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Bible Quotation For Today/Jesus Explains the Parable of the Weeds of the Field.
Matthew 13/36-43; "Jesus left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.’ He answered, ‘The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen".

Bible Quotation For Today/ I have become all things to all people, so that I might by any means save some.
First Letter to the Corinthians 09/19-27: "Though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law.To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I might by any means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable garland, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 30-31/15
The Saudi king and the media/Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/October 30/15
No war, no peace: The Jordan-Israel peace deal is not a deal/Raed Omari/Al Arabiya/October 30/15
How Khamenei exploits Obama through the nuclear deal/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Al Arabiya/October 30/15
Pro-Syria Lebanese Dailies Warn Of Wide-Ranging Ferocious Campaign In Region Unless Iran’s Demands Are Met/MEMERI/October 30/15
IRGC-Affiliated Website: Some 30 IRGC Officers Killed On Syrian Front In The Past Two Weeks/MEMRI/October 30/15
MEMRI: 'The Emperor Has No Clothes/ Yigal Carmon/MEMRI/October 30/15

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin for Lebanese Related News published on October 30-31/15
Ministers Upbeat on Trash Crisis after Deal Reached to Set Up Landfills in South, North
Report: Lebanese Man Beheaded after Son Lures Him to IS-held Raqa
Two Palestinians Shot and Wounded in Ain el-Hilweh
ISF Arrests Terror Fugitive in Tripoli's Abi Samra
Berri: Legislative Session Will Definitely Be Held
Report: Landfills in South, North to Be Established to End Trash Crisis
U.S. Official Hails Lebanon Security Agencies as Obama Boosts Anti-IS Assistance
ISF Corporal Shot in the Head at Home
Report: Kataeb Concerned with Bassil's Stances at Vienna Talks
Errant Russia airstrike kills Hezbollah fighters: report
ISIS executes father-in-law of extremist Lebanese cleric
Lebanese businessman, Nizar Zakka, missing in Iran
Aoun: We Want President to Represent Christians, Won't Choose 'the Unknown'

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 30-31/15
Mideast Foes Join Key Talks on Syria's Fate
40 Dead as Syria Government Rockets Hit Damascus Suburb
Vienna Meet could Lead to Wider Saudi-Iran Talks
Syria peace talks under way with 17 countries
Week of heavy rain floods Mideast with chaos - and trash
Israel legalises hundreds of west bank settler homes
Beheaded bodies of Syria anti-ISIS activist, friend found in Turkey
Iran confirms death penalty for Sunni preacher
Two Palestinians shot ‘trying to stab’ Israeli police
At least 40 killed in missile attack on Syria’s Douma
Russia: No force in Syria without govt approval
German ISIS rapper killed in air strike in Syria
Iranian-American businessman arrested in Tehran
Warplanes bomb Libya’s Sirte, target ISIS
U.N. seeks to revive Israeli-Palestinian talks
‘Flexibility’ urged at multilateral Syria talks
U.S., Iran to meet before multilateral Syria talk
Iran considered nuclear weapons during 1980s Iraq war, ex-president says
Rockets strike Iranian opposition camp in Baghdad
Donald Trump defends burqas and niqabs
“Why Is Donald Trump Defending Burqas?,”
13 Children among at Least 22 Migrants Drowned Off Greece
The names and photos of 26 IRGC officers killed in Syria

Ministers Upbeat on Trash Crisis after Deal Reached to Set Up Landfills in South, North
Naharnet/October 30/15/Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb ended a series of meetings to resolve the trash disposal crisis on Thursday by announcing that an agreement had been reached to establish landfills in two regions, reported the daily al-Mustaqbal on Friday. Landfills will be set up in the northern region of Srar and southern region of al-Kfour, while a debate remains over the establishment of a landfill in the Keserouan-Northern Metn area. “We will witness a solution to the garbage crisis that will relieve the Lebanese,” Industry Minister Hussein al-Hajj Hassan of Hizbullah announced after meeting Prime Minister Tammam Salam Friday at the Grand Serail along with Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil of the AMAL Movement. Khalil for his part said that he expects the cabinet to convene early next week to approve the waste management plan. “The atmosphere is positive and we passed on the information we have to PM Salam, who will continue the discussions and the measures,” he added. There had been speculation that a landfill will be established in the eastern Bekaa region, but that was rejected by the locals, so the Kfour area will be used instead. This was met by the approval of Hizbullah and the AMAL Movement who hold sway in those areas. An obstacle emerged however with the objection of the Kataeb Party and Free Patriotic Movement to the Keserouan dump. Education Minister Elias Bou Saab of the FPM informed Shehayyeb during their talks on Thursday that the movement “cannot accept the proposed plan to end the garbage crisis and it will not vote on it at cabinet,” said al-Mustaqbal. Shehayyeb meanwhile announced that Prime Minister Tammam Salam will call cabinet to convene in “the upcoming hours” to adopt the solution. The garbage of the Keserouan and Metn regions will be distributed between the South and North landfills, he explained to LBCI television Thursday. Shehayyeb had concluded on Thursday his series of talks with officials by holding a meeting at the Grand Serail with Salam, Health Minister Wael Abou Faour, and Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil on the garbage crisis. The premier's sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper Friday that Salam will grant Shehayyeb until Saturday to reach a final solution to the crisis. The visitors of Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday meanwhile quoted him as saying that efforts are underway to resolve the objection to the establishment of a landfill in the Keserouan region, adding that the garbage crisis has become the state's main concern, reported al-Joumhouria. Lebanon has been suffering from a trash disposal crisis since July with the closure of the Naameh landfill. Politicians have failed to find an alternative to the landfill, resulting in the pile up of garbage on the streets of the country. Heavy rain on Sunday brought with it flooded streets coupled with waste, as experts warned of the health and environmental impact of the crisis.

Report: Lebanese Man Beheaded after Son Lures Him to IS-held Raqa
Naharnet/October 30/15/A Lebanese man has been beheaded after his jihadist son “lured” him to the Syrian city of Raqa, the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State group's “caliphate,” a media report said on Friday. Mahmoud al-Hussein, who hails from the al-Mankoubine neighborhood of the northern city of Tripoli, headed to Raqa to seek the return of his two daughters, who were convinced by their brother, Yehia al-Hussein, to travel to the jihadist bastion, Mahmoud's brother told MTV. The man fell into an IS “ambush” the moment he arrived in Raqa and his son told the jihadist group that his father had “cursed the Prophet Mohammed,” his brother added. He said the son had returned to Lebanon after his family exerted efforts to convince him to leave the IS. However, he later returned to Raqa along with his two sisters after telling the family that he was accompanying them for “tourism in Turkey.”The father, who was “beheaded in the presence of his son and two daughters,” was also accused of “establishing ties with the Lebanese government and the Turkish consulate,” his brother told MTV. The TV network noted that Omar Bakri Fustoq, an extermist Islamist preacher jailed in Lebanon, was married to one of Mahmoud's daughters, without specifying if it was referring to one of the two aforementioned women.

Two Palestinians Shot and Wounded in Ain el-Hilweh
Naharnet/October 30/15/Two Palestinians were shot and wounded Friday at the hands of a masked gunman in the Ain el-Hilweh refugee camp in the southern city of Sidon, state-run National News Agency said. “The Palestinians Bilal Othman and Khaled Abou al-Kheir were shot by a masked gunman during their presence in the Darb al-Seem cemetery in the camp,” NNA said. They were rushed to the Humanitarian Call Hospital in Ain el-Hilweh before being transferred to the al-Rahi Hospital in Sidon, the agency added. Such shootings have become frequent in Ain el-Hilweh. The impoverished camp has gained notoriety as a refuge for extremists and fugitives and for the settling of scores between factions. By long-standing convention, the Lebanese army does not enter the country's 12 Palestinian refugee camps, leaving security inside to the Palestinians. More than 61,000 Palestinian refugees live in Ain el-Hilweh, including 6,000 who recently fled the war in Syria, according to the U.N.'s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

ISF Arrests Terror Fugitive in Tripoli's Abi Samra
Naharnet/October 30/15/A terror fugitive wanted on multiple arrest warrants was arrested Friday in the northern city of Tripoli, state-run National News Agency said. “The Intelligence Branch of the Internal Security Forces arrested Mohammed Ghalayini in Tripoli's Abi Samra area,” NNA said. “He belongs to a terrorist group and was wanted on six arrest warrants over terror-related charges,” the agency added. It said he was referred to the relevant judicial authorities for further investigations. LBCI television meanwhile said the man belongs to al-Qaida. On October 21, the ISF had announced the arrest of one of “the most dangerous fugitives who took part in Tripoli's clashes” in the northern city's al-Qobbeh neighborhood. Tripoli witnessed unprecedented deadly clashes between the army and Islamist militants in October 2014. It was the last military battle in Tripoli following dozens of rounds of sectarian fighting between the Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen neighborhoods.Violence in the city largely abated after the army implemented a security plan that involved the arrest of the heads of the fighting frontiers and the killing of many notorious militants.

Berri: Legislative Session Will Definitely Be Held
Naharnet/October 30/15/Speaker Nabih Berri expressed his commitment to holding a legislative session “even if he had to attend it alone,” reported An Nahar daily on Friday. His visitors reported him as saying: “I will definitely hold a legislative session because the situation has become unbearable.”
He stressed that the parliament bureau will continue to study 13 draft-laws during its upcoming meeting next week. The speaker said that he is content with the cooperation of the members of the bureau, adding that “at the end of the day, the session will be held.” In addition, Berri said: “The country is in danger and holding the session or not is no longer linked to constitutional affairs. There can be no justification for any member's absence from the session.”The parliament bureau had convened on Tuesday to address the scheduled of the legislative session, which will likely be held in November.

Report: Landfills in South, North to Be Established to End Trash Crisis
Naharnet/October 30/15/Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb ended a series of meetings to resolve the trash disposal crisis on Thursday by announcing that an agreement had been reached to establish landfills in two regions, reported the daily al-Mustaqbal on Friday. Landfills will be set up in the northern region of Srar and southern region of al-Kfour, while a debate remains over the establishments of a landfill in the Keserouan-northern Metn area. There had been speculation that a landfill will be established in the eastern Bekaa region, but that was rejected by the locals, so the Kfour area will be used instead. This was met by the approval of Hizbullah and the AMAL Movement who hold sway in those areas. An obstacle emerged however with the objection of the Kataeb Party and Free Patriotic Movement to the Keserouan dump. Education Minister Elias Bou Saab of the FPM informed Shehayyeb during their talks on Thursday that the movement “cannot accept the proposed plan to end the garbage crisis and it will not vote on it at cabinet,” said al-Mustaqbal. Shehayyeb meanwhile announced that Prime Minister Tammam Salam will call cabinet to convene in “the upcoming hours” to adopt the solution. The garbage of the Keserouan and Metn regions will be distributed between the South and North landfills, he explained to LBCI television Thursday. Shehayyeb had concluded on Thursday his series of talks with officials by holding a meeting at the Grand Serail with Salam, Health Minister Wael Abou Faour, and Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil on the garbage crisis. The premier's sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper Friday that Salam will grant Shehayyeb until Saturday to reach a final solution to the crisis. The visitors of Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday meanwhile quoted him as saying that efforts are underway to resolve the objection to the establishment of a landfill in the Keserouan region, adding that the garbage crisis has become the state's main concern, reported al-Joumhouria. Lebanon has been suffering from a trash disposal crisis since July with the closure of the Naameh landfill. Politicians have failed to find an alternative to the landfill, resulting in the pile up of garbage on the streets of the country. Heavy rain on Sunday brought with it flooded streets coupled with waste, as experts warned of the health and environmental impact of the crisis.

U.S. Official Hails Lebanon Security Agencies as Obama Boosts Anti-IS Assistance
Naharnet/October 30/15/U.S. President Barack Obama has authorized boosting security assistance to Lebanon and Jordan to support the two countries' anti-Islamic State efforts, U.S. officials said on Friday. The officials said the assistance involves intelligence support to expand Jordan's air strikes against the IS. Meanwhile, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken lauded the anti-terror efforts of Lebanese security agencies during a meeting with Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq in Bahrain. Blinken also reiterated his country's support for Lebanon and its government, noting that the meeting was an opportunity to discuss the Lebanese situations and the developments in Syria, Lebanon's National News Agency said. On October 9, the U.S. delivered a new shipment of Hellfire missiles and artillery munitions to the Lebanese army. The shipment included 50 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles and 560 artillery rounds, including some precision munitions. The Hellfire air-to-ground missiles are used on Cessna Caravan aircraft previously delivered to the army by the U.S. 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. Militants from both groups are still entrenched in the outskirts of Arsal and the nearby town of Ras Baalbek. Several countries boosted their military aid to Lebanon in the wake of the clashes.

ISF Corporal Shot in the Head at Home
Naharnet/October 30/15/An Internal Security Forces Corporal was found dead in the eastern city of Zahle with a gunshot wound to his head, the state-run National News Agency said on Friday. Maroun Jerjes al-Khoury, 27, was found dead on the balcony of his home in Zahle's al-Hmar region suffering from a gunshot wound, NNA added. His corpse was found at 4:00 am and was taken to Zahle's al-Hrawi State hospital. Investigations were kicked off in the case.

Report: Kataeb Concerned with Bassil's Stances at Vienna Talks
Naharnet/October 30/15/The Kataeb Party has expressed its concern over the possible positions that will be made by Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil at the Vienna international talks tackling the Syrian crisis, reported An Nahar daily on Friday. It revealed that Kataeb Ministers Sejaan Qazzi, Ramzi Jreij, and Alain Hakim will be “attentive and wary” of any position that will be made in the name of Lebanon on the Syrian conflict. They had informed Prime Minister Tammam Salam during talks earlier this week that “a historic and traditional Lebanese stance is needed.”“This stance will keep it away from any axis, especially since the Vienna talks participants are divided into two axes,” they explained according to the daily. “There are question marks surrounding the stance that will be announced by Bassil. Will it reflect Lebanon's position or that of his allies” in Hizbullah? wondered the Kataeb officials. They warned “of missing an opportunity for Lebanon to seize control of its fate before major world powers as opposed to the past when they used to determine its fate for it.”Meanwhile, Progressive Socialist Party chief MP Walid Jumblat has rejected any position that would not adhere to Lebanon's policy of disassociation. This position was relayed to the premier through Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb and Health Minister Wael Abou Faour. The foreign ministers of the United States, Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia met in Vienna on Thursday to work through their differences on the eve of expanded talks on the war in Syria. Friday's talks will include Lebanon, Egypt, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, representatives from the European Union and other Arab countries.

Errant Russia airstrike kills Hezbollah fighters: report
Now Lebanon/October 30/15/Al-Rai said that seven militants from the Lebanese group were killed in the friendly fire incident.
BEIRUT – A Russian airstrike has mistakenly killed a number of Hezbollah members in Syria, according to a Kuwaiti daily with close access to Moscow’s aerial campaign in the war-torn country. Al-Rai on Friday morning cited a military source with “good knowledge of the Syrian battlefronts” as saying that the Russian air force accidently killed seven Hezbollah fighters. “Members of Hezbollah stationed at a combat position in Syria were surprised by the low flight of Russian planes above their position,” the source told the newspaper’s chief international correspondent, Elijah J. Magnier. “This was followed by concentrated bombing that caused at least seven deaths,” the source added, without detailing where incident took place. Al-Rai’s Magnier has written a number of articles in recent weeks on Russia’s bombardment campaign in Syria, claiming access to sources in both the Baghdad and Damascus operation rooms for the “4+1” military coalition of Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah. On October 27, the journalist wrote a detailed report based on sources in Latakia’s Hmeimim Airbase detailing the technical aspects of Moscow’s air sorties, saying that experts were analyzing the raids to determine their effectiveness and precision as well as the skills of pilots. The friendly fire incident involving Hezbollah fighters comes after Russian airstrikes north of Homs in mid-October mistakenly hit regime forces conducting a major offensive against rebels, according to activists. Alaraby Aljadeed on October 15 cited an opposition media activist as saying that Russian warplanes had “accidentally bombed a number of regime positions.” Ahmad al-Daheek told the London-based daily that the mistakenly bombed sites include the “Aatoun checkpoint, the Mulouk base, the Military College in Al-Waer, a gathering of [militiamen] near the Al-Kamm junction and the area around the Division 26 [base] to the south of Teir Maalah, as well as a regime column near the [town’s] grain silos.”The media activist claimed that the strikes caused regime fatalities, but added that the precise figure remains unknown “as all of the areas are military [zones] under [regime] control.”Pro-rebel Al-Souria Net went into details on the purported Russian airstrikes on Syrian regime positions, reporting that the bombing of the Mulouk checkpoint “caused the death of two colonels and six privates.”However, the pro-regime Central Region News Network-Homs outlet denied these reports, likening their claims to the sound made by crows.“Rumors being disseminated by the local croaking committees that Russian planes have targeted our army’s positions are completely untrue,” read a post on the pro-regime Facebook page.

ISIS executes father-in-law of extremist Lebanese cleric
Now Lebanon/October 30/15/Mahmoud Hussein had traveled to Raqqa in a bid to return his son and two daughters back to Tripoli.
BEIRUT – ISIS has executed the father-in-law of extremist Lebanese cleric Omar Bakri after he traveled to the Syria’s Raqqa to bring his son and two daughters back to his home in Tripoli, according to local media reports. The execution of Mahmoud Hussein—a 50-year-old resident of Tripoli’s Mankoubin whose children joined ISIS six months ago—was confirmed by an ISIS statement and information residents of the area received from trusted sources, As-Safir reported Friday. According to As-Safir, the statement which bore a seal reading “Islamic State - Judiciary and Ombudsman Diwan,” said the death sentence had handed down after Hussein, the father of Bakri’s second wife, “insulted the Prophet Mohammad openly.” “It also transpired that he was had a close relationship with the Turkish consulate and that he also had a relationship with the Lebanese government. He did not deny this and had therefore fallen into apostasy through these relationships. That is why he was sentenced to death,” the purported ISIS statement said. The Tripoli News Network Facebook group—which closely follows developments in the northern Lebanese city—posted a copy of the statement on Thursday evening.
As-Safir said it had learned from sources that “Hussein left [Lebanon] to bring back his eighteen-year-old son Yahya and his two daughters, who had left for Iraq after someone, probably an ISIS fighter from [Mankoubin], convinced them to go.”“The execution, in which the method used remains unclear, probably took place in front of Yahya,” the sources said. “Hussein was the father of the preacher Omar Bakri’s second wife and a resident of Mankoubin born in Bab al-Tabbaneh,” the source added. “He was not known for being a supporter of [ISIS].”The Tripoli News Network, meanwhile, reported a more detailed account of the dramatic story, saying that Hussein’s son Yahya convinced his father’s youngest son and his two daughters to join ISIS while tricking their father into believing they were going on a holiday in Turkey. Hussein then managed to arrange a meeting with his children in Syria but his son had set up an ambush for him. TNN said that upon their meeting in Raqqa, an argument broke out between Hussein and Yahya, who accused his father of being a “heretic, apostate and an agent of the Lebanese state.”“ISIS members proceeded to arrest Hussein, interrogate him for two days and then the ruling for his execution was issued.”“He was brutally executed in front of his son.”Hussein’s execution comes days after his son-in-law, Omar Bakri, was sentenced to six-years of hard labor by Lebanon’s military judiciary on charges of forming a terror group in the country.Bakri was caught in the mountain town of Aley in May 2014 after fleeing from Tripoli the month before when Lebanese security forces instituted a security plan to reign in sectarian-based militia fighting in the troubled northern city. The Lebanese cleric, who was born in Syria, was banned from Britain in 2005 after living in the country for 20 years.

Lebanese businessman, Nizar Zakka, missing in Iran
Now Lebanon/October 29/15/Nizar Zakka left his Tehran hotel on September 18 to catch a flight to Beirut, but never arrived to the airport.
BEIRUT – A Lebanese businessman specializing in information and communications technology (ICT) has gone missing in mysterious circumstances in Iran after attending a conference in the capital Tehran. Nizar Zakka’s NGO, the Arab ICT Organization (IJMA3), issued a statement Tuesday that the Lebanese national had disappeared after attending a conference organized by the Iranian government. “On September 18, 2015, Mr. Zakka left his hotel in a taxicab bound for the airport in Tehran to return to Beirut. He did not board his flight and did not arrive in his home country of Lebanon as planned,” the statement, prepared by Attorney at Law Antoine Abou Dib, said. Zakka—the secretary general and founder of the Arab ICT Organization—had arrived in Iran’s capital three days before to attend the 2nd International Conference & Exhibition on Women in Sustainable Development upon the invitation of the Iran’s Vice President for Women and Family Affairs. The Lebanese businessman—who according to his LinkedIn profile resides in Washington DC—is considered a top ICT expert in the Middle East, and heads not only the Arab ICT Organization but also serves as the vice chairman of the World IT Services Alliance (WITSA) as well as the CEO of the Professional Computer Association of Lebanon (PCA). Abou Dib explained that he and the Arab ICT Organization “informed the Lebanese Embassy in Tehran that Mr. Zakka was missing and asked for assistance from the Government of Lebanon in locating Mr. Zakka.”“We have filed several requests with the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lebanon asking assistance in locate him, without success,” he added. “We therefore respectfully ask the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Lebanese Embassy in Tehran and the Iranian authorities to assist us in locating Mr. Zakka, and to confirm that he is safe and will soon be permitted to return home.”Meanwhile, the IranWire journalism initiative reported that while attending the Tehran conference, Zakka had participated in roundtable discussions attended by a number of Iranian government officials, including the country’s Industry, Agriculture, Labor, and Social Affairs ministers. Lebanese TV and print outlets have yet to cover the case, with the Lebanon Debate website saying on October 28 that Zakka’s family was in the process of preparing a statement or press conference on his disappearance. Lebanon Debate reported that Zakka’s family had appealed to Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil to raise the issue with Iranian officials during his mid-October trip to Iran, but added that they had received “sufficient answers” regarding his disappearance. The outlet also explained Zakka’s lawyer, Majid Dimashq, had chosen not to immediately bring media attention to the case as he pursued his efforts to investigate the Lebanese businessman’s disappearance.

Aoun: We Want President to Represent Christians, Won't Choose 'the Unknown'
Naharnet/October 30/15/Change and Reform bloc chief MP Michel Aoun reiterated Friday that the country's next president must have a significant popular base in the Christian community, rejecting what he described as an “unknown” candidate. “They are the ones practicing obstruction,” said Aoun at a Free Patriotic Movement dinner banquet. “We want a president who represents Christians in power. Why should we choose the unknown?” Aoun added. “I'm secular but this is our constitution,” he said. Aoun's bloc, Hizbullah's lawmakers and some of their allies have been boycotting parliamentary sessions aimed at electing a new president, stripping the meetings of the needed quorum. “Everything is witnessing extension. How can an illegitimate parliament elect a legitimate president?” Aoun added, referring to the parliament's term that has been extended twice since May 2013. Turning to the disputes that have been marring the work of the cabinet, Aoun emphasized that his bloc “will not tolerate the exceeding of jurisdiction by some ministers as happened in the military and security appointments.”He was referring to the standoff with Defense Minister Samir Moqbel, who drew Aoun's ire by extending the term Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji and other senior officers. Aoun had lobbied for replacing Qahwaji with then Commando Regiment chief Chamel Roukoz, his son-in-law. The dispute over military and security appointments is one of the main points of contention crippling Prime Minister Tammam Salam's cabinet. “We are disrupting the work of the parliament and the cabinet to block the resolutions that breach the democratic and constitutional norms and traditions,” Aoun pointed out.

Mideast Foes Join Key Talks on Syria's Fate
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 30/15/Major powers, including arch-rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia who back opposing sides in Syria, met for the first time Friday in search of a political solution to the devastating war. Top diplomats from 17 countries, as well as the United Nations and the European Union, gathered in Vienna for talks bringing together all the main outside players in the four-year-old Syrian crisis. The meeting is seen as a crucial first step in seeking a political path out of the conflict and resolving deep divisions over the fate of President Bashar Assad. In a sign of its growing diplomatic clout, Iran, a longtime sponsor of Assad's regime, joined the talks for the first time, months after striking a landmark nuclear deal with world powers. US Secretary of State John Kerry sat at the head of the table for the meeting, which also included senior envoys from Turkey, Italy, Britain, Lebanon, Jordan, Russia, Iraq, Egypt, Germany, Qatar, France, the UAE, Oman and China. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir was sat almost as far from his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif as was possible at the tight U-shaped table in the conference room of Vienna's grand Imperial Hotel.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said a priority was to "fight more effectively against the terrorists" of the Islamic State (IS) group and Al-Qaهda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front. "Then it is necessary to organize the political transition," he added as he arrived for the meeting. "Mr Assad, who is responsible for a large part of the Syrian tragedy, cannot be considered the future of Syria."The Syrian regime and the opposition were not represented at the discussions aimed at ending a war that has claimed a quarter of a million lives. In Washington, which along with its Arab and Turkish allies backs Syrian rebels, officials had expressed a cautious hope that the players would agree the outline of a transition that would eventually see Assad step aside. Just ahead of the talks, 40 people were killed Friday when rockets fired by Syrian government forces crashed into a market in a rebel-held area outside Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Kerry, while warning against expectations of an immediate solution, said he was hopeful about the talks. "I am hopeful. I don't call it optimism. I am hopeful that we can find a way forward. It is very difficult," he said ahead of the main talks.
Russia, which has waged a month of intense air strikes against Assad's armed opponents, has urged preparations for parliamentary and presidential elections in Syria. But the idea has been rejected by rebels who say a vote would be impossible in the current circumstances, with millions of Syrians displaced, cities standing in ruins and two-thirds of the country in the hands of jihadists and other armed groups. Mounting international concerns about the outpouring of Syrian refugees and the growing jihadist threat could set the scene for some kind of political compromise, experts say. "Overall, we have for the very first time around the table all the major actors and we have a situation of fatigue on the ground, so it could lead to a potential breakthrough," said Karim Bitar, of the Paris-based Institute for International and Strategic Relations. Underscoring the perils facing those fleeing the war, at least 22 migrants, including 13 children, drowned during the night off Greece as they made a desperate bid to reach Europe. Their nationalities were not immediately clear but the route is favored by Syrian refugees and becoming increasingly dangerous as winter approaches. Even getting Iran and Saudi Arabia -- the Middle East's foremost Shiite and Sunni powers which back opposing sides in conflicts across the Arab world -- to sit at the same table was seen as progress. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, in an interview with the BBC, made it clear that Riyadh is sticking by its view that Assad must leave office quickly. "He will go either through a political process or he will be removed by force," he warned. Russia and Iran have made it equally clear that Assad has a right to play a role in an eventual transition towards a mooted unity government and later elections. Iran and Lebanon's Hizbullah have troops in Syria to advise or support Assad's forces. The West has accused Russia of concentrating its air campaign in Syria on moderate opposition groups opposed to Assad's rule, although Moscow says it is focusing on defeating IS and other "terrorist" organizations. Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow and Washington "fundamentally differ" over the Syrian issue. "The use of force in any form in Syria without agreement of the legitimate government of this country would be unacceptable to us," he told the Interfax news agency, speaking in Russia. The Pentagon has announced plans to step up its year-old air strikes on IS jihadists in Syria and Iraq, including even possible "direct action on the ground".

40 Dead as Syria Government Rockets Hit Damascus Suburb
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 30/15/Forty people, including a child, were killed on Friday when rockets fired by Syrian government forces crashed into a market in a rebel-held area outside Damascus, a monitor said. The deaths came as top diplomats from 17 countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, met for the first time in Vienna to seek a political path out of the conflict. "There were 40 people killed and at least 100 wounded in the center of Douma," a town on the eastern edges of the Syrian capital, Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.
He added that one child was among the dead. "There is still heavy fire now, with both rockets and mortars," he said, adding that the toll was expected to rise as people were still being pulled out of damaged buildings. Rebel-held Douma lies in Eastern Ghouta, the largest opposition stronghold in Damascus province. Government air strikes on Thursday also hit a Douma market and a hospital, killing at least nine people, the Observatory said. An AFP photographer at the scene said Thursday's attack had wounded hospital staff, limiting the treatment available for the wounded on Friday. He said the latest attack took place as residents gathered at the market, leaving corpses piled on top of each other. In the chaotic aftermath, a man in his thirties cried over the body of a young boy killed in the attack. "Since your father was killed in the last massacre, your mother has been telling you to stop working in the market. Why did you go? Why?" he cried. The market's corrugated metal rooftops had been twisted and blown apart in the attack, left dangling over mangled bicycles and shredded signs. The Douma Coordination Committee, a local activist group, published a gruesome video of what it said was the aftermath of more than a dozen rockets smashing into the market. Blood-soaked bodies lay crumpled underneath tables of food and other goods, as men gathered around wounded people. A young boy in a sky-blue sweater stood on the sidelines, looking stunned. According to Abdel Rahman, "Douma is one of the areas in Syria where there are the highest number of deaths since the beginning of the war." Government forces regularly target the region with rocket fire, shelling and aerial raids, while opposition groups there also launch rockets into the capital. In August, 117 people were killed in a single day of air strikes in the town, causing a global outcry. Throughout Syria's brutal war, both the government and opposition forces have been condemned by rights groups for indiscriminate fire on civilian areas. More than 250,000 people have been killed since the conflict began in March 2011.

Vienna Meet could Lead to Wider Saudi-Iran Talks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 30/15/Iran's first-ever participation in international talks on Syria could lead to wider negotiations between arch-rivals Tehran and Riyadh on the conflicts in Yemen and Iraq, a U.N. official said. "I strongly believe that at sometime there must be direct dialogue between Gulf countries, mainly Saudi Arabia and Iran," said the U.N. special envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed. "They are neighbours and they have every reason to agree," he said in a telephone interview with AFP, asked about the prospects of wider talks encompassing conflicts in Yemen and Iraq.
He was talking as top diplomats from 17 countries, as well as the United Nations and European Union, began talks Friday in Vienna seeking a political path out of Syria's four-year-old conflict. Iran, a longtime backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is taking part for the first time in such talks, months after it struck a landmark nuclear deal with world powers. The U.N. diplomat said Iran "will open up economically and will need a large market like the Gulf" under the July deal curbing Tehran's nuclear programme in exchange for a lifting of sanctions. Confessional disputes between Shiite-dominated Iran and Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia "appear exaggerated", said Ould Cheikh Ahmed. The two Gulf heavyweight are at odds in various regional conflicts. In Syria, Saudi Arabia supports the rebels fighting Assad, who has financial and military support from Tehran, while in Yemen, Riyadh has led a military campaign against Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels.On statements from Riyadh that Saudi-led military operations in support of the Yemeni government are nearing an end, the U.N. envoy said: "I am convinced that they are sincere."He stressed that the United Arab Emirates, which is playing a major role in Yemen operations against Huthis, is "in the same spirit" as Saudis, in favour of a negotiated solution. "I am in very regular contact with Iran, which always stresses its support for a solution (in Yemen). They (the Iranians) are always against the war. There is no ambiguity," the envoy added.

Syria peace talks under way with 17 countries
By Staff writer Al Arabiya News Friday, 30 October 2015/Talks on a political solution to the civil war in Syria got under way Friday, with 17 countries plus the United Nations and European Union taking part. Syria itself was not represented, but senior envoys from Turkey, Italy, Britain, Lebanon, Iran, Jordan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Germany, Qatar, France, the UAE, Oman, the United States and China were present in Vienna.U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sat at the head of the table for the meeting, the first that brought together all the main outside players in the four-year-old Syrian crisis, including bitter foes Iran and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir was sat almost as far from his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif as was possible at the tight U-shaped table in the conference room of Vienna’s grand Imperial Hotel. Most of the countries were represented by their foreign ministers but China sent vice foreign minister Li Baodong. The United Nations was represented by its special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura. The multi-lateral meeting in Vienna is the first to include Iran in efforts to find a political solution to end the four-year-long Syrian civil war, in which at least 200,000 people have been killed and millions have been displaced. Speaking after arriving in the Austrian capital, Kerry said he hoped progress could be made at the talks.“I am hopeful. I don’t call it optimism,” Kerry told reporters before Friday’s talks. “I am hopeful that we can find a way forward. It is very difficult.”
Meanwhile, the German Foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the discussions could prove successful “if we all come and negotiate prepared to really contribute to a de-escalation of the Syrian conflict”.
Syrian opposition
Separately, Russia’s deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov said his country wants the Syrian opposition to agree a common approach and make-up of a delegation for talks with the Syrian government.Russia and Saudi Arabia had exchanged lists of Syrian opposition figures to be potentially included in the talks during a meeting in Vienna, and Russia wanted the Syrian Free Army and the Kurds to take part, Bogdanov was quoted by Interfax as saying. Bogdanov said Russia’s list had 38 names on it, but that Moscow was flexible and happy for the list to be expanded, Interfax reported. He said the United States had promised to hand over its own list.Next meeting Iraq's foreign minister said that the next multilateral meeting on the Syria crisis should be in Vienna next week, Russian news agencies reported. He added that the ongoing talks failed to bring an agreement on Assad's role in the political process.[With AFP and Reuters]

Week of heavy rain floods Mideast with chaos - and trash
By Staff writer Al Arabiya News Friday, 30 October 2015/After deadly flooding and thunderstorms stuck parts of the Middle East during the recent days, a slow-moving storm will continue to threat the region with bad weather through Friday. Forecasters expect daily showers and thunderstorms to become more isolated from the Mediterranean coast of Syria into Jordan and western Iraq on Friday. Heavy rains wreaking havoc in Iraq have brought military operations to wrest the city of Ramadi back from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group to a halt, senior army officers said Friday.
Huge floods have swept through much of North Africa and the Middle East over the past week, devastating vital infrastructure and leaving rubbish flowing through streets. In Egypt, Alexandria, the second largest in the country, was the worst affected. Seven people were killed on Sunday when a power line feeding the city’s tram system fell into the water and electrocuted several pedestrians. (VIDEO) In Lebanon, the government was blamed after heavy rainfall left bags of rubbish streaming down the streets of Beirut. Schools and colleges were closed on Wednesday after heavy rains lashed Kuwait since the early morning. The Ministry of Public Works said emergency teams had been deployed in the country’s governorates to deal with any accident resulting from the stormy weather. The Saudis welcomed the rain season amid fears of some citizens putting themselves at risk in the stormy weather. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has announced that more than seven hundred thousand refugees have arrived in Europe through the Mediterranean this year, and warned of dangers facing them due to the coming expected harsh winter weather.

Israel legalises hundreds of west bank settler homes
By AFP Jerusalem Friday, 30 October 2015/Israel has retroactively legalised some 800 homes in four settlements in the occupied West Bank, the interior ministry said. They included 377 homes in the Yakir settlement, 187 in Itmar and 94 in Shilo in the northern West Bank, as well as 97 more in Sansana in the south of the occupied Palestinian territory, it said. The decision was taken two weeks ago, but was only reported in the Israeli press on Friday. It came at a time of heightened tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied territories, Jerusalem and Israel. Since the beginning of the month, a wave of attacks against Jews as well as ongoing clashes between security forces and Palestinian protesters have left at least 63 Palestinians, including alleged attackers, and nine Israelis dead. The international community regards all Jewish settlements in the West Bank as illegal, but the Israeli government makes a distinction between those it has authorised and those it has not. The wildcat outposts, often little more than a few caravans, are notorious for housing young Jewish hardliners, referred to in Israel as hilltop youth. Settlements and outposts are seen as major stumbling blocks to peace efforts as they are built on land that Palestinians see as part of a future state, and fuel frustration among Palestinian youth. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced major criticism internationally for refusing to halt settlement expansion. “These aren’t new constructions but rather homes built in settlements recognised by Israel in areas that until now didn’t have any urban planning,” said Hagit Ofran, a spokeswoman for Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now. “Even if it doesn’t have the same impact that the announcement of new settlements would, it’s undeniably a gesture from Netanyahu,” she said. The recent violence in the West Bank, including the killing of a Jewish settler couple in front of their children near the Itmar settlement on October 1, has given ammunition to the Israeli pro-settlement lobby, commentators say. Israel last announced new settlements in July when the government authorised 300 new settler homes to be built in Bet El in the central West Bank. Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 Six-Day War in a move never recognised by the international community. Hardline Jewish nationalists see the entire West Bank as part of Israel, which refers to the territory as Judea and Samaria, the names for the ancient biblical kingdoms located there.

Beheaded bodies of Syria anti-ISIS activist, friend found in Turkey
By AFP, Beirut Friday, 30 October 2015/The beheaded bodies of a Syrian activist opposed to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) jihadist group and a friend were found early Friday in the southern Turkish city of Sanliurfa, his colleagues said. Ibrahim Abdul Qader, 20, and friend Fares Hamadi “were found beheaded at the friend’s house this morning,” Abu Mohammad, a founder of the activist’s “Raqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently” group, told AFP via the Internet. The group, which documents abuses in areas under ISIS control in Syria, accused the jihadist organisation of the murders on its Facebook page. According to Abu Mohammad, both men were from Raqa city, the de facto capital of ISIS in Syria. Hamadi was also in his early twenties. Abdul Qader had escaped to Turkey a little over a year ago. Members of the activist group had been killed inside Syria in the past, but this is the first time a member has been killed outside the country, Abu Mohammad added. Turkey’s Dohan news agency reported Friday that “two Syrian journalists were beheaded” in Sanliurfa, and that seven Syrians had been arrested by Turkish police. Sanliurfa is 55 kilometres (35 miles) from Turkey’s border with Syria’s Raqa province, a major ISIS stronghold in the country. Turkey has long been accused by Syrian opposition activists, Kurdish fighters and sometimes even Western partners of allowing ISIS members to slip back and forth across its 911-kilometre (566-mile) frontier with Syria. Bloody bomb attacks in southern Turkey, including an attack in July that claimed 32 lives in Suruc, have been blamed on ISIS, though the group has never claimed responsibility for the blasts. The Raqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS) group was formed in April 2014, not long after ISIS fighters seized control of Raqa from other opposition groups. The city became the first provincial capital to fall from regime control in March 2013 when an array of rebel groups seized it. But since ISIS forced those groups out, it has tightly controlled the city, with activists providing a rare source of information about life in the city and surrounding province. RBSS regularly publishes information, photos and videos about ISIS dictates and behaviour in Raqa, from a jihadist ban on private Internet connections to its decision to begin issuing identity cards. Activists documenting ISIS abuses have regularly been targeted by the group, which deems them “infidels” punishable by death.
Shortly after the group was formed, ISIS carried out a campaign of arrests in Raqa, rounding up dozens of people. At the time, the group’s members insisted they would continue their work nonetheless. “It’s extremely dangerous to oppose ISIS... but we need to break the wall of fear,” Abu Ibrahim, a founder, told AFP in April 2014. “We must make sacrifices, or else they will rule us for good, and that’s just unacceptable.”

Iran confirms death penalty for Sunni preacher
By Staff writer Al Arabiya News Friday, 30 October 2015/Iran’s supreme court this week confirmed the death penalty of a Sunni preacher arrested in 2009, according to Al Arabiya News Channel. The court issued the final verdict for Shahram Ahmadi, who was first charged in 2012, on Oct. 25.
Ahmadi, who was a prisoner of conscience, was held in solitary confinement for 33 months in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, before being transferred to Rajai Shahr prison in the nearby city of Karaj. He had been held in two other prisons since his arrest. In 2012, his younger brother, Bahram Ahmadi, was executed, along with five other Sunni preachers.

Two Palestinians shot ‘trying to stab’ Israeli police
AFP, Jerusalem Friday, 30 October 2015/Two Palestinians allegedly tried to stab Israeli police at a West Bank checkpoint on Friday, one of whom was shot dead while the other was wounded by Israeli fire, police said.
“Both terrorists arrived in area on motorbike armed with knives,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said on Twitter, adding that one of them was shot dead and the other shot and captured. The latest such attack took place at a checkpoint leading into the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank which has become the focal point of a surge in violence that first began in Jerusalem in September.

At least 40 killed in missile attack on Syria’s Douma
Reuters, Beirut Friday, 30 October 2015/At least 40 people were killed and about 100 wounded when Syrian government forces fired missiles into a marketplace in a town near Damascus, a conflict monitor and a local rescue group said on Friday.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war through a network of sources on the ground, said government forces fired 12 missiles at Douma, 15 km northeast of Damascus. Douma has suffered intense bombardment in recent months in a wave of strikes the Syrian army has said targets insurgents that have launched attacks on government-held areas. Syrian Civil Defence, a local humanitarian rescue group that operates in rebel-held areas, posted a picture on its Facebook page of about a dozen bloodied bodies laid on the ground on plastic sheeting and said more than 45 had died in the attack, which it said used guided missiles. “Utterly heinous that while world leaders meet for peace in Vienna, attack(s) against civilians continue in Syria,” the group said on Twitter. It linked to a video showing people tending to survivors in a chaotic scene of blackened rubble and fire. Footage showed bodies on the ground of the market place, where stalls had been blown to pieces. Reuters was unable to independently verify the events shown.Many of Douma’s residents have fled the four-year-old conflict, moving to nearby rural areas. Medics say they have struggled to cope with large numbers of wounded in the intensified strikes.Syria’s 4-year-old civil war has killed more than 250,000 people and driven more than 10 million from their homes. International diplomats were meeting on Friday at a peace conference in Vienna, the first to be attended by President Bashar al-Assad’s main ally Iran.

Russia: No force in Syria without govt approval
Reuters, Moscow Friday, 30 October 2015/Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Friday that no country could use military force in Syria without first securing the agreement of the Syrian government, the TASS news agency reported. TASS said Ryabkov was responding to a question about the prospect of the United States launching a ground operation in Syria. “The question of using military force in any form without the agreement of Damascus is for us unacceptable,” it quoted him as saying. The key international players in the conflict remain bitterly divided over the question of Assad. On one side, Russia and Iran are backing Assad’s forces on the ground and say Damascus must be helped to defeat “terrorism” before a political process can take shape. On the other, the US and its key regional allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia are supporting groups fighting Assad and insist he must step down in favour of a unity government.(With AFP)

German ISIS rapper killed in air strike in Syria
AFP, Washington Friday, 30 October 2015/A German rapper who joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group and publicly threatened President Barack Obama was killed in a US air strike in Syria, a defense official said.
Denis Cuspert, also known by his artist name Deso Dogg, used to rap in Berlin and was one of the most famous Western fighters for the ISIS extremist group. “I can confirm that an October 16 strike near Raqa killed Denis Cuspert,” US Defense Department spokeswoman Elissa Smith said.
Cuspert joined IS in 2012 and went on to appear in numerous videos from the militant group, including one in November last year “in which he appears holding a severed head he claims belongs to a man executed for opposing ISIL,” the State Department previously said. Cuspert had pledged an oath of loyalty to IS group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and was a chief recruiter of German fighters. According to Smith, Cuspert threatened Obama and U.S. and German citizens, and had also encouraged Western Muslims to carry out IS-inspired attacks. “Cuspert was a foreign terrorist fighter and operative for ISIL who used social media to take advantage of disaffected youth and potential Western recruits,” she said, using an alternative name for the IS group. ISIS prohibits music, but singing is allowed, and some of the extremists’ grisly videos are set to a vocal sound track. Earlier in the day, a defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said that Cuspert “was not considered a high-value target (and) we were not specifically targeting him.”He also noted that other ISIS militants may have been hit. Militant sources in April 2014 said Cuspert had been killed in Syria but they later retracted the claim. Cuspert, who later went by Abu Talha al-Almani, was listed as an al-Qaeda supporter by the United Nations.

Iranian-American businessman arrested in Tehran
Reuters, Washington Friday, 30 October 2015/An Iranian-American businessman was arrested by Iranian security forces two weeks while he was visiting relatives in Tehran from his home base in Dubai, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The newspaper, citing people briefed on the situation, said Siamak Namazi, head of strategic planning at Crescent Petroleum Co, was arrested by the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence arm, which reports to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In recent weeks, Iranian business officials with ties to foreign companies had been held, interrogated and warned against wading into economic monopolies controlled by the Revolutionary Guard, the Journal said, quoting several businessman interviewed inside and outside Iran. A senior official in U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration told Reuters: "We’re aware of recent reports of the possible arrest in Iran of a U.S. citizen. We’re looking into these reports and don’t have anything further to provide at this time.” The report comes as Washington has urged Tehran to free three other Americans it is holding, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and to help find Robert Levinson, an American who disappeared in Iran eight years ago. Despite Washington’s long-standing contentious relationship with Tehran, the United States and other major powers forged a deal in July with Iran to curb its nuclear program in return for relief from sanctions. Friends of Namazi told the newspaper that his family home was ransacked by Iranian intelligence agents, who confiscated his computer and had since conducted cyber attacks on some of his email contacts. Namazi has been living in recent years in Dubai while working for Crescent Petroleum, sources familiar with his situation told the Journal. He went to Tehran three months ago to visit relatives.

Warplanes bomb Libya’s Sirte, target ISIS
Reuters, Benghazi Friday, 30 October 2015/Unidentified warplanes carried out air strikes on Libya's Sirte city, targeting areas controlled by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants in the south and west, a witness said on Thursday. The strikes were the second on ISIS in the city this month. Neither of Libya's rival governments nor other warring factions immediately claimed responsibility. "We heard the warplanes around midnight, then there were massive explosions," the witness said. There were no immediate official reports of any casualties. Libya is caught up in a conflict between two rival governments and their armed factions, leaving a security vacuum that has allowed ISIS militants to gain ground. They have secured a base in Sirte. Western governments are pushing for a United Nations peace agreement to form a unity administration between the rival factions, fearing the turmoil is pushing Libya into becoming a failed state.

U.N. seeks to revive Israeli-Palestinian talks
AFP, New York Friday, 30 October 2015/A draft U.N. resolution aimed at reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks calls for a freeze on Jewish settlements and halting moves to prosecute Israel at the International Criminal Court. The text drafted by New Zealand has been circulated to the 15 Security Council members, as well as Israel and the Palestinians, diplomats said on Thursday. The measure is the latest attempt by the U.N.’s top body to try to forge a consensus on the way forward in the Middle East peace process amid a new flare-up of violence. The draft resolution calls on Israelis and the Palestinians to end the violence, prepare for peace talks and declares the two-state solution to be the “only credible pathway to peace”, according to the text seen by AFP. But the text touches on two sensitive issues that are bound to raise hackles on both sides: Jewish settlements and the Palestinian push to prosecute Israel for war crimes at the ICC. The 10-point measure calls on both sides to refrain from action that could undermine the peace effort “including continued expansion of settlements and demolition of Palestinian homes in the occupied territories.”It also demands a halt to “referring a situation concerning Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories to the International Criminal Court” after the Palestinians joined the ICC this year. New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Murray McCully told the Security Council last week of his plan to present a draft resolution that he said could help “stimulate a level of debate” on the crisis. New Zealand’s initiative came after France circulated a draft for a council statement that failed to win agreement, highlighting difficulties to forge a consensus in the council. The council has not adopted a resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process since 2009 and its last formal statement dates back to September 17 when it called for calm at Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque. A spate of protests and attacks in Jerusalem has eased, but tensions are now concentrated in the West Bank city of Hebron, where near-daily clashes pit youths against Israeli soldiers. World leaders desperately want to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that collapsed in April 2014, to avoid a deeper slide into violence that many question could lead to a third Palestinian intifada.

‘Flexibility’ urged at multilateral Syria talks
AFP, Madrid Friday, 30 October 2015/U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday urged participants at international talks aimed at resolving the brutal war in Syria to show “flexibility” and welcomed Iran’s participation for the first time in the discussions. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif will join key players in the Syria crisis - including Russia, the United States and Saudi Arabia - in Vienna on Friday for a renewed effort to end more than four years of bloodshed. It will be the first time all the major players in the conflict are in the same room, though there has been no mention of either the Syrian government or the opposition attending. “I am encouraged that the high level leaders are meeting in Vienna tomorrow to discuss the situation in Syria,” the U.N. chief told a news conference in Madrid when asked about Iran?s participation the talks. “My sincere hope is that they will really address this issue with a sense of flexibility, whatever differences they may have in their political views, in their approaches. They should be united.”The inclusion of Iran - a key backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad - in this week’s meetings marks a crucial shift after Tehran was excluded from earlier talks, mainly because of opposition from Washington and Riyadh. The key international players in the conflict remain bitterly divided over the question of Assad. On one side, Russia and Iran are backing Assad’s forces on the ground and say Damascus must be helped to defeat “terrorism” before a political process can take shape. On the other, the US and its key regional allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia are supporting groups fighting Assad and insist he must step down in favour of a unity government. Ban urged the five “critically important” nations that will take part in the talks -- Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States -- to “show their global leadership rather than their own national perspectives”.“The longer they take their own national perspectives, much more people will suffer and the hold world will suffer,” he added. “As I always say, there is no military solution,” Ban said.

U.S., Iran to meet before multilateral Syria talks
By AFP Vienna Friday, 30 October 2015/U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet his Iranian counterpart in Vienna on Thursday ahead of a fresh round of talks on ending the Syrian conflict, a senior State Department official said. Tehran will join the talks on Friday in what will be the first time it has participated in international negotiations aimed at resolving the bloodshed as key nations backing Syria’s warring sides seek to thrash out differences over the future of President Bashar al-Assad. The inclusion of Iran -- a key Assad backer -- marks a crucial shift after it was excluded from earlier talks, largely due to opposition from the United States and Saudi Arabia. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was also to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Thursday, according to the Russian news wire Interfax. The talks come in the context of two days of diplomatic efforts involving all the major international players in the same room for the first time. On Thursday evening, Russia -- which backs Assad -- will hold talks with the United States, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, all of whom back rebels seeking to overthrow the Syrian leader. It will be the second time in less than a week that the four envoys have met on Syria. But Friday’s talks will be a wider gathering of regional players which will see Zarif joining representatives from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Lebanon and the European Union. So far there has been no mention of either the Syrian government or the opposition joining. The sides remain bitterly divided over the question of Assad, and an earlier round of talks on October 23 ended inconclusively. On one side, Russia and Iran are backing Assad’s forces on the ground and say Damascus must be helped to defeat "terrorism" before a political process can take shape. On the other, the US and its key regional allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia are supporting groups fighting Assad and insist he must go.
Around a quarter of a million people have died in the Syrian conflict over the past four and a half years.

Iran considered nuclear weapons during 1980s Iraq war, ex-president says
By Sam Wilkin, Reuters Dubai Thursday, 29 October 2015/Iran considered pursuing a nuclear deterrent when it began its nuclear program in the 1980s, during an eight-year war with Iraq, a former president has been quoted as saying. Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's comments comes at a sensitive moment, as Iran implements an agreement reached with world powers in July aimed at curbing its nuclear programme, to allay Western fears it was trying to build an atomic bomb.The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear watchdog, is investigating whether Iran's nuclear programme ever had a military application. It is due to issue a report by Dec. 15. Throughout the negotiations, Iran insisted its programme had only ever been for peaceful purposes. In an interview with Iran's Nuclear Hope magazine this week, Rafsanjani suggested that officials were thinking about a deterrent capability when the nuclear program first began but it never took shape. "When we first began, we were at war and we sought to have that possibility for the day that the enemy might use a nuclear weapon. That was the thinking. But it never became real," Rafsanjani said in the interview, which was carried by state news agency IRNA on Tuesday. Iran fought a devastating eight-year war against Iraq in the 1980s. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the aggressor, had a nuclear programme throughout the war. He never developed a nuclear weapon but used chemical weapons later in the war. "We were still at war and Iraq had come close to enrichment before Israel destroyed it all," Rafsanjani said, referring to an Israeli air strike against Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981. "Our basic doctrine was always a peaceful nuclear application, but it never left our mind that if one day we should be threatened and it was imperative, we should be able to go down the other path," he added. Rafsanjani was parliament speaker during the war and became president shortly after. The 80-year-old cleric now heads the Expediency Council, a powerful unelected body, and some observers consider him a candidate to become Supreme Leader after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But he has been targeted by conservatives after clashing publicly with Khamenei. In June, the hardline judiciary upheld a ten-year prison sentence against his son, a businessman, on corruption and security charges. Rafsanjani also said he had travelled to Pakistan to try to meet Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, who later helped North Korea to develop a bomb, but did not meet with him. Khan was at the center of the world's biggest nuclear proliferation scandal in 2004, when he confessed to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

Rockets strike Iranian opposition camp in Baghdad
By AFP Baghdad Friday, 30 October 2015/At least 15 missiles targeted a base near the international airport west of Baghdad that houses exiled Iranian opposition members, security sources said. “Fifteen rockets were fired from Bakriya around and on the edge of Camp Liberty,” Baghdad operations command said, adding that police found the truck the rockets were fired from. Camp Liberty is a former U.S. military base housing members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, an opposition group that has been exiled since the 1979 Islamic revolution. The statement and interior ministry sources said there may have been casualties but could say how many. A spokesman for the Mujahedin said the attack was the worst to have targeted the camp so far. “We were in our housing trailers when missiles started to fall...Not everybody managed to take shelter,” he said. He claimed that several people were killed but could not say how many. The group sided with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during the war with Iran in the 1980s but the 2003 US-led invasion brought leaders with ties to Tehran to power. The Mujahedin were moved to Camp Liberty after the 2011 US withdrawal.

Donald Trump defends burqas and niqabs
October 30, 2015By Robert Spencer
“Then I saw women interviewed. They said, ‘We want to wear it. We’ve worn them for a thousand years. Why would anyone tell us not to?’ They want to! What the hell are we getting involved for? In fact, it’s easier. You don’t have to put on makeup.”
Yes, the burqa, the niqab and even the hijab are much easier for Muslim women. Just ask Aqsa Parvez, whose Muslim father choked her to death with her hijab after she refused to wear it; and Amina Muse Ali, a Christian woman in Somalia whom Muslims murdered because she wasn’t wearing a hijab; and the 40 women who were murdered in Iraq in 2007 for not wearing the hijab; and Alya Al-Safar, whose Muslim cousin threatened to kill her and harm her family because she stopped wearing the hijab in Britain; and Amira Osman Hamid, who faces whipping in Sudan for refusing to wear the hijab; and the Egyptian girl, also named Amira, who committed suicide after being brutalized for her family for refusing to wear the hijab; and the Muslim and non-Muslim teachers at the Islamic College of South Australia who were told that they had to wear the hijab or be fired; and the women in Chechnya whom police shot with paintballs because they weren’t wearing hijab; and the women also in Chechnya who were threatened by men with automatic rifles for not wearing hijab; and the elementary school teachers in Tunisia who were threatened with death for not wearing hijab; and the Syrian schoolgirls who were forbidden to go to school unless they wore hijab; and the women in Gaza whom Hamas has forced to wear hijab; and the women in Iran who protested against the regime by daring to take off their legally-required hijab; and the women in London whom Muslim thugs threatened to murder if they didn’t wear hijab; and the anonymous young Muslim woman who doffed her hijab outside her home and started living a double life in fear of her parents, and all the other women and girls who have been killed or threatened, or who live in fear for daring not to wear the hijab.
Who speaks for them? Who stands up for their rights? Not Donald Trump. Here is more of his Sharia compliance.

“Why Is Donald Trump Defending Burqas?,”
Jillian Kay Melchior, National Review, October 27, 2015/In yet another demonstration of his unsuitability for office, Donald Trump extolled the wearing of burqas and niqabs at length at his rally in New Hampshire earlier this week. The comments, delivered in Trump’s typical yuk-it-up tone, are so ridiculous that they’re worth printing in their entirety:We want it where the women over there don’t have to wear the you-know-what. [Trump gestures across his face with his hand, an apparent reference to burqas and niqabs.] And then I said, “Oh, well that makes sense, that’s nice.” Then I saw women interviewed. They said, “We want to wear it. We’ve worn them for a thousand years. Why would anyone tell us not to?” They want to! What the hell are we getting involved for? In fact, it’s easier. You don’t have to put on makeup. Look how beautiful everyone looks. Wouldn’t it be easier? Bwah. Right? Wouldn’t that be easy? I tell ya, if I was a woman, I don’t want to bwah, “I’m ready, darling, let’s go.” It’s true!…

13 Children among at Least 22 Migrants Drowned Off Greece
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 30/15/At least 22 migrants, among them 13 children, drowned overnight when two boats sank off the islands of Kalymnos and Rhodes, the Greek port officials said on Friday. The latest drownings prompted a sharp response from Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras who said he felt "shame" over Europe's failure to prevent the tragedies.Another 138 people were pulled to safety although the coastguard were continuing their search for survivors, officials said. Off Kalymnos, authorities recovered 19 bodies on Friday morning, among them six women and 10 children. Further south, a woman, a child and baby drowned when another boat sank off Rhodes. Three people who had been on board with them were still missing early Friday, while six others were rescued. And early on Friday, an AFP correspondent saw another boat foundering off the coast of Lesbos, with a group of desperate people perched on the roof screaming for help. The latest deaths came after a string of drownings off the tourist islands of Lesbos and Samos on Wednesday, with the latest figures showing at least 17 people, including 11 children, died. Throughout October, 68 people have drowned while trying to reach Greece from Turkey, according to an AFP count based on statistics released by Greek port authorities. Faced with yet another "humanitarian tragedy", Tsipras said it was crucial to prevent the Aegean Sea from becoming a graveyard for people fleeing war and misery and seeking safety in northern Europe. "As a European leader, I feel shame over Europe's inability to defend its values," Tsipras told the Greek parliament. "Our first duty is to save lives and not to allow the Aegean to become a cemetery... for that we are not asking for even a euro" from our European partners, he said. He also underlined the urgent need of having Turkey "respect its commitments" to halting the flow of people leaving its territory by boat and stressing Athens' willingness to be "a link between the EU and Turkey" on the matter. With the winter weather whipping up gales and worsening conditions at sea, the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said there was an "urgent need" to strengthen search and rescue capacity in the area. "We have warned for weeks that an already bad situation could get even worse if desperate refugees and migrants must continue to resort to smugglers who send them out to sea despite the worsening weather," said Alessandra Morelli, UNHCR's Senior Operations Coordinator for Greece in a statement released on Thursday. "Our fears are now being realized. Nearly every day now we are seeing children, parents, the elderly and the young dying as they try to reach Europe."Since the start of the year, 560,000 migrants and refugees have arrived in Greece by sea, out of over 700,000 who have reached Europe via the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). More than 3,200 people have died during the perilous crossings although most of the deaths have occurred on the longer sea route from Libya to Italy.

The names and photos of 26 IRGC officers killed in Syria, also taken from the Mashregh website, were also tweeted by a personal account on October 29, 2015.[3]
The 26 photos posted on a private Twitter account
IRGC Deputy Commander Salami: "Our Presence Increased Both Quantitatively And Qualitatively... But Our Total Number Of Martyrs Is Not High"
As stated, IRGC Deputy Commander Hossein Salami conducted an interview with Iranian Channel 2 on October 26, 2015, in which he discussed Iran's involvement in Syria. Salami said: "Our military role in Syria can be presented on four levels: The first is strategic – on this level we support the Syrian people, regime and army and convey our experience... via advisory elements. Another level is the operational level, which includes advising Syrian army commanders. Yet another level is the tactical level, in which our commanders advise the the Syrian army commanders in charge of operations... And the fourth level is the technical level, which refers to supplying equipment and training."
In response to the question of why the number of Iranian martyrs has increased recently, Salami replied: "Several months ago, the Syrian regime began to rebuild its army and asked us for advisory aid for a large-scale operation... Due to this, our presence increased both quantitatively and qualitatively... Our forces visit the arena [of combat] to provide better assistance, which is why it seems that compared to the past, we have more martyrs. But our total number of martyrs is not high."[4]
Endnotes:
[1] The reformist website Amadnews.com reported on October 9, 2015 that Hamadani was killed "because his vehicle rolled over in Aleppo, and he was not killed by ISIS as stated by the official IRGC website."
[2] In his eulogy, IRGC Commander Ali Jafari said: "Without General Hamadani, Damascus would have fallen. Syria owes its [survival] to General Hamadani. Sepanews.com, October 10, 2015. During a television program in memory of Hamadani on October 17, Jafari said: "Hamadani volunteered due to the events in Syria and was there for four years... Today, 100,000 Syrians have mobilized to combat the lack of security, and Hamadani played a key role in this matter. Farsnews.com, October 17, 2015.
[3] Twitter.com/negmosi, October 29, 2015.
[4] Fars (Iran), October 26, 2015.

The Saudi king and the media
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/Pctober 30/15/
Arab and international journalists have always targeted Saudi Arabia – at times, they might have been right in doing so, but some have ulterior motives in their coverage. When it comes to dealing with the media, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz has presented himself as one of the most skilled and experienced political leaders for decades. He dealt with the first media campaign waged against Saudi Arabia during the dispute with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1960s. He played a significant role in communicating with Egyptian media officials at the time, namely Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, the then editor of Al-Ahram newspaper. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he handled political Arab issues in the international media and he supported the idea of establishing Saudi media institutions overseas, to become involved in the ongoing regional political rivalries. Saudi Arabia is still one of the most important Arab countries to the international media. Media activities are indispensable and crucial in conflict. Saudi Arabia has pushed its influence through diplomacy, economic support and media campaigns, while other countries like Iran, Syria, and Saddam's Iraq resorted to security and military tools to extend their influence. For instance, the Syrian regime has consistently intimidated and pursued journalists, and did not hesitate to kill them. Syria has a proven record in this field; from the killing of Salim al-Lawzi owner of the Lebanese “Hawadeth” media institution in the 1980s, to the assassination of Gebran Tueni, Editor-in-Chief of the Lebanese “An-Nahar” newspaper, all because the publication dared to call for an end to Syria’s military presence in Lebanon.
Media storms
Saudi Arabia is used to being at the center of media storms because of the nature of its conservative regime and society. The majority of what is being said and written is either fabricated or exaggerated, such as for example the recent rumors about Saudi Arabia being on the verge of bankruptcy because of falling oil prices. In a meeting with senior Saudi media delegates a few days ago, the Saudi king discussed this issue, saying: “Let us work and let them say whatever they want to say,” while also quoting the Islamic saying: “May God have mercy on the one who shows me my flaws.” There is no government in the world that likes being criticized. However governmental activities and critical journalism are two things that can never be separated. As the king explicitly said, the government should not feel strained because a newspaper in London or Sydney has said that Saudi Arabia will go bankrupt, or because they have expressed the opinion of an angry set of people. On the contrary, the questioning of Saudi Arabia’s ability to manage crises should motivate the government to prove that all media accusations are wrong, or it could begin to correct its operations; including those related to criticism of its human rights and politics. Is Saudi Arabia facing a real financial crisis? Of course it is; those observing the markets can see that there is a sharp slump in state revenues due to the drop in oil prices. This is not an easy challenge as it will need the government to be bold and resort to a bitter remedy, which will not resolve only today’s problem. It should also seek the reform of the government’s performance since the establishment of the administrative state that has been around since the late 1950s. If the government succeeds in its mission, we would then be thankful, but if it fails, all can blame it. During the meeting, the king chose his words carefully without debating with any party – in conformity with the royal code of behavior – because the government has to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. A lot of people are today betting on the current government, mostly formed of young people and experts, being able to achieve a historic transition that moves and saves the kingdom from its dangerous dependence on oil. As for the press that have waged media wars against Saudi Arabia, I can say that they will not maintain this one stance forever; we will soon witness a change in opinions and attitudes as soon as we see new conditions and results.

No war, no peace: The Jordan-Israel peace deal is not a deal
Raed Omari/Al Arabiya/Pctober 30/15/
October 26 marked the 21st anniversary of the Jordanian-Israeli peace deal. From a wider strategic perspective, the 1994 U.S.-sponsored Wadi Araba Peace Treaty can be said to have some sort of validity, but what is undeniable is that it has failed to make Amman and Tel Aviv ‘normal’ neighbors.
There is still uneasiness and troubled diplomatic relations between Jordan and Israel, indeed due to the inseparability of the Palestinian cause from Jordan’s internal and external policies and, in a lower degree, the little-mentioned Israeli harassment of Jordan. The deal’s anniversary has never been celebrated or commemorated in Jordan especially this year with the Jewish settler attacks on Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site which has been under the Hashemite custody for almost a century. Strangely enough, whether Jordan will one day scrap the peace deal is a question that is decided in Tel Aviv more than in Amman. As was the case last year, Jordanians have remembered the deal with a call on their government to abolish it, citing Israel’s disregard of its provisions, mainly those related to Jerusalem. Even among Jordan’s conservative politicians, including those who co-authored the deal, there is rising skepticism about the feasibility of the peace treaty.
‘Treaty of shame’
Israeli unilateral actions in Jerusalem, seen as an attempt by Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition to change the decades-old status quo in and around the al-Aqsa compound, have prompted Jordanians to take to the streets in large numbers never witnessed in the security-concerned kingdom for almost three years. Islamists, leftists and un-politicized citizens came out in the capital and across the kingdom, condemning Israel and calling on their government to abolish the “treaty of shame” with Israel. Even among the political elite in Jordan, there was talk about annulling or freezing the deal as one of the options Jordan can have in hand to respond to Netanyahu’s recent moves.
Meanwhile, the deal’s 21st anniversary has been commemorated in the Israeli media with an unmistakable call on Netanyahu’s government to stay on good terms with Jordan, citing the kingdom’s strategic importance to Israel. Netanyahu himself had reportedly agreed on Jordan’s proposal to install surveillance cameras around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and his affirmation to keep the status quo untouched has been to calm Amman. But Jordan has other strategic issues in its ties with Israel, including borders, water and refugees and having them unresolved yet, is the major reason behind Amman’s inability to be content with its peace deal with Israel. The Wadi Araba deal is of strategic importance to Israel more than to Jordan. The deal offers Israel security on its eastern border with Jordan that extends to more than 600 kilometers. Not a single security incident has been made public on the Jordanian-Israeli border since 1994. Tel Aviv has always voiced a keenness to bolster Jordan’s interests in the deal, but never acted accordingly. It is still challenging Jordan over Jerusalem and by refusing the two-state solution. Jordan’s aim behind the peace deal was to end the exhausting state of “no war and no peace” with Israel, as well as securing new sources of economic and military assistance from the West. Jordanians were promised that peace will be fruitful but they gained nothing even after they began to learn Hebrew and normalize themselves with Israelis. Strangely enough, whether Jordan will one day scrap the peace deal is a question that is decided in Tel Aviv more than in Amman. For the time being, the deal is a strategic choice for Jordan through which it can oversee its custody over Jerusalem.

How Khamenei exploits Obama through the nuclear deal
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Al Arabiya/Pctober 30/15/
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has masterfully sniffed out the weaknesses of President Obama and his administration, and the revelation of his new conditions on the nuclear deal suggests that Khamenei is ready to milk the administration more and obtain more concessions. A flimsy deal has been signed by six world powers and Iran. Two prominent institutions, the U.S. congress and the Islamic Republic’s parliament (Majlis) ratified the deal as well. Khamenei is now fully invested in his political game of playing with President Obama. Hence, one would imagine that the agreement is considered to be a 100 percent done-deal. Also, one would assume that Khamenei would now back away after the Majlis ratified the deal under his indirect order and after being assured that his power grip is no longer threatened by Western economic sanctions.
Khamenei’s New and Post-Nuclear Deal Conditions
According to a new guideline sent to the President Rowhani and posted on Khamenei’s website, the Supreme Leader is demanding the United States and other European countries guarantee and provide “solid and sufficient” proof that all economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic are lifted before Iran fulfills its part and complies with the terms of the nuclear agreement. Therefore, all the months which were spent deliberating over Iran’s nuclear program and the actual signing of it have apparently amounted to a joke. The Supreme Leader’s new condition of lifting sanctions before Tehran’s compliance to the terms seemingly violates the deal that was reached. An additional condition that the Supreme Leader presented is to rule out any “snap-back” option with regards to the sanctions. First he wants sanctions to be lifted at the outset, then he wants to make sure that the international community will not have any mechanism through which it can re-impose sanctions in the very likely scenario that Iran decides to pull out of the nuclear agreement and go full speed ahead on uranium enrichment. But wait, that’s not all, there is another condition to be met as well. After Khamenei had his president and nuclear team add the condition of the removal of an arms embargo to the nuclear agreement in the eleventh hour, he is now adding the removal of all sanctions (including the ones linked to Iran’s terrorism and human rights violations) to the already-done nuclear deal. The intriguing aspect of this power struggle is that on the one hand, Iran did not allow the West to bring any issues to the negotiating table other than Iran’s nuclear program– not even Tehran’s ballistic program. But on the other hand, Iranian leaders obtained numerous concessions which were not related to the nuclear program; lifting the arms embargo, lifting sanctions related to terrorism and human rights abuses, lifting sanctions against military leaders, as well as many more items. Since the nuclear agreement appears to be a flimsy throw-away deal, Khamenei's confidence has been bolstered and he will continue to exploit the United States and play with the Obama administration's weakness. That is why after the deal, Iran tested its ballistic missiles in “clear violation” of the U.N. Security Council resolution.
Khamenei positions himself above the law
Khamenei is positioning himself in a very comfortable area; he demonstrates that he is above the law when it comes to any matter including the nuclear deal. This allows him to enact new rules and breach or bypass existing ones at his will. As I mentioned few months ago, Khamenei was not going to approve or disapprove of the nuclear deal publicly for two major reasons. First of all, he does not desire to hold responsibility or accountability for the outcome of the deal. Secondly, he would like to have the luxury of pulling out of the deal at any time he wishes for any reason that he deems worthy (preferably after economic sanctions are fully lifted). But there is another reason that he remained neutral as Khamenei was aiming to obtain additional concessions after the nuclear deal was signed and after President Rowhani and his nuclear team had already secured numerous concessions during the nuclear talks.When it comes to detecting the weakness of other countries and their leaders, Khamenei can be characterized as one of the shrewdest politicians in the region. After all, he has reigned as Iran’s Supreme Leader since 1980, which makes him the second-longest serving autocrat in the Middle East. Khamenei is now fully invested in his political game of playing with President Obama. Other European members of the United Nations Security Council (Britain and France) plus Germany followed in the footsteps of the Obama administration in the nuclear talks and also gave concessions to Tehran.Khamenei knows that Obama is in a position of surrender, and the president will have no other option than to continue giving in to the Supreme Leader’s demands or intentionally refuse to address the real issues until he leaves the White House and delegates the problematic deal to the next U.S. president. This will ultimately complicate the prospect of a true nuclear deal.

Pro-Syria Lebanese Dailies Warn Of Wide-Ranging Ferocious Campaign In Region Unless Iran’s Demands Are Met
In Advance Of Syria Peace ,Talks In Vienna Pro-Syria Lebanese Dailies Warn Of Wide-Ranging Ferocious Campaign In Region Unless Iran’s Demands Are Met
MEMRI/October 30, 2015Special Dispatch No.6204
In advance of the peace talks on the Syrian crisis that began today in Vienna, with the participation of 17 countries including the U.S., Russia, Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, the Lebanese dailies Al-Akhbar and Al-Safir, known for their support for Hizbullah, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, and the resistance axis, published several articles warning that if Iran’s conditions for a solution in Syria are not met, there will be a military escalation in Syria and across the entire Middle East.
In two articles in Al-Akhbar, Lebanese journalist Hassan Haidar stressed that “today Iran has more of a presence than ever on the ground in Syria” and is “armed with the ‘quadripartite alliance’ and its military force, which has not yet shown its full offensive might on the battlefield [in Syria].” He added that if Iran’s demands in a solution in Syria, including abandoning the idea of removing Assad, were not met, Iran would escalate matters, leading to “massive Iranian intervention on Syrian soil” and “a wide-ranging and ferocious campaign” to get its way. Haidar wrote that should this happen, “all the doors will close, and only the sounds of war will be heard.” He also argued that what had caused the U.S. to change its position and agree to Iran’s participation in the Vienna talks was intelligence information it had collected about the military campaign that Iran has planned for Syria.
The political editor of Al-Safir wrote that if no political solution was reached by 2016, “the barrel bombs will turn into volcanoes that will erupt from Yemen and reach everywhere in this burning region.”
Following are excerpts from the three articles:
Columnist in Al-Akhbar: If Iran’s Conditions Are Not Met There Will Be Iranian Military Escalation in Syria And “A More Wide-Ranging and Ferocious Campaign”
Hassan Haidar, columnist for the Lebanese Al-Akhbar daily, which is close to Hizbullah and to the Syrian regime, wrote: “Hossein Abdollahian, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs, represented Iran at the discussion table on the Syrian crisis [in Vienna]. He reiterated the principles of his country: the need to stop support for the armed [rebels] and their influx into Syria, the bringing in of urgent humanitarian aid, and afterwards the holding of a political dialogue and national reconciliation, with the participation of the unarmed opposition or those [in the opposition] who are prepared for dialogue with no preconditions. Afterwards, there would be elections for parliament and for the presidency, from which would be formed a national unity government that would deal first of all with two issues: the return of the refugees and reconstruction. These details do not include discussion of the issue of the future of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, since it is the elections that will decide the future of the presidency. It is the Syrians who need to decide their future, and the world needs to support their preferences.
“Iran’s demands will be extremely grating to the ears of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and other countries that are calling for Assad’s removal. The Iranian side, however, will bring with it the latest news on the military operations [in Syria] that are still in their early stages, and will… express its willingness to ramp up its military involvement in an ‘advisory’ [capacity] if the proposals that it puts on the table are ignored…[1]
“If Iran comes up against stubborn insistence on the part of the Gulf states and the West for their [own] demands, in addition to [their] continued support for and supply to the armed [rebels], then [it should be taken into account] that today Iran has more of a presence than ever on the ground in Syria, that it intends to increase the number of its military advisors, and that it is determined to spearhead the battle against the terrorists. This accounts for the increase in the number of Iranian martyrs for whom the Islamic Republic is conducting funerals in these days, most of whom died in the Aleppo region and in northwest Syria…
“Thus, either the world and a portion of the Arabs become convinced of the obligation to stop supporting terrorism and to work towards a joint strategy – the lowest common denominator of which is halting the takfiri expansion, deterring it, and reining it in, or else the ‘four-country alliance’ [of Iran, Iraq, Russia, and Syria] will turn to escalation of the war on the ground. Then, after all the options are exhausted, there will be no excuse to prevent massive Iranian intervention on Syrian soil. Then all the doors to dialogue will close, and only the sounds of war will be heard. That is, apart from the direct relations concerning the nuclear issue, which have not been affected [up to now] by the fact that the issues are interrelated, since the Iranians have separated out [the nuclear issue] from the circle of regional dialogue and have neutralized it…
“Iran is facing two options vis-à-vis Syria: a diplomatic resolution and an end to the war, or movement toward a more wide-ranging and ferocious campaign in which the gains on the ground will play a major role in imposing the conditions for a resolution on the others.”[2]
In a second piece, published October 30, 2015, Haidar again stressed that Iran had a massive presence in Syria and that it has threatened to expand its campaign there if its demands are not met: “Iran is armed with the ‘quadripartite alliance’ and its military force, which has not yet shown its full offensive might on the battlefield [in Syria], because it is [still] in the stage of setting the rules of war and drawing up plans with its allies. This means that we can expect a gradual escalation of military activity in Syria, after [Iran, Russian, and the other] forces participating in the war acclimate to the nature of the region. It is based on this [situation] that Iranian diplomacy will operate in Vienna…”
Haidar went on to argue that Iran’s participation in the Vienna talks, the idea of which had been rejected until recently, “was not the result of the success of the nuclear negotiations [i.e. the JCPOA], but the result of changes on the ground [in Syria] and of the U.S.’s monitoring of [what is happening] on the ground [there], and following [the U.S.'s gathering of] data and intelligence information on the scope of the coming campaign, which will begin with Russian aerial backup. [It is all this that has] prompted Washington to include Iran in finding a solution, despite strong Saudi and Turkish objections…
“Tehran will bring up its view [on resolving the Syrian crisis] at the debate table in Vienna. But if its efforts are rebuffed, then it will launch a more wide-ranging campaign. Onward to war.”[3]
Political Editor of Al-Safir: If An Accord In Syria Is Not Reached Soon, The Barrel Bombs Will Turn Into Volcanoes That Will Burn Up The Region
The political editor of the Lebanese Al-Safir daily, which is known for its support for the Assad regime and for the resistance axis, wrote in the paper on October 30, 2015 under the title “The Vienna Summit: Acceleration of a Syrian Accord, or a Volcano?” about the meetings in Vienna. He warned that if an accord on the Syria situation is not reached soon, the entire region will be burned by a volcano: “The scene in Vienna appears surreal. Each participant holds in one hand an olive branch and in the other a rifle or a Sukhoi [fighter jet]. Each has his own weapon, his own materiel, and his own considerations. One group does not budge an inch from its demand for President Bashar Al-Assad’s removal, even if his replacements will be the [Jabhat] Al-Nusra, ISIS, or any other name. The other group opposes the principle of the forcible removal of Assad, and calls for a full complement of political [accords], the first principle of which is the fight against terrorism…
“Have the conditions ripened for an accord in Syria? What is certain is that if the doors to an accord remain closed into 2016, it will mean that the barrel bombs will turn into volcanoes that will erupt from Yemen and reach everywhere in this burning region.”[4]
Endnotes:
[1] The quotation marks are the author’s. Spokesmen for the Iranian regime have been careful over the past years to deny any direct involvement in the war in Syria, and have claimed that Iranian aid to the Assad regime has been in an advisory capacity to Assad’s forces fighting on the ground.
[2] Al-Akhbar (Lebanon), October 29, 2015.
[3] Al-Akhbar (Lebanon), October 30, 2015.
[4] Al-Safir (Lebanon), October 30, 2015.

IRGC-Affiliated Website: Some 30 IRGC Officers Killed On Syrian Front In The Past Two Weeks
October 30, 2015Special Dispatch No.6203
Officers in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as well as websites affiliated with it, have recently published data regarding the number of IRGC and Basij officers who were killed in the past two weeks while fighting in Syria. The death toll includes three generals, battalion commanders, captains and lieutenants, as well as one pilot. These fighters were apparently taking part in "Operation Muharram", a large-scale military operation in Syria named after the current month of Muharram, which in the Shi'a is a month of mourning (on its tenth day, the Ashura, Shi'ites commemorate the martyrdom of Hussein bin Ali in the Battle of Karbala).
In recent years, Iranian regime spokesmen have routinely denied direct involvement in the fighting in Syria, claiming that Iranian aid to the Assad regime was limited to "advising" Assad's forces on the ground. IRGC Deputy Commander Hossein Salami maintained this line in an interview with Iranian Channel 2 on October 26, 2015, in which he detailed the various levels of Iranian aid to the Assad regime. He admitted that "Iranian presence" in Syria "has increased both quantitatively and qualitatively," and added that "our forces visit the arena [of combat] to provide better assistance, which is why it seems that compared to the past, we have more martyrs. But our total number of martyrs is not high."
This document reviews reports by sources affiliated with the IRGC regarding the death of nearly 30 IRGC officers in the fighting in Syria in the past few weeks, as well as statements by IRGC Deputy Commander Salami regarding Iran's military presence in the country.
Some 30 IRGC Officers Recently Killed In Syria
On October 9, 2015, Tehran announced that General Hossein Hamadani, a member of Iran's top military command echelon in Syria, was killed by ISIS in Aleppo while "carrying out an advisory mission."[1] Iran's top leadership, chiefly Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, IRGC Commander Ali Jafari, and IRGC Qods Force Commander Qasem Soleimani, personally mourned Hamadani, stating that he was a founding member of the Syrian Basij forces.[2]
On October 25, the Mashregh website (mashreghnews.ir) reported that another general, Sajad Tahernia, and pilot Rouhallah Emadi, were killed on the same day during an "advisory mission" in southern Aleppo.
General Tahernia (left) and the pilot Emadi (right)
In fact, in the past week Mashregh has reported on a daily basis about Iranians killed in Operation Muharram in Syria. On October 24, it reported that "during a large-scale operation that began some two weeks ago, over 15 Iranian soldiers were killed in face-to-face combat with the 'fans of American Islam' [meaning ISIS]." On October 26, it stated that the number of fighters killed "over the past 12 days" in "renewed fighting against Saudi mercenaries and fans of American Islam has climbed to 20," and published the names and photos of 20 troops killed."
Photos of 20 troops killed in recent fighting
Two days later, on October 28, Mashregh reported that the Iranian death toll during the anti-ISIS Operation Muharram that has been waging in recent days has risen to 26. On October 29, the website updated the death toll to 27, killed "in less than 15 days," after the death of another officer, named Mohamad Reza Tourjizadeh, commander of the Ya Zahra Battalion, who died "in an operation in Syria." On October 30, Mashregh stated that the death toll stood at 29, and gave one more name: Hojat Asghari Sharibani.
The Names Of The IRGC, Basij Officers And Soldiers Killed In Syria As Published On Mashregh
The IRGC and Basij soldiers and officers whose death in Syria was reported by Mashregh recently are the following:
Farshad Hosounizadeh – IRGC general and former commander of the Liwa Al-Sabirin militia
Mostafa Sadrzadeh – commander of the Omar Battalion of the Al-Fatmiyoon Brigade
Hamid Mojtaba Mokhtarband – IRGC commander
Nader Hamid
Moslem Khizab
Hadi Shoja'
Mehdi Ali Doust – IRGC officer commanding the 17th Battalion of the Ali ibn Abu Taleb Brigade
Mohamad Estehkami Jahromi
Majid Sanaee – Basij officer with the 161st Battalion of the Al-Imam Brigade
Komeil Ghorbani – Captain with the Najaf Ashraf 8th Armored Division
Hasan Ahmadi – Lieutenant with the Najaf Ashraf 8th Armored Division
Mojtaba Karami – Basij officer with the 154 Battalion of the Ali Al-Akbar Brigade
Rasoul Pourmorad
Amin Karimi – Officer for the Al-Ansar platoon of the IRGC
Reza Damroudi – IRGC engineer
Abdollah Baqeri – bodyguard of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Seyed Milad Mostafavi
Jabar Araghi
Mohamad Reza Askarifard
Abouzar Amjadian
Moslem Nasser – Lieutenant with the Al-Mahdi Brigade
Khanali Yousef
Mehdi Kaeeni
Mohamad Reza Tourjizadeh – Commander of the Ya Zahra Brigade
Mohamad Reza Dayi Taqi – Commander of the Imam Mahdi squad of the Basij forces
Hojat Asghari Sharibani

MEMRI: 'The Emperor Has No Clothes'
By: Yigal Carmon*October 30, 2015 MEMRI Daily Brief No.65
"The Emperor's New Clothes," by Duncan Carse, 1923. Courtesy Etsy.
This MDB is dedicated to the memory of USAF pilot Captain (ret.) David Ganz, a man of honor and gallantry and a decorated officer, who passed away last week.
What Is The "Iran Nuclear Deal?"
What is mistakenly perceived as an agreement under the title of "Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action" (JCPOA), that was concluded on July 14 in Vienna, and celebrated by the White House as an "historic agreement," is neither a contract nor even a real agreement between Iran and the P5+1. It is a set of understandings and disputes compiled into a single document.
For example, the JCPOA states that in the event of Iranian violations, sanctions will be re-imposed (snapback). However, the Iranian position, which rejects all sanctions, is incorporated in the same document. In outlining the snapback of the sanctions, Article 37 also stipulates: "Iran has stated that if sanctions are reinstated in whole or in part, Iran will treat that as grounds to cease performing its commitments under this JCPOA in whole or in part."[1] This is not merely an Iranian reservation expressed outside of the negotiating room. It is incorporated into the text of this selfsame document – and one that completely contradicts preceding provisions that stipulate otherwise. Since the parties were unable to arrive at an understanding on this issue in two entire years of negotiations, they decided to resolve this major issue by incorporating this disagreement into the document itself.
The JCPOA is best characterized by bangs and whimpers – by bold prohibitions on Iran that peter out in qualifying terms such as "unless," "except if," and the like.
Why isn't the JCPOA a contract? Because Iran would never have signed any contract with the U.S. – "the Great Satan" – whose demise it seeks. Likewise, it would not have signed any contract with any other party to the negotiations, since it views the sanctions imposed on it by United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions and by EU and IAEA reports as grievous injustice. By signing such an agreement, it would retroactively legitimize these wrongs done to it.
As Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei frequently reiterates, Iran agreed to negotiations mainly to get the sanctions lifted. Therefore, as far as Iran is concerned, the only acceptable name for this enterprise is "Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action" – under which each party commits to particular action. It is a joint plan, not a contract.[2]
Has Iran Fulfilled Its Initial Obligation To Approve The July 14 Vienna JCPOA?
The JCPOA includes a timetable and obligations applying to both sides. Within this time frame, both parties had 90 days from July 14 to secure approval for the agreement from their respective national institutions. By "Adoption Day," set for October 19, which has come and gone, the agreement was meant to have been approved by both sides. The EU was to have announced the lifting of its sanctions, while President Obama, on behalf of the U.S., was to have announced the lifting of the U.S. executive branch's sanctions, along with waivers on sanctions imposed by the U.S. legislative branch – that is, suspension, because the president is not authorized to lift them.
Adoption Day was preceded by a farcical UNSC endorsement of the agreement/disagreement, as demanded by Iran. The U.S. volunteered to play errand boy for this undertaking. For its part, the UNSC eschewed discussion on the matter, and passed this historic resolution, No. 2231,[3] on such a weighty historic document in record time – under 30 minutes.
The Western side showed its consent long before October 19; the self-effacing EU member countries did not even bother to discuss the agreement in their national parliaments – and thus confirmed their true status as nonentities. And while the U.S Congress did discuss it seriously, the agreement was allowed to proceed, via a convoluted process that was nonetheless legal and binding.
In Iran, however, following discussion in both its Majlis and its Guardian Council, the JCPOA as concluded and announced on July 14 was not approved. The Majlis ratified something else – a set of recommendations to the government of Iran regarding how it should execute the JCPOA. This hardly constitutes approval of the original document. The Guardian Council, for its part, approved what the Majlis had done; Guardian Council secretary-general Ayatollah Jannati said, on Iranian TV, that his council had approved not the JCPOA but a plan for the government to secure Iran's interests in executing it.[4] Majlis speaker Ali Larijani said the same thing.[5]
Was this a fulfillment of what Iran was obligated to do under the JCPOA? No! Did the U.S. administration insist that Iran approve the JCPOA, as concluded and announced in Vienna on July 14? No! Does the U.S. realize that Iran's ultimate authority to approve laws rests with Supreme Leader Khamenei, and that he has not yet approved the JCPOA? NO! Nevertheless, the U.S. and Europe have chosen to regard what Iran has done as approval – so that the peace process will not be halted.
The U.S. and Europe then proceeded to the first post-Adoption Day phase in the JCPOA timetable: The EU announced that its sanctions would be terminated. President Obama announced that the U.S.'s executive sanctions would be lifted and its legislative sanctions waived; this announcement was not for immediate execution, but in fact advance notice that these measures would come into effect by December 15 – provided that the IAEA would report that Iran has fulfilled its obligations under the JCPOA.
What are these obligations that Iran has to fulfill between Adoption Day and December 15 in order to merit this sanctions relief? The Arms Control Association, which supports Iran and the JCPOA, listed them on its website:[6]
*reducing the centrifuges at Natanz from over 16,000 to 5,060 IR-1 machines, which will enrich uranium to 3.67 percent, and removing the associated infrastructure;
*reducing the number of IR-1 machines centrifuges at Fordow to 1,000 (328 will operate) and converting the facility for radioisotope production;
*wrapping up testing on advanced centrifuges machines and removing all advanced centrifuges except one IR-4, IR-5, IR-6, and IR-8 machine for testing with uranium;
*storing all dismantled centrifuges under IAEA seal;
*reducing the stockpile of enriched uranium to less than 300 kilograms;
*removing the core of the Arak reactor and disabling it; and
*instituting the necessary transparency and monitoring mechanisms to implement Iran's additional protocol and the continuous surveillance of key facilities.
Did Iran hasten to meet these obligations? No! The explanation follows below.
Why Has No One Said A Word About Iran's Noncompliance?
Since Adoption Day, no one in the West – not the media, not Capitol Hill, not Israel – has spoken up about the fraud of Iran's alleged "approval" of the JCPOA. Western intelligence agencies and think tanks have also held their tongues. Everyone swallowed the lie, in a spirit of goodwill, in order to allow the JCPOA to proceed, for "peace in our time."
The Republicans should have remembered their revered leader, Abraham Lincoln, invoked by Barack Obama in 2007 when he announced his presidential candidacy at the spot where Lincoln had done so over 150 years previously. After all, it was Lincoln who said, "You cannot fool all the people all the time."
The pro-JCPOA political media have, of course, misled the public by reporting that Iran approved the JCPOA. But even the anti-JCPOA media have failed to rebut this lie. Why? Ignorance, unprofessionalism, and hatred for President Obama blinded them. Here is what they likely are thinking: Obama gave in to Iran on everything. Obviously, Iran is going to approve this piece of "absolute Western capitulation."
However, Iran did not get absolutely everything it demanded, and Obama did not give it absolutely everything it demanded – he held out for a tiny scrap of the U.S.'s initial position, as will be detailed below. That is why Iran would not approve the JCPOA – to Iran, anything less than 100% of what it wants is an injustice.
Why Isn't Iran Rushing To Fulfill Its Obligations And Get Sanctions Relief By December 15?
At this stage, events have taken an absurd turn. Iran has started dragging its feet. Instead of rushing to carry out all the steps to meet its obligations under the JCPOA, it is idling in neutral. It has little time and much to do by December 15. It must dismantle thousands of centrifuges and transfer them to storage monitored by IAEA cameras. It must ship out 9,000 kg of its enriched uranium to a third country, retaining only 300 kg. It must dismantle and pour cement into the core of the Arak plutonium reactor, and transform the facility into a heavy water reactor. It must notify the IAEA of its voluntary acceptance of the NPT Additional Protocol. And more.
But senior Iranian officials are shifting responsibility for initiating fulfillment of these obligations to one another, sometimes with comical effect. For example, President Hassan Rohani sent a letter to Iranian Atomic Energy Organization head Ali Akbar Salehi instructing him to begin to take the appropriate steps. Salehi confirmed that he had received Rohani's message, but said that it had not stated when he should start doing so. No one wanted to budge without explicit permission from Supreme Leader Khamenei.[7]
Khamenei Issues Nine New Conditions, Blocks Execution Of JCPOA
Now the big secret is out. Khamenei has not approved the JCPOA. And those who pretend that it has been approved – President Rohani, Foreign Minister and negotiator Javad Zarif, and their associates – have been on borrowed time. While they could lie to the West, to President Obama, to Secretary of State Kerry, and to the EU foreign ministers that they can move ahead, they always knew that Khamenei opposed the JCPOA. Now, at the moment of truth, they feared to proceed.
Indeed, it was logical for Khamenei to allow the Iranian negotiators to play along with the P5+1, to see what they could get at no cost to Iran – since it was well known that President Obama was dying for an agreement. But once Khamenei knew that President Obama is standing firm on the last fragment of the original U.S. position, either unwilling or unable to capitulate any further, Khamenei broke his silence. Stepping in in the final act, Khamenei, deus-ex-machina style, dictated, in a letter to President Rohani, nine new conditions for the JCPOA, and declared that if these were not met Iran would stop the agreement.[8]
Actually, Khamenei had issued an early warning in a September 3 speech,[9] in which he said that all the sanctions must be lifted, not suspended, and that if not, there would either be no agreement or Iran would also only "suspend" its obligations. But President Obama did not yield. He cannot override congressional sanctions; he can only issue a suspension via waiver. Politically too, it might be too far for him to go to break his promise of the JCPOA's built-in security mechanism – snapback of the sanctions. Obviously, snapback is possible only if the sanctions remain in place under suspension. Therefore, Khamenei, realizing that the sanctions would remain, also kept his promise and blocked the agreement with new conditions, one of which – i.e. the lifting of sanctions rather than suspension – he knows for sure cannot be met.
How Did The American Media Describe Khamenei's Nine New Conditions?
Khamenei's letter to Rohani with his conditions for the execution of the JCPOA – the publication of which coincided with the days of the Ashura that are of vital religious and national significance in Iran and symbolize steadfastness against the forces of evil – was explicitly termed "conditional approval." It was labeled thus in red letters, as posted on Khamenei's website in Persian, tweeted from his Twitter account and posted on his Facebook page in English, and also published in English by the official Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting authority IRIB.
But instead of reporting that at this stage, and at present, Khamenei's approval is not given unless Khamenei's conditions are met, the American media said that Khamenei had approved the JCPOA. Would these members of the media also consider a purchase concluded if they had not paid for it? The entire American media, without exception, left, right, and center – as well as, apparently, all the U.S. intelligence agencies and think tanks – claimed that Khamenei had approved the agreement. Only two newspapers in the West wondered about the emperor's new clothes – but even they did not shout "But he hasn't any clothes on at all!" They said only that he was missing a couple of accessories.
Khamenei had spoken, banning outright any implementation of the JCPOA by Iran until his new conditions are met. The entire Iranian political system is hewing to this line – including President Rohani, Foreign Minister Zarif, Majlis Speaker Larijani, a majority of Majlis members (166), and more (for a full list to date, see Appendix I).
Everyone, that is, except for Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Khamenei's political rival and head of Iran's pragmatic camp, who in an interview published this week by MEMRI openly challenged Khamenei and said that Iran should abide by what it undertook in the JCPOA.[10]
But this cannot happen. Khamenei holds the reins.
Did the media report on Rafsanjani's interview? No! But the media in Iran did (see Appendix II). This, however, did not stop the editor of the Israeli daily Haaretz from writing that the interview was faked.
This is a well-known human reaction: When people stand before the complete collapse of what they believe in, they enter a state of denial.
So What Now?
And what is President Obama to do, as everything he has stood for in the Iran deal collapses so ignominiously? On the right, they say he will continue to capitulate. In their ignorance, and in their hatred of him, they fail to realize that he can simply surrender no farther. OK, they say, so the IAEA will provide Obama with the necessary confirmation by December 15 that the Iranians have done their part. But that is impossible as well. What is demanded of Iran is gargantuan in scale, and it would be far more difficult for the IAEA to fake confirmation when the Iranians themselves are declaring loudly that they are not going to do it.
With every passing day, Iran is more and more in violation of the JCPOA. But neither the Republicans nor the Democrats, nor the media, nor anyone else will acknowledge this, for the implications are too devastating. The agreement is no longer in effect. Its clock has stopped.
But the weeks will pass, and the media and politicians will be forced to admit that this is the case. And the last thing they will be willing to do is to force Iran to meet its obligations. Thus, it appears that President Obama's only option, shameful as it is, is to restart the negotiations with the Iranians and talk with them about their leaders' new conditions. As is well-known, this administration advocates diplomacy – guaranteeing that there will be no breakthrough any time soon.
This is precisely what will serve President Obama best. All he needs to do is play for time and reach the end of his term with an agreement in hand – albeit virtual – and negotiations in progress – albeit unending. He will pass this situation on to the next administration. The success will be all his, and the failure will be all theirs. The media will zealously guard Obama's legacy, and his successor, Republican or Democrat, will be too uninformed to protect him or herself from this historic maneuver. And it will serve them right.
Appendix I: Senior Iranian Officials Declare Their Acceptance Of Khamenei's Instructions On Implementing The JCPOA
On October 10, 2015, Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said at a conference on war and peace in Syria: "...The commands of the leader [Khamenei], the decision of the Majlis and the Supreme National Security Council will illuminate the government representatives' path on implementing the JCPOA... I thank the leader with all my heart."[11]
President Rohani, responding to the directives letter by the Supreme Leader on carrying out the JCPOA (October 22, 2015): "Your historic letter of October 21, 2015 regarding the approval of decision number 634 of the Supreme National Security Council caused joy within the great Iranian people and warmed the hearts of the public servants in government... The government will obey your criticisms and obligations [that you imposed] and with good intentions will take measures relating to the full implementation of the Supreme National Security Council and the Majlis. We will be fully alert to the performance of the other side's obligations and in the Supreme National Security Council we will take the necessary decisions to provide a fitting response."[12]
On October 26, 2015, Foreign Minister Zarif referred in the Majlis to the supreme leader's letter on carrying out the JCPOA and noted: "I am grateful to the leader for his path-illuminating letter on setting policy in the JCPOA's implementation. His opinion always lighted the path to the nuclear negotiations team at the foreign ministry. Henceforward, we must make an effort to implement the JCPOA documents in the right way and following the leader's guidelines."[13]
On October 27, 2015, Zarif said that the modifications to the nuclear reactor in Arak must be performed after the PMD file has been closed at the IAEA and explained: "we calculated the details of re-planning the reactor following the leader's guidelines, the decision of the Supreme National Security Council and the Majlis... We will coordinate everything necessary for swapping the uranium stockpiles and this matter will be performed precisely in the way that the leader elaborated and was previously agreed at the Supreme National Security Council and the Majlis nuclear committee."[14]
In the Majlis, 166 members, constituting a majority, expressed on October 26, 2015 their admiration for the leader for his historic letter in implementing the JCPOA. The letter's contents read "... For a certainty, the Majlis representatives will act as your stout arms and collaborate with all the supervisory organizations and with the Supreme National Security Council and invest efforts to ensure that after the JCPOA, the enemy will not be able to penetrate our Islamic country even minutely and we will supervise that all violation of promises by the 5+1 group will not remain unanswered."[15]
Iran's Judiciary Chief Sadeq Amoli Larijani at an October 26, 2015 conference of senior judicial branch officials said that the letter of conditions that Khamenei published on JCPOA implementation should put an end to debates on the issue. He added: "All groups [within Iran] should treat the leader's letter as 'self-explanatory' and as the axis of unity and from now no they will make progress and think moderately about the future and the next stages of the JCPOA."[16]
The leader's representative in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Ali Saidi said on Wednesday, October 21, 2015: "... The leader is effectively managing the country according to the Koran and custom, the leader sets policy and the others execute it."[17]
At an October 27, 2015 press conference, the leader's advisor and the head of the Center for Strategic Research Ali Akbar Velayati, said: "In the last letter we saw that he criticized the defects and shortcomings in carrying out the JCPOA. I hope that the agreement will be carried out flawlessly in the future. The continued support of the leader for the JCPOA is contingent on the response to the letter that Khamenei wrote the president [Rohani]."[18]
The head of the Majlis nuclear committee, Ebrahim Karkhanehei, referring to the leader's letter on the JCPOA, said: "This letter produced social calm because in addition to leader the people as well demanded the things that were included in the letter. The most important issue in the letter is the issue of lifting sanctions and the government must seriously handle the matter of lifting the sanctions. In addition to the letter, the leader emphasized many times that if the sanctions are not lifted then there will be no agreement and therefore the US and the EU must fully lift the sanctions.
"The letter from the EU and the American president are not considered a [sufficiently] strong guarantee on the lifting of the sanctions. The Majlis will not be negligent about any clause in the leader's letter and the government must seriously oversee and handle the sanctions-lifting issue.
"The leader demanded that a professional and wise team should supervise the sound implementation of the JCPOA and therefore this team must be comprised of at least five people specializing in the legal, nuclear technical political, economic and the sanctions structure issues as well as an expert on security and defense matters."[19]
An October 25, 2015 Kayhan editorial titled "Giving Interpretations Is Impermissible" wrote: "The leader's order and the setting of numerous terms for the JCPOA's implementation is self-explanatory and elaborated a clear path for all arguments and worries, according to religious jurisprudence, the law and the professional perspective. It is obligatory and essential to obey it.. as opposed to some of the impressions, the leader approved the JCPOA's implementation only following obedience to the terms that may not be damaged and on principle, the leader did not express general approval on the matter."[20]
Appendix II: Iranian Websites Covering Rafsanjani's Interview In Inhnews.ir
*IRNA
*ILNA
*Hashemirafsanjani.ir.fa
*Etemaad
*ISNA
*Fars
*Tnews.ir
*Shomaokhabar
*Farsi-news
*Shafaf.ir
*Y. Carmon is president and founder of MEMRI.
Endnotes:
[1] For the complete text of the JCPOA see Eeas.europa.eu/statements-eeas/docs/iran_agreement/iran_joint-comprehensive-plan-of-action_en.pdf
[2] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 6151, Khamenei Declares That He Will Not Honor The Agreement If Sanctions Are Merely Suspended And Not Lifted, September 4, 2015; and MEMRI TV Clip #5067 – Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei: The Americans Must Lift the Sanctions, Not Suspend Them, September 3, 2015.
[3] Unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/2231.
[4] See MEMRI TV Clip #5114 - Iranian Guardian Council Secretary-General Ahmad Jannati: Khamenei Has Not Approved or Signed the JCPOA, October 16, 2015; and MEMRI TV Clip #5117 – Iranian Guardian Council Spokesman Nejatollah Ebrahimian: The JCPOA Was Not Approved by the Majlis or the Guardian Council, October 18, 2015.
[5] Tasnim (Iran), October 18, 2015.
[6] http://www.armscontrol.org/blog/ArmsControlNow/2015-10-15/The-P5-1-and-Iran-Nuclear-Deal-Alert-October-15
[7] ISNA (Iran), October 18, 2015.
[8] On Khamenei's nine demands, see MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1196, Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei's Letter Of Guidelines To President Rohani On JCPOA Sets Nine Conditions Nullifying Original Agreement Announced July 14, 2015, October 22, 2015.
[9] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 6151, Khamenei Declares That He Will Not Honor The Agreement If Sanctions Are Merely Suspended And Not Lifted , September 4, 2015.
[10] MEMRI Special Report No.43, Breaking Report: Challenging Khamenei, Rafsanjani Demands That Iran Fulfill Its Obligations Under The JCPOA, And Reveals: We Had Nuclear Option In Iran-Iraq War, October 28, 2015.
[11] Mehrnews.com, October 23, 2015.
[12] President.ir/fa/90172
[13] Isna (Iran), October 26, 2015.
[14] Isna (Iran), October 27, 2015.
[15] Mehrnews.com, October 26, 2015.
[16] Nasimonline.(Iran), October 26, 2015.
[17] Snn.(Iran), October 22, 2015.
[18] Isna (Iran), October 27, 2015.
[19] Mehrnews.com, October 26, 2015.
[20] Kayhan (Iran), October 25, 2015.

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