New Page 5

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to go to the LCCC Daily English/Arabic News Buletins Archieves Since 2006

Bible Quotation For Today/For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also
Luke 12/32-34: "‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Bible Quotation For Today/Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense
Psalms 51(50):3-4.5-6a.6bc-7.12-13: "Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense. Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me. For I acknowledge my offense, and my sin is before me always:
"Against you only have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight." You are just in your sentence, blameless when you condemn. True, I was born guilty, a sinner, even as my mother conceived me. A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence, and your Holy Spirit take not from me."

LCCC Latest analysis, editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 04-05/15
An Emerging Kurdistan/Ofra Bengio/Middle East Forum/August 04/15
The mistake of betting on Al-Nusra Front/Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/August 04/15
What next for Iran’s economy/Miroslav Dusek/Al Arabiya/August 04/15
Ankara does not have a strategy towards the PKK/Ruwayda Mustafah/Al Arabiya/August 04/15
Israeli's Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz fires back at US energy minister/HERB KEINON, JPOST/August 04/15
Palestinians: The Difference between Us and Them/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/August 04/15
Turkey: ISIS's Hostage Again/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/August 04/15
Why Empower Iran/Alexander H. Joffe/The Times of Israel/August 04/15
Obama’s Gift to the Ayatollah/By Emanuele Ottolenghi and Saeed Ghasseminejad/The Weekly Standard/August 04/15
Turkey's Kurdish Moment/Soner Cagaptay/Hurriyet Daily News/August 04/15
Hezbollah and Israel Are Upping the Ante/Nadav Pollak/Washington Institute/August 04/15
Shiite Combat Casualties Show the Depth of Iran’s Involvement in Syria/Ali Alfoneh/Washington Institute/August 04/15

LCCC Bulletin titles for the Lebanese Related News published on August 04-05/15
STL Prosecutor Says Probe into 3 Other Attacks has not Stopped
Mustaqbal to Debrief Energy Minister, Says Waste Crisis Threatens 'Country Unity, Social Security'
Aoun's Bloc Sees Return to 'Atmosphere of Consensus', Urges Appointments Approval
Body of Missing Sidon Child Found Off Jounieh
Old Airport Road Blocked in Protest at Electricity Crisis
Report: Badr Disappears in Ain el-Hilweh after Lino's Pledge to Kill him
Chhim Residents Block Road to Protest Garbage Pileup
Diplomatic Missions Fall Victim to Cabinet Paralysis
Sami Gemayel: Those Trying to Block Cabinet Sessions are Committing Crime against All Lebanese

STL Prosecutor Says Probe into 3 Other Attacks has not Stopped
Naharnet 04/15/Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Norman Farrell has said that the court has been investigating the attacks on MP Marwan Hamadeh, the former head of the communist party, George Hawi, and ex-Defense Minister Elias Murr. Farrell told As Safir daily published on Tuesday that in addition to ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's murder, the STL is “working on” the assassination attempt against Hamadeh in October 2004, the killing of Hawi in June 2005 and the attempted murder of Murr in July the same year. In 2011, Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen received a request from the Office of the Prosecutor to determine whether or not these cases are connected to the February 14, 2005 assassination of Hariri. He ruled that the Prosecutor had presented prima facie evidence that each of the three cases are connected, and are thus within the tribunal's jurisdiction. But As Safir said that there has been no information since 2011 on the progress made into the investigation of the three cases. The Prosecutor has not issued any indictment, only saying in a yearly report issued by the STL that the three crimes are a “priority” for his office, said the report. The office refused to divulge information on whether any progress had been made, only telling As Safir that it does not discuss cases that are still under investigation.

Mustaqbal to Debrief Energy Minister, Says Waste Crisis Threatens 'Country Unity, Social Security'
Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc announced Tuesday that it intends to debrief the energy minister in parliament over the latest power outages, as it warned that the unprecedented garbage crisis has started to threaten the country's “unity” and “social and economic security.”“The bloc considers that the solution to the disastrous garbage crisis must fall on the shoulders of the entire country and must be accompanied with a clear, instant, decisive and firm stance by the government,” said Mustaqbal in a statement issued after its weekly meeting. It noted that the government has so far failed to find “the efficient, correct and scientific solutions.” Accordingly, the bloc warned that the waste management crisis “has started to threaten the country, its unity and order, and the social and economic security.”The crisis erupted after the closure of the Naameh landfill on July 17. It has seen streets overflowing with waste and the air filled with the smell of rotting garbage for around two weeks. Experts have urged the government to devise a comprehensive waste management solution that would include more recycling and composting to reduce the amount of trash going into landfills. But so far there has been no evidence of such a plan, and there is already opposition to temporary solutions proposed by the government. Trash collection resumed last week in Beirut and Mount Lebanon after a ministerial committee managed to agree on a preliminary solution involving a “balanced distribution” of Beirut and Mount Lebanon's garbage to new locations and financial “incentives” to municipalities. Separately, Mustaqbal noted that the garbage crisis was accompanied by “the disaster of power outages” and “the failure of the electricity sector which has reached the extent of a blatant scandal.”“This is the result of the faulty policies of the energy and water ministers who assumed the post over the past seven years, who all belong to the Free Patriotic Movement, as well as the hesitation and inaction of the Electricite Du Liban institution, which has failed to take the necessary and needed steps to address the crisis,” the bloc said.
It revealed that it intends to file a request to debrief Energy and Water Minister Arthur Nazarian before the parliament. Mustaqbal also said that it will seek accountability for “the ministers who assumed the post in the past seven years,” accusing them of “making a lot of flimsy promises without justifying all the spending they made.” Proposing solutions, the bloc suggested “the implementation of the law that regulates the electricity sector and the appointment of a chairman and members for the regulatory committee, whose core mission is to oversee an effective role for the private sector.”The country has been reeling from lengthy power outages since several days. EDL has blamed the problem on the disconnection of two power generation units at the vital Zahrani plant and the current heat wave that is engulfing the country. Turning to the political crisis, Mustaqbal reiterated its call for the election of a new president, urging the FPM and Hizbullah to end their “obstruction.” As for Wednesday's cabinet session, the bloc stressed that the government should tackle the growing “social and economic problems,” warning that “the creation of constitutional precedents would establish new norms that might have detrimental repercussions in the future.”The garbage crisis came amid a gridlock in the cabinet over its decision-making mechanism. The Free Patriotic Movement has stressed that its ministers should have the right to coordinate with Prime Minister Tammam Salam on setting the cabinet's agenda because they consider themselves as representatives of the president in his absence.

Aoun's Bloc Sees Return to 'Atmosphere of Consensus', Urges Appointments Approval
Naharnet 04/15/The Change and Reform bloc led by MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday hoped “consensus” will return to the council of ministers, as it stressed that administrative and military appointments are “at the core of the government's responsibilities,” even amid the absence of a president. “It seems that the atmosphere of consensus has returned and the first test will be during tomorrow's session,” former minister Salim Jreissati said after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform bloc in Rabieh. “Appointments are at the core of the government's responsibilities, so let us approve them,” he added, on the eve of a cabinet session that will be held at the Grand Serail. Addressing the rival camp, Jreissati said: “Return to your national conscience and revive the powers of the cabinet.”
“No one can pressure us politically regarding our principled stances,” he added. The posts of high-ranking military and security officials are a source of contention among cabinet members, mainly Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement and Prime Minister Tammam Salam. The FPM's ministers have stressed that the issue should be a top priority at cabinet sessions because they consider the extension of the officials' terms illegal. Turning to the parliament's extended term, Jreissati reiterated Tuesday that the extension of the parliament's term was “illegitimate.” “We do not consider the parliament illegal but rather illegitimate, which is why we have demanded a rectification of the course, the election of a president and a just electoral law,” he said. “Aoun's initiative is based on approving a new electoral law ... Therefore it is based on holding parliamentary polls that would precede the presidential vote,” Jreissati explained. Meanwhile, Change and Reform bloc MP Hikmat Dib tackled the growing garbage crisis. “The municipalities need funds and we've always struggled for the release of the money of the Independent Municipal Fund so that municipalities can take charge of things ... Decentralization through municipalities is the solution,” he said. “We call on municipalities and municipal unions to address the problem and take charge of things,” the lawmaker added. He accused the Sukleen firm -- which has been in charge of collecting garbage in Beirut and Mount Lebanon since 1997 -- of practicing “major monopolization.” “The waste management issue must be addressed in a civilized manner. The tenders will fail, as it is wrong to confine the file to one or two firms,” Dib added. The growing garbage crisis erupted after the closure of the Naameh landfill on July 17. The crisis has seen streets overflowing with waste and the air filled with the smell of rotting garbage for around two weeks. Residents have taken to the streets in areas across Lebanon to protest authorities' failure to tackle the problem. Experts have urged the government to devise a comprehensive waste management solution that would include more recycling and composting to reduce the amount of trash going into landfills. But so far there has been no evidence of such a plan, and there is already opposition to temporary solutions proposed by the government.

Body of Missing Sidon Child Found Off Jounieh
Naharnet 04/15/The body of a 3-year-old child who went missing Firday on Sidon's public beach was found Tuesday off the coast of the Jounieh region. State-run National News Agency said an army patrol found Mahdi Salameh's corpse floating on the water's surface around three kilometers off the Jounieh Gulf military complex. The body was “partially decomposed,” the agency added. “The army handed over the corpse to the Civil Defense's marine rescue unit, which in turn will hand it over to the parents of the child Salameh,” NNA said. A major search operation involving Civil Defense teams and army boats and helicopters had been launched after the child was reported missing.

Old Airport Road Blocked in Protest at Electricity Crisis
Naharnet 04/15/The old airport road outside Beirut was blocked Tuesday evening in protest at an electricity crisis that has been engulfing the country since last week. “A number of young men from the Bir Hassan region blocked the old airport road outside al-Rawda High School with burning tires and trash dumpsters,” state-run National News Agency reported. Firefighting vehicles and security forces have since arrived at the location to address the situation, NNA said. The country has been reeling from lengthy power outages for several days now. Electricite Du Liban has blamed the problem on the disconnection of two power generation units at the vital Zahrani plant and the current heat wave that is engulfing Lebanon. Scorching temperatures are normal this time of year in the Middle East, but the current one has been described as unprecedented.

Report: Badr Disappears in Ain el-Hilweh after Lino's Pledge to Kill him
Naharnet 04/15/A member of an extremist group has disappeared in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh after pledges made by Palestinian Armed Struggle chief Brig. Gen. Mahmoud Issa to kill him, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Tuesday. The daily said that Bilal Badr, who was accused of assassinating Fatah official Col. Talal al-Ordoni last month, is nowhere to be found. Issa, also known as al-Lino, has vowed to seek justice for the killing of al-Ordoni, a longtime friend. Al-Ordoni died on July 25 in a hail of gunfire along with his bodyguard after they were intercepted by gunmen near the Nidaa hospital in a neighborhood of the camp. His killing triggered heavy gunfire inside the camp. Al-Ordoni headed a division within the Palestinian national security service in Ain el-Hilweh. He had been the target of several previous attempts to kill him. Assassinations are common in Ain el-Hilweh, Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp and a haven for militants and fugitives.

Chhim Residents Block Road to Protest Garbage Pileup
Naharnet 04/15/ Residents of the Iqlim al-Kharroub town of Chhim blocked a vital road on Monday to protest the accumulation of garbage on the streets, as the entire country continued to reel from an unprecedented waste management crisis. “A large group of residents blocked the main market's road at 8:00 pm with the accumulating trash, in protest at the municipality's failure to collect the garbage,” state-run National News Agency reported. It said the move “created a severe traffic jam, seeing as the blocked road is vital for the Iqlim al-Kharroub region.” Young men and residents also blocked the road at the town's main entrance to protest the piling up of the garbage. The roads were eventually reopened “after intensive contacts and efforts with the protesters,” NNA said, without elaborating on the identities of the mediators. The growing garbage crisis erupted after the closure of the Naameh landfill on July 17. The crisis has seen streets overflowing with waste and the air filled with the smell of rotting garbage for around two weeks. Residents have taken to the streets in areas across Lebanon to protest authorities' failure to tackle the problem. Experts have urged the government to devise a comprehensive waste management solution that would include more recycling and composting to reduce the amount of trash going into landfills.But so far there has been no evidence of such a plan, and there is already opposition to temporary solutions proposed by the government.

Diplomatic Missions Fall Victim to Cabinet Paralysis
Naharnet 04/15/Diplomats have said that Paris was able to clinch the Lebanese authorities' approval to appoint Emmanuel Bonne as ambassador to Beirut despite the failure of several missions to receive a positive feedback from the Lebanese authorities. The diplomats, who were not identified, told An Nahar daily published on Tuesday that “only France has so far been able to receive an official approval (from Beirut) to appoint Bonne.”The request of his appointment had been made before the paralysis of the government, they said. Lebanon is suffering from a political crisis that erupted following the end of President Michel Suleiman's term. The government assumed the responsibilities of the head of state in his absence but sharp differences have stopped it short of taking important decisions. Bonne, who is Hollande's adviser for North Africa, the Middle East and the United Nations, will succeed Ambassador Patrice Paoli. A European diplomat told An Nahar that other diplomatic missions based in Beirut are facing problems because of the absence of a president. The new ambassadors are either arriving in Beirut to carry out administrative tasks pending Lebanon's official approval of their appointment, or the charges d'affaires are playing the role of the mission chiefs, the diplomat said. The European Union mission in Lebanon is among other missions that have fallen victim to the presidential vacuum and the government paralysis. The head of the delegation, Ambassador Angelina Eichhorst, was appointed as Director for Western Europe, the Western Balkans and Turkey and left Beirut end of July. The EU has informed Beirut authorities that it would send Danish diplomat Christina Lassen as Eichhorst's successor. But the EU is still waiting for the Lebanese government's approval of the appointment of Lassen, who should assume her duties next September.

Sami Gemayel: Those Trying to Block Cabinet Sessions are Committing Crime against All Lebanese
Naharnet 04/15/Kataeb Party leader MP Sami Gemayel said Monday that parties trying to prevent the cabinet from convening are “committing a crime against all Lebanese” amid the country's growing political and social crises. “The postponement of sessions is shameful and the premier must 'strike with an iron fist,'” said Gemayel at a press conference. “Those who believe that they can block cabinet sessions are committing a crime against all Lebanese and the day of accountability will come. The cabinet should not be paralyzed and it should rather convene daily until a solution is found to the garbage crisis,” Gemayel added. He stressed that the waste management problem must be addressed “without political bickering” and “in a purely scientific manner.” “We urge the interior minister to release the funds of municipalities to allow them to take measures that can alleviate the burden of this disaster, because we won't find any quick solutions if we decide to wait for the government,” added Gemayel. “We have informed the environment minister and the premier of our proposal -- the garbage must be sent abroad until we approve the tenders and we need a quick and temporary solution to remove garbage from the streets,” he said. Officials resumed on Monday discussing the country's waste crisis as Prime Minister Tammam Salam said that the export of garbage is among the proposals under discussion. The unprecedented crisis erupted when the Naameh landfill, which since 1997 had been receiving the trash of Beirut and Mount Lebanon, was closed on July 17. Following its closure, waste began to pile up on the streets. Turning to the dispute over the cabinet's decision-making mechanism, Gemayel warned that “in the absence of a president, no new government can be appointed.”“If Salam resigns the cabinet will become dysfunctional,” he cautioned. “We do not consider ourselves to be in a government, or else we would've resigned long time ago ... This is a crisis management council, not a government, and unfortunately the alternative is total vacuum,” Gemayel added. As for the stalled appointments of senior security and military officials, the Kataeb chief called for abiding by the Constitution and “refraining from discussing the appointments before the due date.”He noted, however, that “no terms should be extended before attempting to appoint new military chiefs.”“We hope the issue of appointments will not have any negative impact on the Army Command and we must respect the law and the Constitution in this file. The appointments must be raised in cabinet in line with the Constitution and some appointments require a cabinet decision while some other appointments do not require a cabinet session,” said Gemayel. He urged all politicians to support the army and “stop discrediting the Army Command.”“We are counting on the army to defend the border and the army has proved that it is competent,” Gemayel added. The posts of high-ranking military and security officials are a source of contention among cabinet members, mainly the Free Patriotic Movement and PM Salam. The FPM's ministers have stressed that the issue should be a top priority at cabinet sessions because they consider the extension of the officials' terms illegal. Last month, FPM demonstrators marched towards the Grand Serail during a cabinet session to put pressure on Salam to amend the government's decision-making mechanism which they consider as hindering the rights of Christians. The FPM is stressing that its ministers should have a say on the cabinet's agenda because they consider themselves the representatives of the Christian president in his absence. Baabda Palace has been vacant since the term of President Michel Suleiman ended in May last year.

PM Netanyahu's Remarks during his Visit to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital
04/08/2015 /Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, page
http://www.pmo.gov.il/English/MediaCenter/Events/Pages/eventHadassahVisit040815.aspx
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem, visited InbarAzrak, who was injured by a firebomb in a terrorist attack in northern Jerusalem last night. "Last Friday, I visited baby Ali's brother, who was injured by a firebomb that was thrown at his house by those who commit acts of terrorism against Arabs. I have just visited with Inbar, a young woman who was injured by a firebomb that was thrown by those who commit acts of terrorism against Jews. Ali's brother is only four-years-old. Inbar is the mother of three children, aged two, three and four. Terrorism is terrorism is terrorism. Our policy is zero tolerance for terrorism and it does not matter where it comes from. We condemn it and we fight it to the same degree. Several days ago the international community joined in my condemnation of terrorism directed against Arabs and I expect that they will similarly join in vis-à-vis terrorism directed against Jews. I am still waiting. I have heard from the margins of our society that there are those who say that there is a higher law above the laws of the state. I would like to make it clear: There is no law above the laws of the state, which apply to everyone. Against those who violate them, those who champion hate crimes, those who use violence and those who use terrorism, we will use the full weight of the law including – if need be, as we did yesterday – administrative detention. Zero tolerance for terrorism – this is what obligates us and the international community as well."

Syria Qaida Captures Five more U.S.-Trained Rebels
Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/15/Al-Qaida's Syria affiliate captured at least five more U.S.-trained rebel fighters in overnight raids on a village in northwestern Syria, a monitoring group said on Tuesday. "Between Monday and Tuesday, Al-Nusra Front seized at least five rebels from Division 30 in the village of Qah, near the Turkish border," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights chief Rami Abdel Rahman said. The jihadists already captured at least eight rebels from the same US-backed unit last week, the Observatory reported. According to Abdel Rahman, late on Monday, Al-Nusra stormed a camp for internally displaced people in Qah, where the rebel fighters had taken refuge. "Five fighters were seen captured but there may be more." The Observatory chief said Al-Nusra was "hunting down" U.S.-backed rebels in both Idlib province, where Qah is located, and neighbouring Aleppo province. A 54-strong rebel unit, trained and equipped by the Pentagon, was inserted into Aleppo province in mid-July as part of U.S. plans to forge a moderate force for the campaign against the Islamic State group. But despite Al-Nusra's fierce hostility to the rival jihadists of IS, the unit soon came under attack by the Al-Qaida loyalists. They seized eight of its men in Aleppo province on Wednesday, the Observatory said, in a report that drew a denial from the Pentagon. On Friday, they launched an assault on Division 30's headquarters in the province that was only repulsed with the help of U.S. air strikes and at the cost of at least five dead.

Britain Extends Iraq Air Strikes Mission by a Year
Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/15/Britain is extending its air strikes against Islamic State (IS) group targets in Iraq by a year to March 2017, Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said in comments broadcast Tuesday. The announcement represents a second reprieve for the squadron of ageing Tornado GR4 fighter bombers currently based in Cyprus which was due to be disbanded first this year and then next, and will now be kept on. "We want to ensure we maintain this crucial operational tempo and so we will extend the lifetime of Number 12 Squadron for a further year to March 2017," Fallon told the BBC during a visit to Baghdad. The Tornado jets are carrying out air strikes, reconnaissance and surveillance over Iraq as part of U.S.-led operations. Britain is not currently taking part in air strikes on targets in Syria. But Prime Minister David Cameron favors exploring a second vote to gain support for that later this year once the main opposition Labor party elects a new leader in September. He hopes the new Labor chief could give him the support needed to get the move through the House of Commons, where he has a majority of only 12. Parliament approved the Iraq air strikes last September. Fallon said the rest of the international coalition "would welcome" the Tornado jets joining strikes against IS targets in northern Syria but that the British parliament would have to vote on the issue. "At some point, the new parliament will have to reflect on the illogicality of our planes turning back, if you like, at the border while other countries fly on," Fallon told the BBC. Last month, two Brimstone missiles fell off a British Tornado as it landed at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, a staging post for sorties and surveillance against IS group targets in Iraq, after a military operation.

Lavrov Condemns U.S. Plan to Extend Syria Bombing
Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/15/Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday dismissed as "counter-productive" an announcement by Washington that it could take extra measures to defend U.S.-allied fighters in Syria. At a news conference in Qatar, Lavrov condemned comments by the White House that it could take "additional steps" to protect allies in Syria and warned Bashar Assad's regime not to impede their actions. "We believe it's counterproductive to announce publicly that some U.S.-trained armed groups... will be under the protection of the coalition's air forces," Lavrov said. "And that to protect these groups this air force would be authorized to strike at any forces which may -- may -- be considered a hindrance to the work of this group." Lavrov added that the matter had been raised with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry when they met earlier Monday in Qatar's capital Doha. Earlier, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Syria "should not interfere" with operations by U.S.-trained forces, warning that "additional steps" could be taken to defend them, raising the prospect of strikes against the regime. In another apparent criticism of Washington, Lavrov said: "We are seriously concerned about the continuing crisis in Syria and the humanitarian disaster that has broken out in the country, and are in favor of an immediate end to external intervention in the Syrian crisis."Lavrov added that the matter had been raised with Kerry. Both Lavrov and his American counterpart were in the Gulf to hold a series of talks on wide-ranging matters including not only Syria, but also issues such as the Iran nuclear deal, "terrorism" and Yemen. Lavrov held a tripartite discussion with Kerry and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir. He also met Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Qatar. Also at Monday's news conference was Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammad al-Attiyah, who said his country agreed "with our friends in Russia that the solution (in Syria) should be political."

U.S. Says May Take 'Additional Steps' to Defend Syria Allies
Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/15/The White House said Monday said it is willing to take "additional steps" to defend U.S.-allied fighters in Syria, warning the regime of Bashar Assad not to impede their actions. Spokesman Josh Earnest said Syria "should not interfere" with operations by U.S.-trained forces, warning that "additional steps" could be taken to defend them, raising the prospect of strikes against the regime. Earnest said that Assad has not so far impeded the actions of U.S.-backed groups, which include a 54-strong unit inserted into the Division 30 rebel unit in Aleppo province in mid-July. While the force has not come under attack from the regime it has been targeted by al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate the al-Nusra Front, prompting U.S. strikes. The Pentagon has denied claims that U.S.-trained members of Division 30 had been captured.

U.S. Uses Air Power to Support Beleaguered Syrian Allies
Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/15/The United States on Monday said it has used air power in Syria in defense of allied rebel groups, signaling deeper involvement in the country's brutal four-year civil war. The Pentagon confirmed that an air strike was carried out Friday in support of the New Syria Force, a U.S.-allied group. "We'll take action to defend the New Syria Force that we've trained and equipped," Pentagon spokesman Commander Bill Urban told Agence France Presse. He said "last Friday was the first one," referring to the air strike. Earlier, a senior administration official said the United States had hit al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate the Al-Nusra Front in response to attack on U.S. trained rebels. President Barack Obama's administration said Monday it was prepared to take "additional steps" to defend U.S.-trained and equipped forces, warning Bashar al-Assad's regime "not to interfere." "The president approved this recently upon the recommendation of his senior military advisers," a senior administration official told AFP. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Assad's regime had not so far hampered U.S.-backed forces, but he nonetheless raised the possibility of strikes against it should the need arise. The United States, Earnest said, was "committed to using military force where necessary to protect the coalition-trained and equipped Syrian opposition fighters." The decision was taken under a 2001 rule authorizing the use of military force against terror groups, which critics say has already been stretched too far. Officials argue that authority includes the ability to provide "defensive fire support." The United States has trained and equipped a number of fighters -- screened and determined to be "moderate" -- to operate against the jihadist Islamic State organization. But U.S.-backed forces have yet to play a major role in turning the war and its fledgling local ground force has already suffered a series of reversals. A 54-strong unit inserted into the rebels' Division 30 has come under withering attack from the Al-Nusra Front, with several members reportedly killed or captured. Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations said the "truly significant decision" could potentially extend well beyond that small force. U.S. forces are "interspersed among large coherent units of several hundred fighters," he said, explaining that: "You can't give air cover just to individual rebels."
Turkey cooperation
The United States recently agreed with Turkey to create what has been termed an "Islamic State-free zone" in northern Syria. Details of the zone "remain to be worked out", according to a senior administration official, who asked not to be named. It would, however, entail Turkey, NATO'S only mainly Muslim member, supporting U.S. "partners on the ground" already fighting the jihadists. Ankara has also granted the United States permission to use one of its bases to carry out air raids against the group. Washington has long pushed for the use of the Incirlik base due to its location relatively close to Syria just outside the Turkish city of Adana, but Turkey had hesitated for months. Monday's announcement comes as diplomatic efforts to halt the carnage in Syria resume. An estimated 140,000 people have died in the conflict, which began as an uprising against the Assad regime but has morphed into a multipronged religious and ethnic civil war. A UN envoy recently presented his plan to resuscitate failed talks and foreign ministers from the United States, Russia and Saudi Arabia held talks in Qatar on Monday. The trio agreed to the "need for a meaningful political transition" according to State Department spokesman Mark Toner. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later condemned Washington's move toward a more robust involvement in Syria. "We believe it's counterproductive to announce publicly that some U.S.-trained armed groups... will be under the protection of the coalition's air forces," Lavrov said. Separately on Monday, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on seven entities and four individuals its says are providing energy products to Assad's regime, and named seven vessels as blocked property.

EU Urges 'Proportionate' Turkish Response to Kurdish Rebel Attacks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/15/The EU on Tuesday urged Turkey to make a "proportionate" response to "terrorism" in order not to endanger a faltering peace process with Kurdish rebels. EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn told Turkish EU Minister Volkan Bozkir that Ankara has "the right to react to any form of terrorism," according to an EU statement. He added: "The response, however, must be proportionate, targeted and by no means endanger the democratic political dialogue."

India Building Collapse Kills 12 near Mumbai
Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/15/A dilapidated building killed 12 people when it collapsed outside Mumbai on Tuesday, a rescue official said, the second such accident around the Indian financial capital in a week. Rescuers pulled seven people out of the rubble alive after the three-storey structure crumbled overnight while families were sleeping inside, the official said. "Rescue operations stopped at 10:20 am with 12 bodies being recovered in total," National Disaster Response Force official Alok Avasthy told AFP. The building, which crumbled around 2:00 am, was situated in the Naupada area of Thane city near Mumbai. was in a dilapidated state and had been declared unsafe by the government two years back but people still lived there," Avasthy said. A family of five were rescued with the help of a sniffer dog, according to the official, who said relief efforts ended after everybody was accounted for. The accident is the latest in a long line of deadly building collapses recently, some of which have highlighted poor construction standards. It comes just a week after nine people were killed when another old three-storey building collapsed under heavy monsoon rain in the Mumbai suburb of Thakurli. Millions in India live in dilapidated buildings, many of which cave in during the annual monsoon season. An 11-storey apartment tower being built in the southern state of Tamil Nadu came crashing down in July last year following heavy rain -- killing 61 people, mostly laborers. A booming economy and rising real estate prices have also often caused unauthorized multi-storey structures to mushroom on the outskirts of cities and towns, some of which have collapsed.

Israel Arrests Jewish Extremist Leader after Anti-Palestinian Violence
Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/15/A Jewish extremist group's leader was arrested Monday after a Palestinian baby died in a West Bank firebombing, as police investigated online threats against Israel's president for condemning "Jewish terrorism." The domestic intelligence service named him as Meir Ettinger, a grandson of Meir Kahane, a rabbi who founded the racist anti-Arab movement Kach and was assassinated in 1990 in New York.He was arrested in Safed in northern Israel "because of his activities in a Jewish extremist organization," a Shin Bet spokesman told AFP. Police said Ettinger, who is aged around 20, was suspected of "nationalist crimes" but did not accuse him of direct involvement in Friday's firebombing. According to Israeli media, he was the brains behind a June 18 arson attack on a shrine in northern Israel where Christians believe Jesus performed the miracle of loaves and fishes. Ettinger was sue to appear in court on Tuesday for a custody hearing, police said. Media reports said Ettinger could face a year of "administrative detention" under the government's harder line against "Jewish terrorists."Israel normally applies the measure, which dates back to British-mandated Palestine, against Palestinians, allowing renewable six-month periods of detention without trial. But it can now be used with Jewish detainees in cases of insufficient evidence to go to trial or if the suspect refuses to testify. On his blog, Ettinger has in past days denied the existence of an underground Jewish organization, but has defended attacks on "crimes" such as the existence of churches and mosques branded as "places of pagan worship."The Shin Bet spokesman said Ettinger was in January barred from entering the West Bank or Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem for a year "because of his activities."
Jewish terrorism
On a parallel track, police have opened an investigation into online threats against President Reuven Rivlin following his condemnation of "Jewish terrorism" after the West Bank firebombing, a presidential spokesman said Monday. Rivlin had written a Facebook post following the arson attack by suspected Jewish extremists on a Palestinian family's home in the West Bank village of Duma. The attack killed 18-month-old Ali Saad Dawabsha and critically injured his parents and four-year-old brother. "More than shame, I feel pain," Rivlin wrote in both Arabic and Hebrew. "The pain over the murder of a little baby. The pain over my people choosing the path of terrorism and losing their humanity. "Their path is not the path of the State of Israel and is not the path of the Jewish people. Unfortunately, it seems that so far we've dealt with the phenomenon of Jewish terrorism limply," he wrote, calling for concrete measures against extremists. Rivlin's post prompted a wave of more than 2,000 comments, some positive but others attacking him and recalling Israelis killed by Palestinians. "Dirty traitor. Your end will be worse than (Ariel) Sharon's," said one comment quoted by Maariv newspaper, referring to the late Israeli former premier who spent eight years in a coma. Another said: "In Russia you would have been found by this point cut up inside a shoe box."Police said they had received material from the president's security team and had ordered an investigation to "examine offensive publications against the president on social media."The state prosecutor launched a separate probe into two YouTube videos showing Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Nazi uniforms and speaking in German. In 1995, then premier Yitzhak Rabin was gunned down at a peace rally in Tel Aviv by a Jewish extremist after a campaign of rightwing incitement against a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Fatah official, Jibril Rajoub: Israelis' condemnation of arson attack didn't fall on deaf ears
Ynetnews/Elior Levy/Published: 8.04.15/ Israel News
Jibril Rajoub tells Ynet that he views Netanyahu as responsible for every act of terror in the West Bank, but adds that outcry in Israel over deadly fire convinced PLO leadership that there is a rational voice in Israel. "I very much appreciate all the condemnations that were expressed by Israeli society," senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub told Ynet in an interview following the hate crime that killed Palestinian infant Ali Dawabshe in Duma last week. "It makes me hopeful that the Israeli people have rejected this heinous crime that was committed in Duma." With that said, Rajoub clarified that he was not convinced by the condemnations that were uttered by the government in after the attack, specifically the condemnation aired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "Netanyahu and his right wing government are responsible, and stand behind every act of terror in the West Bank," said Rajoub. "They incite and provide funding, security, and support to the 'price tag' bullies. The murder of a child is a dark stain. I hope that after the shock and the upheaval, Israeli society will wake up and understand that the true existential threat to Israel's future is the occupation, and the settlements."
On Friday evening after the attack, the Palestinian leadership met in Ramallah in an emergency gathering, in order to decide on a response. Rajoub told Ynet that the outrage expressed in Israel over the murder and wounding of the Dawabshe family changed the spirit of those in attendance. "We said we must reach the right conclusion from this exceptional event in Israeli society, and understand that there are rational people with whom we can build ties in order to overcome the lack of a diplomatic process. The majority of the meeting's attendees spoke against incitement for revenge. I think that the reaction in Israel had influence (on the decision)."He testified that the decision adopted in the meeting clearly did not include a green-light for clashes or revenge attacks. "If there was a plan to have the PLO push the Palestinian street towards clashes, the current situation would be very different. But the decision was clear, and the commanders of the security services were present, understood the tone, and their instructions."
The meeting with Rajoub took place on a day in which Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, submitted documents and information regarding the hate crime in Duma to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, as well as documents regarding other hate crimes against Palestinians in the West Bank. "We will go to any length in order to punish Israel, and expose the world to the truth, but we will not go the way of revenge, and the spilling of blood." A short while after the attack, Hamas embarked on a planned path of incitement against Israel, whose sole goal was to push the Palestinian masses towards clashing with Israel. The organization took advantage of a previous call it had made for a "day of rage" as a result of events which unfolded on the temple mount during Tisha B'Av. Despite the attack and the calls for violence, only small groups of rioters clashed with Israeli security forces during that afternoon.
Rajoub explained that we cannot conclude this means the Palestinian street is simmering. "We do not posses the ability to prevent and convince a nation which has no hope," he said. "There is tension and it is illogical to ignore it. The ball is in your court, or the world's hands, and that is why we have turned to the International Criminal Court, the Security Council, and all the international bodies, so they get involved. We deserve protection." Rajoub believes that as a result of the severity of the incident, the perpetrators of the hate crime in Duma will be apprehended by the Shin Bet, but he does not hang much hope on their capture, if it even happens. "I think that they have an interest to capture the attackers, but the question is if they have the ability to deal with Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennet. Will they really destroy the homes of those who killed the little baby? No. He will be place in a five star facility until someone comes along and pardons him."

Senior American official: If Iran attacks Israel, US will protect it
Ynetnews/Itamar Eichner, Roi Kais /Published: 08.04.15/Israel News
Following nuclear deal with Iran, Washington tries to ease Israel's fears; official states Israel's military qualitative edge will be ensured, adding: 'US intelligence will check Iranian compliance with laser accuracy'. If Israel is attacked by Iran, the United States will protect it, a senior US official said in a press briefing on Monday. "We live this commitment every day, it's something we do for Israel on a daily basis," he said. "We have a relationship of allies and the word ally has meaning for us. It means that if you are attacked we will defend you as we would a NATO member."According to the official, the US is "shocked" by the Iranian leadership's calls to destroy Israel after the signing of the agreement. "This is not the way a country should behave in today's world. But that does not mean that we shouldn't sign an agreement that reduces the risk of Iran becoming a nuclear state. We do not expect Iran to radically change its behavior following the agreement. We are trying to deal with the nuclear issue and bring it to a level of transparency and visibility. It's not that we think that Iran has changed and its leaders want to create peace and harmony. I do not think that Iran is a part of the solution. Perhaps in the future if it changes its behavior." "We believe this deal reduces the need for a military attack," the official said. "We understand that the military option is always an option for Israel and the US, but the agreement makes the military option less necessary. But Israel has a right to self-defense, we understand that."
He pledged that the United States will ensure Israel's qualitative military edge and increase its military aid in the field of missile defense and the war on terror.
"This is something that is in legislation. It is about what we sell to Israel to secure the lead, and how we monitor arms sales to the region so that Israel maintains its superiority. Therefore, the sale of F-35 and other systems is critical. This was our way to maintain Israel's qualitative edge and it will remain so. The agreement with Iran is about its nuclear capabilities and not its conventional capabilities. We ensured the qualitative edge before the agreement and will continue doing so."The official went on to say that on the day after the implementation of the agreement there will not be a conflict of interests between Israeli intelligence and American intelligence in the effort to discover violations of the deal in Iran. "US intelligence will continue to check Iranian compliance with the agreement with laser accuracy, and any attempt to deceive or mislead the supervision will be revealed. The goal is to provide policymakers with the right information and share it with the Israelis." The American source also addressed the issue of the money that will start flowing to Iran following the lifting of the Western-imposed sanctions, and insisted there would be no relief from the restrictions imposed on it as a result of its support of terrorism and its human rights violations. The official said that Israeli officials expressed concern about the sale of advanced military capabilities to the Gulf states, and the issue came up, inter alia, during the visit of US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in Israel two weeks ago, and even before that. He denied reports that the United States intends to provide Egypt or the Gulf states with F-35 jets. "There will be no sale of F-35s to any other country in the region except Israel, and reports on that are not true," he stressed.
Addressing the strained relations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration, the official said that this will not affect security cooperation. "Defense relations have never been so strong. Despite the political tensions, our relationship remains the cornerstone of our approach to the Middle East. Our relations are unprecedented in terms of their depth. From the level of colonel in the army to the highest levels of the military and political leadership, they are in weekly contact with their Israeli counterparts. During his visit to Israel, Secretary of Defense Carter discussed cooperation on what we can do against the threat Hezbollah poses in the north, Iran's support for terrorism and also Sunni extremism and violence." The official also addressed the issue of the "compensation package" Israel is supposed to receive following the agreement with Iran. Netanyahu refuses to enter negotiations on the content and scope of the package so it would not be interpreted as Israel accepting the agreement. Israeli officials have warned that after the signing of the agreement, Obama became less generous, but the US official explained that there is no significance to the timing of these conversations and that the package will be "generous" in any case. "We talked about increased cooperation in certain areas but there was no discussion of the package," he explains. "What we heard from other parts of the administration is a desire to enter into talks on defense aid to Israel. During the defense secretary's visit to Saudi Arabia, there was no discussion about a compensation package but rather continued cooperation."

Egypt militant attack on Sinai house kills five civilians
By The Associated Press | Cairo/Tuesday, 4 August 2015/Egyptians security officials say militants in northern Sinai have shelled a house near a security checkpoint, killing an entire family of five members inside it and wounding nine of their neighbors. The officials say the Tuesday morning attack happened in the restive town of Sheikh Zuweid in the Sinai Peninsula. They say the security checkpoint appeared to be the intended target. Medical officials said three children were among those killed. The wounded were taken to the town hospital for treatment. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to reporters. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Egypt is facing a growing insurgency in northern Sinai where an Islamic State affiliate has claimed responsibility for scores of deadly attacks targeting security forces.

Sources: Hamas focusing on terror attacks from West Bank after high casualties in Gaza war
By JPOST.COM STAFF/08/04/2015/Hamas will not return to open war with Israel until it obtains anti-aircraft missiles to prevent IAF attacks on its positions, London-based, Arabic-language daily Al Hayat quoted sources in Gaza as saying on Tuesday. According to the sources, Hamas learned during last summer's Operation Protective Edge that the cost of engaging in direct confrontation with the IDF was not worth it, and that it will instead focus on carrying out terror attacks originating in the West Bank. The decision came, according to Al Hayat's sources, after Hamas realized that, during the summer 2014 war, IAF strikes targeting members of the group's military wing in population centers were leading to large number of civilian casualties. "Israel did not hesitate to bombard and kill all the family members who were in the surroundings of members of the military wings," a source said. The sources added that when Hamas realized in the last days of the war that Israel was continuing its aerial bombardments around the clock, leading to the deaths of dozens of Palestinians every day, they agreed to a cease-fire without any conditions. Hamas is not abandoning military action against Israel, the source said, but has taken a strategic decision to suspend seeking an open war against the Jewish state for now. By attacking Israel with terror attacks from the West Bank, the IDF responds only in a localized nature against specific targets, unlike the comprehensive Israeli response in Gaza, the source said.

An Emerging Kurdistan
Ofra Bengio/Middle East Forum/August 3, 2015
Ofra Bengio, Senior Research Associate at the Moshe Dayan Center of Tel Aviv University, is the author, most recently, of Kurdish Awakening: Nation Building in a Fragmented Homeland. Professor Bengio briefed the Middle East Forum in a conference call on July 23, 2015. The Arab upheavals have enabled a Greater Kurdistan to emerge as a major regional player by blurring geographical barriers and strengthening cross-border nationalism among the disparate Kurdish communities in Turkey (15 million), Iran (8 million), Iraq (6-7 million), and Syria (2.5 million). At the same time, with most of these groups mired in fights with their own governments and/or the nascent Islamic State and expanding into areas rich in oil reserves and water resources, conflicting interests and competition for control of these strategic assets have exacerbated rivalries and tensions among them. Iraq’s Kurds have made the greatest strides toward statehood. Since their 2003 delivery from Saddam Hussein’s despotic regime they have enjoyed effective autonomy, and their geostrategic significance has greatly increased as they became the main bulwark to the Islamic State following the Iraqi army’s repeated defeats at the hands of the Islamist group. Unlike Italy and France, Washington insists on channeling all military support for the Kurds through the Iraqi government. Seeking to capitalize on these developments, Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani has been pushing toward independence, only to be undermined by opposition Kurdish factions, on the one hand, and Baghdad’s foot-dragging in delivering the necessary development funding and war material, on the other. To this must be added Washington’s adamant insistence on a unified Iraq and the attendant channeling of military support for the Kurds via the Iraqi government – unlike some of the European powers, notably Italy, France, and Hungary, which directly arm the Kurds and support their independence. It may well be that Baghdad’s short-sighted policy will eventually hasten the country’s breakup by widening the breach with the Kurdish Region beyond repair and driving its leadership to proclaim independence. Should this happen, the nascent Kurdish state will likely face formidable challenges – from unifying its fighting forces and aligning the goals of its diverse communities, to securing its oil resources and gaining new oil deals, to coping with a resurgent (and probably nuclear) Iran. Summary account by Marilyn Stern, Middle East Forum Board of Governors

The mistake of betting on Al-Nusra Front
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/Tuesday, 4 August 2015
Attempts to embellish Al-Nusra Front and include it within the Syrian revolutionary camp have failed, despite all the sponsorship and armaments the party has received, and despite its portrayal as less brutal than the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Both are terrorist and extensions of Al-Qaeda. ISIS is an extension of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was killed in Iraq, while Al-Nusra officially follows Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s current leader. There are three parties fighting in Syria today: the regime and its allies, terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al-Nusra, and the national and moderate opposition, of which the biggest party is the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Those who support these parties are three; the first is Iran and it supports the Assad regime, the second party supports the national moderate opposition and the third supports terrorist opposition groups, specifically al-Nusra. The latter party thought it was smart and thus decided to tame either of the two beasts. It chose al-Nusra because unlike ISIS, it did not broadcast horrific videos and accepted to negotiate and bargain.
Al-Nusra’s aims have nothing to do with the demands of Syrians during their revolution. Its aim is to establish a state that competes against ISIS. Al-Nusra’s aims have nothing to do with the demands of Syrians during their revolution. Despite the clear differences between patriotism and terrorism, some foreign parties support Al-Nusra in the belief that they can control this wild beast until the crisis is over, then just get rid of it. Al-Nusra’s command was smarter than that of ISIS, as it humored those foreign parties and made compromises over those it kidnapped and did not slaughter them all. As a reward it was not pursued, and the movement of its fighters across borders was overlooked.
Defeating Assad
The motives of the party who adopted al-Nusra is that it wanted to employ a fierce group which it believes is capable of defeating Assad’s forces - who are also well-known for their brutality - and of fighting Hezbollah and the rest of extremist militias whose ideological and military background are similar to al-Nusra itself. Al-Nusra has achieved military victories, and hundreds of its members carried out suicide bombings in Syria, some of them altering the balance of power on the ground. Despite that, it remains a terrorist group that is impossible to tame. Its aims clash with the rest of the Syrian opposition, whom it considers infidels and must be fought. So what is the use of getting rid of the Syrian regime and replacing it with an equally bad one? Those strategists who think only of how to resolve today’s problem are turning a blind eye to the destructive results that will come tomorrow. They are repeating what happened two decades ago, when some parties fully supported Hezbollah and certain defecting Palestinian groups until they became a graver threat against Lebanon and Palestine.
In the past three years, the FSA - which refused to raise slogans of religious extremism or elimination of others - has been marginalized. Al-Nusra has benefited from playing the game of contradictions, such as exploiting its enmity of the Syrian regime to facilitate its own attacks against the opposition. Western strategists thought that restraining Syrian national and moderate organizations such as the FSA would force them to accept working under the command of the Syrian regime to end chaos. The result backfired, as moderates were weakened and replaced by extremists. Moderate opposition groups have become victim of the two parties competing over managing the crisis. One party wanted to weaken these moderate groups in order to reach a political solution while another party wanted to strengthen extremist groups to attain a quick military victory. The situation on ground has proven that both parties were wrong. Weakening the moderates expanded the vacuum in Syria, where the regime has semi-collapsed since 2012 and can only govern areas that support it on a sectarian basis, which are relatively small. Al-Nusra has become besieged - this is why it has directed its efforts toward fighting the Syrian opposition, under the excuse that the latter is allied with the West against it. The organization has recently announced its capture of 54 opposition members whom it claims received military training in Turkey as part of an American program. Al-Nusra says they crossed into Syria to fight it and ISIS. Whether this news is true or not, the number of those involved in this program does not exceed 100, as most of the opposition has rejected this program, and the Americans have rejected most applicants out of fear that they would turn against them and join other armed opposition groups.

What next for Iran’s economy?
Miroslav Dusek/Al Arabiya/Tuesday, 4 August 2015
Just hours after the Vienna agreement with Iran was signed, Iranian President Hassan Rowhani took to Twitter to share his thoughts: “Today is a new chapter to work towards growth and development … a day for youth to dream again of a brighter future.” Containing both an opportunity and an imperative, these words underscore a larger reality, that economically Vienna is for Iran less about how it can return to its pre-sanctions shape, and more about building a new economy. And so while the security implications of the agreement are of course paramount and will ultimately shape its future, there is clearly the possibility of an economic transformation at play here as well, which goes well beyond the current, rather simplistic, focus on the post-sanctions investment outlook. What may, therefore, the building blocks of such a new economy be?
Sharpening the competitive edge
In the World Economic Forum’s 2014-2015 Global Competitiveness Index, Iran ranked 83rd among 144 countries, trailing other large emerging economies such as Turkey, Mexico and Indonesia. The sanctions relief stemming from Vienna represents a key opportunity to enhance competitiveness by providing a more stable economic context and a window of opportunity for transforming the economy. Iran will be able to build on its solid macro-economic positioning, its large market size, and its fairly well-educated population. These are strong attributes that will likely improve once sanctions are lifted. Oil revenues will provide an even stronger macro-economic cushion for investment in future competitiveness and market size will grow, fuelled by markets to which the country will be able to export. To make the economy more competitive and diversify it, crucial improvements on issues such as access to finance, government and labour efficiency, and an effective judicial framework for resolving business disputes will be needed for Iran to compete in a more open and global market. Moreover, the following two areas will arguably be critical for building Iran’s future economy:
Harnessing human capital
In his May 2015 article, Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, argues that “in a future of rapid technological change and widespread automation, the determining factor – or crippling limit – to innovation, competitiveness and growth is less likely to be the availability of capital than the existence of a skilled workforce”. In this context, the key issue for Iran is that despite significant investments in developing human capital, this talent is not being used to its full potential. For example, according to the latest World Economic Forum Human Capital Index, Iran’s labour-force participation rate for those between 25 and 54 years old is at 55.8%, placing it in 123rd position out of the 124 countries ranked. Youth unemployment stands at over 20% and there is also a significant gender gap in the workforce, despite nearly equal enrollment in schools and universities. This picture is compounded by a significant brain drain. A critical next step is therefore to expand workforce opportunities in a variety of sectors, with a particular focus on youth and women.
A new infrastructure mindset
Iran’s economic future is also intimately linked to an upgraded infrastructure. Forecasts from BMI Research look positive: 1.4% year-on-year growth in the Iranian construction industry for 2015, and an average of 3.1% over the next five years. The Iranian transport minister, Abbas Ahmad Akhoundi, estimates that post-Vienna investment in the country’s railways and roads will reach $25 billion and $30 billion respectively. The sanctions relief stemming from Vienna represents a key opportunity to enhance competitiveness
At the same time, to enable truly systemic and sustainable improvements, there is a clear imperative to remove administrative barriers to infrastructure development. In the World Bank’s Doing Business report, Iran ranked 172nd out of 189 countries, for the ease of obtaining construction permits, for example. However, arguably even more important than “hard” infrastructure for Iran’s future will be the ability to expand its digital economy. In the Forum’s latest Networked Readiness Index, Iran ranks 96th out of 143 countries assessed. As gains in ICT adoption and development are increasingly seen globally as not only productivity imperatives, but also key drivers of social and economic inclusion, digital infrastructure is quickly emerging as Iran’s new industry and social frontier.
While the Vienna agreement is of key significance to international security, it also represents a potentially transformative moment for Iran’s economic future. This article was first published in the World Economic Forum Blog on July 29, 2015.

Ankara does not have a strategy towards the PKK
Ruwayda Mustafah/Al Arabiya/Tuesday, 4 August 2015
The Ottomans were humiliated in the aftermath of World War I, and the Kurds were robbed of a promised homeland by Allied Powers in the treaty of Sèvres. The terms of Sèvres were vehemently opposed by the newly founded Turkish republic, and as they gained the upper hand on the bargaining table in 1922, the promise of a Kurdish state was betrayed. The consequences of which proved to be disastrous for Kurds, who are now divided into four parts. For those familiar with Turkey’s history, the impingement on minority rights does not come as a surprise. The Kurds have suffered on an unprecedented scale since the foundation of the Republic. Take the Dersim massacre for instance, where thousands of Kurdish civilians were systematically killed between 1937 and 1938. It is important to recognize that the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) were born out of these dire circumstances, where Kurdish people could not exercise their language or cultural rights, lacked political representation and lived in extremely impoverished areas. The PKK, founded in 1978, gave birth to an ideology, a political statement, and more crucially the assertion that being Kurdish was not a crime or a deformity. It was a bold response to Ankara’s attempted Turkification of Kurdish people, forced assimilation and its denial of a Kurdish ethnicity.
Nonetheless, the PKK has a share of its own crimes throughout history in attacking civilians or military personnel off-duty, which should not be ignored or overlooked. From 1984 until 2013 the PKK took up arms to challenge Ankara’s brutal policies towards Kurdish people, and the conflict cost the lives of 40,000 civilians, the majority of whom were Kurdish. In that period of violence, instability and insecurity the number of casualties was overwhelmingly high, something that both sides of the conflict cannot afford to repeat.
In 2013, then Prime Minister Reccip Tayyip Erdogan’s signature achievement was the initiation of a peace process with the PKK, whom retreated to Qandil mountains, with coordination from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The peace process has now ended, as Turkey continues to intensify its shelling of PKK strongholds. The PKK’s offshoot in Syria, known as PYD has been recognized internationally as one of the most effective fighting forces against the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS). The Turkish government’s perceived leniency towards combating ISIS aggravated tensions from both the PKK and PYD.
Baby steps
Now that Ankara has taken “baby steps” towards militarily opposing ISIS, the peace process must be sought after once more with a more clearly-defined vision. Regardless of whether the peace-process will be reinitiated, Ankara must acknowledge that ideologies cannot be bombed into oblivion There’s a real urgency for the general Turkish public to become more receptive to a multi-cultural Turkish identity. The reason the peace process became stagnant, and inevitably failed is because neither the PKK nor Ankara had a clear vision outlined of what the peace-process constituted. The inherent nature of the embodiment of “Kurdish question” in Turkey has not been clarified or elucidated through any government-related institution. In nearly two years of peace and non-violence, Ankara made no efforts to re-engage with PKK rebels, normalizing them to life after guerrilla warfare. In my opinion, they were treated as the “other” without contingency plans in place, such as housing, jobs, education, and so on. More importantly, the PKK leadership failed to delineate the fate of its own militants, following the materialization of actual peace. I believe the Pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party’s (HDP) popularity has proven that peace can lead to better political engagement from alienated groups such as the Kurds. The period of non-violence that emerged skyrocketed the popularity of HDP. As a result, the co-leader of the party, Selahattin Demirtaş, exalted as the “Kurdish Obama” became an emerging political figure in the country. This was particularly evident in the general elections of 2015, where the HDP won 13.12% of votes, passing the parliamentary threshold. Regardless of whether the peace-process will be reinitiated, Ankara must acknowledge that ideologies cannot be bombed into oblivion. In attacking PKK, which has recently cost the lives of dozens of villagers so far, the guerrilla group’s popularity will only increase.

Israeli's Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz fires back at US energy minister: If I were American, I would oppose the Iran deal
HERB KEINON, JPOST.COM STAFF/08/04/2015
Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz on Tuesday rejected his American counterpart's assertion that the nuclear deal with Iran will take the existential threat against the Jewish State off the table. After US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told a delegation of Israeli reporters that if he were Israeli, he would he would support the agreement, Steinitz said that "if I were American, I would oppose the agreement." Steinitz fired off a list of reasons detailing why, as an American, he would oppose the deal. "I would oppose the agreement because it ensures from the start that ten years from now, Iran will become a nuclear power capable of producing dozens of atomic bombs per month. "I would oppose the agreement because it could lead to a nuclear arms race between Iran and the Sunni Arab states - in stark opposition to the declared American policy. "I would oppose the agreement because, even in the short term, inspections [of Iran's nuclear facilities] are not immediate, or invasive enough, as was promised from the start. "If I was American, I would oppose the agreement, because it hurts the national security of the US, of Israel and of all the Western nations," Steinitz said. Moniz, in his comments to the visiting Israeli journalists, had said that the Iran deal “does not change one iota who our friends and allies are in the region.” He defined America’s friends in the region as Israel, the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and “a couple of Arab states.”
Iran, he added, “does not move out of the box” unless its support for terrorism, Hezbollah, and instability in the region, as well as its human rights record, are addressed. In addition, he said, that country’s rhetoric about Israel will have to change “dramatically.”
Moniz was the highest level administration official to meet the delegation, which is staying in Washington for three days before heading to New York. The reporters are guests of the Ruderman Family foundation, which sponsors programs aimed at enhancing Israeli understanding of the American Jewish community. Moniz repeated the administration's central argument that the agreement is not based on trust, but rather verification. He would not discuss the secret annexes to the accord - including one that reportedly allows the Iranians to provide their own soil samples to supervisors - saying these are agreements between the IAEA and the Iranians. “From day one and until forever, we will have greater insight and verification options with the agreement than without it,” he said, adding that “no one is in denial” that the Iranians will have additional funds to use for their subversive activities in the region, which is why the US is committed to “a significant enhancement of security collaboration in the region,” both with Israel and the Gulf states.

Palestinians: The Difference between Us and Them
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/August 4, 2015
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6281/palestinians-israel-terror-
We Palestinians have failed to educate our people on the principles of tolerance and peace. Instead, we condone and applaud terrorism, especially when it is directed against Jews. We want the world to condemn terrorism only when it claims the lives of Palestinians.
Abbas's ambiguous, half-hearted condemnations of attacks by Palestinians against Israelis are only intended for public consumption and are primarily aimed at appeasing Western donors so that they will continue channeling funds to the Palestinian Authority. In addition, his condemnations seek to blame Israel for Palestinian terror attacks. Netanyahu's strong and clear condemnation left me and other Palestinians wondering when was the last time we heard similar statements from our leaders. I cannot remember Abbas or any other Palestinian leader ever expressing shock and outrage over the killing of a Jew in a Palestinian terror attack, nor the last time a Palestinian official visited the Israeli victims of a Palestinian terror attack.
Each time Abbas reluctantly condemns a Palestinian terror attack, he faces a wave of criticism from many Palestinians. Unlike the Israeli public, many Palestinians often rush to justify, and even welcome, terror attacks against Jews. Has there ever been a Palestinian activist who dared to hold a rally in a Palestinian city to condemn suicide bombings or the murder of an entire Jewish family? The Israeli president has good reason to feel ashamed for the murder of the baby. But when will we Palestinians ever have a sense of shame over the way we react to the murder of Jews?
I cannot count the number of times that I heard from Israeli Jews the phrases "I'm ashamed" and "I'm sorry" in response to the horrific crime that claimed the life of Palestinian toddler Ali Dawabsha in the West Bank village of Duma last week.
The strong response of the Israeli public and leaders to the arson attack is, truthfully, somewhat comforting. The wall-to-wall Israeli condemnation of this crime has left me and other Palestinians not only ashamed, but also embarrassed -- because this is not how we Palestinians have been reacting to terror attacks against Jews -- even the despicable murder of Jewish children. Our response has, in fact, brought feelings of disgrace and dishonor. While the Israeli prime minister, president and other officials were quick strongly to condemn the murder of Dawabsha, our leaders rarely denounce terror attacks against Jews. And when a Palestinian leader such as Mahmoud Abbas does issue a condemnation, it is often vague and equivocal.
Take, for example, what happened after last year's kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by Palestinians in the West Bank. It not only took President Abbas four days to issue a statement condemning the terror attack, but even then, the condemnation was at best a tentative: "The Palestinian presidency... condemns the series of events that happened last week, beginning with the kidnapping of three Israeli youths." Abbas then went on to denounce Israel for arresting dozens of Hamas members after the abduction and murder of the three youths. Later in 2014, when Abbas did condemn a Palestinian terror attack that killed five Israelis in a Jerusalem synagogue, Fatah official Najat Abu Baker, a few days later, explained that Abbas's condemnation was made "within a diplomatic context... [he] is forced to speak this way to the world."
Abbas's condemnation of the attack at the synagogue in Jerusalem's Har Nof neighborhood apparently came only under pressure from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who telephoned the Palestinian leader twice to demand that he speak out against the killings. Abbas's statement said that the Palestinian leadership condemns the "killing of worshippers in a synagogue and all acts of violence, regardless of their source." His statement then also called for an end to "incursions and provocations by settlers against the Aqsa Mosque."
Abbas's ambiguous, half-hearted condemnations of attacks by Palestinians against Israelis are only intended for public consumption and are primarily aimed at appeasing Western donors, so that they will continue channeling funds to the Palestinian Authority (PA). In addition, his condemnations almost always seek to blame Israel for the Palestinian terror attacks -- presumably an attempt to justify the killing of Jews at the hands of Palestinian terrorists. In contrast, Israeli leaders who condemned the murder of the Palestinian toddler sound firm and unambiguous. Here is what Prime Minister Netanyahu said after visiting the murdered baby's parents and brother, who were wounded in the arson attack and are receiving medical treatment in Israeli hospitals: "When you stand next to the bed of this small child, and his infant brother has been so brutally murdered, we are shocked, we are outraged. We condemn this. There is zero tolerance for terrorism wherever it comes from, whatever side of the fence it comes from."
Netanyahu's strong and clear condemnation left me and other Palestinians wondering when was the last time we heard similar statements from our leaders. I cannot remember ever hearing Abbas or any other Palestinian leader express shock and outrage over the killing of a Jew in a Palestinian terror attack. Nor can I remember the last time we heard of a Palestinian official visiting the Israeli victims of a Palestinian terror attack. The Israeli leaders' condemnation of the baby's murder is a sincere voice that reflects the views of the overwhelming majority of the Israeli public. In contrast, the Palestinian leaders' denunciations of terror attacks do not reflect the general feeling on the Palestinian street. Each time Abbas reluctantly condemns a Palestinian terror attack, he faces a wave of criticism from many Palestinians. Unlike the Israeli public, many Palestinians often rush to justify, and even welcome, terror attacks against Jews. This was the situation just a few weeks ago, when an Israeli man was shot dead near Ramallah. Several Palestinian factions and military groups applauded the murder, calling it a "natural response to Israeli crimes."
This is the huge difference between the way Israelis and Palestinians react to terrorism. The murder of Dawabsha saw thousands of Israelis hold anti-violence rallies to condemn the horrible crime. But has anyone ever heard of a similar rally on the Palestinian side whenever terrorists kill innocent Jewish civilians? Is there one top Palestinian official or prominent figure who dares to speak out in public against the murder of Jews, at a rally in the center of Ramallah or Gaza City? Has there ever been a Palestinian activist who dared to hold a rally in a Palestinian city to condemn suicide bombings or the murder of an entire Jewish family? While Israelis have been holding rallies to condemn terror attacks against our people, we have been celebrating the killing of Jews. How many times have we taken to the streets to hand out sweets and candies in jubilation over the killing of Jews? Such sickening scenes of men and women celebrating terror attacks against Jews on the streets of the West Bank and Gaza Strip have never been condemned by our leaders. These scenes have become commonplace each time Palestinian terrorists carry out an attack against Jews. These scenes stand in sharp contrast to the public statements and rallies in Israel in response to terror attacks against Palestinians. Our leaders need to learn from Israel's President, Reuven Rivlin, who said he was "ashamed" and "in pain" for the murder of the Palestinian toddler. When was the last time a Palestinian leader used such rhetoric to condemn the murder of Jews? The laconic statements issued by Abbas's office in response to anti-Jewish terror attacks never talked about shame or pain. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin visits 4-year-old Ahmed Dawabsha in hospital on July 31. Dawabsha was badly burned in an arson attack on his house in the village of Duma, which killed his baby brother and also injured his parents. (Image source: Mark Neyman/Israel Government Press Office) We have failed to educate our people on the principles of tolerance and peace. Instead, we continue to condone and applaud terrorism, especially when it is directed against Jews. We want the whole world to condemn terrorism only when it claims the lives of Palestinians. We have reached a point where many of us are either afraid to speak out against terrorism or simply accept it when it claims the lives of Jews. The Israeli president has good reason to be ashamed for the murder of the baby. But when will we Palestinians ever have a sense of shame over the way we are reacting to the murder of Jews? When will we stop glorifying terrorists, and naming streets and public squares after them, instead of strongly denouncing them and expelling them from our society? We still have a lot to learn from Israeli leaders and the Israeli public. *Bassam Tawil is based in the Middle East.

Turkey: ISIS's Hostage Again
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/August 4, 2015
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6219/isis-turkey-hostages
When the Islamic State took hostage 49 Turks at the Mosul consulate, it took hostage the entire country. The jihadists still hold Turkey hostage.
Interestingly, the Islamic State has so far mainly targeted President Erdogan's ideological/political foes: Alevis in the Reyhanli bombing, and the Kurdish political movement in four separate bomb attacks. Note that it was the Kurdish political movement that on June 7 dashed Erdogan's dreams to introduce an executive presidential system. Erdogan is hostage to the jihadists of his own making. In March 2014, Turkey's main opposition social democratic party submitted a parliamentary motion to investigate alleged failings of safety standards at a coalmine in Soma, in western Turkey. The ruling Islamist party's parliamentary majority voted to reject it. Less than two months later the same coalmine exploded, killing more than 300 miners. In February 2015, an opposition member of parliament, Nazmi Gur, from the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) filed a parliamentary motion, asking for an inquiry into the activities of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Islamic State, ISIS, IS) inside Turkey. The next day, the motion was rejected by the same government benches, and led Gur to decry the vote as "a sign that the Turkish government still refrains from taking a clear position against ISIS." Half a year later, an IS suicide bomber murdered 32 people in an attack against a pro-Kurdish gathering, in a Turkish town bordering Syria.
Turkey's covert relationship with the IS, which has captured larges swaths of land in Syria and Iraq since last summer and declared an Islamic Sharia caliphate in the lands it controls, can be described by words ranging from "clandestine support" to "distant Islamist comradeship," and from "malign neglect" to "defensive caution." But overall, it was self-destructive miscalculation.
The Turks did not understand what kind of distant ideological comrades they were dealing with when these comrades last year took hostage 49 Turkish personnel at Turkey's consulate in Mosul, Iraq's second biggest city, including the consul general.
Following secret negotiations and under terms never disclosed, the hostages were released unharmed after 101 days of captivity. Apparently, Turkey promised cautious and more covert support for the Islamic State in return for an IS promise not to commit acts of terror on Turkish territory. However, as Turkey came under increasing pressure from its Western allies to do more against the jihadists, and after Turkey showcased dozens of potential jihadists detained while crossing the Turkey-Syria border, that deal first cracked, and has now become null and void. Thus, the recent attack in an obscure corner of Turkey should come as no surprise.
In March 2014, three Islamic State jihadists killed two security officers and one civilian, and injured eight, when they opened fire on a checkpoint manned by gendarmes and police in Nigde, in central Turkey. Three suspected attackers, along with eight others, were arrested and are on trial, with the prosecution demanding three life sentences for each. Police reports found links between the suspects and a Syrian Turkmen, Haisam Toubaljeh (or Heysem Topalca in Turkish), who is allegedly linked with radical groups, including IS. Toubaljeh is also a suspect in the "Reyhanli case," in which a 2013 bomb attack in the southern Turkish town of Reyhanli (on the Syrian border) killed more than 50 people. In May, shortly before Turkey's parliamentary elections, the Islamic State targeted two provincial buildings of the pro-Kurdish HDP party, injuring eight. One IS bomb arrived as a package delivery and the other as a bouquet of flowers. And only two days before the elections, on June 5, a Turkish IS militant detonated a bomb at an HDP election rally in Diyarbakir, the unofficial "Kurdish capital" in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast. Five people were killed and over 100 injured.
Then came the July 20 suicide bomb attack in Suruc, a small Kurdish town on the Turkish side of the Turkey-Syria border. The 32 murdered victims were mostly young Turkish and Kurdish leftists organizing humanitarian assistance for Kobane, a nearby Kurdish town on the Syrian side of the border. The bomb left more than 100 people injured. The scene of the suicide bombing in Suruc, Turkey. An Islamic State suicide bomber murdered 32 people and wounded more than 100 others in a July 20 attack on Kurdish humanitarian activists. (Image source: VOA video screenshot) Interestingly, with the exception of the Mosul hostage crisis and the police checkpoint shooting, all Islamic State attacks on Turkey have so far targeted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ideological/political foes: mostly Alevis in the Reyhanli bombing and the Kurdish political movement in four separate bomb attacks. Note that it was the Kurdish political movement that on June 7 dashed Erdogan's dreams to introduce an executive presidential system. Erdogan's AKP party needed at least 330 deputies in Turkey's 550-seat legislature to put any constitutional amendment to referendum, and it only won 258 seats. Erdogan (mis)calculated that the pro-Kurdish HDP, whose votes in recent elections hovered around 6%, would fail to pass the 10% national threshold required for parliamentary representation. If the HDP had failed, most of its seats would be redistributed to Erdogan's party, possibly bringing it close to or over 330 seats. Surprisingly, the HDP won 13% of the national vote and 80 seats in parliament. When the Islamic State took hostage 49 Turks at the Mosul consulate, it took hostage the entire country. The jihadists still hold Turkey hostage. The inconclusive June 7 elections stripped Erdogan's party of its parliamentary majority for the first time since 2002, and deprived Turkey of a single-party government. Since then, Erdogan's men have been trying to put together a coalition government. If they fail, Turkey will go to new elections in autumn. This is where Turkey's "hostage story" begins. Despite being the largest single party in the recent elections, Erdogan's AKP party lost votes -- but the president wants to try for another chance. And at a time when even a few more votes in any repeat election would be vitally important for Erdogan, a few more IS bombs exploding in urban Turkey could easily cost him drop of at least a few percentage points in votes.Erdogan is hostage to the jihadists of his own making, just like the Turkish proverb: "He who sows the seeds of winds will harvest the whirlwind."
**Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Why Empower Iran?
Alexander H. Joffe/The Times of Israel/August 4, 2015
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2015/08/03/alexander-h-joffethe-times-of-israel-why-empower-iran/
Unless the US Congress votes in opposition, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal with Iran with go through. What really happened and why did it happen the way it did? What happened is gradually becoming clear. It is revealed daily just how horrendous the deal really is. On every point — enrichment, centrifuges, stocks of fissile material, inspections, sanctions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps members and businesses, "snapback," etc. — the Obama administration caved completely. Concessions on ballistic missiles and arms sales were thrown in at the last minute; the administration lied about it all, while Iran touted its victories and American capitulation. All this went on amidst a background of Iranian chants of "death to Israel" and "death to America," which entered not at all into American calculations. The Obama administration caved completely on every major point of contention.
Iran is thus empowered; it will shortly be gigantically richer, its proxies strengthened, its nuclear program at best slowed but fundamentally unimpeded, and its missile and terror programs shifted into overdrive. But why this occurred is unclear. Clownish performance by the chief negotiator, Secretary of State John Kerry, a man driven equally by incompetence, ego, and pacifism, has long been the norm. But otherwise competent functionaries like Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz were dragged into negotiating and defending the deal. They have been no less implausible. But their presence, along with Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, previously the midwife of the North Korean nuclear program, suggests the process was directed from the top. In contrast, the defense establishment was written out; protests by General Martin Dempsey, outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as retired leaders like Defense Intelligence Agency head General Michael Flynn and NATO commander Admiral James Stavridis, fell on deaf ears in the administration and have been ignored by a compliant media. Lead US negotiator Wendy Sherman previously brokered an agreement with North Korea that failed to prevent its construction of a bomb.
Three factors suggest why President Obama himself effectively guided the negotiations to this point. As with various other administration scandals — think the IRS targeting of conservative and pro-Israel groups, or the Justice Department's eavesdropping of reporters — it was not necessary for him to make every decision, only to set a tone that was interpreted by underlings. What then were the strategic goals that Obama established? First was American withdrawal from the Middle East and to diminish the possibility of a return to a Pax Americana. Withdrawal from Iraq was a stated campaign goal that was accomplished, and is now being slowly reversed as the threat of ISIS grows. American forces remain in Afghanistan to confront a growing Taliban threat. In both cases the number of troops will be deliberately inadequate to directly confront threats. Re-escalation of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan appears inevitable, but the larger reality of an American defense umbrella has been diminished by the administration's alienation of traditional allies in the region, namely Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. This was done through its Iran policy and more broadly through US engagement with Islamists. When coupled with enormous defense cuts at home, reducing the military to pre-World War II levels, any restoration of American influence, much less a defense presence in the Middle East, would be a protracted and expensive affair necessarily left to a future president, if ever.
A perverse pacifism is also at work. "There is no military solution" and "Ideologies are not defeated with guns" are pacifist mantras, repeated at the very top and used to avoid use of force, or the support of others using force, in Ukraine, Iraq, and Syria.
Obama has said the agreement offers Iran a path to being "a very successful regional power."This pacifist, non-interventionist policy is nominally offset by the administration's machismo; the never ending reminders about killing Bin Laden, the continued leaks and sympathetic press accounts regarding the president's involvement in approving targets for drone attacks and special forces raids, and the much-vaunted, but little seen, "pivot to Asia."But these narratives do not offset the reality that conventional forces, of the sort necessary, say, to fight ISIS in Syria, will never deployed, no matter how many Christians and Yazidis are kidnapped or killed. And despite utterances that a military option was "on the table," it seems inconceivable that the administration ever contemplated using force against Iran.
But there are deeper reasons for the outreach to Iran. Some have suggested that the long-term Obama policy, from at least 2008, has been to reintegrate Iran into the Middle East, putting it on the path to becoming a "very successful regional power," as Obama put it, against an even longer term bet that moderate forces will become ascendant. The White House expects Iran to act as a bulwark against the very Sunni extremism it helps provoke.Iran, as Obama admits, has "a track record of state-sponsored terrorism ... [and] has engaged in disruptions to our allies," while its "rhetoric is not only explicitly anti-American but also has been incendiary when it comes to its attitude towards the state of Israel." It is nevertheless expected to act as a bulwark against the Sunni extremism it helps provoke, help resolve the Syria crisis its client Assad created, and abide by "international norms and international rules, and that would be good for everybody."
The theory of Iranian reintegration, however, captures only part of the administration's motives. At the root is something deeper still, reflected in Obama's most personal and idiosyncratic policy statement; that "America is not — and never will be — at war with Islam," that it is "part of [his] responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear," that "Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism — it is an important part of promoting peace," and that "America does not presume to know what is best for everyone."These and other elements from Obama's Istanbul and Cairo speeches are the core of policy towards Iran, the Middle East, and the Muslim world as a whole. They have been translated directly into policies to support and facilitate "authentically" Islamic regimes in order to prove they can govern.
This was the theory behind support of the Muslim Brotherhood's short-lived election to rule Egypt, and the distance the US created when Egypt's military overthrew the increasingly tyrannical rule of Brotherhood President Muhammad Morsi. It has been the foundation of American support for the oppressive and bizarre rule of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the AKP party. And it accounts for the constant disclaimers from administration spokespersons denying any connection between Islam and terror, the incessant "religion of peace" rhetoric, and support for the "Islamophobic" mindset of victimization among American Muslims.
Other policies as large as outreach to Iran, as dangerous as purging mentions of jihad from US counterterrorism training, and as absurd as the President's order to NASA "to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering," reflect the administration's goal of inculcating Islamic authenticity, self-esteem and good will. In contrast to authentic Islam is "violent extremism." In this view Al Qaeda and ISIS are not Islamic at all but have, as the president stated in Cairo, "exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims." They are simply groups with no real relationship to Islam, despite their resolute Islamic self-conception and careful textual exegesis. Fatwas from Obama, Kerry and others, painstakingly separating Islam from the terror done in its name, are both perplexing, unpersuasive, and grist for ISIS and domestic Islamic terrorism. But they are self-satisfying.
The non-nuclear consequences of the Iran deal are already coming into view. European businesses are rushing for deals worth billions. Hamas has announced that Iran is financing new attack tunnels into Israel. Hezbollah, though badly bloodied from its defense of Iran's client, Syria's Assad regime, is reemphasizing its anti-Israel rhetoric and capabilities before what will be a horrifically violent war. Iran's subversion in Yemen, the Balkans, South America and the Gulf is at new heights. International legitimacy has brought neither Iranian moderation nor domestic development. It is unlikely to do so soon. At the end of the day, an American administration led by social justice ideologues was fated to understand nothing about a revolutionary Islamist regime with global aspirations. The favor done Iran in the name of Islamic authenticity and regional reintegration will be a curse on the world for generations.
**Alexander H. Joffe, a Shillman-Ginsburg fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a historian and archaeologist.

Obama’s Gift to the Ayatollah
By Emanuele Ottolenghi and Saeed Ghasseminejad/The Weekly Standard
August 04/15
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, signed this month by the six world powers with Iran lifts a UN arms embargo by 2020, sanctions against Iran’s ballistic missile program by 2023, most nuclear restrictions by 2025, and a cap on low-enriched uranium stockpile by 2030. Most sanctions will be lifted immediately, with some residual measures left until 2023. The Obama administration often suggests that the deal may transform the Iranian regime from a revolutionary theocracy to a more moderate government that adheres to international norms. If that is the aim, why did the Obama administration agree to lift U.S. sanctions against the very hardliners the deal is supposed to marginalize?
A case in point is the Headquarters for the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order – also known as EIKO or Setad. In June 2013 the U.S. Treasury designated EIKO – which functions as the personal business empire of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei – and 37 of its subsidiaries, noting that its purpose is “to generate and control massive, off-the-books investments, shielded from the view of the Iranian people and international regulators.”
If, or when, the nuclear deal is implemented, all sanctions against EIKO will be lifted. It will be the supreme leader’s inner circle, and not the moderates, who will reap the dividends.
Khamenei, of course, has final say on all important decisions in Iran. A revolutionary Islamist, he openly declares his intention to meddle in regional countries’ affairs through Iran’s active support for terror organizations and Islamic revolutionary movements. He is the ideological gatekeeper of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, its enduring anti-Americanism and its burning hatred for Israel.
But Khamenei’s power is not only rooted in his constitutionally endorsed authority as the leader of a clerical-authoritarian regime, or his tight control over the military. Ultimately, Khamenei relies on his vast financial empire to exert influence and pressure, both inside the country and abroad. A 2013 Reuters investigation put its real-estate portfolio at about $52 billion, its holdings in publicly traded companies at $3.4 billion, and its overall worth at $95 billion.
Khamenei has used this exclusively controlled financial-industrial conglomerate to pursue Tehran’s adventurism abroad and repression at home. In 2012 the United States even sought, unsuccessfully, to extradite a manager of this vast global holding for arms procurement. Delisting these entities guarantees such policies will continue – only with better funding.
The Obama administration has insisted that the agreement, and the U.S. sanctions lifted, only apply to the nuclear file. Why then is it lifting sanctions on EIKO? The U.S. should keep the supreme leader and his business empire under sanctions, making it clear that anyone doing business with EIKO will be the target of U.S. secondary sanctions. The U.S. should also argue for an exclusion clause against EIKO in all contracts that Western companies will now sign with Iran after sanctions are lifted. A necessary condition for any political transformation in Iran is a weakened Khamenei, not a stronger one. A richer supreme leader, after all, will only redouble Iran’s harmful behavior at home and abroad. By heaping financial rewards on Khamenei’s office, the JCPOA has diminished the prospect of genuinely moderating Iran’s regime, and increased the chances of regional war in the future.
Otherwise, Obama will have given the ayatollah the ability to consolidate his grip over Iran now, and to build a bomb later.
**Emanuele Ottolenghi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Saeed Ghasseminejad is an associate fellow.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-s-gift-ayatollah_1005066.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

Turkey's Kurdish Moment
Soner Cagaptay/Hurriyet Daily News
August 04, 2015
Erdogan seems intent on forcing early elections by goading the PKK into further violence, but the liberal-Kurdish HDP could trump that plan by remaining committed to peace. Recent Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) violence in Turkey, including its execution-style murders of two police officers on July 23rd, is alarming. The PKK attacks are in response to Turkish shelling of the group's camps inside Iraq. After a four-year respite from Kurdish violence, Turkey risks once again being sucked into the vortex of fighting.
Yet, if the Turks and Kurds can take stock of recent developments, including the success of the Kurdish nationalist Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in the June 7th Turkish parliamentary elections, and also study successful examples of defusing ethnic tensions, like the Spanish model, Turkey can retract from the brink of violence.The HDP's entry into the Turkish parliament is a historic development: For the first time, a Kurdish nationalist party crossed the 10 percent threshold required to join the legislative. Running with an alliance of liberals, the HDP has secured 80 seats in the 550-seat legislature and has become a force to be reckoned with -- you may disagree with the Kurds, but you can no longer ignore their politics.
The Turkish Kurds are excited by the developments across the border: The Kurds in Iraq run their affairs inside the nominally independent Kurdistan Regional Government, and since the beginning of the civil war, Syrian Kurds have carved out de facto autonomous areas, collectively "Western Kurdistan." Turkey needs to address the Kurds' grievances, though following regional examples in Syria, Iraq, or Iran is not necessarily the best way to do so. In those countries, an overwhelming majority of Kurds live within the boundaries of their traditional homelands, or "Kurdistans." In Turkey, half of the Kurds have migrated out of their homeland in the country's southeast, and Istanbul is the most populous Kurdish city in the world. The Kurdish population is not only diffused geographically in Turkey but is also quickly integrating. One of every six Kurds is married to a Turk. Accordingly, addressing Kurdish demands in Turkey must grant comprehensive cultural rights for all of the country's citizens, including the Kurds, regardless of location. Reforms would include access to education and public services not only in Kurdish, but in other minority languages demanded. An ancillary to these reforms would be administrative autonomy. Turkey is a large country in need of decentralization. The Kurds want self-government in the southeast. But an overwhelming majority of Turks oppose outright federalization.
In this regard, Turkey can study Spain's administrative reforms that began in the 1980s. In Spain's asymmetrical political system, areas such as the Basque Region have stronger administrative autonomy than others. Yet, all areas are under Spain's central government. By providing the Basques with local political power, Spain has ultimately pulled the carpet out from under the violent wing of the Basque movement. Turkey could follow a similar path of decentralization, allowing for stronger administrative autonomy in Kurdish provinces and other outlying areas while maintaining constitutional unity. However, the Spanish model would not be entirely applicable. The wealthy Basque Region has near financial autonomy from Madrid. Turkey's poor Kurdish southeast would depend on the rest of the country for net transfers. Still, Turkey's inspiration for moving forward should come from Spain's liberalism, not the Syrian war. And this is where the liberals' and Kurds' agendas overlap. The HDP was able to enter the parliament and win an impressive 80-member block due to liberal support. The Kurdish movement has to stay non-violent. The Kurds will be relevant in Turkish politics only if the HDP maintains its liberal outlook, thereby bolstering the party's national strength.
Enter the PKK and Abdullah Ocalan, the organization's charismatic founding leader who has been serving a life term on an island prison since 1999. Ocalan opened peace talks with President Erdogan in 2013, after which the PKK declared a ceasefire with Turkey. Following the Turkish bombing campaign, the group has declared the ceasefire to be over, starting a campaign to assassinate Turkish security officers. Erdogan cynically wants to use these developments to embolden his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in potential early elections (June 7 elections have produced a hung parliament, and analysts predict early polls in Turkey). The HDP is the political arm of the Kurdish movement in Turkey, though the HDP is both a product of and subservient to the PKK. The Turkish president hopes that the HDP will not be able to renounce PKK violence. This stance could cost the HDP the electoral threshold in early elections -- since its liberal voters will flee the party. If the HDP fails the threshold, the AKP would pick up its seats as the second most powerful party in the Kurdish provinces, endowing Erdogan's party with a legislative majority again.
Ultimately, Turks and Kurds alike have much to gain from getting along well since they now face a common threat: the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which on June 20 orchestrated a suicide bomb attack on the Turkish border town of Suruc, killing 31 people, both Kurds and Turks. Things could be different if the Kurdish movement and HDP stay committed to peace, trumping Erdogan's scheme. Moving forward, a liberal non-violent Kurdish movement could eventually band with the social-democratic wing of Turkish society, potentially becoming Turkey's largest opposition movement. This is the Kurds' Turkey moment. It is theirs to make or break.
*Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family Fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute, and author of The Rise of Turkey: The Twenty-First Century's First Muslim Power, published by Potomac Books.

Hezbollah and Israel Are Upping the Ante
Nadav Pollak/Washington Institute
August 04, 2015
The Israeli-Hezbollah battlefield seems to be shifting east as both sides continue to take action along the Syrian border, increasing the risk of escalation. On July 29, an Israeli drone reportedly attacked a vehicle carrying three members of the Syrian National Resistance, a Golan-based group affiliated with the Assad regime and Hezbollah. The vehicle -- which may also have been carrying two Hezbollah operatives -- was hit near the Syrian Druze village of Khadr only a few miles from the Israeli border.
In the past, Israel has taken action along the frontier when there was an imminent threat to its forces there, as in an April 26 strike on a group of Druze fighters who sought to place an improvised explosive device on the border. Attempts to plant IEDs have become frequent in recent months, and Israel's April strike apparently did not deter Hezbollah and its proxies from trying again. The three confirmed casualties of the July 29 strike were from Khadr, the same Druze village where Hezbollah recruited fighters for the April IED operation. The new strike may have been meant to achieve the same goal as the April strike: namely, stopping an imminent threat to Israel Defense Forces border personnel.
Other reports suggested the target was Samir Kuntar, a convicted terrorist who killed an Israeli family in 1979 but was later released in a prisoner swap with Hezbollah. A Lebanese Druze, Kuntar is a top recruiter for Hezbollah in the Golan Heights and leads a local militia that originated in Khadr (see PolicyWatch 2437, "Syria's Druze Under Threat"). If he was indeed the target, the strike would indicate that his role in Hezbollah's Golan operations was important enough to justify a diplomatically sensitive cross-border operation, as was the case when Israel targeted Jihad Mughniyah and other Hezbollah commanders in the same area. So far there have been conflicting reports about Kuntar's well-being after the attack; his family has denied all reports of his death.
In any case, Hezbollah seems intent on recruiting locals from the Golan to target the IDF, and this is not the first time it has used outside fighters to conceal its footprint. In the past, the group trained and sent Palestinian fighters to attack Israel from the Lebanese border, with the aim of causing casualties while avoiding a harsh military response. The Druze of Khadr have several traits that make them well suited to Hezbollah's dual goal of killing Israelis while preserving deniability: they are not Shiites, they are familiar with the terrain, they know the IDF routine on the border, and they have connections to the Assad regime, which helps Hezbollah distance itself even further from any attacks they conduct.
CONCLUSION
Like other operations on the Israel-Syria border over the past year, the latest strike demonstrates that Israel will act when it will feels threatened by the presence of Hezbollah personnel and proxies in the Golan Heights. At the same time, the emergence of another Hezbollah-connected cell so close to the border shows that the organization was not deterred by Israel's past attacks against its top commanders and operatives. Rather, it continues to develop its infrastructure and proxies in the Golan despite knowing that Israel is following their moves.
It is too soon to know whether the Iran nuclear deal will further embolden Hezbollah, but the fact that the group is willing to target Israel under the current constraints is telling. The Golan front is becoming the new battlefield between Israel and Hezbollah, and the situation is growing riskier as both sides up the ante. This is part of the reason why Israel is moving more Iron Dome missile defense batteries to the north, so as to prepare for potential escalation.
**Nadav Pollak recently completed his master's work at Princeton University and will soon rejoin The Washington Institute as a research fellow.

Shiite Combat Casualties Show the Depth of Iran’s Involvement in Syria
Ali Alfoneh/Washington Institute/August 3, 2015
In addition to Qods Force supervision of Shiite fighters from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries, the IRGC is deploying more of its own Ground Forces personnel to Syria in direct combat roles.
During a televised address on July 26, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad admitted for the first time that his regime is suffering from “a lack of human resources” in the ongoing civil war, implicitly acknowledging the casualties inflicted on the various Iranian-sponsored forces assisting his troops. Since first mentioning Lebanese Hezbollah’s activities in Syria in early 2013, he has rarely credited the Iranian proxy for its “important” and “effective” role in the war, instead maintaining the claim that Tehran’s participation is limited to the provision of “military experts.” In this, he has echoed Iranian officials, who typically declare that Iranian nationals killed in Syria are not military operatives deployed there by the government, but volunteer “martyred guardians of the shrine” (shohada-ye modafe-e haram), a reference to Shiite pilgrimage sites in Damascus.
The real number of Iranian casualties in Syria is not known, and Tehran has every reason to downplay the degree of its involvement and losses there. Yet a survey of funeral services for Iranian, Afghan, and Pakistani Shiite fighters killed in the war over the past two-and-a-half years provides some indication of the Islamic Republic’s military engagement. According to open-source data collected from Persian-language accounts of funerals in Iran, 113 Iranian nationals, 121 Afghan nationals, and 20 Pakistani nationals — all Shiites — have been killed in combat in Syria since January 2013. (The formidable number of Iraqi and Lebanese Shiite casualties are not included in this survey; for more on that subject, see “Hezbollah’s Victory in Qalamoun: Winning the Battle, Losing the War” and “Iraqi Shiite Foreign Fighters on the Rise Again in Syria.”)
Tellingly, public accounts indicate that all 113 of the Iranian casualties served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Breaking down the casualties by IRGC branch, 8 served in the IRGC Ground Forces, 8 were identified as members of the Qods Force, and 3 served in the Basij militia; funeral photos and online biographical materials suggest that the remaining 94 were active-duty IRGC members as well, though it is not known in which branch they served. For some of these individuals, the lack of information may reflect the IRGC’s attempt to obscure their service in the Qods Force (an elite unit focused on extraterritorial operations) or cover up the deployment of IRGC Ground Forces.
As for the Afghan and Pakistani nationals killed in action, all of the former were members of the Fatemiyoun Brigade, while the latter served with the Zainabiyoun Brigade. Both of these militias were apparently organized by — and still report to — the Qods Force.
The earliest record of an Iranian national to fall in combat in Syria is that of thirty-year-old Ali Asgari Taqanaki, a Qods Force operative killed in Damascus on January 28, 2013. The first reported Afghan Shiite casualty was Azim Vaezi, killed in an undisclosed location in Syria sometime prior to September 2013. And the first record of a Pakistani Shiite death is that of Hossein Adel, killed in Damascus sometime before February 6, 2015.
While the first IRGC personnel killed in Syria were Qods Force members, published accounts since July 2014 indicate an increasing number of casualties from the IRGC Ground Forces. This is clear when analyzing their place of burial in Iran: Qods Force members are recruited from all over the country and are buried individually in their native province, but the Ground Forces are organized according to Iran’s administrative divisions, with a local IRGC unit serving each province. Therefore, mass funeral services in one province indicate that a Ground Forces unit from that province has been sent to Syria.
Deployment of the Ground Forces seems to have taken place in the wake of mounting casualties among the Qods Force, a relatively small unit. This left the IRGC with no other choice but to deploy its “regular” forces to Syria.
In contrast, deployment of the Fatemiyoun and Zainabiyoun Brigades was seemingly planned early in the conflict, perhaps in late 2012, when Iran and Hezbollah recognized the Assad regime’s plight. This would fit with the Qods Force plan to provide Afghan and Pakistani Shiites with combat experience — that is, it was not a reaction to Iranian casualties. Yet maintaining the Fatemiyoun Brigade in Syria despite its high casualties may reflect the IRGC’s manpower shortage and Assad’s continuing need for troops.
A survey of the rank and technical skills of the casualties reveals potentially significant differences between some of the Iranian and non-Iranian personnel. Among the 113 Iranians, 10 were commemorated as sardar, which refers to high-ranking IRGC officers. To judge by reader commentary on websites commemorating them, they were technical advisors, combat advisors, trainers, combat personnel (including one tank driver), special operations forces, intelligence officers, and even journalists and television documentarians. In contrast, the Afghan and Pakistani nationals seem to have served exclusively as foot soldiers, with four exceptions: brigade commander Ali Reza Tavasoli (an Afghan volunteer who fought in the Iran-Iraq War), his deputy Reza Bakhshi, company commander Mehdi Saberi, and Muhammad Rezaei, a cleric. On Facebook, some Afghan casualties are presented as “snipers,” but this may reflect the influence of Western popular culture more than actual expertise on their part.
Very little information is available about the specific operations in which these fighters were engaged. To further complicate matters, the place of death for most of them is listed as “Syria” or “the shrine in Damascus,” which is meant to back up the fiction that they were martyred while defending Shiite pilgrimage sites rather than, for example, fighting in Aleppo far to the north. One source admitted that the Fatemiyoun Brigade suffered heavy casualties during the Syrian military’s initial takeover and later withdrawal from Dokhaniyeh, east of Damascus, in October 2014. The same source also reported that the brigade was involved in an unsuccessful Syrian army offensive against Aleppo, likely in February 2015.
CONCLUSION
The Qods Force and its Afghan/Pakistani recruits are spread thin and suffering significant casualties, spurring the deployment of the IRGC Ground Forces to Syria. Even so, Iran is unlikely to abandon its commitment to its proxy regime in Damascus in the short term. The Islamic Republic in general, and the IRGC in particular, have invested so much blood and treasure in the war that they no longer believe they can withdraw their support. Arguably, easier access to foreign currency in the wake of the U.S.-led nuclear deal will translate into increased funding for the IRGC’s operations in Syria. Looking further ahead, Qods Force efforts to provide Afghan and Pakistani Shiites with combat experience serves as a forewarning of worse times to come for Afghanistan when these fighters return home.
Ali Alfoneh is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006 Click Here to go to the LCCC Daily English/Arabic News Buletins Archieves Since 2006

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to go to the LCCC Daily English/Arabic News Buletins Archieves Since 2006