Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Khaled Abu Toameh • December 11, 2020 at 5:00 am
Many Lebanese are demanding answers to role of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization in the port "massacre." They are also demanding an end to Iran's occupation of Lebanon.
Although the Lebanese government has set up a commission of inquiry into the port explosion, many Lebanese are wondering why the results have not been published yet. They are convinced that the Lebanese government is afraid to point the finger of blame at Hezbollah.
"Hezbollah trusts the judiciary it controls with its weapons." — Nizar Salloum, Lebanon, Twitter, December 7, 2020.
The UN is not going to provide relief or answers to the families of the victims of the Lebanon explosion because its members are busy passing resolutions day and night against Israel.
The only step left for the Lebanese is to revolt against the terrorist organization that has turned their country into a military and political base for the mullahs in Tehran.
More than four months have passed since the huge explosion at the port of the Lebanese capital of Beirut, and many Lebanese are demanding answers to role of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization in the port "massacre." Pictured: The scene of the explosion at the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)
More than four months have passed since the huge explosion at the port of the Lebanese capital of Beirut, and many Lebanese are demanding answers to role of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization in the port "massacre." They are also demanding an end to Iran's occupation of Lebanon. On August 4, a large amount of ammonium nitrate stored at the Beirut port exploded, causing at least 204 deaths, 6,500 injuries, and $15 billion in property damage. An estimated 300,000 people were left homeless. Many of Hezbollah's political and civil opponents blamed the terrorist organization for storing the dangerous chemicals. A commission of inquiry set up by the Lebanese government has so far failed to provide satisfactory answers, prompting many Lebanese to call for an international probe. Denying responsibility, Hezbollah this week threatened to sue those who have accused it of being behind the explosion.
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by Lawrence A. Franklin • December 10, 2020 at 5:00 am
China also seems to have a military agenda in the Caribbean region... Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe already is on record expressing China's willingness to deepen military cooperation with Caribbean countries.
Of more concern to US security interests is the ongoing seaport expansion project in the already commercially important port at Kingston, Jamaica, as well as the port at Freeport, Bahamas, China's possible new base of operations 90 miles off the US coast.
China is clearly not a government that honors its agreements.... The US can ill afford any Chinese drive to place under threat any Western Hemisphere country, much less the United States.
Of concern to US security interests is China's seaport expansion project at Kingston, Jamaica, as well as at Freeport, Bahamas, China's possible new base of operations 90 miles off the US coast. The projects are an opportunity for Chinese Communist Party intelligence operatives to suborn the sovereignty of Caribbean countries by luring them into "debt trap" economic dependency on China. Sri Lanka's inability to pay back loans for Beijing's modernization of the port of Hambantota (pictured) has resulted in the South Asian country's effective loss of the port. (Photo by Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP via Getty Images)
China's Communist Party (CCP) seems to be implementing a multidimensional strategy in the Caribbean, reaping economic, political and potentially military gains a few miles offshore the United States. China's ultimate objective of its Caribbean strategy may well be to confront the US, not only with its presence near the mainland US, but also with a situation analogous to America's military presence in the region of the South China Sea. There, China created new islands in the sea, pledged not to militarize them, then went and militarized them. It is important to remember that China also promised Hong Kong autonomy until 2047, then, in 2020, jumped the gun by 27 years. "Hong Kong will be another communist-run city under China's strict control," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared in July. China is clearly not a government that honors its agreements.
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by Bassam Tawil • December 9, 2020 at 5:00 am
The Palestinian journalists' group is angry not only because two Israeli reporters visited Ramallah. It is upset because the reporters dared to reveal an inconvenient truth: that Palestinians are enjoying themselves and that, despite the outbreak of the coronavirus, the economy in Ramallah is doing well.
This truth goes against the Palestinian leadership's official and long-standing propaganda line: that the Palestinians are "suffering" as a result of the bad economy and therefore the world needs to continue providing them with hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
The only journalists the Palestinian leadership tolerates are those who do not question its policies and decisions and who do not ask embarrassing questions.
Will the International Federation of Journalists [the largest in the world; it represents more than 600,000 media workers from 187 organizations in 146 countries] condemn the Palestinians for threatening Israeli journalists on a regular basis? ... International organizations rarely see any evil on the Palestinian side. The only culprit, for them, is Israel. The silence of the IFJ and other international media organizations and human rights groups is nothing short of a green light to Palestinians to physically attack the next Israeli reporter they see on the streets of Bethlehem or Ramallah.
The Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate is furious because two Israeli reporters visited the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem, as part of a news item on the cities' nightlife and restaurants, hotels and coffee shops, which are thriving despite the coronavirus pandemic. This truth goes against the Palestinian leadership's long-standing propaganda line: that the Palestinians are "suffering" as a result of the bad economy and therefore the world needs to continue providing them with hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Pictured: The recently opened "Corona Sandwich" restaurant in Bethlehem. (Photo by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images)
At a time when Arab journalists from the Gulf are visiting Israel and saying that they are looking forward to working with their Israeli colleagues, Palestinians are continuing to incite hatred against the Israeli media and threaten Israeli journalists. While the Arabs in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are working toward normalizing their relations with Israel, the Palestinians are continuing to threaten anyone who wants to make peace with Israelis. The Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate (PIJ), a group dominated by loyalists of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, is furious because two Israeli (Jewish) correspondents visited the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem, where they spoke with local businessmen. The Israeli television correspondents, as part of a news item on the buzzing nightlife of Ramallah and Bethlehem, interviewed the owners of restaurants, hotels and coffee shops.
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by Burak Bekdil • December 9, 2020 at 4:00 am
It has been 7½ years after Elvan was killed in what appears to be a direct shot in the face. The Turkish state is still trying to make sure that not a single officer will be punished for the tragic death of a 15-year-old boy.
Worse, there is no sign of accountability within the Turkish public administration system.
The dramatic, undeniable scene was captured by a photographer, Abdurrahman Gök who later posted the photos. Gök is now facing trial for potential links with terror groups and could get up to 20 years in prison.
What about the officer who shot Kurkut?... a serious crimes court in Diyarbakır acquitted the defendant, a police officer, known only by his initials, Y.S.
Justice, apparently, is too scarce a commodity for Turkish extremists who are often busy protecting Palestinian terrorists and accusing civilized nations of modern barbarism. The Australian story could be an example of modern barbarism.... but it has a fair ending. The Turkish stories of medieval barbarism in the 21st century do not.
On December 28, 201,1 a group of Kurdish peasants were smuggling cheap gasoline into their Turkish village from northern Iraq. Turkish F-16 fighter jets attacked the group, killing 34 people, including 17 children. Under public pressure, the Erdoğan administration launched an investigation into the attack. Not a single official was found guilty. Pictured: The funeral procession for the victim, outside Uludere Hospital in Sirnak province, on December 30, 2011. (Photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images)
Barely a week after he pledged judicial and democratic reforms, Turkey's strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, typically rediscovered his Islamist self. He reminded the world, once again, how corrupt and hypocritical his understanding of universal justice is. "We observe that the [Israeli] state terror against Palestinians goes on," Erdoğan said in a speech in which he complained of injustice. "Arms up, Palestinian children are being murdered."
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by Richard Kemp • December 8, 2020 at 5:00 am
Now they [the Europeans] find themselves locked into what they know is a phoney and highly dangerous nuclear agreement that simply consigns confrontation with a nuclear-armed Iran to future generations.
They [the Iranian leadership] look at Europeans, as well as Americans, with contempt, as weak and decadent, lacking the courage or resolve to stick up for their own interests.... President Trump gave them pause for thought, especially when he ordered the death of Qasem Soleimani.... They have higher hopes of Biden, whom they expect to be more supine.
We can be sure the Supreme Leader has rejoiced at the results of his message: cowering in Europe, with only weak and token response, accompanied by a desperate, pleading assurance that the targets of his aggression are still his friends. If ever there was a lesson that appeasement fails and strength succeeds, surely this is it.
European governments must now show their own strength or face continued Iranian coercion -- coercion that will be witnessed by malign actors around the world from Moscow to Beijing to Pyongyang, with obvious implications.
Can the Europeans really afford to allow such an egregiously hostile and manipulative regime as Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons?
Last month the trial began in Belgium of Assadolah Assadi and three other Iranians accused of plotting to bomb a "Free Iran" rally in Paris, in June 2018. The rally was attended by 80,000 people, including former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani and several British and European members of parliament. The failed plot was reportedly ordered by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and approved by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (Photo by Zakaria Abdelkafi/AFP via Getty Images)
Last month the trial began in Belgium of Assadolah Assadi and three other Iranians accused of planning a bomb attack in Paris in 2018. Since 2015 Assadi had been the most senior officer of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security in Europe, at the time operating under diplomatic cover at the Iranian embassy in Vienna. He is the first Iranian government official to be tried by an EU country for terrorist offences, despite numerous attack attempts on EU soil ordered by Tehran. State supported terrorism is not just an act in itself but also an instrument of national power and coercion. Together, these plots were a malevolent message and clear threat to Europe that unfortunately have been received and acted upon as intended in London, Berlin, Paris and Brussels.
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by Burak Bekdil • December 8, 2020 at 4:00 am
Then there is the Turkish Hezbollah, a Sunni violent organization that aims to found a Kurdish-Islamic state based on sharia. Although the Turkish Hezbollah is not to be confused with the Lebanese Hezbollah, it too has links with the Shia regime in Iran.
Journalist Ismail Saymaz detailed in his column how the former Turkish Hezbollah, now the Free Cause Party (Hüda-Par), has infiltrated into scores of schools in Diyarbakır for wider future influence in the Kurdish provinces.... Saymaz says the Free Cause network has spread around Turkey so successfully that the movement now runs a television station and publishes a daily newspaper.
With democratic voting since 2002, Turkey has evolved from a secular state that had strong institutional bonds with the West to a religious, fundamentalist state hostile to the Western civilization and Israel. The next two decades may see even Turkey's non-violent religious institutions evolving into violent ones.
A Turkish court has censored news reports about a visit by Defense Minister Hulusi Akar (pictured at left) to the grave of a convicted terrorist who was the founder of an illegal Islamist group, the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front (IBDA-C). (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)
In its early years (2002-2010), many Western leaders generously hailed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's governance with biased euphemisms such as "post-modern Islamism" or "moderate Islamism." In this view, Turkish Islamism and Erdoğan deserved every support Western nations could give. Turkey would be the role model in which Islam and democracy could co-habit, a model that would inspire less-democratic Arab nations. Palestinians, Iraqis, Egyptians, Jordanians and other Muslims in the Maghreb would supposedly wish to become more moderate and less violent. This bizarre political experience has sadly ended with the opposite result: Turks have become less moderate and more violent.
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by Chris Farrell • December 7, 2020 at 5:00 am
Should Biden finally, officially, be declared the next president, you can rest assured that he will dismiss Durham during the opening flurry of activity from his administration.
Of course, this is all wildly frustrating for those of us hoping for some semblance of accountability and justice. Something. Anything.
When the Russia! Hoax fell apart it was reinvestigated by Mueller – and when that collapsed, they manufactured "Ukraine!" This bit of theater got the president impeached in two months flat. That was just last year. Do you remember? For many eager to bring down the current administration, prosecutions and justice move with lightning speed. Barr and Durham appear to still be looking for the keys to their offices.
This should all be deeply disturbing to the American public. Apparently, it is not. That, dear reader, is even more disturbing. The American public do not want to be deceived – yet again.
A couple of days ago, Attorney General William Barr (pictured) announced the appointment of a special counsel for the criminally fraudulent "Russia!" Hoax. The special counsel is none other than the current US Attorney investigating the case – John Durham. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
A couple of days ago, Attorney General William Barr announced the appointment of a special counsel for the criminally fraudulent "Russia!" Hoax. The special counsel is none other than the current US Attorney investigating the case – John Durham. The appointment is troubling on three fronts: 1. Durham has produced only one indictment of a lowly Justice Department staff attorney; 2. Durham's appointment may not be legal; and, 3. Barr did not make the appointment (back on October 19) public until now because he was concerned it was too political during an election season. Of course, one can also argue that NOT making the announcement was too political. The inactivity is strikingly similar to the pharmaceutical companies waiting until about three days after the election to announce their 95% effective COVID vaccines. Seems President Trump must not be credited with anything that might be conveniently deferred to his opponent's advantage.
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by Uzay Bulut • December 7, 2020 at 4:00 am
That a NATO member and European Union candidate, Turkey, is openly threatening the security of Westerners, is unprecedented.
One of the most abusive Ottoman practices was the institution of "devshirme," also known as the "child levy" or "blood tax," with which Christian boys were forcibly abducted from the conquered population, enslaved, converted to Islam and later trained as soldiers. Erdogan evidently sees the Ottoman occupation and abuse of European nations as Turkish "contributions" to Europe.
This current belligerence once again demonstrates major differences between Europe and Erdogan's regime. It is a crisis between a mentality that respects a free press versus a mentality that jails critical journalists. It reveals a mentality that wants to preserve the safety of its citizens versus a mentality that aims to force others to submit to its demands through threats and use of terror. It is a mentality that stubbornly believes in violating and even trying to invade the territories of its neighbors versus one that tries to resolve issues through dialogue and negotiation.
It is Erdogan's regime who targets the safety and freedoms of Europeans -- as well as Armenians, Syrians, Iraqis, and many of his own Turks.
Recently, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that French President Emmanuel Macron "needs mental treatment" because of Macron's attitude toward Muslims in France. Erdogan also called for a boycott of French products. The Turkish government's hostile reaction to Europe is not new. Erdogan has been threatening Europe and the rest of the West for several years. Pictured: Macron (right) and Erdogan at a press conference on January 5, 2018 in Paris, France. (Photo by Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images)
Europe has once again been targeted with Islamist terror attacks. On October 16, Samuel Paty, a history teacher, was beheaded in Paris by an 18-year-old Chechen Muslim who acquired refugee status in France this past March. The teacher was murdered after showing cartoons from Charlie Hebdo depicting Islam's prophet Muhammad to his students, during a discussion on freedom of expression. On October 29, three people were murdered and several others wounded in an Islamist knife attack in the Basilica of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption in Nice, France; one victim was decapitated. After the attack in Nice, France raised its nationwide terror alert status to the "maximum emergency" level. Approximately 4,000 military personnel were deployed to guard schools, churches, and other places of worship.
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by Guy Millière • December 6, 2020 at 5:00 am
"If nothing changes, in a few decades, France will have submitted to Islam, and Islamic violence will probably be even greater than today. It is already almost impossible for the country's leaders to react. They are hostages of a Muslim population that is less and less integrated and whose anger they do not want to arouse. They are under the gaze of groups that immediately denounce any criticism of Islam and under pressure from many countries in the Muslim world that France does not want to offend". — Alan Wagner, "L'Europe face à l'islam", interview on Tepa, August 2, 2020.
"For Muslims, Islamic law has God as its author. Any other legislator is illegitimate." — Mohammed Hocine Benkheira, historian, Le Point, March 21, 2016.
"Macron... is still not able to pinpoint the real problem because it would be politically incorrect for him to do so... This is the problem with someone like Macron and what he's saying... they can never acknowledge that what's happening is integral or a part of authentic Islam...." — Raymond Ibrahim, "Islamic Terror in France", SkyWatch TV, October 30, 2020.
"France still does not understand the reality it is facing. It believes that it has been struck by terrorists... but it is suffering a guerrilla war that is gradually gaining momentum..." — Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, lexpress.fr, October 18, 2020.
According Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, "France still does not understand the reality it is facing. It believes that it has been struck by terrorists... but it is suffering a guerrilla war that is gradually gaining momentum..." (Photo by Farouk Batiche/AFP via Getty Images)
October 29. Nice, the main city on the French Riviera. A man in the Basilica of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption decapitates a woman and murders two other people while shouting "Allahu Akbar!" ["Allah is the greatest!"] This is the second beheading in France by an extremist Muslim in less than a month. Two weeks earlier, on October 16, a middle school teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded in the suburbs of Paris after showing his students some Mohammad cartoons during a discussion on freedom of speech.
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by Amir Taheri • December 6, 2020 at 4:00 am
We may be proved wrong, but our guess is that Tehran will do nothing to raise the degree of tension even by one notch....
Khamenei promised "hard revenge" for Soleimani's death but has vowed nothing but "prosecution and punishment" of perpetrators. His emphasis is on "the continuation" of Fakhrizadeh's work.
In other words, as long as our progress towards the "threshold" isn't halted, we can grin and bear Fakhrizadeh's martyrdom.
Pictured: A billboard commemorating the assassinated Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in Tehran, Iran on November 30, 2020. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
To hit back, or not to hit back? This is the question that has heated up debate within Tehran's ruling Khomeinist circles for almost a week. The debate was triggered by the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a shadowy figure in the top echelons of Tehran's murky establishment. Despite an avalanche of obituaries and reports on the event, it is not yet quite clear who Fakhrizadeh was and what he was doing. The official narrative started by introducing him as a military figure. He was, we were told, a brigadier-general and bore that title of Deputy Defense Minister. Then the Defense Minister, Brig. Gen. Amir Hatami spoke as if he hardly knew Fakhrizadeh while praising him for his unspecified "immense services". The narrative then switched to presenting Fakhrizadeh as a nuclear scientist and thus a victim of "enemies who do not wish to slow down Iran's progress in peaceful use of nuclear science."
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by Burak Bekdil • December 5, 2020 at 5:00 am
Erdoğan's new reform pledge came at a time when a former leader of a pro-Kurdish party, along with dozens of others, remains in jail for the past years. Almost all the elected Kurdish mayors have been replaced by government-appointed administrators. Hundreds of journalists, politicians and intellectuals spend jail time on absurdly flimsy charges.
Pro-government judges announce rulings in defiance of rulings from superior Turkish courts, including the Constitutional Court, and from the European Court of Human Rights. Those judges who dare make "undesirable verdicts" are probed and often get disciplinary punishments.
Erdoğan's new charm offensive is deeply problematic. It is not genuine. It is too little too late. Just a few days after he launched his reform campaign, he refused calls for the release of a jailed Kurdish politician and a civil rights activist. "Erdoğan's reform program survived only nine days," said Bekir Ağırdır, a prominent political analyst and director of the research company KONDA.
Erdoğan has a serious predicament: He wants his country to keep suffering as a third world democracy while he hopes to lure foreign investment at the same amounts and terms as a Western democracy. That will not happen.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has a serious predicament: He wants his country to keep suffering as a third world democracy while he hopes to lure foreign investment at the same amounts and terms as a Western democracy. That will not happen. (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)
It is his favorite cycle: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recklessly widens Turkey's democratic deficit, weakens institutions, refuses to acknowledge democratic checks and balances. He isolates Turkey mostly from its Western alliances and follows an irredentist foreign policy of trying to reclaim supposedly "lost" land. Turkey is at odds with both the United States and Europe. Inevitably, political isolation causes economic isolation. The economy is on a downfall. Investors flee the country. Voters start to complain about the double-digit inflation and interest rates; the lira falls and falls; unemployment rises sharply. Erdogan rediscovers his reformist self and promises to democratize -- presumably hoping, in vain, that he can reverse the economic downfall.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • December 4, 2020 at 5:00 am
"There is no gloating about death, but the Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.... was not the scientist who discovered the anti-coronavirus vaccine, but the scientist called the father of the Iranian nuclear bomb..." — Tareq Al-Hameed, Saudi author, Okaz, November 30, 2020.
"[H]ow can they condemn the killing of a man who devoted his life to making a sinister bomb for an evil regime, but they do not condemn Iran's killing of innocent people in the region. Iran kills Syrians, Iraqis, and Lebanese, and destroys Yemen, and sponsors all terrorist groups..." — Al-Hameed, Saudi author Okaz, November 30, 2020.
"[D]isrupting the Iranian regime's access to nuclear weapons is a long-term service to humanity." Iran... sees nuclear weapons as a tool "that enables it to occupy the rest of the world...." — Mohammed Al-Saaed, Saudi political analyst, Okaz, November 30, 2020.
"We are talking about a gang that hijacked Iran, and its defeated people became its captive. It seeks to hijack the entire region, fueled by intense hatred for the Arab. Is it acceptable to allow it to produce nuclear weapons and use them to kill millions of people?" — Mohammed Al-Saaed, Saudi political analyst, Okaz, November 30, 2020.
By condemning the killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, widely regarded as the father of Iran's modern nuclear program, the European Union has found itself on the side of terror groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Pictured: Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif meets with Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, in Tehran on February 3, 2020. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
While the European Union has condemned the killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, widely regarded as the father of Iran's modern nuclear program, many Arabs and Muslims expressed relief over the assassination. By condemning the killing of Fakhrizadeh, the EU has found itself on the side of Palestinian terror groups such as the Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. These factions, together with Lebanon's Hezbollah terror group, another Iran proxy, and the Muslim Brotherhood, have also voiced outrage over the killing of the scientist. Iran's proxies are upset , apparently, because they view the killing of the scientist as an obstacle to achieving Tehran's goal of eliminating the "Zionist entity." The Iranians must be very satisfied with the EU for expressing its condolences to the family of Fakhrizadeh and others who may have been killed in the attack on his convoy.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • December 3, 2020 at 5:00 am
Iran's mullahs love the nuclear deal because of its fundamental flaws, especially the sunset clauses that remove restrictions on Iran's nuclear program after the deal expires soon. The nuclear deal, rather than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, as it was falsely touted to do, in fact paves the way for Tehran to become a legitimized nuclear state.
With the nuclear deal, the regime would gain global legitimacy, making it even more difficult to hold Iran's leaders accountable for any malign behavior or terror activity across the world.
Finally, Iran's ruling clerics want immediately to rejoin the nuclear deal because it would again alienate other governments in the Middle East and inevitably lead to a worsening of relations between the US and its traditional allies, especially Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.
This flawed deal, in favor of Iran, failed to recognize the rightful concerns of other countries in the region about Iran's potential nuclear capability, missile proliferation or funding of violent proxies -- both within and next door to their territories.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif has advised presumptive US President-Elect Joe Biden to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal. Iran's mullahs love the nuclear deal because of its fundamental flaws, especially the sunset clauses that remove restrictions on Iran's nuclear program after the deal expires soon. Pictured: Zarif (center) shares some laughs with his delegation during nuclear deal negotiations with then US State Secretary John Kerry in Vienna, Austria, on June 30, 2015. (Photo credit should read Carlos Barria/AFP via Getty Images)
Iran's ruling mullahs, who are celebrating presumptive President-Elect Joe Biden's possible presidency in 2021, are already calling on him to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal, which, incidentally, Iran never signed. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani -- already urging the next US administration, which he hopes is the Biden administration -- also pointed out, according to the state-run IRNA agency: "Now, an opportunity has come up for the next U.S. administration to compensate for past mistakes and return to the path of complying with international agreements through respect of international norms."
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif also advised Biden on Twitter to abandon President Trump's Iran policy of maximum pressure and rejoin the nuclear deal.
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by Lawrence A. Franklin • December 3, 2020 at 4:00 am
Radical Muslims from Kenya and Tanzania are transforming what was initially a low-intensity ethnic rebellion, into a full-fledged Islamic jihad against Mozambique's central government.
Ansar al-Sunna, estimated to consist of about 20 cells operating throughout northeast Mozambique, is responsible for the murders of about 2,000 people, mostly civilians.
The terrorist group has driven approximately 200,000 people from their homes and burdened the majority Christian country's central government.
The Islamic State's Central African Province may have bigger plans for Mozambique's Ansar al-Sunna. If the terrorists are able to establish an Emirate under Sharia in Cabo Delgado Province, it could serve as a jihadi model, threatening the stability of other states in southern Africa. Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa, as well as Africa's Indian Ocean states of the Comoros and Madagascar, could be targeted.
Pictured: Burned and damaged huts in the village of Aldeia da Paz outside Macomia, Mozambique on August 24, 2019. On August 1, 2019, the village was attacked by an Islamist group. (Photo by Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images)
Jihadists in northern Mozambique have intensified their military operations this year in an apparent attempt to establish an Islamic Emirate in the province of Cabo Delgado. The Islamist insurgency, which began in October 2017, remained below the radar until recently. The escalating violence, however, has become a security concern for Mozambique's regional neighbors, including South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Somalia. Radical Muslims from Kenya and Tanzania are transforming what was initially a low-intensity ethnic rebellion, into a full-fledged Islamic jihad against Mozambique's central government.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • December 2, 2020 at 5:00 am
The message they [nationals of Lebanon] are sending to a new US administration is: The Lebanese people are hoping that you will help them get rid of Hezbollah. Cozying up to Iran would further embolden Hezbollah and allow it to destroy Lebanon by turning it into an Iranian-controlled colony.
"The Lebanese people... are being held hostage today by a militia that is financed by Iran, whose weapons are coming from Iran, and even whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is stating clearly and publicly that he takes orders from Iran." — Samy Gemayel, leader of the Christian Kataeb Party, November 23, 2020.
"Hezbollah is the only party in Lebanon that has 20,000 soldiers on the ground.... it can do a lot to make our democracy totally fictive. Today, we are being treated as hostages, and therefore the international community must help us." — Samy Gemayel.
Rabi's expressed hope that Biden would refuse to follow the policies of former President Barack Obama toward Iran. "This mistake needs to be corrected," Rabi wrote, referring to Obama's policy of appeasement toward Iran. "Correcting it can only be done by adopting a policy different from the Obama policy."
The Lebanese and Arab warnings about a possible return to the nuclear deal with Iran and the resulting empowerment of Hezbollah need to be taken seriously by the new US administration. The Lebanese and Arabs are trying to tell Biden what they and the Trump administration have known for the past few years, namely, that Iran and its proxies -- such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis -- are poised to wreak havoc in the Middle East.
Lebanese and Arab warnings about a possible return to the nuclear deal with Iran and the resulting empowerment of Hezbollah need to be taken seriously. Pictured: A billboard with pictures of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini adorns a street in Ain Qana, Lebanon, as a Lebanese army convoy patrols. (Photo by Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP via Getty Images)
The Iran-backed Hezbollah terror organization in Lebanon will be the first to celebrate if and when a Biden administration returns to the 2015 nuclear deal between the world superpowers and Iran. Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, has called on Biden to give Iran more money and return to the nuclear deal. "Now, an opportunity has come up for the next US administration to compensate for past mistakes and return to the path of complying with international agreements through respect of international norms," Iran's state-run IRNA news agency quoted Rouhani as saying. In 2018, the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal and has since reimposed sanctions on Iran that have crippled its economy.
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