Head U.S. Mission
Lebanon lives through fresh civil society clashes

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 09-10/15
Pope Deplores 'Escalation of Violence' in Mideast, Urges Action
Israelis Worried but Defiant amid Wave of Stabbings
6 Palestinian Protesters Killed on Gaza Border as Haniyeh Hails New 'Intifada'
Wave of Stabbings Shake Israel and West Bank
U.N. Approves EU Military Action against Migrant Smugglers
India Protests to Saudi after Maid's Hand Chopped Off
Iran Revolutionary Guards Commander Killed in Syria
First Asylum Seekers Leave Italy Under EU Relocation Plan
Berlin, Madrid Urge U.S., Russia to Cooperate to End Syria Conflict
Russia Says Hit 60 'Terrorist Targets' in New Syria Strikes

Links From Jihad Watch Web site For Today’
Muslims have the right to lie in a good cause”—Pakistani president to Reagan
Vatican Synod: Syriac Catholic Patriarch appeals to West “not to forget the Christians in the Middle East”
“We must accept that terrorist acts are religiously motivated”
French MPs adopt bill to block minors from leaving for jihad
Iran says Islamic State kills Iranian General near Aleppo
The Unknown: To Be Raped Under Islam

Cabinet to Convene on Waste Crisis but Faces Dark Future
Naharnet/October 09/15/Prime Minister Tammam Salam is expected to call for a cabinet session to put into execution the waste management plan of Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb. The session will unlikely face a paralysis over differences between cabinet members on several controversial issues. Education Minister Elias Bou Saab did not rule out Free Patriotic Movement ministers' participation in the session. “This is an emergency and does not need an agenda or decrees,” he told As Safir daily. The FPM has been calling on the government to discuss its decision-making mechanism and approve the promotion of army officers, key demands of Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun that have brought cabinet sessions to a standstill. Aoun's allies, the Marada Movement and the Tashnag Party have informed Salam that they are ready to participate in the cabinet session on condition that the waste crisis be the only item on the agenda. As for Hizbullah, its stance is not yet clear. Even if their ministers attend the cabinet session, the four parties will later have a united position, March 8 alliance sources said. The government will no longer be able to function based on the “status quo” imposed by their rival in al-Mustaqbal movement and its allies in the March 14 coalition, they warned.

Bassil Says Wants Appointments 'Under the Law', Criticizes Moqbel, Army Command
Naharnet/October 09/15/Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil announced Thursday that the FPM wants the stalled military and security appointments to take place “under the law,” criticizing Defense Minister Samir Moqbel and the Army Command over alleged “violations.”“The FPM has never accepted any illegal measure … We want the appointments to occur under the law,” said Bassil during an interview on LBCI television. “The current Army Command has taken unjust decisions against some army brigadier generals,” Bassil charged. He also slammed the defense minister for “committing violations in the file of appointments” and “usurping the role of the cabinet.”“There is a problem that needs to be solved and solutions must occur in the cabinet and with the participation of the FPM,” Bassil added, noting that “the dialogue table cannot produce solutions as long as some parties are linking their decisions to foreign forces.”As for the FPM's Sunday rally outside the presidential palace in Baabda, Bassil noted that it is aimed at “reviving the scene of the struggle movement that we were raised on.”"My resentment over the electricity file is bigger than that of the civil society protest movement and the electricity projects were obstructed," Bassil added. Earlier in the day, Colonel Maroun al-Qobayati was appointed as commander of the army's Commando Regiment to replace Brig. Gen. Chamel Roukoz, media reports said. Hopes have dimmed on the possibility of the rival political parties reaching a settlement on the promotion of several officers ahead of Roukoz's retirement on October 15. Change and Reform bloc chief MP Michel Aoun had been hoping that the promotion of Roukoz, his son-in-law, would keep him in the military and make him eligible to lead the institution.The thorny issue of military appointments and promotions is one of the main points of contention paralyzing the cabinet's work. Sources close to Aoun have blamed the ministerial bloc loyal to ex-President Michel Suleiman for the deadlock on military promotions. Political rivals had held backstage talks on the promotions in recent days.

Arrests, Injuries as Police Fire Tear Gas, Water Cannons at Martyrs Square Protesters
Naharnet/October 09/15/Several protesters were arrested and many others were injured Thursday as security forces fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse civil society demonstrators who tried to enter into central Beirut's al-Nejmeh Square where the parliament is located. The Red Cross announced transferring 35 people to hospitals after they suffered suffocation injuries due to tear gas inhalation. Protest movement lawyer Mazen Hoteit said at least 25 protesters were arrested. TV networks identified two of them as Pierre Hashash and Waref Suleiman. Meanwhile, the Internal Security Forces said several of its members were injured after protesters “hurled rocks and solid objects” at them. It later said one of its officers was critically injured in the confrontations. Protest organizers meanwhile stressed that demonstrators will not leave the street before the release of all detainees, as the You Stink campaign demanded "an emergency cabinet session to resolve the garbage crisis" and held Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq responsible for the "security escalation." Demonstrators had started gathering at Martyrs Square at 6:00 pm for a central march aimed at reaching the adjacent al-Nejmeh Square. “Protesters have decided to try entering al-Nejmeh Square from all entrances,” said protest organizer Asaad Zebian after scuffles erupted with security forces. A statement recited by another protest organizer at the demo demanded “the sacking of the environment minister.”
“Remove the garbage that has been accumulating outside our homes,” the statement added, referring to the unprecedented garbage crisis that erupted after the July 17 closure of the Naameh landfill. “They continued their procrastination until the arrival of rain,” the statement said. “Release the funds of municipalities, scrap Sukleen's contracts and start activating the waste sorting plants,” the protest movement demanded. It also voiced its support for residents who live near the suggested sites for the establishment of new garbage landfills and expressed its solidarity with the Campaign for the Closure of the Naameh landfill. The protest movement also demanded “immediate parliamentary elections that guarantee the proper representation of the Lebanese people without any discrimination.”A plan devised by Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb and a team of experts calls for reopening the Naameh landfill, which was closed in mid-July, for seven days to dump the garbage that accumulated in random sites in Beirut and Mount Lebanon. It also envisions converting two existing dumps, in the northern Akkar area of Srar and the eastern border area of al-Masnaa, into “sanitary landfills” capable of receiving trash for more than a year. After he announced his plan earlier this month, the civil society and local residents of Akkar, Naameh, Majdal Anjar, and Bourj Hammoud protested against the step, citing perceived environmental and health hazards. Experts have urged the government to devise a comprehensive waste management solution that would include more recycling and composting to reduce the amount of trash going into landfills. Environmentalists fear the crisis could soon degenerate to the point where garbage as well as sewage will simply overflow into the sea from riverbeds as winter rains return. The health ministry has warned that garbage scattered by seasonal winds could also block Lebanon's drainage system. The trash crisis has sparked angry protests that initially focused on waste management but grew to encompass frustrations with water and electricity shortages and Lebanon's chronically divided political class. Campaigns like "You Stink" brought thousands of people into the streets in unprecedented non-partisan and non-sectarian demonstrations against the entire political class.

Arrest Warrant against al-Atrash for Belonging to IS, al-Nusra
Naharnet/October 09/15/Military Examining Magistrate Judge Imad al-Zein issued on Friday an arrest warrant against Ibrahim al-Atrash for belonging to the Islamic State extremist group and al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front. The state-run National News Agency said al-Zein questioned al-Atrash and later issued an arrest warrant against him. The charges include booby-trapping vehicles and sending them to Lebanon, launching rockets, participating in the fighting against the Lebanese army in the northeastern border town of Arsal and forming an armed group for the purpose of carrying out terrorist attacks, said NNA. The army arrested al-Atrash in Arsal last month.

Protest Near Military Tribunal to Press for Release of Detainees
Naharnet/October 09/15/Civil society activists held a sit-in near the military tribunal in the Mathaf area on Friday to call for the release of those detained during a protest they held a day earlier in downtown Beirut.Security forces used water cannons and eventually fired tear gas canisters on Thursday night to disperse dozens of anti-government protesters who tried to get past security barricades and reach parliament. Police had erected new barricades near An Nahar daily building to keep the protesters away from the parliament and government offices. By late Thursday, some protesters tried to break the security cordons, prompting authorities to use water cannons. Protesters lobbed rocks and water bottles at the security forces. The clashes caused heavy damages to the nearby DT restaurant and the entrance of Hotel Le Gray, said the Internal Security Forces. One of the lawyers of civil society activists said that more than 60 demonstrators were arrested during the protest. Some of them need medical care, he told LBCI. Several of the female detainees were released later Thursday. The lawyers of the detainees said they told State Commissioner to the Military Court Judqe Saqr Saqr that the tribunal cannot bring civilians into trial. The lawyers said they also called for the release of all the detainees because their right is protected by the Constitution. But according to them, Saqr said they cannot be set free until measures are taken against them. Dozens were also injured during Thursday's protest. George Kettaneh from the Red Cross said 39 injured policemen and demonstrators were transported to hospitals. The protests against Lebanon's ruling elite came as a result of the garbage crisis that activists warn has become a menace to public health. The crisis began in July when the closure of the Naameh landfill, Lebanon's largest, caused rubbish to pile up on Beirut's roadsides, in parking lots and river beds.

Berri Says Cabinet, Parliament Paralysis is a 'Myth'
Naharnet/October 09/15/Speaker Nabih Berri has reiterated that the cabinet should convene to resolve the people's issues, describing the paralysis of the government and the parliament as a “myth.”Berri told his visitors that the national dialogue, which he is chairing, has not discussed the issues that are on the cabinet's agenda, except for the waste crisis. “The government should resolve the people's affairs and should resume its meetings because obstructing it and the parliament is a myth,” he said. The speaker stressed that the postponement of the dialogue to October 26 did not come as a result of differences between the rival leaders. “The conferees have so far held seven sessions, which all focused on the presidential deadlock, except for once when they discussed the waste crisis,” he said. Berri confirmed that the upcoming sessions will be moved from the parliament to Ain el-Tineh. He said that he has received from the majority of the rival leaders documents describing the characteristics of the next president. There are only two officials who haven't yet submitted their documents, the speaker told his visitors. He said he will study the files and try to find common ground.
Lebanon has been without a head of state since President Michel Suleiman's six-year term ended in May last year. The Baabda Palace vacuum has caused the parliament's paralysis and huge differences among cabinet members.

U.S. Delivers Hellfire Missiles, Precision Munitions to Lebanese Army
Naharnet/October 09/15/The United States delivered Friday a new shipment of Hellfire missiles and artillery munitions to the Lebanese army, the U.S. embassy said in a statement. “Ambassador David Hale visited Beirut Airbase this morning to inspect America’s latest delivery of 'Hellfire' missiles and artillery munitions to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF),” it said. The shipment included 50 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles and 560 artillery rounds, including some precision munitions. “This represents $8.6 million worth of U.S. security assistance to Lebanon and boosts the LAF’s ability to secure Lebanon’s borders against violent extremists,” the embassy said. The Hellfire air-to-ground missiles are used on Cessna Caravan aircraft previously delivered to the army by the U.S. The missiles “allow the LAF to strike confirmed insurgent positions without exposing themselves to return fire,” the embassy explained. “The other artillery rounds include laser guided projectiles – the first munition of its kind in the LAF’s arsenal – which will provide the LAF with a precision-strike capability at significant stand-off ranges,” it said.The embassy noted that “today’s munitions delivery demonstrates America’s sustained commitment to ensure that the Lebanese Armed Forces has the support it needs to be the sole defender of Lebanese territory and its borders, and is answerable to the state and to the Lebanese people through the state.”In August 2014, the army fought deadly battles with Syria-based extremists from the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front groups in the northeastern border town of Arsal. Several countries boosted their military aid to Lebanon in the wake of the clashes.

Families of Arsal Servicemen Block Road near Interior Ministry, Central Bank
Naharnet/October 09/15/The relatives of the kidnapped servicemen held a sit-in on Friday in front of the Interior Ministry and blocked the road near the Central Bank in the Beirut area of Hamra, demanding the release of their sons after more than 14 months of captivity. The families have also prevented the security forces from reopening the Banks Street in downtown Beirut after it was blocked during the civil society protests on Thursday. They held the “government, General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim and Speaker Nabih Berri responsible for the negligence in solving the (controversial) file.”
Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) later said that Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq had agreed to receive the families on Tuesday and that the timing will be agreed later on. Brig. Gen. Mounir Shaaban, adviser to al-Mashnouq, met with the relatives at the entrance of the ministry for negotiations, after they refused to meet him in his office. The servicemen were taken hostage by the al-Qaida affiliate al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State extremist group in August 2014 when they overran the northeastern border town of Arsal. A few of them have since been released and four were executed. Al-Nusra Front has in its captivity 16 soldiers and policemen, while nine remain held by the IS. Negotiations with the jihadists have stalled over their crippling demands.

Army Carries Out Raids in Bekaa, Shoots Syrian in an Escape Attempt
Naharnet/October 09/15/The Lebanese army shot a Syrian national in the leg on Friday after he attempted to escape during an army raid on the Bekaa border area of Masharii al-Qaa, the state-run National News Agency said.
The Lebanese army carried out raids on the Syrian encampments in the area, NNA said on Friday. They shot the Syrian man, Shadi, whose family name was not disclosed, and arrested 150 individuals for not possessing identity cards and illegal entry to Lebanon. The detained were referred to the related authorities. The army later announced the arrest of 70 Syrians at the border region of al-Masnaa. The number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon has spiked in the last year with almost 1.5 million refugees that have escaped the war in Syria and some illegally entering Lebanese land. The government has been trying to find a way to govern their influx in light of fears that militants could use the Syrian encampments as a hideout.

Shorter Hopes Russian Meddling in Syria Won't Affect Lebanon's Presidential Polls
Naharnet/October 09/15/British Ambassador to Lebanon Hugo Shorter hinted on Friday that the Russian interference in Syria could make choosing a new Lebanese head of state more difficult. "We are concerned about the effect of the Russian intervention in Syria on Lebanon. But so far it is still not clear how that would affect the internal dynamics," Shorter told An Nahar daily in an interview. "I hope it would not make the agreement on a president more difficult," he added. Russia says its intervention is aimed at helping the Syrian government defeat the Islamic State group, but local activists and U.S. officials say the strikes have also targeted Western-backed rebels.On the burden of the Syrian refugees on Lebanon, Shorter said: “It would be harder for Lebanon to be a full international partner in the response to the crisis without a president, which is one of the major reasons that compel Lebanon to have a functioning president and government.” Lebanon is hosting around 1.5 million refugees since the war broke out in the neighboring country in 2011. Asked whether regional interferences have affected the failure of the Lebanese to elect a new head of state, the ambassador said: “There is a general feeling that the regional players have an interest in what is happening in Lebanon. The Lebanese parties also have a close relation with these regional groups. It is up to the Lebanese to shoulder responsibility.” Nevertheless, the ambassador hailed the efforts of Speaker Nabih Berri for bringing the rival politicians together for a national dialogue. On the protests of the civil society that were triggered by the trash management crisis, Shorter said: “the Lebanese people have the right to carry out peaceful demonstrations and to express their points of view regarding the government similar to other countries.” “This is a normal part of democratic life. Everyone can see how the trash is piling up on the streets,” he added.

Report: Richard Jones to Temporarily Head U.S. Mission
Naharnet/October 09/15/ U.S. diplomat Richard Jones is expected to replace Ambassador David Hale pending the arrival of the new head of mission Elizabeth Richard, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Friday. Jones, who served as Ambassador to Beirut between 1996 and 1998, will arrive in the coming days to take over the mission, informed sources said. The sources told the newspaper that he will temporarily take charge of Hale's duties until U.S. administrative arrangements are completed for Elizabeth Richard to officially begin her mission in Beirut. Hale is expected to leave Lebanon after around 10 days, they said. Richard is currently a deputy assistant secretary of state in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. She is expected to assume her post at the start of next year once the U.S. Congress approves her appointment.

Lebanon lives through fresh civil society clashes
Maroun Al-Qobayati Replaces Chamel Roukoz as Commando Regiment Chief; Jebran Bassil criticizes Samir Moqbel and army command as the Free Patriotic Movement prepares to demonstrate near the presidential palace
Joseph A. Kechichian,/Gulf News/October 09/15
Fayetteville, Arkansas: Internal Security Forces (ISF) fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse civil society demonstrators on Thursday as throngs tried to enter Beirut’s Nijmeh Square where parliament is located. According to the Red Cross, 35 people were taken to hospitals after they suffered suffocation injuries, while scores were arrested.  These latest clashes, the most violent to date, pitted “#YouStink” and other groups to the ISF over the country’s ongoing garbage crisis that is about to enter its fourth month. Meanwhile, and in a surprise revelation in various media sources — that was still awaiting an official confirmation — Defense Minister Samir Moqbel apparently settled on Colonel Maroun Al-Qobayati to become the new commander of the army’s Commando [Maghawir] Regiment. If confirmed, this appointment would mean that Brigadier-General Chamel Roukoz, the incumbent and a son-in-law of Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) leader, General Michel Aoun, would retire on October 15 as scheduled. That route essentially terminated his chances of becoming army commander. Foreign Minister and FPM chief Jebran Bassil, another Aoun son-in-law, was livid at this news and insisted that military and security appointments must occur “under the law,” which meant decreed by the entire cabinet in the absence of a president.  Bassil criticized Moqbel and the current Army Commander, General Jean Qahwaji, over alleged “violations,” although Moqbel’s decree, if accurate, would be within his legal prerogatives.
'Unjust decisions'
Using particularly offensive language, Bassil lambasted Qahwaji during an interview on the LBCI television network, blaming the commander for taking “unjust decisions against some army brigadier generals.”  He slammed Moqbel for “committing violations in the file of appointments” and “usurping the role of the cabinet,” though it was clear that no accord could be reached at the National Dialogue session nor, earlier, in the cabinet. In fact, Bassil’s theatrical assaults on Prime Minister Tammam Salam in early July 2015 seemed to have backfired, although press reports hinted that the FPM was out-maneuvered by several parties, including the ministerial bloc loyal to former President Michel Suleiman, for the deadlock on military promotions. Suleiman never forgave Aoun for paralyzing the country after his term of office ended on May 24, 2014, and concluded that the FPM will have to be defeated along constitutional lines, which is what he seems to have done. The Qobayati appointment, if confirmed, would mean that the Lebanese Armed Forces would be spared political mud.  Within the parameters of military advancements, the Colonel earned his promotion, which was a confirmation that the army was relatively intact.
In fact, Qobayati was a veteran of the Abra battles near Sidon in June 2013 and was wounded in the Nahr al-Bared confrontations in August 2007.He ranked above Roukoz and was not the subject of any favouritism. Defeated, Bassil vowed to resort to the street yet once again, as he touted the FPM’s Sunday October 11 massive rally outside the presidential palace in Baabda as an answer to detractors.  The Minister of Foreign Affairs noted that the FPM aimed at “reviving the scene of the struggle movement that we were raised on,” although few of the protestors on Thursday near Downtown Beirut hailed him or the FPM. On the contrary, many carried posters denigrating his performance when he presided over the Ministry of Energy and Water as Lebanon continued to suffer from massive electricity shortages despite the billions spent to upgrade power plants. Many were adamant that the ruling elite was oblivious to what people needed, with a few carrying signs that read: “Remove the garbage that has been accumulating outside our homes.”Protesters demanded that Beirut quickly release necessary funds to municipalities, so that most can activate the waste sorting plants in various regions.
Dejected, environmentalists feared that the procrastination would soon degenerate to the point where garbage as well as sewage will simply overflow into the sea from riverbeds as winter rains return. Many lamented that Lebanon’s chronically divided political class was incapable to reach any kind of agreement over mundane concerns, as most were preoccupied with settling scores, pushing skewed agendas, seeking military promotions, and arguing over the identity of the next head-of-state, while the country slumbered into decay.

Pope Deplores 'Escalation of Violence' in Mideast, Urges Action
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 09/15/Pope Francis on Friday deplored the "escalation of violence affecting innocent civilians" in the Middle East, from Syria to Iraq, Jerusalem and the West Bank, and urged the international community to act. Addressing a global Church summit on the family at the Vatican, Francis said he was praying for those caught up in conflicts across the region which "bring destruction and multiply people's suffering". "We are following with great concern what is happening in Syria, Iraq, Jerusalem and the West Bank, where we are seeing an escalation of violence that involves innocent civilians and continues to fuel a humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions," the pope said. He followed with an "urgent appeal to the international community to find a way to effectively assist the parties concerned and expand their horizons beyond their immediate interests". The Islamic State controls large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, where it is targeted by a U.S.-led airstrike coalition. What to do about war-torn Syria in particular has sparked a diplomatic crisis between the West and Russia. Western nations are critical of Moscow's military intervention, accusing it of seeking to prop up President Bashar al-Assad rather than tackle Islamic State jihadists operating there. French President Francois Hollande warned Wednesday that a failure by the international community to act in Syria risked stoking a "total war" in the Middle East. And in Israel and the West Bank, fresh unrest has sparked fears that a third Palestinian uprising, or intifada, could erupt.

Israelis Worried but Defiant amid Wave of Stabbings
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 09/15/Israelis are deeply unnerved in the midst of a spate of stabbings that have brought back memories of previous Palestinian uprisings, but say they are ready to "confront" any attacker. Those who witnessed the 1987 and 2000 intifadas especially are reverting to making mental lists of places to avoid and basic safety habits.These Palestinian uprisings against the Israeli occupation of their territories were marked by deadly shootings and suicide attacks. On Thursday in Tel Aviv, in front of the HaHagana train station, many young soldiers quicken their pace, choosing to walk along the wall not the main road. They know they are easy targets in this open area where a young conscript was stabbed last year. "It's us the terrorists track down first," said one soldier, nervously keeping an eye on his surroundings while smoking a cigarette in front of the station.
"We've received advice to be vigilant -- especially for those who, like me, are not armed," he added. Four stabbings wounded Israelis on Thursday and one of the assailants was killed, police said. Another Israeli, 22-year-old settler Ishay Kaplan, traveled with to Tel Aviv from his home in the occupied West Bank by hitchhiking and taking a bus and then train with his firearm visible under his T-shirt.
"Just in case," he told AFP.
Kaplan said he saw a video showing a Palestinian attempting to stab an ultra-Orthodox Jew at a bus stop in a Tel Aviv neighborhood on Saturday. Bystanders neutralized the attacker despite some in the crowd calling for him to be killed. "Some fled, others threw themselves on top of him," said the young settler. "I can tell you that I'll know what to do" if needed, he said. During the second intifada, suicide attacks against buses and restaurants were usually followed by long seconds of stunned, helpless silence. But today Israelis, mobile phones at hand to film and personal or service weapons on hip, are ready to take on any attackers, who recently have mostly been young Palestinians with knives. The Israeli authorities are encouraging this type of vigilante justice. The mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, has gone as far as to encourage residents who own guns to carry them around with them. Possessing weapons increases the confidence of residents," he said on Monday as he toured occupied and annexed east Jerusalem, his own gun in full sight. "They will increase the likelihood of fast intervention."Israel considers Jerusalem as its indivisible capital, while Palestinians want to establish the capital of their future state in the eastern side of the city.
Many Jerusalem residents have started to scan their surroundings with suspicion as violence has escalated in Jerusalem and the West Bank in the past week. Security checks have been stepped up in public areas, especially at bus and train stations where security guards now ask for identification.
The authorities have started to install metal detectors at entrances to the religious and historical center of the Old City of Jerusalem. In another sign of the underlying worry, the US consulate in Jerusalem has banned its employees from traveling to the Old City or the occupied West Bank. The French foreign ministry has called for "utmost caution".

6 Palestinian Protesters Killed on Gaza Border as Haniyeh Hails New 'Intifada'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 09/15/Israeli fire killed six Palestinians and wounded scores during clashes Friday near Gaza's border, the first unrest-related deaths there after days of violence in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, medics said. The clashes came as Hamas' chief in Gaza called violence that has hit the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem an intifada, or uprising, and urged further unrest. Ahmed al-Hirbawi, Shadi Dawla, Abed al-Wahidi and Nabil Sharaf, all aged 20, were killed when soldiers responded after youths threw stones at them on the Israel side of their common border east of Khan Yunis, Gaza medics said. Mohammed al-Raqab, 15, and Adnan Abu Alian, 20, were killed in similar clashes east of Gaza City. Medics said another 80 Palestinians were wounded, 10 of them seriously. An army spokeswoman said about 200 Palestinians had approached the fence while hurling rocks and rolling burning tires toward security forces. "Forces on the site responded with fire toward the main instigators to prevent their progress and disperse the riot," she said. The spokeswoman confirmed “five hits” without elaborating. In a sermon for weekly Muslim prayers at a mosque in Gaza City, Hamas' Gaza chief Ismail Haniyeh said "we are calling for the strengthening and increasing of the intifada.""It is the only path that will lead to liberation," he said. "Gaza will fulfill its role in the Jerusalem intifada and it is more than ready for confrontation."Stabbing attacks in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Israel itself along with rioting have raised fears of a third Palestinian intifada, following a first that began in 1987 and a second in 2000. The two conflicts cost the lives of some 5,000 Palestinians and around 1,100 Israelis. Islamist movement Hamas rules Gaza, the enclave squeezed between Egypt and Israel and separated from the West Bank. It remains deeply divided from Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas' Fatah party. Gaza has been the site of three wars with Israel since 2008, but had remained mainly calm amid the recent unrest in the West Bank and east Jerusalem until Friday.
Last summer's 50-day war between Palestinian militants in Gaza and Israel left more than 2,200 people dead and 100,000 homeless.

Wave of Stabbings Shake Israel and West Bank
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 09/15/A fresh wave of stabbings shook Israel and the West Bank on Friday, including a suspected revenge attack by a Jewish suspect that wounded two Palestinians and two Arab Israelis. Attacks also continued against Israelis and Jews, with a Palestinian stabbing a policeman near a West Bank settlement before being shot dead by the victim, who was lightly wounded. A Jewish 16-year-old was lightly wounded in a new stabbing in Jerusalem by an 18-year-old Palestinian suspect, who was arrested. In the assault by a Jew, the assailant aged about 20 was arrested and told police he carried out the attack in the southern Israeli city of Dimona because "all Arabs are terrorists". The victims suffered light to moderate wounds. It marked the first such attack against Palestinians after at least 11 stabbings that have targeted Israelis or Jews since Saturday, killing two of them. Later, a woman was shot after a stabbing attempt in northern Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly condemned the stabbings by the Jewish suspect, a sign of concerns it could trigger further violence. Palestinians have also rioted in annexed east Jerusalem and the West Bank in recent days, with the unrest raising fears of a wider uprising or even a third intifada. Hundreds of right-wing Jewish protesters marched in Jerusalem on Thursday night, including some chanting "Death to Arabs" and "No Arabs, No Attacks". Arab Israelis are the descendants of Palestinians who remained after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and hold Israeli citizenship. Tens of thousands of Palestinians also work in Israel, particularly in construction. Friday's stabbing came as Israeli security forces sought to prevent the further spread of Palestinian unrest, with Netanyahu on Thursday night saying the country faced a mostly unorganised "wave of terror". "These actions are mostly not organised, but they are all the result of wild and untruthful incitement from Hamas, from the Palestinian Authority, from several neighbouring counties and, no less, from the Islamic Movement in Israel," he said. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has spoken out against violence and in favour of "peaceful, popular resistance," but many youths are frustrated with his leadership as well as Israel's government.
Old City tensions
Jerusalem's Old City was the site of tensions on Friday as Muslims filed toward the sensitive Al-Aqsa mosque compound for the main weekly prayers. Scuffles broke out as a group of about 50 Jews wearing skullcaps or draped in the Israeli flag walked through the mainly Muslim eastern portion of the Old City toward the Western Wall. Jews shouted "long live the Israeli people" and some of the women made obscene gestures at Muslims, who responded with shouts of "Allahu Akbar".Clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian youths have repeatedly erupted at the Al-Aqsa compound in recent weeks, and police were prohibiting men under 45 from entering the site on Friday. Such measures are often put into effect when tensions flare. The compound is the third-holiest site in Islam and the most sacred to Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount. It is located in east Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in 1967 and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community. Stabbing attacks targeting Jews began on Saturday in the Old City, when two Israelis were killed there, prompting a security crackdown. Security measures were further tightened Thursday, with six metal detectors set up in the Old City and police stationed on rooftops. The Jerusalem mayor went as far as to encourage residents who own guns to carry them around with them, even carrying one himself earlier this week while visiting a Palestinian area of the city where clashes have erupted.
Aqsa visits banned
In one step intended to calm tensions, Netanyahu has barred members of parliament and ministers from visiting the Al-Aqsa compound. Provocative visits by Israel's Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel as well as by Israeli Arab lawmakers have added to the volatility. Arab lawmakers have vowed to defy the order and plan to make a joint visit to the compound, which will test enforcement of the order. Muslims fear Israel will seek to change the longstanding rules governing the site, which allow Jews to visit but not pray to avoid provoking tensions. Netanyahu has said repeatedly he is committed to the status quo. An increase in visits by Jews during a series of Jewish holidays in recent weeks has added to tensions.

U.N. Approves EU Military Action against Migrant Smugglers
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 09/15/The U.N. Security Council on Friday approved a European military operation to seize and dispose of boats run by migrant smugglers in the Mediterranean off Libya's coast. The 15-member council adopted a resolution by a vote of 14 in favor, with Venezuela abstaining.

India Protests to Saudi after Maid's Hand Chopped Off
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 09/15/India said Friday it had lodged a protest with authorities in Riyadh after a maid from Tamil Nadu allegedly had her hand chopped off by her Saudi employer for complaining about her work conditions. India's foreign minister deplored a "brutal" attack on 55-year-old Kasthuri Munirathinam, who is being treated at a hospital in Riyadh, and which comes weeks after a Saudi diplomat based in New Delhi was accused of rape. "Chopping of (the) hand of (an) Indian lady -- we are very much disturbed over the brutal manner in which (this) Indian lady has been treated in Saudi Arabia," Sushma Swaraj said on Twitter. "This is unacceptable. We have taken this up with Saudi authorities," Swaraj added. A spokesman for the foreign ministry confirmed that Indian diplomats in Riyadh had lodged a formal complaint at the Saudi foreign ministry. Munirathinam, who comes from a village in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, had suffered a catalogue of abuse since taking up a post as a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia three months ago, according to her family. "Her right hand was chopped off by her employer when she tried to escape the daily harassment, torture and abysmal work conditions," her sister S Vijayakumari told AFP by phone from Tamil Nadu's capital Chennai. Vijayakumari said that her sister had gone to Saudi Arabia to help pay off her family's debts and she had been promised a monthly salary of around 180 dollars. "But she was not paid, she was barely given enough to eat and not even allowed to speak to her family ... Now she only wants to come home," Vijayakumari said. The family says that problems started for Munirathinam -- who was one of five domestic workers in the same household -- after she complained to the local authorities about her situation. Footage of Munirathinam lying in her Saudi hospital bed was broadcast by several Indian media outlets. Foreign ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup confirmed to AFP that Munirathinam was still recuperating in the Riyadh hospital but said that efforts were being made to bring her home. "We are in touch with the woman, hospital and the local police authorities. She will get all possible legal and other help from the embassy," Swarup said. Hundreds of thousands of Indian migrants work in households in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries but complaints about their treatment by their employers often make headlines back home. A video showing a male Indian worker being beaten by his Saudi employer went viral in September, sparking a widespread backlash on social media. There was also widespread anger last month when the first secretary at the Saudi embassy left India under diplomatic immunity after being accused of holding captive and raping two Nepalese maids in his home.

Iran Revolutionary Guards Commander Killed in Syria
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 09/15/Islamic State group jihadists have killed a senior commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guards in Syria, the elite branch of the Iranian military said Friday. General Hossein Hamedani was killed on Thursday by IS "during an advisory mission" in the northern region of Aleppo, a Guards statement said. Hamedani had been playing an "important role... reinforcing the front of Islamic resistance against the terrorists", it added. Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, described Hamedani's death as "a huge loss" in the fight against jihadist groups in Syria. Quoted by the IRNA news agency, he said the loss would be "avenged" and that this would lead to the "complete destruction" of these groups. Shiite-dominated Iran is a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad, sending Guards forces and military advisers to aid him against Sunni Muslim rebels seeking his overthrow. Lebanon's Shiite militia Hezbollah has done much of the fighting to prop up the Syrian army, though the commander of the Revolutionary Guards' foreign wing, Qassem Soleimani, is said to be heavily involved in guiding military strategy.

First Asylum Seekers Leave Italy Under EU Relocation Plan
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 09/15/A small group of Eritreans left Italy for Sweden on Friday, the first contingent of asylum seekers to be relocated under a much-contested European Union scheme to ease the burden of the migration crisis on frontline countries. Grinning shyly before the media, 19 young Eritreans -- five women and 14 men -- waved and blew kisses as they boarded a small propeller plane at Rome's Ciampino airport after hugging members of the Red Cross and U.N. Refugee agency goodbye.
"Today is an important day for the European Union, it is a day of victory... for those who believe in Europe, for those who believed in saving human lives," Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told journalists after the departure.
"It is a defeat for those who claim it is better for the Mediterranean to become a lake of death... and believe that scaring the European people is the way forward," he added. The scheme follows months of tensions over the more than 600,000 people who have flooded into Europe this year. EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and Luxembourg minister Jean Asselborn, whose country holds the EU presidency, were in Rome to launch the relocation of 160,000 refugees from Italy and Greece to other member states in the 28-nation bloc over the next two years. The plan, which hopes to help ease the bloc's worst migration crisis since World War II, was only given the green light after Brussels flatly overruled stiff opposition from Eastern European nations. "This is a tangible example of what we can do when we work together. We are nations of immigrants and we've made an important step forwards," Avramopoulos said, adding that it showed "Italy is not alone".
Alfano said Italy was ready to relocate 100 more asylum seekers who would go to Germany and the Netherlands, and the UNHCR said further relocations would take place from Italy at the beginning of next week. "This is a significant day, a positive and important one," the U.N. refugee agency's southern Europe spokeswoman, Carlotta Sami, told AFP. "But we know more must be done. There is a great need for measures to be put in place to allow (asylum seekers) to arrive in Europe safely," she said, referring to perilous boat crossings in the Mediterranean which have cost over 3,000 people their lives this year alone as many flee wars and persecution.
A baby thought to be about a year old was the latest victim, drowning off the Greek island of Lesbos during the night when a dinghy carrying about 55 Syrians from Turkey began sinking in the dark, Greece's ministry of shipping said Friday. A U.N. report in June detailed how Eritrea, under Isaias Afwerki's iron-fisted regime for the past 22 years, has created a repressive system in which people are routinely arrested on a whim, detained, tortured, killed or disappeared.
Despite the fanfare for a fresh start for these Eritreans, critics questioned how much of a difference the scheme would make if such a low number of asylum seekers are transferred at a time, while arrival numbers increase. The International Organization for Migration said Friday that there had been a sharp increase in the number of migrants arriving in Greece, to some 7,000 a day, up from 4,500 per day at the end of September. Spokesman Joel Millman said it appeared the rush "may be due to expected worsening weather conditions". UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the scheme would have "a slow start, but it should accelerate", adding that the agency hoped departures would soon begin from Greece as well. The Eritreans relocated Friday had been rescued on the high seas over the past few weeks and taken to an experimental migrant screening center or "hotspot" on Lampedusa island, where they were registered. Avramopoulos and Asselborn were expected to travel to the Italian island later Friday to visit the center, a prototype for several set to open at the end of November across Italy and Greece. On Thursday, EU nations agreed to speed up the deportation of failed asylum seekers and crack down on so-called "economic migrants" -- who are largely from poor African nations and not refugees from conflict zones. The EU hopes the closed centers will sharply reducing the number of people who arrive by boat, refuse to be identified and head off across the borders to other bloc countries to seek a new life. The centers and relocations are part of a multi-point EU plan which includes a military anti-people trafficker operation. The U.N.'s Security Council is set to vote Friday on a draft resolution to authorize military action against smugglers under the bloc's Operation Sophia, which launched this week to seize traffickers' boats in international waters. While the vote is not necessary for the EU to take action, the measure would legitimize plans under which European naval forces are tasked with boarding, inspecting and confiscating ships and even disposing of those used by migrant smugglers.

Berlin, Madrid Urge U.S., Russia to Cooperate to End Syria Conflict
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 09/15/Germany and Spain on Friday urged Washington and Moscow to work together to help unlock a political solution to the Syrian war, after Russian air strikes there raised tensions. "The current priority is to seek agreement between the United States and Russia," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Madrid. "We will not manage to launch a political process (in Syria) while the two great world powers are in disagreement," he told a news conference alongside Spanish counterpart Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo. "Despite the current military action in Syria, it seems to me that the United States and Russia still have common interests and I implore them to keep talking to each other." Steinmeier said negotiations to end the Syrian war should aim to preserve territorial integrity, set up a secular state with respect for religious minorities and establish a transitional government while remnants of the country's institutions still survive. Russia has been carrying out air strikes since September 30 which it says are hitting "terrorist" targets in Syria such as the armed extremist group Islamic State. The United States and its allies say however that Russia has also been targeting other groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad, which they say strengthens his regime. Garcia-Margallo said "all actors" concerned by the Syrian conflict should work together. "It is important that Turkey and Saudi Arabia on the one hand, and Iran on the other, collaborate, and it is important to look for ways for Russia and the United States to cooperate to fight the enemy," he said. "The German and Spanish governments agree that Assad cannot be part of the definitive solution, given his criminal record." Syria's civil war has killed more than 240,000 people since 2011 and has displaced millions.

Russia Says Hit 60 'Terrorist Targets' in New Syria Strikes
Naharnet/October 09/15/Russia's air force hit more than 60 "terrorist targets" in Syria over the past 24 hours, Moscow's military said Friday, significantly ramping up its bombing campaign in the war-torn country. "Sixty-seven sorties have been carried out from the Hmeimim air base" in Syria, the deputy head of the Russian General Staff, Lieutenant General Igor Makushev, told reporters. "Su-34M and Su-24SM warplanes hit 60 terrorist targets," he added. According to intercepted radio communications, two high-ranking Islamic State field commanders and several hundred militants were killed, the Russian military said. Last week, Moscow made a dramatic entry in the multi-front conflict in its Soviet-era ally Syria, saying it needed to stop Islamic State jihadists before they cross into Russia, which has a large Muslim minority. Washington and its allies have said Moscow has also been targeting Western-backed moderate rebel groups as it supports an offensive by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad. Makushev said militants "have sustained significant casualties and been forced to change their tactics," seeking refuge in towns and villages, stressing that Moscow would increase the intensity of the strikes. The defense ministry had said earlier that 27 "terrorist" targets have been hit on Thursday. On Wednesday, Russian warships from the Caspian Sea fleet joined in the strikes with a volley of cruise missiles, the first time Moscow has used cruise missiles. Makushev said Russia has been bombing command posts and communication centers, ammunition depots as well as training camps in Raqa, Latakia, Hama, Idlib and Aleppo. Russia said its warplanes also dropped precision guided bombs on a command post in IS stronghold Raqa, killing two senior IS field commanders and some 200 fighters. The strikes also destroyed six command posts and communication centers, six ammunition depots, 17 training camps, three underground targets in Latakia, two multiple artillery rocket systems and 17 vehicles and armored vehicles, among other targets, the military said. "In the vicinity of Aleppo, a strike hit a militants' base and ammunition depot set up in the building of a former prison," Makushev. "As a result, some 100 militants and an ammunition depot have been destroyed." Despite the Russian action, the Islamic State group advanced Friday to the outskirts of Aleppo in an offensive that also took the jihadists to within a few kilometers (miles) of regime troops defending the city, said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

How Obama Lost Afghanistan
Vijeta Uniyal/ Gatestone Institute/October 09/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6659/obama-lost-afghanistan
The Taliban seems to have correctly assessed the lack of resolve of the current U.S. leadership and have evidently decided to go for all of Afghanistan.
What is visible to everyone except Obama is that this "weak" Putin continues to outflank the U.S. in Ukraine, Crimea and now Syria. The U.S. Commander-in-Chief has failed to show the fortitude required from the leader of the free world.
President Obama reportedly offered to strong-arm India into making concessions on Kashmir. According to Pakistan's former Ambassador to the U.S., Obama secretly wrote to Pakistan's President in 2009, sympathizing with Pakistan's stand on Kashmir, and apparently offering to tell India that "the old ways of doing business are no longer acceptable."
The results of a Taliban reconquest of Afghanistan would be even more disastrous than its previous reign of terror. The Taliban would not only resume sending trained jihadists across Pakistan's border to wage war on "infidels" in India, they would also carry out their declared objective of global jihad against the West.
With Europe's borders now wide open, the West is more vulnerable than ever.
The U.S. President who gave up Syria and Yemen without a fight is now leading a half-hearted counteroffensive in Afghanistan. The Taliban seems to have correctly assessed the lack of resolve of the current U.S. leadership, and has evidently decided to retake all of Afghanistan.
In his first presidential campaign of 2008, then-Senator Obama called U.S. engagement in Iraq the "bad war," and instead wanted his country to focus on Afghanistan -- his "good war."
But after U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq in 2011, large parts of Iraq fell under the control of the Islamic State (ISIS), while the remaining part came under the influence of Iran.
So how is President Obama's "good war" in Afghanistan going?
On September 29, 2015, Taliban fighters overran Kunduz, a provincial capital. The takeover created the biggest victory for the Taliban since 2001, when an American-led coalition drove the Taliban regime out of power, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in New York.
Since its ouster, the Taliban have been lurking in tribal regions, and launching sporadic terrorist attacks in the cities. But the Taliban had never succeeding in retaking a population center. With the fall of Kunduz, the Taliban now controls the fifth-largest city in Afghanistan.
Taliban militiamen sit atop a US-supplied Humvee that they captured from the Afghan Army, after their conquest of Kunduz last week. (Image source: Al Jazeera video screenshot).
On September 29, Taliban forces launched a coordinated attack on Kunduz from three directions. The Afghan Army failed to offer any significant resistance, and rushed for cover at the city's airport. Apparently, the Afghan soldiers were hoping for aerial reinforcements from US-led coalition forces. Afghanistan's Interior Ministry spokesman, Sediq Sediqqi, confirmed that the city of Kunduz had fallen into "the hands of the enemies."
Despite heavy U.S. airstrikes, the Taliban are evidently well dug in, indicating that the terror militia intends to hold onto its recent territorial gains and has no intention of retreating. Clearly, this Taliban is not the hit-and-run group of yesteryear. It seems to be a reinvigorated Islamist force, bent on conquest, and ready to challenge the U.S. and coalition forces.
Although the Afghan Army, directed by President Ashraf Ghani's government in Kabul, has failed to mount a counteroffensive against advancing Taliban forces, the blame for the wider military and geopolitical disaster probably deserves to go to Obama.
President Obama never fails to remind the world that he commands "the strongest military that the world has ever known," and indeed the strength of U.S. military and the courage of its brave men and women are beyond question. But the Commander-in-Chief has failed to show the fortitude required from the leader of the free world.
Additionally, Obama seems to have established a pattern of underestimating America's adversaries. He famously called ISIS a "jay-vee team," and recently stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin went into Syria "out of weakness." But what is visible to everyone except Obama is that this "weak" Putin has been outflanking the United States in Ukraine, Crimea and now Syria. It is Obama who seems weak.
As with his approach elsewhere, Obama has been alienating allies and strengthening foes.
In an apparent attempt to persuade Pakistan to stop supporting Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, President Obama offered to strong-arm India into making concessions on Kashmir. According to Pakistan's former Ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani, President Obama secretly wrote to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in 2009, sympathizing with Pakistan's stand on Kashmir and apparently offering to tell India that "the old ways of doing business are no longer acceptable."
According to the Haqqani's account, made public in 2013, Pakistan, the recipient of billions of dollars of U.S. financial aid annually, rejected President Obama's offer. Instead, Pakistan continued to train, arm and shelter international terrorists -- including Osama bin Laden. Many of these terrorists directly planned and carried out operations that killed nearly 2,000 U.S. service personnel and wounding 20,000 more.
President Obama thereby alienated India while getting nothing in return from Pakistan.
India would not have need much convincing to back the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. New Delhi shared Kabul's concerns over rising Islamic militancy in the region. India also faces an existential threat from Islamic militancy in the Muslim-majority Kashmir province and beyond. Since mid-1990s, more than 30,000 Indian civilians and security personnel have been killed in terrorist attacks.
President Obama, while visiting India, apparently preferred to play the "travelling salesman" for the religion of Islam, repeatedly smacking Hindus for being intolerant to India's Muslim minority, negating what has appeared the attempted genocide and ethnic cleansing of Hindus that began 70 years ago with the creation of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and continues to this day. Not only were millions of Hindus forced out of Pakistan when the two countries were created in 1947, but nearly all the remaining Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) were expelled or murdered during the following decades. The ethnic cleansing culminated in the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971, perpetrated by Pakistan Army. It killed some three million ethnic Hindus and Bangladeshis, and forced more than 10 million refugees to flee into India. By contrast, the Muslim population in India has grown from 35 million in the early 1950s to about 180 million in 2015, making India home to the world's second-largest Muslim population, second only to Indonesia.
The Taliban's offensive in Afghanistan is the direct result of the Obama Administration's consistent policy of alienating friends and emboldening enemies. Be it Israel, Iran, Egypt or Afghanistan, President Obama has evidently preferred dealing with Islamist and jihadist actors, rather than with liberal, secular democratic forces.
The results of a Taliban reconquest of Afghanistan would be even more disastrous than its previous reign of terror. The Taliban would not only resume sending trained jihadists across Pakistan's border to wage war on "infidels" in India; it would also carry out its declared objective of global jihad against the West. With Europe's borders now wide open, the West is more vulnerable than ever.
**Vijeta Uniyal is an Indian current affairs analyst based in Europe.

First Step to Resolve the Palestinian Problem: Eliminate UNRWA/Part One
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/October 09/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6371/eliminate-unrwa
Adnan Abu Hasna, an UNRWA spokesman, suggested that donor countries, instead of contributions, should be charged a compulsory annual fee.
The desire of the Palestinian political class is to preserve the refugee problem at all costs, and not to resolve it in any just way -- not in the Arab states and not in the Palestinian state that will be established next to Israel.
It is therefore clear that the Palestinians refuse to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, and are not willing to agree to the return of the refugees to the Palestinian state; their only objective is to destroy and displace Israel.
If Israel is genuinely an "apartheid state," why do its people accept Arabs as citizens, while our racist brother Arabs refuse to?
Does anyone really think the Jews so stupid as to believe that we Arabs, who slaughter one another without giving it a second thought, will be particularly generous towards them if we succeed in realizing the right of return to Palestine?
After the senseless agreement the world powers signed with Iran -- an agreement that endangers Arab and Jew alike -- we have to say plainly that the EU's demands on Israel to sign a delusional peace agreement, which would only serve to endanger its existence, are hypocritical at best, and that it is only natural that Israel would refuse.
The only way to solve the problem of the Palestinian refugees is to eliminate the toxic UNRWA, which keeps poisoning the minds of our children with a hate leading to violence; for Arab states to award citizenship to the Palestinians who have been living there for decades anyhow; and to establish a totally demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel.
At the beginning of August 2015, officials at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) announced they would be forced to make significant spending cuts because of a $101 million budget deficit.
Adnan Abu Hasna, an UNRWA spokesman, claimed on Al-Jazeera at the beginning of August that the cut would make it difficult to fulfill UNRWA's mission, despite the deficit being only 17% of the agency's total budget.
Abu Hasna protested that UNRWA functioned to resolve the problem of the Palestinian refugees. UNRWA, he claimed, symbolically embodied the international community's commitment to the Palestinian cause and the return to Palestine.
Abu Hasna admitted that UNRWA is corrupt, but warned that lowering its financial support, which would mean a cut of millions of dollars, would be a blow to 5.5 million Palestinians, including half a million school children (to whose schooling 80% of the agency's expenses were dedicated).
Arab states have contributed generously to construction projects for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but are not willing to invest in helping the Palestinians themselves. This view often borders on contempt, Abu Hasna charged, because the annual contribution of some Arab states was a mere $1000 per capita. He also claimed that because UNRWA's budget was not balanced every year, agency officials were never sure if they would be able to fulfill their obligations. He therefore suggested that donor countries, instead of contributions, should be charged a compulsory annual fee.
Salman Abu Sitta, director of the London-based Palestine Land Society, participated in the same Al-Jazeera interview. He alleged that UNRWA's economic and political problems were a deliberate attempt to destroy the agency, which is all that is left of UN Resolution 194 (regarding the return of the Palestinians to Palestine). He stressed, in accordance with an Arabic principle of tawteen, that there would be no granting Palestinian refugees citizenship in the Arab countries in which they reside. Abu Sitta claimed that Israel was behind a plot to destroy UNRWA, and was the obstacle to realizing the "right of return" to the Palestinian territories by using the "Jewish lobby" in the United States to exert pressure on UNRWA to close its doors. He also claimed that even though the U.S. provided most of UNRWA's budget, it, too, was party to the plot. He said that America's annual allotment to Israel was $1000 per capita, but only $75 to the Palestinians. He demanded the establishment of a Palestinian body which would demand the Palestinian right of return, and publicize the failure of the Western states that contributed very little but supported the State of Israel, in order to embarrass them.
Abu Sitta ignored the question of the continued existence of the State of Israel and said that the return of the Palestinians to their land was a legitimate solution, one that was "the most assured, unique, easy to accomplish and cheap." The countries of the world had previously been committed to the "return," he continued, but had now altered their positions and belonged to the "Zionist plot" to destroy the Palestinian cause. The problem was not financial, he asserted, but rather one of honoring the commitments of the UN. Resolution 194 dealt with the return of the Palestinian refugees to their homes and it was the responsibility of the world to finance them.
Ann Dismorr (right), the Director of UNRWA in Lebanon, poses with a map that erases the State of Israel and presents all of it as "Palestine." (Image source: Palestinian Authority TV via Palestinian Media Watch)
Before the interview, there was a stormy argument, also on al-Jazeera, between two Palestinian intellectuals, Dr. Hussein Ali Shaaban, who supported the Palestinian Authority, and Dr. Ibrahim Hamami, a physician, who supported Hamas. The issue was the granting of passports [that is, citizenship] to Palestinian refugees in Arab states. Dr. Shaaban was of the opinion that if the Arab states absorbed the Palestinians as citizens with equal rights and responsibilities, it would not negatively affect their right to return to Palestine, that is, cities in Israel such as Haifa, Jaffa, Acre and Safed. It would only serve to make their lives easier during their dispersal. Dr. Hamami objected on the grounds that if the Palestinians became equal citizens in the Arab states, their Palestinian identities would melt away and the refugee problem would be solved without their return to the territory of the "Zionist entity," which was absolutely necessary.
The argument, like the discussion of the UNRWA budget cuts, clearly reflects the desire of the Palestinian political class to preserve the refugee problem at all costs, and not to resolve it in any just way -- not in the Arab states, and not in the Palestinian state that will be established next to Israel.
This argument reflects only a desire to cling to the loopy demand to return to the territory of the State of Israel, while it completely ignores the Jews' discourteous refusal to commit suicide.
Thus, the continued operation of UNRWA means perpetuating the refugee problem, the conflict between the Palestinians and the Jews, and the vanishing prospects for peace.
Others have also weighed in. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum claimed that the international community was using financial excuses to eliminate the Palestinian cause. Palestinian sources claimed the topic was a political game, in which UNRWA was being used as a pawn to sweep the Palestinian issue under the carpet and ignore the "right of return." Ahmed Bahar, head of Hamas's legislative council, also claimed that the Gaza Strip was "set to explode," and that the steps being taken by UNRWA were "a dangerous blow to the Gaza Strip with far-reaching political implications." He also claimed that UNRWA's steps were a clear violation of UN resolutions, the UN charter, agreements concerning refugee status and international law. He warned the donor states of the negative consequences of cutting back on UNRWA's activities.
Dr. Fayiz Abu Shamala, writing in mid-August in "Filastin Line," claimed that a plot to close UNRWA meant the end of the Palestinian issue, and that millions of Palestinian refugees had to march into Zionist-occupied Palestine to destroy it.
It is therefore clear that the Palestinians refuse to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, and are not willing to agree to the return of the refugees to a Palestinian state; their only objective is to destroy and displace the country next door.
Unfortunately, that underlying objective, common to most Palestinians and Europeans, is also perfectly clear to the Israelis. But the Israelis ignore the Palestinians as though they do not exist as anything more than inconvenient numbers. If Israel is genuinely an apartheid state, however, why do its people accept 1.7 million Arabs as citizens, while our racist brother Arabs refuse to?
Does anyone really think the Jews are so stupid as to believe that we, the Arabs who slaughter one another without giving it a second thought, will be particularly generous towards them if we succeed in realizing the right of return to Palestine?
After the senseless agreement the world powers signed with Iran -- an agreement that endangers Arab and Jew alike -- we have to say plainly that the EU's demands on Israel to sign a delusional peace agreement that would only serve to endanger its existence -- are hypocritical at best, and that it is only rational that Israel would refuse.
The only way to solve the problem of the Palestinian refugees is to eliminate the toxic UNRWA, which keeps poisoning the minds of our children with a hate leading to violence; for Arab states to award citizenship to the Palestinians who have been living there for decades anyhow; and to establish a totally demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel.
**Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.

Russia's Cruise Missiles Raise the Stakes in the Caspian
Farzin Nadimi/Washington Institute/October 09/15
The missile strikes on targets in Syria showed unprecedented cooperation between Russia and Iran, but they also serve as a wakeup call to Tehran about Moscow's expanding military profile in the Caspian.
On October 7, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that its warships had fired twenty-six cruise missiles from the central Caspian Sea at eleven targets (reportedly ISIS elements) in Raqqa, Idlib, and Aleppo, about 1,500 kilometers away and deep within Syrian territory. The incident established two precedents that could hold wider implications for the war and the regional security situation in general: it is the first time in modern history that shots have been fired in anger from the Caspian Basin, and it also marks the first use of cruise missiles in the Syrian war.
The missiles were fired by the Russian navy's Caspian Flotilla, created almost three centuries ago by Peter the Great. Among the flotilla's warships are one Gepard-class (Project 11661K) frigate (the Dagestan, hull number 693) and three Buyan-M class corvettes (Grad Sviyazhsk 021, Uglich 022, and Veliki Ustyug 106). Each has eight vertical launching system (VLS) cells capable of firing 3M-14T Kalibr NK (Klub-N) land-attack cruise missiles with a maximum range of 2,500 kilometers. This gives Russia the capability to fire up to thirty-two such missiles from the Caspian in quick succession. It also suggests that as many as six missiles might have failed to reach their targets on Wednesday -- a speculation confirmed by the latest Pentagon revelation and by local Iranian media reports that at least four missiles had crashed in Iran, with their wreckage recovered by Iranian authorities.
On their way to their targets in Syria, the missiles flew over northwestern Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan, reportedly sticking to uninhabited territory. Moscow sought permission from each country before firing; the Defense Ministry stated that the operation was coordinated with allies, and that targeting intelligence was provided by "satellites, drones, local sources, Iraq, and Iran."
Compared to weapons previously used in Syria, the Russian cruise missiles offer extensive explosive power -- almost 26,000 pounds/11,700 kilograms when combining the total weight of the warheads -- with great accuracy and low risk to operators. Yet in this case it remains to be seen whether any civilian collateral damage was caused.
The 3M-14T spends most of its flight path at subsonic speeds around 15 meters above the surface, and makes a supersonic dash to the target in its final phase. It is guided using inertial and satellite (GLONASS and GPS) navigation, with an active radar seeker taking over at 20 kilometers from the target if it has sufficient radar contrast. Russian Defense Ministry sources claimed that targets were struck with an accuracy of 3 to 5 meters.
While the operation shows an unprecedented level of military cooperation between Iran and Russia in their fight to sustain Bashar al-Assad, it also shows shifting geopolitical fault lines in the wider region. As recently as 2011, Russia and Kazakhstan were conducting exercises aimed at defending their joint Caspian interests against potential Iranian attacks. Wednesday's strikes are also a wakeup call for Iran, showing that Russia has raised the stakes in the Caspian and now has proven long-range land-attack systems that can reach anywhere in Iran or the Persian Gulf. This could prompt Tehran to place its own Soumar cruise missiles (with similar range) on its Caspian shores, or even mount them on newer warships planned to be built at the Anzali shipyard, further increasing the regional arms race. Given Russia's use of the Caspian in such a high-profile military operation, and its willingness to keep substantial military assets there, Iran may decide that it needs to deploy more of its own assets to the area as well. Moscow has never allowed Iran to transfer naval vessels to its 4th Naval District's Caspian bases using the Volga-Don Shipping Canal, which passes through Russian territory. This prohibition has prompted Iran to build missile boats and frigates directly on the Caspian coast.
More broadly, while Iran and Russia have cooperated in the past to curb the U.S. and NATO presence in the region, Iran has also been wary of an increased Russian military presence there -- though it has been careful not to voice such concerns publicly. In the past, Iran's official position was that deploying military forces in the Caspian would be unconstructive to regional security and the common interests of the littoral states, which have yet to agree on a legal regime delimiting their maritime boundaries.
**Farzin Nadimi is a Washington-based analyst specializing in the security and defense affairs of Iran and the Persian Gulf region.

Russia Pursues a New Baghdad Pact
Ehud Yaari/Times of Israel/October 09/15
Putin's latest Middle Eastern moves are aimed not so much at expanding his front line of tensions with the West, but rather at making a deal by proving that he has acquired a lot of cards in the region.
President Putin has sent his crack military troops to Syria with a much broader set of objectives in mind than preventing the downfall of President Assad. The Russians have no illusions that they can put an end to the horrific bloodletting in Syria. They know the country well, especially what remains of its army. They have no intentions of taking the risk of sinking into the civil war quagmire, as President Obama predicted they would, because they are not planning on introducing ground troops to the battlefields there.
In fact, Putin has embarked upon a very ambitious endeavor to turn the page on the painful (for him) expulsion of the Soviet Union from Egypt orchestrated by Dr. Henry Kissinger and executed by President Sadat in the early seventies. Since that point, the Kremlin has been relegated to a secondary role -- if any -- in the region, restricted to maintaining some degree of influence in countries such as Syria, Libya and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. However, Putin feels that the void created by the current US administration in the turbulent Middle East clearly invites him to play his hand. Although he probably can invest only limited resources in his new project, bearing in mind Russia's severe economic difficulties and the steady decline of its military capabilities, Putin is bent on trying to establish a Russian sponsored new version of the old Baghdad Pact as the core anchor of the emerging Middle East.
In 1955, Great Britain -- still aspiring to exercise dominant influence in its former empire -- enlisted Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq and Jordan into what was planned to become a solid alliance that would cement the links between the Middle East and the West. The Baghdad Pact encountered stiff Soviet opposition over the years and was finally dissolved in 1979. Now Putin is seeking to forge a similar alliance, although he is not necessarily interested in a formal treaty, consisting of Iran, Iraq and Syria complemented by increasing separate cooperation between Moscow and General Sisi's Egypt, which publicly supports the Russian intervention in Syria, and the Kurds, who the Russians are urging to attack ISIL's de facto capital in Raqqa. The Russian planners have even allocated a role for Israel in their effort to redesign the political landscape: They are offering to buy a substantial chunk of Israel's newly discovered gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean, largely owned by Noble Energy of Texas, and provide military guarantees against attacks on the offshore installations by Hezbollah, which is already equipped with Russian-made 300 km-range Yakhont surface-to-sea missiles. "Gazpromistan," as energy experts often refer to Russia, is also proposing to take care of exporting the gas to Europe.
The first move Putin undertook after deploying his front line aircraft to the Bassel Al-Assad air base near Latakia was to offer to expand his air campaign to neighboring Iraq. Whereas in Syria the Russians do not focus on targeting ISIL, they have promised to do so in Iraq, and Prime Minister Abadi, disappointed with the American performance so far, is proving receptive. It won't be long before Putin probes whether the Iraqis would be willing to grant him an airbase in their territory. Tallil Air Base, operated by the Americans until 2011, would be perhaps the most likely choice.
Iran is already concluding huge commercial deals with Russia, including for transfer of space technology, and is promised to benefit later on -- once sanctions relief takes effect -- from expensive arms deals with Russia to modernize its outdated air force and tank fleet. Those in Washington who predicted an era of growing tacit cooperation between the US and Iran following the nuclear deal, mainly in combating ISIL, have to wake up to a reality in which Tehran has chosen closer collaboration with Putin.
Yet the Iranians are also harboring increasing suspicions of Putin's intentions. They recognize that Moscow is not committed in any way to the long-term preservation of the Assad regime, and their priorities in Iraq do not automatically match those of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Assad's entourage is already expressing concern over Russian references to a possible compromise in Syria and the inauguration of a transitional government. And for their part, the Iranians are worried that Putin would prefer at the end of the day to seek an accommodation with whoever arrives next at the White House towards a sort of joint management of the chaotic region. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, in particular, view the Russians not only as partners (in Syria) but also as competitors for eventual control over the land corridor they dream of establishing between Iran and the Mediterranean coast, stretching from the Shiite provinces of Iraq through the Sunni al-Anbar desert province they hope to subdue and on to the Euphrates Valley in Syria and further west.
It goes without saying that Putin is also motivated by the fear of instability amongst the large Muslim communities of the Upper Volga and the Caucasus. He is also concerned about the significant penetration of ISIL into the Central Asian Muslim republics. He knows what Obama tends to ignore: the Middle East needs to be handled with care but not to be neglected. Putin is positioning himself to play an influential role in the Middle East, not in order to expand his frontline of tensions with the West but rather in the hope of making a deal by proving that he has acquired a lot of cards in the region. He has in mind some type of parity partnership in overlooking the dangers of an explosive neighborhood. It is to his credit that he is offering a comprehensive strategy for how to confront ISIL and restrain Iran and its proxies. However this strategy is based on allowing Iran to continue its pursuit of a hegemonic role, under Russian "adult supervision," while weakening the US influence throughout the entire area all the way to the Persian Gulf.
**Ehud Yaari is a Lafer International Fellow with The Washington Institute and a Middle East commentator for Israel's Channel Two television.

Iran's Post-Deal Economic Stagnation Challenges Rouhani
Patrick Clawson/Washington Institute/October 09/15
The Iranian president has taken steps to limit his vulnerability to a plodding recovery, but over time a failure of sanctions relief to bring about dramatic economic improvements could harm his political outlook.
On October 5, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) highlighted Iran's weak present economic situation. International and U.S. sanctions on Iran remain little changed until "Implementation Day," which is some months off. The oil price drop may well cost Iran more income than it will earn from sanctions relief. This makes for a challenging political environment for President Hassan Rouhani.
Weak Economic Results Post-Nuclear Deal
The IMF press release quotes Martin Cerisola, who led the September 19-30 mission to Iran: "The economy is weak at present [with] significantly slowed-down economic activity since the fourth quarter of 2014/15 [i.e., January-March 2015]. The economy may have contracted during the first half of 2015/16." Such an assessment would fit with the report from the Statistical Centre of Iran that states industrial production fell 2 percent in that January-March 2015 quarter compared to a year earlier. Cerisola forecasts that if sanctions are not lifted soon, the economy could continue to shrink through March 2016.
The obvious reason the economy has not benefited from the nuclear deal is that very little sanctions relief has been provided yet. The preexisting sanctions regime remains almost entirely in place until Implementation Day, which is not until mid-2016 given its dependence on Iran completing a variety of not-necessarily-easy tasks.
Nor did the nuclear deal bring a burst of optimism from Iran's business community. The widely watched indicators of the business mood are the dollar exchange rate and the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) main index. The Lausanne agreement of April 2, 2015, caused the TSE index to jump from 61,533 to 70,844, after having been closed since March 18 for the Nowruz holiday. The index then bounced around, falling and advancing, before reaching 69,433 on July 14, the date the comprehensive nuclear deal was reached. Since then, the index has fallen steadily to 61,209, as of October 6. The prospect of a comprehensive accord would seem to have been figured into business plans before the July 14 milestone, and the index is now at pre-Lausanne levels -- and 30 percent below the 89,500 peak of January 2014, when hopes about a Rouhani boom had led to an unsustainable bubble. In short, Iranian businesspeople have reacted to the nuclear deal in a much more restrained manner than foreign -- most especially European -- businesspeople who see Tehran as a potential El Dorado.
In fact, expectations of sanctions relief have curtailed consumer spending. The most obvious case has been the auto industry, which looms as large in the Iranian economy as does its much bigger counterpart in the U.S. economy. Already, with the limited relief in the interim agreement that came into effect in January 2014, Iran's production of new cars -- known there as "zero cars," referring to zero mileage on the odometer -- rose to 1.09 million in 2014/15 from .74 million in 2013/14, although that was still well below the 1.65 million peak in 2011/12, before the full impact of sanctions had been felt. Auto producers' hopes for a further rebound have been hard hit by the "No to zero cars" campaign, which promoted a boycott of high-price, low-quality Iranian-made cars in the expectation that cheaper, better cars from Europe would soon become available. Minister of Industries and Commerce Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh responded with a statement that it was "very natural" to hope for lower car prices, but that the nuclear agreement alone couldn't spur that outcome. He also bemoaned that "home appliance sales have fallen 5 to 6 percent since the nuclear deal."
A Difficult Economic Environment
The problems facing the Iranian economy extend well beyond the delayed sanctions relief. In particular, Iran has been badly hurt by the dramatic oil price drop; the OPEC marker crude price went from $100.75 per barrel in August 2014 to $45.46 in August 2015. Since Iran's oil exports were more or less constant over that period, its oil revenue fell in half. The $55 per barrel price drop means that exports of 1.2 million barrels per day produce annually $24 billion less revenue for either the government or the government-owned oil companies. That is a real problem for a country with government expenditures of about $65 billion a year. Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has said state officials are "in tears" at each month's end as they struggle to find the $1.4 billion to make payments due each family under an Ahmadinejad-era program. Many infrastructure projects have been delayed or suspended.
Iran claims that post-Implementation Day, it will be able to ramp up oil production rapidly, with some officials speaking about an additional 500,000 barrels a day within a few months and a million within a year. Even if these claims are accurate, Iran can increase output only by making substantial investments; its production costs are not as low as those of the Arab states across the Gulf. And then there is the significant problem of the market's oversupply of oil. As Cerisola warned, "Iran's full return to the oil market could bring oil prices down further, and force additional fiscal adjustment."
The end of the global commodity boom has hit Iran in other ways. Whereas in 2014, before prices dropped more than 50 percent, Iran was the world's ninth largest iron exporter, exports in 2016 are projected to be only two-thirds that level because so many private mines are closing. By 2019, Iran may not export iron at all, according to Keyvan Jafari Tehrani of the country's Iron Ore Producers and Exporters Association. The copper industry has been similarly hurt. A rare bright spot for Iran has been this year's disastrous pistachio harvest in California, which had overtaken Iran as the world's largest producer of the nut.
The economy also suffers from holdover Ahmadinejad-era problems. The banking system is burdened by bad loans made for political reasons, not least of which are the massive loans for the ill-conceived Mehr housing program. Such bad loans have limited the banks' ability to lend to productive enterprises and led the Central Bank of Iran, as a strategy to recapitalize the banks, to keep interest rates high even as inflation has fallen. The shortage of bank loans has worsened the impact of the government arrears to suppliers built up in the late Ahmadinejad period. And the shortage of bank lending has hurt the residential building business; residential construction permits issued by the largest cities have fallen by half over the last two years, and the demand for construction materials is down 30 percent.
The Main Challenge: Domestic Policy
As the IMF's Cerisola put it, "Risks to the outlook are significant, and longer-term prospects will depend crucially on the depth of reforms that are undertaken...Ultimately, if mild reforms are implemented the sanctions relief will have only a moderate positive impact on the economy. If, on the other hand, more assertive and deeper reforms along the lines [the IMF mission recommended] are carried out, the boost to confidence and investment inflows would put Iran's economy on a significantly higher growth trajectory." That bland statement papers over the bitter opposition from beneficiaries of corruption, quasi-monopolies held by those close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's investment arm, and the welter of rules that protect inefficient state-linked enterprises. Arbitrary and unaccountable interference in economic and commercial matters, including expropriations, is not necessarily in Rouhani's power to stop.
In the shorter term, macroeconomic policy is an area of great controversy. Rouhani has largely focused on curbing inflation, with the purported goal of lowering it to single digits, a level rarely seen in the Islamic Republic's thirty-six years. To that end, his budget proposals have been contractionary, despite unemployment that remains at 10.5 percent. The criticism of this approach was summed up by Kevyan Sheikhi, head of the Securities and Exchange Organization of Iran's statistics department: "Disregarding the current recession and getting preoccupied with cutting the nominal inflation rate and basking in the glory will not help the economy; rather it will dampen the investment mood." Cerisola warned about the pressures to boost spending, which run counter to Rouhani's focus on inflation: "Pent-up demands from different sectors may also pose some risks to macroeconomic stability." Indeed, this year's budget included a 30 percent uptick for military spending, despite the budget's overall contractionary stance. Presumably, in the lead-up to the elections in February 2016 for Majlis and May 2017 for president, pressure will build for more spending so as to show the nuclear deal's economic benefits. Meanwhile, another controversial Rouhani policy for containing inflation is keeping the exchange rate steady, which benefits consumers by making imports cheap but hurts producers who must compete against low-cost imports -- as well as cutting into the earnings of exporters. The negative effect on producers weighs heavily on the TSE. So far, the Rouhani team seems determined to resist pressure to change its focus on curbing inflation.
Political Impact Limited So Far
Rouhani is facing increasing discontent from his supporters about the country's poor economic situation. On September 6, 2014, Rouhani had told an audience in Mashhad, "Today, we can announce that thankfully we have passed through the recession." The expectation then that the situation would start improving markedly has not played out. On October 4, the Mehr News Agency published a September 9 letter to Rouhani from Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan and the three ministers whose portfolios relate directly to the economy: Ali Tayebnia, minister of economy and finance; Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, minister of industries and commerce; and Ali Rabiei, minister of labor. The letter cited several reasons for what it called the "rare decline" in Iran's economy but gave the primary reason as "uncoordinated decisions and policies" of various governmental agencies.
Rouhani has limited his vulnerability to criticism about the economic situation by embracing the main policy proposal that could have served as a critique of his policies -- namely, "the economy of resistance" approach strongly favored by Supreme Leader Khamenei. While that slogan could be read as a rejection of the greater opening to the outside world Rouhani portrays as central to growth prospects, Rouhani has emphasized the aspect of the "economy of resistance" that advocates overall diversification from reliance on oil. This has left Rouhani's domestic critics with no clear alternative to his policies.
Rouhani is also helped by the obvious fact that his team is more competent and less corrupt than that of Ahmadinejad. While the Rouhani administration has made more than a few policy mistakes and been slow to enact structural reforms, its record is stellar when compared to its predecessor. For instance, the country's new health care insurance program has drawn much praise for lowering consumer costs. This leaves critics in a poor position to exploit the souring public mood about the economy.
Given these dynamics, it is by no means clear how much the weak economy will affect Rouhani's strength relative to his critics. And the recession seems very unlikely to affect implementation of the nuclear deal in the short term. But over time, Rouhani's main explanation about why the nuclear deal was necessary -- that only sanctions relief would allow Iran to prosper, and only a nuclear deal would provide such relief -- will look less and less convincing unless the economy does begin to prosper. His standing with the new Majlis and his prospects for reelection could suffer if, as is distinctly possible, Iran's economic situation in coming years improves very slowly despite sanctions relief. Such a case would entail the oil price drop hurting the economy as much as sanctions relief helps it and policy paralysis blocking steps needed for growth.
**Patrick Clawson is the Morningstar Senior Fellow and director of research at The Washington Institute.

The AKP's New Face: Assessing the September Board Vote Ahead of November's Elections
Soner Cagaptay, Cem Yolbulan, and Angelica Kilinc//Washington Institute/October 09/15
The new governing board has fewer young members, fewer women, and more old-guard members with close ties to President Erdogan, who is betting that this alignment will help the party regain its legislative majority next month.
On September 12, 1,445 delegates of Turkey's governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) gathered at their annual convention to reelect Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as chairman. They also voted for the 50-seat Central Decision and Administration Committee (MKYK), the party's governing board, resulting in 31 new members -- a massive 62% turnover rate, and the first time in the AKP's history that a majority of its board members were revamped.
The MKYK is the party's highest permanent decisionmaking body, responsible for determining AKP positions on political issues, implementing policies, and shaping election strategy. The party lost its thirteen-year parliamentary majority in the June 7 polls, with its vote share dropping by 20% from the previous election. As Turkey prepares for snap elections on November 1, the MKYK reshuffle signals a new face for the AKP. The incoming board is older and more male dominated; it also has more members who joined the party in the earlier stages of its rise to power, and more loyalists to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the former AKP chairman who still exudes considerable sway over the party. Will this realignment help the AKP regain its legislative majority next month?
OUTGOING BOARD
Analysis of the outgoing MKYK's membership reveals key patterns in the AKP's makeup before the September 12 revamp (to view detailed information on each member of the outgoing board, download the data table).
Political Background
National Outlook: Turkey's Islamist parties descend from the Welfare Party (RP), which promoted an ideology called "National Outlook" (Milli Gorus), a diluted version of the Muslim Brotherhood's Islamist dogma. In 1998, the Turkish Supreme Court shut down the RP for conducting Islamist activities in violation of the constitution. RP cadres then set up the Virtue Party (FP), but the court shut down that faction as well in 2001. Subsequently, the Islamist movement split in two, producing Erdogan's AKP and the smaller, hardline Felicity Party (SP). Prior to last month's board election, 14 of the MKYK's members (28%) had "National Outlook" affiliation, i.e., past membership in the RP/FP.
Center and center-right: Individuals who had past affiliation with the centrist Motherland Party (ANAP) or center-right movements such as the True Path Party (DYP) held 4 seats on the outgoing MKYK (8%). Previously the pillars of Turkey's dominant political center, these two parties imploded following the 2002 elections that brought the AKP to power. Since then, many ANAP and DYP voters have folded under the AKP.
Original members: Half of the outgoing MKYK consisted of founding AKP members, local/youth leaders who entered politics with the party in 2001, or members who joined during the first two AKP governments (2002-2011).
Fresh faces: Seven members of the outgoing board (14%) had no record of prior AKP affiliation when they were elected at the 2012 party convention.
Relationship with Erdogan
Ten members of the board (20%) had direct connections with the president. These included Erdogan's business associates (e.g., Oznur Calik and Omer Bolat), family friends (e.g., Nihat Zeybekci), and former classmates (e.g., Mehmet Muezzinoglu), as well as a longtime friend and ally from Istanbul, Mehmet Ali Sahin.
Relationship with Gul
Six members (12%) were affiliated with former Turkish president Abdullah Gul. After joining forces with Erdogan to establish the AKP in 2001, Gul was later elected president in 2007, but he fell out with Erdogan at the end of his term in 2014 and left the AKP.
Youth
Ten members (20%) were below the age of forty, and 26 members (52%) were under fifty.
Gender
The outgoing board included 14 women, or 28% of the membership.
Foreign Languages and Education
Twelve members (24%) held graduate degrees from outside Turkey. Of these, 9 attended schools in Britain or the United States, 2 in Germany, and 1 in Switzerland. Thirty-seven members (74%) spoke at least one foreign language: 33 spoke English, 8 German, 8 Arabic, and 1 each for French, Greek, and Kurdish. Notably, Prime Minister Davutoglu speaks four languages: English, German, Arabic, and Malay.
INCOMING BOARD
Analysis of the new MKYK's composition offers insight into the AKP's potential mindset and strategies heading into next month's parliamentary elections (download the data table for incoming board members).
Political Background
National Outlook: A key change in the board's political composition is that fewer members are affiliated with the National Outlook movement. Members with an RP/FP background decreased from 14 to 10; those failing to win reelection include prominent AKP veterans and former ministers such as Sadullah Ergin and Bulent Arinc, the previous speaker of the Turkish parliament and one of the AKP's founding leaders.
Left-wing or center-right: Three of the new board's members (6%) have a left-wing or center-right pedigree, down from 4. This includes Aysenur Bahcekapili, who served as head of the Istanbul branch of the Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP), a leftist faction that later joined Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) in 1995.
Nationalist-right: One new member, Selcuk Ozdag, is affiliated with two right-wing nationalist factions, the Great Union Party (BBP) and the Nationalist Action Party (MHP).
Original members: Another key change is that 31 of the new board's members are founding AKP cadres or joined the party before 2011. This group now holds 62% of the seats -- a 24% increase from the previous board.
Fresh faces: The incoming board has 5 members (10%) who joined the party in the past three years, down from 7.
Relationship with Erdogan
The incoming board has more members with close political, personal, or business ties to Erdogan: a total of 17 (34%), up from 10. These include his chief advisor Burhan Kuzu, personal lawyer Hayati Yazici, and son-in-law Berat Albayrak. The number of "original members" with close ties to the president rose even more significantly, from 4 to 11. These include Omer Celik, Erdogan's personal advisor since the party's founding days; Yalcin Akdogan, his first AKP speechwriter; and Mehdi Eker, a member of his executive team since the 1990s, when Erdogan served as Istanbul's mayor.
The Turkish constitution stipulates that the presidency is a nonpartisan position, and Erdogan is not supposed to have formal ties with the AKP. Yet the sharp increase in the number of MKYK members with close links to him will allow him to maintain influence over the party.
Relationship with Gul
The number of board members loyal to former president Gul decreased from 6 to 1, suggesting the end of the "Gul caucus" in the AKP. Leading party veterans known for their association with him -- such as Bulent Arinc, Besir Atalay, and Salih Kapusuz -- failed to win seats. While some analysts have suggested that Gul could be a potential challenger to Erdogan, the MKYK voting results will likely curb his influence inside the party.
Youth
The incoming board is older on average than the previous one: the number of members below age 40 decreased from 10 to 8, and the number below age 50 fell from 26 to 24. Some of the younger names not included in the new MKYK include up-and-coming AKP figures such as Zelkif Kazdal and Mustafa Akis.
Gender
The new board is even more male dominated than the outgoing board: the number of women decreased by a whopping 35%, from 14 to 9. Women now constitute only 18% of the board.
Foreign Languages and Education
Thirteen board members hold graduate degrees from outside Turkey, up from 12. All of these degrees were obtained from U.S. or British institutions. One positive change is the increase in members who speak at least one foreign language, now up to 41 (82%). English led the way with 37 speakers (up from 32), and the number of Arabic speakers rose from 8 to 11. The board also has 6 German speakers, 2 French, 2 Kurdish, 1 Greek, and 1 Persian.
CONCLUSION
Compared to the outgoing AKP board, the new MKYK has fewer young members, fewer women, and more members with close ties to Erdogan. And despite boasting more "original" AKP members, the board seems to be moving away from the party's Islamist ideological antecedents, with fewer members from the "National Outlook" tradition. Overall, the AKP appears to be morphing into a movement run by older male politicians who are loyal to Erdogan (who is now 61 years old).
This could be a weakness for the party. Turkey has become a more politically and socially diverse country in the past decade thanks to the economic growth that Erdogan delivered. Currently, he seems to believe that the declining economy and deteriorating domestic security situation will spur voters to favor an older, male-dominated, Erdogan-centric structure as a safety valve against threats such as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). To regain its legislative majority, the AKP needs to increase its 41% tally from the June elections to 45-46%, and the president likely hopes that reshuffling the MKYK will help close that gap. Over the next four weeks, Washington should watch for political developments in Turkey that could turn the new board's main disadvantage -- political uniformity -- into an advantage, with likely repercussions on the November election results.
***Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family Fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute, and author of The Rise of Turkey: The Twenty-First Century's First Muslim Power (Potomac Books), named by the Foreign Policy Association as one of the ten most important books of 2014. Cem Yolbulan is a Yvonne Silverman Research Assistant at the Institute, and Angelica Kilinc is a Turkish program intern.

ISIS In New Video To Christians In Qaryatayn, Syria: Pay Jizya – Or You Will Be Executed And Your Wives Enslaved
MERI/October 09/15
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2015/10/09/isis-in-new-video-to-christians-in-qaryatayn-syria-pay-jizya-or-you-will-be-executed-and-your-wives-enslaved/
The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI’s Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
On October 3, 2015, the information office of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Damascus Province posted a five-minute video titled “[Fight Those Who Do Not Believe In Allah] Until They Give The Jizya Willingly While They Are Humbled” (from Koran 9:29). The video, posted on Archive.org and disseminated via social media, including on Twitter under the Damascus Province hashtag, deals with ISIS’s imposition of a dhimma contract and the jizya poll tax on the Christian residents of the city of Qaryatayn, Syria, which it recently conquered. The video is accompanied by footage of ISIS removing crosses from churches and destroying them, as well as video of the signing of the contract.[1]
The video opens by showing ISIS fighters entering Qaryatayn and marching through its streets. A narrator stresses that after it was “liberated” by ISIS fighters from the “the tyrant’s soldiers [i.e. the army of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad],” shari’a law had returned to the city and its Muslim residents are smiling again. The narrator says that some of the city’s Christians had chosen to convert to Islam, while others preferred signing the dhimma contract, paying the jizya tax, and living in peace and security in the Islamic Caliphate state. Images are shown of ISIS fighters throwing a cross off the roof of a church and of a church hall destroyed by ISIS.
An ISIS member then explains the group’s treatment of the city’s Christians following its takeover. He says that some Christians were taken captive, while others fled to “Diyar Al-Kuffr [the abodes of disbelief] and places controlled by Bashar the Nusairi [Alawite].”
The ISIS member says that the Christians who had been taken captive and remained in the city had four options: One, the men could be killed and the women and children could be enslaved. Two, they could be exchanged for prisoners, money, or booty. Three, they could be pardoned, provided they leave the caliphate. Four, they could sign the dhimma contract and pay the jizya. In the end, he says, “the caliph of Muslims [Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi] displayed kindness and generosity [to the Christians] and agreed to receive their jizya tax and allow them to live under caliphate rule as part of the dhimma contract.” He adds that “the leader of the Muslims” had agreed to give the Christians who fled the city an opportunity to sign the dhimma contract and to return within a month to their homes and fields.
The speaker concludes: “This is a message to all Christians in the East and West, and to the defender of the Cross – America: Convert to Islam and no harm will come to you. If you obey, you will have to pay the jizya poll tax.” The speaker mentioned comments by ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad Al-’Adnani, who previously said that the payment of the jizya is a thousand times smaller than the Christian investment in war against the Muslims, which is in any case destined to fail.
Below are images from the video, followed by the video itself and a full transcript:
Voice of ISIS Member: “Praised be Allah, who bestowed His blessings upon His supporters, and granted them victory and the conquest of the town of Qaryatayn. Islamic law has taken over the town, and its inhabitants from among the People of the Book became submissive. Some of the town’s Christians converted to Islam, while others chose to sign the dhimma contract and pay the jizya tax. They preferred to live in peace and security under Islamic rule in the Islamic State.”
ISIS Member: “Allah said: ‘Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day, and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful, and who do not adopt the religion of Truth from those who were given the Scripture. [Fight them] until they give the jizya willingly in submission.’
“Allah granted His monotheistic servants the conquest of the town of Qaryatayn by force. Some Christians from the town were taken captive, while others fled to the abodes of disbelief, ruled by Bashar the Nusairi and his soldiers. Since they were captured before they sought to sign the dhimma contract and pay the jizya tax, there were four options regarding them: One, for the men to be killed and the women and children to be enslaved. Two, to be exchanged [for prisoners, money, or booty]. Three, to be pardoned [provided they leave the Caliphate]. Four, to pay the jizya and live as dhimmis under the rule of the Caliphate.
“The Caliph of the Muslims displayed kindness and generosity, and agreed to accept their jizya tax, and to allow them to live under the rule of the Caliphate as part of the dhimma contract. He also gave the Christians who fled the town an opportunity to return to their homes and fields within a month from the signing of the dhimma contract.
“To conclude, this is a message to all the Christians in the East and West, and to America, the defender of the cross: Convert to Islam, and no harm will befall you. But if you refuse, you will have to pay the jizya tax. As our Sheikh Al-’Adnani said: The payment of the jizya is a thousand times less than the Christian investment in the futile war against the Islamic State”
Endnote:
[1] See MEMRI JTTM, ISIS Issues Dhimma Contract For Christians To Sign, Orders Them To Pay Jizyah, September 3, 2015

Iran: Soft power with the West, hard power in the Mideast
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Al Arabiya/October 09/15
There have been two crucial shifts in Iran’s foreign policy: increased diplomacy with the West, and unprecedented use of hard power with Middle East governments. Tehran is also persuading its allies to increase their military interventions. An intriguing new development is that its use of hard power in the region is linked to military cooperation with Russia. Tehran has successfully lobbied Moscow for airstrikes and military intervention in Syria. Reuters reported that four Russian cruise missiles, which were launched from the Caspian Sea and meant for Syrian targets, landed in Iran instead. Iran’s application of hard power in the region is likely to escalate in the wake of the nuclear deal and intensified diplomacy with the West. The official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) removed the news from its site after it reported an unidentified flying object on Thursday morning in the province of West Azerbaijan, which is close to the Syrian and Turkish borders. A video released by the Russian Defense Ministry displays the route of the cruise missile launch, and clearly shows that they pass West Azerbaijan en route to Syria. This illustrates Tehran’s influence in persuading Moscow to utilize Iranian territory to conduct airstrikes in Syria. Iranian General Qassem Soleimani traveled to Moscow to push for militarily intervention in Syria, the Associated Press reported, citing an Iraqi government official. An intelligence-sharing center has been built in Baghdad, which integrates communication between the governments of Syria, Iran, Iraq and Russia. It is hard to fathom that Russia would have accepted Tehran’s lobbying without the impact of the recent Iran nuclear deal, which gave Tehran more global legitimacy, and so likely boosted Russian confidence in a military partnership with Iran. Since the deal, Tehran has apparently been emboldened to use its army and push its allies to utilize theirs. This results in an increase in Tehran’s pursuit of its regional hegemonic ambitions.
Dual foreign policy
Iran has been able to carrying out these policies because of its two-sided foreign policy. From Tehran’s perspective, diplomacy with the West is needed in order to enhance Iran’s global legitimacy and force the lifting of economic and political sanctions, which were endangering the hold on power of the ruling establishment. These benefits from improved diplomacy with the West will be orchestrated for the purpose of achieving Iran’s revolutionary norms by increasing its military and political roles in the region, particularly in Arab countries. The nuclear deal has considerably removed diplomatic, geopolitical and financial pressures on Iran. It has opened up the path for Tehran to escape regional and international isolation. It has also enhanced Iran’s legitimacy on the global stage. President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate, plays a crucial role in handling ties with Europe and the United States. However, when it comes to regional policies, the hardliners - particularly Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the senior cadre of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) - call the shots.
Unintended consequences
Tehran’s increasing military involvement in other nations is also partially due to the unintended consequences and excesses of its foreign policy over the last three decades. Its military engagement in the region has been on the rise since Rouhani came to power. Inflammatory statements from Khamenei and senior IRGC officials, such as threatening regional countries including Saudi Arabia, have increased as well. Although the IRGC and Khamenei feel more empowered due to the nuclear deal and improving ties with the West, Tehran would still have preferred to employ soft power by supporting Shiite proxies rather than deploy its own military. Although for decades Tehran has been able to exert and expand its influence via proxies, its approach has finally backfired, leading to unintended consequences that instigated wars in the region, dragged Tehran’s military into the conflicts, and forced it to project hard power and be more publicly confrontational. It is impossible for Iranian leaders to break this cycle due to long-established foreign policy pillars: sectarian (Shiite vs Sunni), ethnic (Arab vs Persian) and geopolitical. Iran’s application of hard power in the region is likely to escalate in the wake of the nuclear deal and intensified diplomacy with the West.

Betting on Syria conflict thwarts dialogue in Lebanon
Nayla Tueni/Al Arabiya/October 09/15
It is not yet clear whether Russia’s military participation in Syria will speed up the process of a political solution in which Moscow and Washington divide interests in our region, where much of the Cold War was fought. Or will Russia seize control of the Syrian situation and limit Iranian influence over the Syrian regime, which has become a captive of the Persian state? Will Russia redraw the map in a way that makes it an indispensible player? In Lebanon, for example, frequent foreign interventions never paved a way for a solution. Instead, they sparked wars, such as the civil war that lasted 15 years. It is also unclear whether the different points of view regarding a solution in Syria will simply prolong the crisis. In Lebanon, for example, frequent foreign interventions never paved a way for a solution. Instead, they sparked wars, such as the civil war that lasted 15 years. We in Lebanon care a lot about the Syrian crisis, considering the geographic link between the two countries. We cannot isolate ourselves from developments on our borders, or from the repercussions of the influx of Syrian refugees and of closing down transit routes. To add insult to injury, Lebanese party Hezbollah decided to get involved in the Syrian war to serve party and regional interests, turning itself into a key player capable of making decisions on Syrian soil, just like the Syrian intelligence and army did in Lebanon long ago. We willingly decided to link our fate to the Syrian situation. One Lebanese party bets on the fall of the Syrian regime to enhance the chance of establishing a democratic system that supports Lebanon. Another Lebanese party is fighting in Syria so the regime remains in power, and so it can continue to benefit from Syrian influence. A third party hopes Hezbollah’s intervention will fail, while a fourth party commends its participation as a deterrence against Gulf interference. Amid all this, Lebanon remains without a president, parliament’s work is obstructed, the cabinet is divided, the trash crisis continues to worsen, and relevant authorities fail to assume their responsibilities toward citizens. Russian participation in Syria means we will have to wait longer to see how things turn out. It also means we have to halt discussions on all Lebanese affairs that need to be finalized. The result is that Lebanese leaders who are currently engaged in dialogue will not achieve any of their citizens’ demands.

With Russian and Iranian backing, Assad is here to stay
Dr. Azeem Ibrahimi/Al Arabiya/October 09/15/
London and Washington have had their positions on Syria thrown into disarray by the entry of Russia into the conflict, so much so that they have been forced to soften one of their primary stated goals: removing Bashar al-Assad from power. Their official position now is that they can live with Assad remaining in power in the short term, while the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is fought back and a political settlement is reached between Damascus and ‘legitimate opposition groups.’ London and Washington maintain that they still wish to see Assad go, but that they are in no particular rush to see this happen. Assad is here to stay, and Western powers have conceded that fact. The idea that the Assad regime will eventually give in to international pressure and agree to some sort of political transition is fanciful. Assad is backed by Russia and Iran, both of which have invested greatly into Assad over the years. Russian President Vladimir Putin has now explicitly staked a huge amount of political capital in giving full military backing to the Assad regime, and perhaps even his reputation and legacy in and out of Russia. Entering the war in this way was a strategic masterstroke for Putin, but this was also a huge risk to take, and could backfire spectacularly. Iran, on the other hand, has been one of the pillars sustaining the Assad regime for generations. Syria is, or would be in a normal situation, an overwhelmingly Sunni country, but it is ruled by the Shiite Alawite sect to which Assad belongs, and which makes up a mere 11 percent of the population. In this regard, the Iranian and Syrian regimes are mutually interdependent in their regional goals to protect and promote Shiite interests.
Wishful thinking
For similar reasons, the idea that the Assad regime will eventually give in to international pressure and agree to some sort of political transition is fanciful. The regime, and by extension the Alawite sect, are held responsible for some of the worst crimes against humanity this century against Syria civilians.
Most Syrians want Assad to go, but he will not agree to this, and the political establishment around him will not allow him to go even if he wanted to. The Alawites would not let Assad resign even if he wanted to. They fear that if the administration of the state is taken over by Sunnis, their community will be wiped out. Their fear is not entirely unfounded. For them, for the regime, and for Assad himself, surrender equals death, which is why they will fight to the death. Most Syrians want Assad to go, but he will not agree to this, and the political establishment around him will not allow him to go even if he wanted to. Iran has been brought out of the cold on the nuclear issue, and is being enticed to take a fuller part in the international community. Direct confrontation with Putin is ill-advised because the situation could escalate quickly into unimaginable horrors. Assad will stay, the horrors of the war will continue, and so will the stream of Syrian refugees into Europe.

Breaking the bonds of rural poverty, once and for all
José Graziano da Silvai/Al Arabiya/October 09/15/
This Oct. 16, World Food Day, the world has a lot to celebrate.
As a global community, we’ve made real progress in fighting global hunger and poverty in recent decades. A majority of the countries monitored by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization – 72 out of the 129 – have achieved the Millennium Development Goal target of halving the prevalence of undernourishment in their populations by 2015. Meanwhile, the share of people in developing regions who live in extreme poverty has come down significantly – from 43 percent in 1990 to 17 percent this year. Economic growth, especially in agriculture, has been essential to driving down rates of hunger and poverty, yes. But it is not enough, because all too often, it is not inclusive.
José Graziano da Silva
But progress has been uneven. Globally, some 800 million people continue to suffer from chronic hunger. Almost one billion remain trapped in extreme poverty. So despite major strides, hunger and poverty have stayed with us – even in times of plenty. Economic growth, especially in agriculture, has been essential to driving down rates of hunger and poverty, yes. But it is not enough, because all too often, it is not inclusive.
Hand-ups, not just hand-outs
Long alert to this fact, many nations in the developing world have established social protection measures – offering people regular financial or in-kind support, or access to self-help programs – on the understanding that they are necessary, front-line actions for tackling poverty and hunger. Study after study shows that social protection programmes successfully reduce hunger and poverty. In 2013 alone, such measures lifted around 150 million people out of extreme poverty. What may come as a surprise is that these programmes do more than just cover shortfalls in income. They are not just hand-outs that allow people to simply tread water. Rather, they are hand-ups that can put them on a fast-track to self-reliance. Most of the world’s poor and hungry belong to rural families who depend on agriculture for their daily meals and their very livelihoods. These family farmers and rural labourers, understandably, are focused on survival in the here-and-now. They adopt low-risk, low-return approaches to income-generation, underinvest in the education and health of their children, and are often forced to adopt negative coping strategies such as selling off meagre assets, putting their kids to work, or reducing food intake to cut expenses. They become trapped in survival mode. Poverty and hunger become intergenerational – and seemingly inescapable.
It does not have to be that way.
Today, we know that even relatively small transfers to poor households, when regular and predictable, can serve as insurance against those risks that tend to deter them from pursuing higher-return activities or lead them to adopt negative risk-coping strategies. Social protection allows poor and vulnerable households to have a longer time horizon, offering them hope and the ability to plan for the future.
Social protection
And far from creating dependency, the evidence shows that social protection increases both on-farm and non-farm activities, strengthening livelihoods and lifting incomes. Social protection also fosters more investment in the education and health of children, and reduces child labor. Social protection in the form of cash increases the purchasing power of the poor, who demand goods and services produced largely in the local economy, leading to a virtuous circle of local economic growth. Social protection programmes also provide a way for communities to make important infrastructure and asset gains – for example irrigation systems built through cash-for-work activities. Pulling together, using the knowledge and tools at our disposal – and without breaking the bank – we can eliminate chronic hunger entirely by 2030.
With most of the world’s poor and hungry still living in the countryside and still dependent on agriculture, twinning social protection with agricultural development programs makes compelling sense. This is why the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations chose social protection and agriculture as the theme of World Food Day this year. But knowing what to do and actually doing it are two different things. To break the age-old bonds of rural poverty once and for all, the world needs to act with more urgency – and more decisively.
Political commitment, adequate funding, partnerships and complementary actions in health and education will be key elements in transforming this vision into reality. Policy and planning frameworks for rural development, poverty reduction, food security and nutrition need to promote the joint role of agriculture and social protection in fighting poverty and hunger, together with a broader set of interventions, notably in health and education. Pulling together, using the knowledge and tools at our disposal – and without breaking the bank – we can eliminate chronic hunger entirely by 2030. Now that would be cause for celebration, indeed.