The Mideastwire Blog | Excerpts from the Arab and Iranian Media & Analysis of US Policy in the Region

Nicholas Noe :
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2018/05/07/an-early-but-must-read-by-ibrahim-on-lebanon-election-results

Another key reason why it is analytically incorrect to say Hezbollah now has the majority: Gebran Bassil. The FPM leader has been steadily taking his party away from the 12 year alliance with Hezbollah. He is “gunning” for Berri and Amal movement, he took out “the Resistance” in the Golden Triangle the other night on tv (!) and he may be about to forge the “ancient” Sunni-Maronite alliance with his friend Saad Hariri, who needs him more than ever now. This would mean: The New/Old March 14 rises. In terms of numbers, this means do not count (yet) the FPM bloc as a whole along with Hezbollah and its more direct allies to get some numerical majority. Big shifts may be in the offing, quite apart from whether the Levant blows up in the coming period – a much more dangerous, “structural” dynamic than today’s politics of “small tribes.”

TRANSLATED Al-Akhbar: Lebanon already buys power from Syria but plans are in the works to dramatically scale up | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2018/04/16/translated-al-akhbar-lebanon-already-buys-power-from-syria-bu

#électricité #Liban #Syrie

Key change in Hezbollah’s trajectory: To strongly involve itself in domestic policy problems going forward | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2018/03/23/key-change-in-hezbollahs-trajectory-to-strongly-involve-itsel

This is indeed a major shift, one predicated by the 2005 turn, under pressure, which saw the first minister of government by Hezbollah. Despite Safiedinne’s recent talk which called the Lebanese system fatally corrupt and broken, the Party seems to be turning directly into the policy problems of Lebanon. Translated in part by our Mideastwire.com via Al-Akhbar:

“..Based on the last speech, and because it was delivered by the Party’s secretary general, leaping beyond these statements is no longer possible and the Party is now bracing to strongly step in as an essential side at the level of the vital economic files that had so far remained un-tackled. The Party can no longer afford to just sit and watch the economic governmental plans that it had overlooked ever since it stepped into the parliament in the early 1990s and up until this day… It seems that the “financial and economic” grace period is over…”

▻https://www.al-akhbar.com/Politics/246856/%D8%AD%D8%B2%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87-%D9%8A%D8%BA%D9%8A-%D8%B1-%D9%

#liban #corrompu

Rallying Cry of Jerusalem May Have Lost Force in Arab World - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/world/middleeast/arabs-jerusalem-trump.html

Avec Moustapha Hamoui comme juge du “monde arabe”....

“ ‘Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine’ joins ‘Palestinian refugees are going back home one day’ in the let’s-hope-it-will-happen-but-it-never-will department,” Mustapha Hamoui, a Lebanese blogger, wrote in a rueful tweet.

For The New York Times, Gauging “The Arab World’s” Reaction to Jerusalem Move Means a Focus on the 1% | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/12/07/for-the-new-york-times-gauging-the-arab-worlds-reaction-to-je

This is a deeply problematic article by Anne, Mr. Hubbard and Mr. Walsh. One would have expected that Anne, especially, would have recognized the pitfalls of the approach she co-authors here. A few points, but one initially to keep front and center: we have been and are in the midst of a major series of transitions when it comes to the issue of Palestine. One key trend is towards an ultimate, military engagement or series of engagements as the military-technology matrix is changing and since the peace track has long been shown to be inoperative. Any article that draws much from very initial reactions are missing the larger, structural changes that are underway and that are leading to much more violence. That said:

1) Leading with a Lebanese blogger who has very little engagement with or impact on the issue at hand is simply confounding. Mustapha is a good blogger on Lebanese politics but he has zero impact and relation to the headline that suggests the “Arab World” has lost its voice and impact on Jerusalem.

[...]

Qatari owned daily claims Turkish banks are seeing an inundation of Saudi cash as businessmen worry about MBS’s moves | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/11/24/qatari-owned-daily-claims-turkish-banks-are-seeing-an-inundat

On November 24, the Qatari-owned Al-Quds al-Arabi daily carried the following report from Istanbul by its correspondent Ismail Jamal: “During the last few weeks, Turkey witnessed the arrival of many Saudi businessmen and Arab residents in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, attempting to transfer their money from the Kingdom that has been going through unprecedented political and economic transformations, which generated fear of the future among them. Hence, at the central immigration office in the Turkish city of Istanbul, which is in charge of giving residency papers to foreigners, one could detect a noticeable increase in the number of Saudi citizens and Arab residents in the Kingdom, seeking residency in Turkey as soon as possible. The same could also be detected in the Turkish banks located in central parts of Istanbul…

▻http://www.alquds.co.uk/?p=832267

#arabie_saoudite

Arabie saoudite : dix princes et des dizaines d’ex-ministres arrêtés | JDM
▻http://www.journaldemontreal.com/2017/11/04/arabie-saoudite--dix-princes-et-des-dizaines-dex-ministres-arrete

http://storage.journaldemontreal.com/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/jdx-prod-images/7613be34-6137-422b-9116-ea5a87f70534_JDX-2x1_WEB.jpg?quality=80&size=1200x&version=1

Les titres du Monde et du Figaro ne laissent aucun doute sur leur parti-pris.

Corruption : dix princes et des dizaines d’ex-ministres interpellés en #Arabie_Saoudite
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2017/11/05/corruption-dix-princes-et-des-dizaines-d-ex-ministres-interpelles-en-arabie-

Coup de filet anticorruption en Arabie saoudite
▻http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2017/11/04/97001-20171104FILWWW00170-coup-de-filet-anticorruption-en-arabie-saoudite.p

#corrompus

Beri Atwan Is Right: key issue, $1000 drone was shot down by $2mil Israeli #missile | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/09/20/beri-atwan-is-right-key-issue-1000-drone-was-shot-down-by-2mi

On September 19, Abdul Bari Atwan wrote the following piece in the electronic Rai al-Youm daily:

“ The fact that the Israeli land defense intercepted a drone through a Patriot missile as the drone had infiltrated the space above the occupied Golan heights might be a regular piece of news for many, one that doesn’t deserve to be pondered in light of the Israeli military supremacy. However, when we learn that this drone was sent by #Hezbollah on a reconnaissance mission and that the cost of the #Patriot that downed it amounts to two million dollars, then the image might change drastically…”

#coût #Israel

Abadi, Sadr, Hakim and Allawi said to be forming electoral alliance in major challenge to #Iran | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/09/07/abadi-sadr-hakim-and-allawi-said-to-be-forming-electoral-alli

Al-Akbar Liban cite al-arabiya Saoud

On September 7, the Al-Akhbar daily carried the following report: “The Al-Arabiya channel recently aired a piece of news about an “electoral alliance” that has been reached in Baghdad between PM Haidar al-Abadi, the head of the Sadrist movement, Moqtada al-Sadr, the head of the Al-Hekma movement, Ammar al-Hakim, and politician Ayad Allawi, in addition to “a number of politicians from the Sunni and Kurdish components.”

▻http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/282868

#Irak

Nasrallah’s rationale regarding IS safe passage deal | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/09/03/nasrallahs-rationale-regarding-is-safe-passage-deal

So we went and made an agreement. When we reached the agreement, it turned out that the soldiers were martyrs and we found their graves. Now someone would come out and ask why we would let them go; we should kill and execute them. Well hold on because here we definitely don’t agree. We’ve made an agreement and agreed on several conditions: one, two, three, four, five, six, etc. Think about it the way you want, but we are pious people. Our religion and morals say – and the law is supposed to say that too – and our Quran says: “Fulfill all contracts”. According to the Hadith, “Believers stick to their conditions”. We don’t betray, stab in the back, manipulate, or play games on anyone. Let me tell you something about what Islam for example recommends when it comes to the trust or keeping the trust. This is for you to see the difference between Islam and Daesh…”

#Hezbollah said to have pushed for border battle to strengthen homefront ahead of possible conflict with Israel | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/08/30/hezbollah-said-to-have-pushed-for-border-battle-to-strengthen

“… The Party says that the plan was clear: to force Hezbollah to pull out from the eastern chain and to let the army deploy there in addition to summoning the international forces to these regions. When this team and the axis that supports it realized that this is impossible to achieve, a campaign was launched, which is nothing but mere talk and which will have no effect whatsoever. The Party considers that its main battle was much further away from the region’s geographical location, because, in the back of its mind, the Party was taking into account the possibility of launching a battle with Israel. Had such a battle been launched while the armed groups were still in the barren areas, they would have had the ability of keeping the Party busy or blocking many roads either in the Bekaa or in the barren areas in addition to keeping it busy with battles and security operations thus disrupting its power. Now that it has completed this mission, this will lead to enhancing the Party’s military situation and securing a safe zone, tens of kilometers deep between Lebanon and Syria…

“The battle will yield a number of political outcomes in Lebanon and the region but this will require more time. On the local level, there will be no change in the political equation because Lebanon is bound to the consensus and the Sunni-Shi’i balance. Thus, no balances will be modified. On the external level, Hezbollah will be staying in Syria as it is an essential partner in consolidating the political settlement there especially that it has played an essential and effective military role in the conflict. This is surely linked to the main and wide areas controlled by the Party in Syria…

“The Party believes that these areas will represent a major factor of change in any upcoming conflict since most of them have turned into military bases for the party and storage places for rockets and advanced weapons with a range of 250 kilometers. In other words, these rockets can reach #Israel… The Party indicates that these weapons are now stored in safe places in the mountains and the grottos that are difficult to target and difficult to hit even if targeted…”

▻http://www.almodon.com/politics/2017/8/30/حزب-الله-ما-بعد-الجرود-الصواريخ-في-مكان-آمن

#Liban

#Jeffrey_Feltman in Israel with UN Head: A bad sign of things to come | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/08/29/jeffrey-feltman-in-israel-with-un-head-a-bad-sign-of-things-t

I have extensively criticized former US Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman over the last 12 years. In my view, he was one of the primary reasons that the US “Cedar Revolution” Policy failed so spectacularly. He is also a key figure in the disaster of the July 2006 War. Now he continues on at the UN. Thankfully there he is not in a position to encourage more obtuse commitments of troops – save when it comes to UNIFIL which could be negatively impacted by his leadership, although national governments have greater say.

I am worried, however, about the lack of brakes that Feltman would likely advocate when it comes to the increasing Israeli threats to more forcefully intervene in Syria and Lebanon against its enemies. In fact, should war break-out, one thinks that Feltman will probably return to his old role of encouraging the Israelis to go farther, even as the moral and strategic dimensions would both likely auger against the application of more war and destruction.

Some about how Feltman helped lose Lebanon here:
2008/2009 White Paper On A New US Approach To Lebanon:
▻https://www.academia.edu/17663842/Re-Imagining_the_Lebanon_Track_Towards_a_New_US_Policy
▻http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Head-of-Military-Intelligence-Hezbollah-is-tightening-grip-on-Lebanon-503683

#liban #sioniste #israel

Another #POMED conference on MidEast that misses the point of understanding and engagement | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/08/16/another-pomed-conference-on-mideast-that-misses-the-point-of-

Sadly POMED (The Project on Middle East Democracy) organizes yet another conference on the MidEast dominated by Americans, almost all speakers are Beltway usual suspects… and then some unnamed Arabs for the last day. I just don’t get it…and I still wonder why #Wolfowitz is feted at their galas when he was one of the Americans who perhaps did the most damage to Middle East Democracy (not to mention tens of millions of lives)?

#neocons “#experts” #etats-unis

Guerre en #Syrie : Les négociations pour la #paix sont reportées - Monde - tdg.ch
▻https://www.tdg.ch/monde/negociations-astana-reportees-septembre/story/31229421

Le calendrier des discussions de paix pour la Syrie est changé. Les pourparlers ne reprendront pas avant la mi-septembre, à Astana.

Beri Atwan : Real reason for Syrian Op meeting failure was KSA desire to liquidate Turkish+Qatari linked figures | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/beri-atwan-real-reason-for-syrian-op-meeting-failure-was-ksa-

“…The Al-Riyadh meeting that was held on Monday and Tuesday was concluded without reaching an agreement on forming a unified delegation and coming up with a joint political program. The reason does not consist of the fact that this program calls for President Al-Assad’s departure, but rather because the objective of this meeting also consisted of pushing the parties that are close to the State of Qatar and Turkey away from the opposition delegation first, and from the future Syrian map second. This is a reflection of the Gulf crisis’ developments and the major clashes between the parties involved in this crisis…”

#Al-Jazeera now referring to Assad as “The Syrian President” | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/08/22/al-jazeera-now-referring-to-assad-as-the-syrian-president

On August 22, the electronic Rai al-Youm daily carried the following editorial: “For the Al-Jazeera channel to air the speech of President Bashar al-Assad while its country had embraced the first nucleus of the Syrian opposition (the National Council) and for the channel to call him “the Syrian president” for the first time after seven years of calling him “the head of the regime,” this means that many changes are taking place at the level of the Syrian and regional scenes that are difficult to ignore or leap beyond for anyone aiming for objectivity and professionalism.

“Focusing on this noteworthy phenomenon doesn’t take away from the importance of the speech itself. Rai al-Youm believes that this was one of the most important speeches made by the Syrian president since the beginning of the crisis in his country thanks to the features in contained for the future roadmap towards the “new Syria” as he specifically sees it. The speech that was made at the opening of a conference by the Syrian foreign ministry yesterday reflected its author’s confidence and reassurance with respect to Syria exiting the bottle neck and walking on the road of rapid recovery, as well as its readiness for the reconstruction phase both on the financial and psychological levels…”

#Syrie

Thanassis Cambanis’s Great U-Turn: From “The Arab Spring Killed Hezbollah” (2012) to Hezbollah is a “decisive regional player” (2017) | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/08/01/thanassis-cambaniss-great-u-turn-from-the-arab-spring-killed-

Unfortunately, Thanassis – a good journalist who has bravely and ably covered US-led interventions in the region, but who has more recently morphed into an analyst – has proceeded down both deeply problematic paths over the last seven years or so, propounding bold analytical predictions that turn out to be wrong and periodically recommending military “solutions” (always described as “limited”) for which he has no formal training.

This is a reminder, in my view, of several rules that foreigners to the Middle East (like myself) should follow when they want to report and/or provide certain types of analyses. These are points that I usually stress to our research delegations, especially for Undergrads and MA students who join us in our structured engagement sessions:

Academic Training – If you want to move from being a journalist to an analyst as a foreigner (we can debate this point for people that are born in the region, study here and then live and work deeply in the societies they want to explain and help), you need to take the time to undergo formal academic training at least concerning the Middle East, international politics/history and grand strategy (again, at a bare minimum). And, crucially, if you want to put forward military-related policies that could wrack great, sometimes unintended, destruction and violence on a society that is not your own, you must have training and experience in the tactics, strategy and history of the military.
Language Skills and Wide Engagement – If you are going to purport to cover and/or analyze a society or political formations deeply, and continually purport to say broadly what “Arab’s think,” or what “the street” thinks, or what “most observers in (add Arab country) believe, then you simply must have a high degree of language ability as well as deep and continual interactions with different stratas of society in their own language(s).

“#experts”

Joyce Karam, Writing In Abu Dhabi Daily, Fails To Mention #MEMRI VP Role For New Al-Hurra Head | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/joyce-karam-writing-in-abu-dhabi-daily-fails-to-mention-memri

A startling oversight by Joyce Karam: Her piece from the Abu Dhabi owned daily fails to mention that the new head of #Al-Hurra, Alberto Fernandez – who is supposed to save the station from irrelevancy despite hundreds of millions in US taxpayer support over the years – is the former VP of MEMRI.org, set up by the IDF colonel Yigal Carmen. MEMRI of course is an extremely polemical translation and opinion shop in DC that (as but one major problem) only translates the most violent things Arabs and Muslims say or the most pro-American things they say. Indeed, MEMRI’s harmful limitations – and its corrosive effects on Beltway thinking – are precisely why we started Mideastwire.com 12 years ago.
 
She writes simply: “Alberto Fernandez, who arrived at MBN following three decades at the US state department, agrees that Al Hurra has an identity problem….”
 
To not mention the central MEMRI.org connection – and the evident problem of having a MEMRI warrior now heading Hurra – when posing the central question of whether Fernandez can save Hurra is quite an omission for the unknowing reader. Fernandez, interestingly has at least one financial and political connection/limitation directly related to the Abu Dhabi daily for which Karam writes: He is also a Non-Resident Fellow in Middle East Politics and Media at the TRENDS research and advisory center in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates… which means owned and controlled by the royal court in AD.
 
▻https://www.thenational.ae/world/the-americas/arabic-tv-station-al-hurra-should-have-rivalled-al-jazeera-but-has-yet-t

“Moroccan anger over the UAE and KSA’s attempts at dealing with Morocco as an annexed princedom…” | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/06/20/moroccan-anger-over-the-uae-and-ksas-attempts-at-dealing-with

On June 19, the electronic Rai al-Youm daily newspaper carried the following report: “The honeymoon between Morocco and the Gulf States mainly Saudi Arabia and the UAE has ended on the backdrop of these countries’ conflict with Qatar. The Moroccans’ anger increased when Abu Dhabi and Al-Riyadh tried to exploit the file of the Western Sahara to attack Morocco.

“In their conflict with Qatar whom they’re accusing of supporting terrorism, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the two countries that are leading the campaign against Doha, considered that Morocco will be siding with them just as the case of the Yemeni war. However, and in light of its local political problems caused by the [popular] movement in the Moroccan Rif, Morocco opted for full independence from the Saudi-Emirati axis mainly the UAE minister of defense and Crown Prince, Mohammad Bin Zayed, the friend of King Mohammad VI. Morocco thus distanced itself in fear of a military adventure against Qatar…

▻http://www.raialyoum.com/?p=695287

#Maroc #Golfe

TRANSLATED: “Emirati document: #Qatar is in Tunisia and we are chasing it” | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/06/09/translated-emirati-document-qatar-is-in-tunisia-and-we-are-ch

An important piece, translated today by our mideastwire.com, by what one could call the anti-UAE daily Al-Akhbar (it is fair to say the paper is overwhelmingly critical of the UAE and KSA…).

Lots of important nuggets here on Tunisia and the GCC split. And a key issue: how does the far way, tiny UAE expect to fight off Algerian policy in Tunisia which is characterized here as supporting partnership between Nahdha and Nidaa?

▻http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/278449

#emirats_arabes_unis #Tunisie #Algérie

ICG’s Joost Hiltermann laments letting Syria war go on too long; Forgets 2011 “Slow-motion Suicide” report | The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/04/25/icgs-joost-hiltermann-laments-letting-syria-war-go-on-too-lon

Anne Barnard quotes Crisis Group’s Joost Hiltermann in her recent piece on Syria as saying: “We’ve thrown values by the wayside, but also not been able to act in our own interests, because we let things go too long,” said Joost Hiltermann, a Dutch citizen who is the Middle East director for the International Crisis Group…”

Unfortunately there is no reference to Crisis Group’s key, 2011 report entitled “The Syrian Regime’s Slow-motion Suicide” (imagine, this was the title in the early months of the revolt) which helped prepare the ground for precisely that which Joost is now lamenting.

Indeed, the Slow-motion Suicide report, authored by Peter Harling, staked out a morally and strategically deficient vision of the gathering Syria conflict (especially for a conflict mitigation NGO) – saying there was little the international community could do.. in the summer of 2011. This position ultimately paved the way for Noah Bonsey’s 2015 Crisis Group report calling for an acceleration of the armed conflict through US military-led intervention.

I wrote about both of these turns by ICG in 2015, but also wrote a NY Times op-ed along similar lines in February 2012 where I specifically took out reference to Crisis Group after a series of back and forth discussions with Rob Malley and Peter. By 2015, however, in my view ICG needed to come in for specific criticism.

#Syrie #incohérence #experts #ICG #ONG

Nicholas Noe in The Independent: “Why #Israel and #Hezbollah are heading for a new, devastating war in the Middle East”
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/04/06/nicholas-noe-in-the-independent-why-israel-and-hezbollah-are-

#Liban