Showing posts with label Politics and Government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics and Government. Show all posts

Monday, May 16, 2022

Results of the Lebanese Parliamentary Elections (partial)

    Monday, May 16, 2022   No comments

 

The Lebanese Parliamentary Elections.. Announcing the winning candidates in 12 constituencies

The representatives were distributed among their parties so far, according to the following:

Hezbollah and Amal Movement: 32 deputies

Free Patriotic Movement: 20 deputies

Lebanese Forces Party: 18 deputies

The Kataeb Party: 5 MPs

Tashnak Party: 2

Marada party: 2

Independents: 14 deputies

Civil society: 11 deputies



The Minister of Interior and Municipalities of Lebanon held a press conference at eleven at night in which he announced the preliminary and non-final percentages of the parliamentary elections that took place in the 15 constituencies on all Lebanese territories. And the Lebanese National News Agency reported that the minister said, in an on-screen explanation, that "the percentages are estimates and are not final, and they are issued by the operations room in the General Directorate of the Internal Security Forces after the officers communicated with the heads of the regions in all regions. There are 60 unfinished positions remaining. Some have been handed over. The heads of the centers, the registration committees, the records of the pens, according to what we received from the directorate, and he said: "They are discretionary percentages, and they become final after looking into all the objections submitted by the candidates or the candidates' representatives, and we will follow up on the final result little by little."

Minister Mawlawi read out the estimated voting percentages after closing the polls, with the exception of 60 polling stations, which are as follows:
Beirut First District: 28.50%
Beirut Second District: 38.33%
Mount Lebanon First District (Byblos - Kesrouane): 55.93%
Mount Lebanon Second District (Matn): 42.70%
Mount Lebanon Third District (Baabda): 43.44%
Mount Lebanon Fourth District (Chouf - Aley): 44.49%
South District One (Sidon - Jezzine): 42.30%
Second South District (Sidon Villages - Tyre): 42.77%
South District Three: (Hasbaya - Marjeyoun - Nabatiyeh - Bint Jbeil): 41.76%
North District One (Akkar): 40.73%
Second North District (Minya - Denniye - Tripoli): 30.60%
North Third District (Zgharta - Bcharre - Koura - Batroun): 38.45%
Bekaa District One (Zahle): 43.02%
Second Bekaa Constituency (Rashaya - West Bekaa): 34.20%
Bekaa Third District (Baalbek-Hermel): 48.90%
Total in all of Lebanon: 41.04%

Parliamentary elections are held in Lebanon every 4 years, according to the distribution adopted since the Taif Agreement in 1989, with 128 seats divided equally between Muslims and Christians throughout the country.

The 128 seats are distributed as follows: 28 for Sunnis, 28 for Shiites, 8 for Druze, 34 for Maronites, 14 for Orthodox, 8 for Catholics, 5 for Armenians, two seats for Alawites, and one seat for minorities within the Christian community.

Some details:

According to Mawlawi, the voter turnout in the second district of Mount Lebanon (Northern Matn) reached 49.43%, and the winners are:

Two seats for the Free Patriotic Movement: Ibrahim Kanaan and Elias Bou Saab.
Two seats for the Lebanese Forces party: Melhem Riachy and Razi al-Hajj.
Two seats for the Lebanese Kataeb Party: Sami Gemayel and Elias Hankash.
A seat for the Tashnaq party: Hagop Pakradounian.
Independent seat: Michel Murr.

As for the fourth district of Mount Lebanon (Chouf - Aley), the voter turnout reached 48.6%, and the winners are:

5 seats for the Progressive Socialist Party: Taymour Jumblatt, Marwan Hamadeh, Akram Chehayeb, Bilal Abdullah and Raji Al-Saad.
3 seats for the Free Patriotic Movement: Farid Al-Bustani, Cesar Abi Khalil and Ghassan Atallah.
3 independent seats: Najat Khattar Aoun, Halima Kaqour and Mark Daou.
Two seats for the Lebanese Forces party: George Adwan and Nazih Matta.


In the third district of the North (Bcharre - Batroun - Zgharta - Koura), the voter turnout was 44.20%. The winners are:

Two seats for the Lebanese Forces party: Sethrida Geagea and Ghiath Yazbek.
Two seats for the Free Patriotic Movement: Gebran Bassil and George Atallah.
Two seats for the Marada Movement: Tony Franjieh and William Tawk.
3 seats for independents: Michel Moawad, Adib Abdel Massih and Michel Douaihy.


As for the third district of the South (Bint Jbeil - Nabatiyeh - Marjayoun and Hasbaya), the winners are:
3 seats for Hezbollah: Muhammad Raad, Hassan Fadlallah and Ali Fayyad.
6 seats for the Amal Movement: Hani Qubaisi, Ali Hassan Khalil, Ayoub Hamid, Ashraf Baydoun, Nasser Jaber and Qassem Hashem.
Two seats for independents: Elias Jarada and Firas Hamdan.


Molloy had announced, earlier, the results of the following departments:

- South District One (Sidon - Jezzine), the voter turnout was 46.6%, and the winners are:

3 seats for independents: Abdel Rahman Al-Bizri, Osama Saad and Charbel Massad.
Two seats for the Lebanese Forces party: Ghada Ayoub and Saeed Al-Asmar.

In the second district of the South (Tyre - Sidon villages), the voter turnout was 48.8%, and the winners are:

5 seats for the Amal Movement: Nabih Berri, Ali Khreis, Inayat Ezzedine, Ali Oseiran and Michel Musa.
Two seats for Hezbollah: Hussein Jashi and Hassan Ezzedine.

Bekaa District One (Zahle), the voter turnout was 49.5%, and the winners are:

Two seats for the Lebanese Forces party: George Akis and Elias Stephan.
Seat of the Free Patriotic Movement: Salim Aoun.
A seat for the Tashnaq Party: George Bushekian.
A seat for Hezbollah: Rami Abu Hamdan.
Independent seat: Michel Daher.

The Second Bekaa Constituency (West Bekaa - Rashaya), the voter turnout was 42.47%, and the winners are:

A seat for the Amal movement: Qabalan Qabalan.
Seat of the Progressive Socialist Party: Wael Abu Faour.
Seat of the Free Patriotic Movement: Charbel Maroun.
3 independent seats: Hassan Murad, Yassin Yassin and Ghassan Skaf.

In the third Bekaa constituency (Baalbek-Hermel), the winners are:

Six seats for Hezbollah: Hussein Al-Hajj Hassan, Ihab Hamadeh, Ali Al-Miqdad, Ibrahim Al-Mousawi, Yall Al-Solh, and Melhem Al-Hujairi.
Seat for the Amal Movement: Ghazi Zuaiter.
Seat of the Free Patriotic Movement: Samer Al-Tom.
Seat of the Lebanese Forces: Antoine Habashi.
Seat for Independents: Jamil El-Sayed.

- Mount Lebanon First Constituency (Byblos - Kesrouan), the voter turnout was 63.4%, and the winners are:

Two seats for the Lebanese Forces party: Ziad Al-Hawat and Shawki Daccache.
Two seats for the Free Patriotic Movement: Simon Abi Ramia and Nada Al-Bustani.
Two seats for independents: Nima'a Afram and Farid Haikal El-Khazen.
Seat of the Lebanese Kataeb Party: Salim Al-Sayegh.
A seat for Hezbollah: Raed Berro.

- Mount Lebanon Third District (Baabda), the voter turnout was 47.39%, and the winners are:

Seat of the Lebanese Forces Party: Pierre Bou Assi.
Seat of the Free Patriotic Movement: Alain Aoun.
Seat of the Progressive Socialist Party: Hadi Abul-Hassan.
Seat of the National Liberal Party: Camille Chamoun.
A seat for Hezbollah: Ali Ammar.
A seat for the Amal movement: Fadi Alama.

Thus, the Ministry of Interior has announced the results of 11 constituencies, provided that the results of the remaining four constituencies (Beirut's first and second districts and the first and second districts of the North) will be announced, respectively. The voter turnout in all of Lebanon reached about 41%, noting that the voter turnout in the 2018 session was 49.68%.

Monday, February 20, 2017

Like many new American veterans, I owe my life to Muslims: Trump’s executive order is un-American, dishonorable and severely harmful to U.S. national security

    Monday, February 20, 2017   No comments
Like many new American veterans, I owe my life to Muslims — the Iraqi and Afghan comrades who fought alongside me during my multiple combat tours as a Green Beret.

I join fellow veterans in Seattle and nationwide in denouncing President Trump’s decision to temporarily ban people from seven predominantly Muslim nations from entering the United States. Trump’s executive order is un-American, dishonorable and severely harmful to U.S. national security.

This sweeping and ill-conceived order will further damage U.S. credibility in the Muslim world, and will fuel recruiting by insurgent and terrorist groups claiming that America is at war with Islam.

Moreover, this shortsighted move will backfire by curbing the immigration of people from the Middle East and Africa whose language skills and cultural knowledge are in short supply in the United States. From a national-security perspective, turning our backs on them undermines our long-term interests.

 This indiscriminate ban threatens to make it harder to recruit native-born translators to support operations in Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Yemen, as well as in future conflicts, jeopardizing the lives of U.S. troops.

Throughout my military career, loyal Iraqis and Afghans displayed incredible bravery under fire to protect me and my men. These linguists have proved their trustworthiness on the field of battle and undergone extreme vetting. Our nation pledged to resettle in America interpreters who put themselves and their families at risk by working for the U.S. government.

But Trump’s ban even temporarily blocked Iraqi interpreters and their families from the United States — exposing them to unnecessary danger. It took an outcry from veterans and concern inside the Pentagon to push the Trump administration to amend the ban on Thursday and allow these heroes to immigrate as promised.

The damage caused by a stroke of Trump’s pen is already being felt, disrupting thousands of lives — from the most vulnerable refugees to talented immigrant employees of major U.S. companies. Fear is spreading.  source

Friday, February 10, 2017

POTUS loses again: Appeals court maintains the freeze on Muslim Ban

    Friday, February 10, 2017   No comments
ISR Comment: For the thirst time, the White House lost in court.  
 Learn about the process
 Learn about the process
It failed to convince three judges that the freeze of POTUS' Muslim ban should be lifted.The White House insists that it will pursue the defense of the ban in courts still. Trump is not stranger to using the court system. Before moving into the White House, he stood as the most litigious person ever to be nominated by a major party to run for the U.S presidency. In June 2016, USA TODAY analyzed legal filings across the United States found that the then "presumptive Republican presidential nominee and his businesses have been involved in at least 3,500 legal actions in federal and state courts during the past three decades."

Now that lawyers will be paid by tax payers, not from his personal or business accounts, it is likely that he will continue to take every challenged decision to courts.
  ______________

The 9th Circuit’s Opinion on the Muslim Ban:




Saturday, February 04, 2017

German international magazine, der spiegel, publishes a dossier about Trump's presidency, the illustrative image is astounding

    Saturday, February 04, 2017   No comments
 ISR comment: The image illustrating the cover dossier of “Der Spiegel,” a leading magazine out of Germany, a country that knows firsthand the consequences of being ruled by populist authoritarians, is astounding. It speaks to the power of art in capturing the moment. Its selection for the cover of the magazine underscores the role of the media and journalism in society during challenging times.
__________________

Donald Trump has now been president of the United States for two weeks. It literally pains me to write about all that has happened in these first days. The president of the U.S. is a racist. He is attempting a coup from the top; he wants to establish an illiberal democracy, or worse; he wants to undermine the balance of power.

With his style of rule -- his decrees, his appointments and his firings -- he is dividing Washington and the rest of the country. Our cover story this week, which will be published in English on Monday, describes how Trump's inner circle works and how insecurity has grown among government officials. It sheds light on the role of Stephen Bannon, the former head of the right-wing news portal Breitbart News, who has become Trump's Faust, his chief ideologue and the man pulling the strings in the White House. Bannon is also a man who loves wars -- he sees them as being thoroughly advantageous.


During the course of his reporting on the cover story, SPIEGEL Washington correspondent Gordon Repinski met with government officials who spoke of their worries and their pangs of guilt. "They are considering whether the right thing to do would be to leave the government or to put up resistance from within," says Repinski. In London, my colleague Peter Müller spoke with Ted Malloch, who is considered Trump's favorite for the post of ambassador to the European Union -- a man who has praised Brexit and predicted the collapse of the euro.

  
The problem will not resolve itself. German business is the opponent of American trade policy, the German democracy is the ideological opponent of Donald Trump, but even here, in the middle of Germany, right-wing extremists are trying to give him a helping hand. It is high time that we stand up for what is important: democracy, freedom, the West and its alliances. Germany, of all countries, the economically and politically dominant democracy in Europe, will have to form the alliance against Trump, because it won't otherwise take shape. It is, however, absolutely necessary.


  
The image for this week's cover was created by the artist Edel Rodriguez. Edel was nine years old when, in 1980, he came to the U.S. with his mother -- two refugees, like so many others. "I remember it well, and I remember the feelings and how little kids feel when they are leaving their country," he told the Washington Post on Friday night.

The newspaper wrote: "This DER SPIEGEL Trump cover is stunning." It wasn't the first time Edel has drawn Trump. He usually portrays him without eyes -- you just see his angry, gaping mouth and, of course, the hair. "I don't want to live in a dictatorship," he says. "If I wanted to live in a dictatorship, I'd live in Cuba, where it's much warmer."

In other vital coverage this week, New York correspondent Philipp Oehmke met up with Dave Eggers and Wolfgang Höbel interviewed T.C. Boyle. Both American authors spoke about the issue gripping the entire world right now: Trump's America. "The world must be shaking," says Boyle.

Finally, in a SPIEGEL interview, my colleagues Horand Knaup, Markus Feldenkirchen and I asked Martin Schulz, the center-left Social Democratic Party's candidate challenging Angela Merkel in this year's chancellor race, what he thought of Trump. "Contemptible. He crosses the boundaries of every basic consensus that a democracy needs! It's staggering."

 A selection of stories from the issue will be published in English this week at
Spiegel.de/international.

 



Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Joint statement on Syria by Iran, Russia, Turkey's Foreign Ministers

    Tuesday, December 20, 2016   No comments
At the end of their trilateral meeting, the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey issued a joint statement on agreed steps to revitalize the political process to end the Syria crisis.

Zarif, Lavrov and Cavusoglu agreed on the following topics:

1. Iran, Russia and Turkey reiterate their full respect for the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic as a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, non-sectarian, democratic and secular state.

2. Iran, Russia and Turkey are convinced that there is no military solution to the Syrian conflict. They recognize the essential role of the United Nations in the efforts to resolve this crisis in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 2254.

The ministers also take note of the decisions made by the International Syria Support Croup (ISSG) and urge all members of the international community to cooperate in good faith in order to remove the obstacles on the way to implement the agreements contained in these documents.

3. Iran, Russia and Turkey welcome joint efforts in eastern Aleppo allowing for voluntary evacuation of civilians and organized departure of the armed opposition.

The ministers also welcome the partial evacuation of civilians from Foua, Kefraya, Zabadani and Madaya and commit to ensure the completion of the process without any interruption and in a safe and secure manner.

They express their gratitude to the representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) for their assistance in the conduction of the evacuation.

4. The Iranian, Russian and Turkish ministers agree on the importance of expanding ceasefire, unhindered humanitarian assistance and free movement of civilians throughout the country.

5. Iran, Russia and Turkey express their readiness to facilitate and become the guarantors of the prospective agreement being negotiated between the Syrian government and the opposition. They invite all other countries with the influence on the situation on the ground to do the same.

6. They strongly believe that this agreement will be instrumental to create the necessary momentum for the resumption of the political process in Syria in accordance with the Security Council resolution 2254.

7. Zarif, Lavrov and Cavusoglu take note of the kind offer of the president of Kazakhstan to host relevant meetings in Astana.

8. Iran, Russia and Turkey reiterate their determination to fight jointly against Daesh and al-Nusra terrorists and to separate them from armed opposition groups.

______________________

The News Conference:
________________


Monday, April 11, 2016

If U.S. Intervention in Libya is Obama's "Worst Mistake", allowing U.S. allies, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, to intervene in Syria ought to be his second "worst mistake

    Monday, April 11, 2016   No comments
Qatar's Hands in the Destruction of Syria
ISR comment: If U.S. Intervention in Libya is Obama's "Worst Mistake", allowing U.S. allies, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, to intervene in Syria ought to be his second "worst mistake.
...
In his first interview on Fox News Sunday since becoming president, Barack Obama admitted that "failing to plan for, the day after" the U.S. intervention in Libya was the worst mistake of his presidency.

Obama mentioned the same failure two weeks ago in a BBC interview. "That's a lesson I now apply when we're asked to intervene militarily," Obama said. "Do we have a plan for the day after?"

That ought to be a shocking statement. After all, U.S. history is littered with interventions that failed in their aftermath.
The lootings in post-invasion Iraq, the bloody campaign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the large-scale humanitarian disaster that remains North Korea are just a handful of examples of the consequences of U.S. interventions that any U.S. policy maker ought to be expected to know, let alone the U.S. president.

Obama, of course, is likely wrong. It was not just a lack of adequate post-intervention planning that turned Libya into a failing state and hotbed for radical Islamist terrorist groups—the U.S.-led intervention itself did that. It's hard to imagine what kind of planning, short of installing a dictatorial puppet regime, would've prevented the power vacuum in which subsequent instability has thrived.

The lesson of Iraq should have been sufficient. Although the U.S. failed to plan for the aftermath of the 2003 invasion, even when the U.S. started getting serious about "nation building" in Iraq that couldn't be a guarantee of success. The perceived intelligence, or lack thereof, of George W. Bush and members of his administration could not alone account for the failure in Iraq. After all, the Obama administration's military "surge" in Afghanistan, which was coupled with a "political" surge of State Department bureaucrats, did not have better results in that country. source...


Sunday, April 03, 2016

#IslamicsocietiesReview: #Erdogan Says Obama Lied and claims that the press is free in Turkey

    Sunday, April 03, 2016   No comments
 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said he took offence at US President Barack Obama slamming eroding press freedoms in Turkey, expressing sadness that the comments were made behind his back.

"I am saddened that these kinds of comments have been made in my absence," Erdogan told Turkish reporters in Washington as he rounded off a trip to the United States. "These issues did not come onto the agenda in our talks with Mr Obama."

"He did not talk to me about this kind of thing. In our previous telephone conversations we talked about other more useful things than press freedom," the Hurriyet daily and other newspapers quoted him as saying. source

Saturday, April 02, 2016

While Obama calls Erdogan's treatment of journalists 'very troubling', his body guards attacked journalists calling one "PKK whore"

    Saturday, April 02, 2016   No comments
  Obama: Erdogan treatment of journalists 'very troubling'
President Obama on Friday called out Turkish President Recep Erdogan, saying his policies toward journalists have been "troubling."

During a press conference following the Nuclear Security Summit, Obama was asked if he believed Erdogan is an authoritarian.

“I have expressed this to him directly so it’s no secret, that there are some trends within Turkey that I have been troubled with,” Obama said.

“I am a strong believer in freedom of the press. I’m a strong believer in freedom of religion. I’m a strong believer in rule of law and democracy," he continued. "There is no doubt that President Erdogan has been repeatedly elected through a democratic process, but I think the approach that they’ve been taking towards the press is one that could lead Turkey down a path that would be very troubling.”

On Thursday, a policy discussion featuring the Turkish president at the Brookings Institute was overshadowed by clashes between his security detail and protesters. His bodyguards also reportedly kicked out a Turkish journalist who has been critical of him.  source


The absence of a presidential meeting on Erdogan's trip to the US capital had been glaring. Although there was a statement that the two leaders met, still the lack of media coverage of such meeting and Obama's refusal to schedule a meeting ahead of time spoke loudly about how troubled Obama is with Erdogan's behavior. 

Erdogan's violence against journalists and and regression of the media was on display in DC as well. Erdogan's body guard "aimed a chest-high kick at an American reporter attempting to film the harassment of a Turkish opposition reporter, and another called a female foreign policy scholar a "PKK whore."  Source

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Jordan's king accuses Turkey of sending terrorists to Europe; Turkey is deliberately 'unleashing' Isis terrorists into Europe, says Jordan's King Abdullah

    Sunday, March 27, 2016   No comments
Turkey is exporting Isis-linked terrorists to Europe, according to King Abdullah of Jordan.

The monarch's remarks came in a meeting with members of the US Congress, in which he said that Islamist militants were being "manufactured in Turkey" and "unleashed" into Europe.

He also used the debriefing, held after a cancelled rendezvous with US President Barack Obama, to remind the US politicians of Turkey's alleged complicity in buying Isis oil....

King Abdullah of Jordan accused Turkey of exporting terrorists to Europe at a top level meeting with senior US politicians in January.

The king said Europe’s biggest refugee crisis was not an accident, and neither was the presence of terrorists among them: “The fact that terrorists are going to Europe is part of Turkish policy and Turkey keeps on getting a slap on the hand, but they are let off the hook.”

Asked by one of the congressmen present whether the Islamic State group was exporting oil to Turkey, Abdullah replied: ”Absolutely.”

Abdullah made his remarks during a wide-ranging debriefing to Congress on 11 January, the day a meeting with the US president, Barack Obama, was cancelled.

The White House was forced to deny that Obama snubbed one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East, attributing the cancellation to "scheduling conflicts," although Obama and Abdullah met briefly at Andrews Air Force Base a day later.

Present at the meeting in Congress were the chairmen and members of the Senate Intelligence, Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, including Senators John McCain and Bob Corker, and Senators Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid, the Senate Majority and Minority leaders respectively.  ...

Friday, March 11, 2016

#IslamicSocietiesReview: Obama: "Saudis heavily funded Wahhabist madrassas, seminaries that teach the fundamentalist version of Islam favored by the Saudi ruling family"

    Friday, March 11, 2016   No comments
...
In private encounters with other world leaders, Obama has argued that there will be no comprehensive solution to Islamist terrorism until Islam reconciles itself to modernity and undergoes some of the reforms that have changed Christianity.

Though he has argued, controversially, that the Middle East’s conflicts “date back millennia,” he also believes that the intensified Muslim fury of recent years was encouraged by countries considered friends of the U.S. In a meeting during apec with Malcolm Turnbull, the new prime minister of Australia, Obama described how he has watched Indonesia gradually move from a relaxed, syncretistic Islam to a more fundamentalist, unforgiving interpretation; large numbers of Indonesian women, he observed, have now adopted the hijab, the Muslim head covering.

Why, Turnbull asked, was this happening?

Because, Obama answered, the Saudis and other Gulf Arabs have funneled money, and large numbers of imams and teachers, into the country. In the 1990s, the Saudis heavily funded Wahhabist madrassas, seminaries that teach the fundamentalist version of Islam favored by the Saudi ruling family, Obama told Turnbull. Today, Islam in Indonesia is much more Arab in orientation than it was when he lived there, he said.

“Aren’t the Saudis your friends?,” Turnbull asked.


Obama smiled. “It’s complicated,” he said.

Obama’s patience with Saudi Arabia has always been limited. In his first foreign-policy commentary of note, that 2002 speech at the antiwar rally in Chicago, he said, “You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East—the Saudis and the Egyptians—stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality.” In the White House these days, one occasionally hears Obama’s National Security Council officials pointedly reminding visitors that the large majority of 9/11 hijackers were not Iranian, but Saudi—and Obama himself rails against Saudi Arabia’s state-sanctioned misogyny, arguing in private that “a country cannot function in the modern world when it is repressing half of its population.” In meetings with foreign leaders, Obama has said, “You can gauge the success of a society by how it treats its women.”

His frustration with the Saudis informs his analysis of Middle Eastern power politics. At one point I observed to him that he is less likely than previous presidents to axiomatically side with Saudi Arabia in its dispute with its archrival, Iran. He didn’t disagree.

“Iran, since 1979, has been an enemy of the United States, and has engaged in state-sponsored terrorism, is a genuine threat to Israel and many of our allies, and engages in all kinds of destructive behavior,” the president said. “And my view has never been that we should throw our traditional allies”—the Saudis—“overboard in favor of Iran.”

But he went on to say that the Saudis need to “share” the Middle East with their Iranian foes. “The competition between the Saudis and the Iranians—which has helped to feed proxy wars and chaos in Syria and Iraq and Yemen—requires us to say to our friends as well as to the Iranians that they need to find an effective way to share the neighborhood and institute some sort of cold peace,” he said. “An approach that said to our friends ‘You are right, Iran is the source of all problems, and we will support you in dealing with Iran’ would essentially mean that as these sectarian conflicts continue to rage and our Gulf partners, our traditional friends, do not have the ability to put out the flames on their own or decisively win on their own, and would mean that we have to start coming in and using our military power to settle scores. And that would be in the interest neither of the United States nor of the Middle East.”

One of the most destructive forces in the Middle East, Obama believes, is tribalism—a force no president can neutralize. Tribalism, made manifest in the reversion to sect, creed, clan, and village by the desperate citizens of failing states, is the source of much of the Muslim Middle East’s problems, and it is another source of his fatalism. Obama has deep respect for the destructive resilience of tribalism—part of his memoir, Dreams From My Father, concerns the way in which tribalism in post-colonial Kenya helped ruin his father’s life—which goes some distance in explaining why he is so fastidious about avoiding entanglements in tribal conflicts.

“It is literally in my DNA to be suspicious of tribalism,” he told me. “I understand the tribal impulse, and acknowledge the power of tribal division. I’ve been navigating tribal divisions my whole life. In the end, it’s the source of a lot of destructive acts.”

Sunday, March 06, 2016

Majoritarianism-driven democracy and the rise of authoritarianism in Turkey

    Sunday, March 06, 2016   No comments
Turkey has become a rogue state - and even Erdogan must face up to the fact

Under the AKP government, in power since 2002, Turkey risks not only being regarded as a rogue state but its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, also risks being branded as a rogue president. Erdogan -  who is already known to meddle with the rule of law, the size of families, young people’s sex lives, smoking, drinking alcohol, art and architecture - has this time excelled himself.

The Turkish Constitutional Court ruled that to hold two journalists in pre-trial detention for 92 days because of their coverage of a covert shipment of weapons to Syrian insurgents was a violation of their rights, and also of their freedom of expression and of the freedom of the press.

When the Turkish secular daily Cumhuriyet last May published video footage of trucks belonging to the Turkish intelligence organisation MIT and their contents, Erdogan vowed that those responsible for the story would “pay a heavy price” and filed a lawsuit against them.The two journalists were released (they will still stand trial for charges that include espionage and seeking to overthrow the government), but Erdogan stated he would neither abide by, nor respect, the Constitutional Court’s ruling.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Saudi Arabia is no state at all: Preparing for its Collapse

    Thursday, February 18, 2016   No comments
The Saudi ruling elite is operating something like a sophisticated criminal enterprise
For half a century, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been the linchpin of U.S. Mideast policy. A guaranteed supply of oil has bought a guaranteed supply of security. Ignoring autocratic practices and the export of Wahhabi extremism, Washington stubbornly dubs its ally “moderate.” So tight is the trust that U.S. special operators dip into Saudi petrodollars as a counterterrorism slush fund without a second thought. In a sea of chaos, goes the refrain, the kingdom is one state that’s stable.

But is it?

In fact, Saudi Arabia is no state at all. There are two ways to describe it: as a political enterprise with a clever but ultimately unsustainable business model, or as an entity so corrupt as to resemble a vertically and horizontally integrated criminal organization. Either way, it can’t last. It’s past time U.S. decision-makers began planning for the collapse of the Saudi kingdom... read more, see

source: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/02/saudi-arabia-collapse/463212/

#IslamicSocietiesReview : Turkey blames Kurdish militants for Ankara bombing

    Thursday, February 18, 2016   No comments
As it has done in the past, whenever terrorists attack civilians inside Turkey, the Turkish government used the Ankara bombing to launch fresh strikes against Kurds. It has done so in the past even after instances when ISIL (Daesh) has carried out (and took credit for) the attacks. This time, too, AKP leaders were quick to blame the Kurds of Syria. Even before the investigation concluded, the Turkish government accused "Syrians" to justify its campaign against Kurds in Iraq and Syria. This practice could undercut support for their cause since the Turkish government could be perceived as leveraging terrorism for geopolitical aims. Turkey's reluctance to fight ISIL and shut down the flow of fighters and weapons into Syria adds to the volatility of the region and will add risks to Turkey's security.
...
Turkey blames Kurdish militants for Ankara bomb, vows response in Syria and Iraq

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed a Syrian Kurdish militia fighter working with Kurdish militants inside Turkey for a suicide car bombing that killed 28 people in the capital Ankara, and he vowed retaliation in both Syria and Iraq.

A car laden with explosives detonated next to military buses as they waited at traffic lights near Turkey's armed forces' headquarters, parliament and government buildings in the administrative heart of Ankara late on Wednesday.

Davutoglu said the attack was clear evidence that the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia that has been supported by the United States in the fight against Islamic State in northern Syria, was a terrorist organization and that Turkey, a NATO member, expected cooperation from its allies in combating the group. 
Source

#IslamicSocietiesReview : Turkey sends 2000 rebels with heavy weapons into Syria

    Thursday, February 18, 2016   No comments
At least 2,000 Syrian rebel fighters have re-entered the country from Turkey over the last week to reinforce insurgents fending off an assault by Syrian Kurdish militias, rebel sources said on Thursday.


The rebel fighters, with weapons and vehicles, have been covertly escorted across the border by Turkish forces over several nights before heading into the embattled rebel stronghold of Azaz, the sources said.

"We have been allowed to move everything from light weapons to heavy equipment mortars and missiles and our tanks," Abu Issa, a commander in the Levant Front, the rebel group that runs the border crossing of Bab al-Salam, told Reuters, giving his alias and talking on condition of anonymity.

"There is tight security on the four-hour drive from one border crossing to the other," he added, saying rebels being transported excluded the hardline Jabhat al-Nusra Front fighters and other jihadist groups.

A Turkish security source confirmed fighters had crossed the border but put the numbers at 400-500 and the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence across the war torn-country, also said hundreds had crossed.

On Sunday, the Syrian government had said Turkish forces were among 100 gunmen who had entered Syria accompanied by 12 pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machine guns in an ongoing supply operation to insurgents. The route across Turkey has become the only path for rebels to their north Aleppo enclave after recent Syrian army advances closed the main route into rebel territory. source

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

#ISR: World War 3 is now taking place in Syria, Turkey pushes for direct confrontation between nuclear powers--and that won't happen

    Wednesday, February 17, 2016   No comments
The siege of Aleppo is a humanitarian catastrophe on a dramatic scale -- and a victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has seized on the Syrian civil war to expose an impotent West and show his own geopolitical muscle.

Aleppo has been a horrific place for some time now and few thought that it could get much worse. But things can always get worse -- that's the lesson currently being learned by those who have stayed behind in an effort to outlast this brutal conflict. People who have become used to dead bodies in the streets, hunger and living a life that can end at any moment.

"For the last two weeks, we've been living a nightmare that is worse than everything that has come before," says Hamza, a young doctor in an Aleppo hospital. At the beginning, in 2011, he was treating light wounds, stemming from tear gas or beatings from police batons. When the regime began dropping barrel bombs in 2012, the injuries got worse. But now, with the beginning of the Russian airstrikes, the doctors are facing an emergency. Every two or three hours, warplanes attack the city, aiming at everything that hasn't yet been destroyed, including apartment buildings, schools and clinics. Often, they use cluster bombs, which have been banned internationally.

They used to get around 10 serious injuries per day, but that number has now risen to 50, says Hamza, adding that most of their time is spent sorting body parts so they can turn them over to family members for burial. Russian missiles, he says, tear everyone apart who is within 35 meters of the impact.

"On one day, we had 22 dead civilians. The day before that, it was 20 injured children. A seven-year-old died and an eight-year-old lost his left leg." The Russians attacked in the morning, he says, as the children were on their way to school. "We are going to need years of therapy in order to be able to cope with all this."

There are seven doctors still working in the hospital. "Since the Russians began bombing the city, even more doctors have fled," Hamza says. There are only about 30 medical professionals left in all of Aleppo, he adds. His hospital too is under fire and Hamza's voice can be heard trembling over the phone. The regime, he says, has targeted the hospital five times in the past several years, but always missed. "The Russian bombardment, though, is very accurate." One recent bomb, he says, just barely missed them.

A Nightmare Worse than Sarajevo 

...

source

#ISR: Weaponry delivered to Syria's FSA by the U.S.-led coalition have fallen into the hands of Ahrar al-Sham and al-Nusra

    Wednesday, February 17, 2016   No comments
The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the recognized armed opposition group against the Bashar al-Assad in Syria, has ceased its resistance in Aleppo, Syria’s second biggest city, withdrawing its 14,000 militia from the city, a ranking Turkish security source told the Hürriyet Daily News on Nov. 17.

“Its leader Jamal Marouf has fled to Turkey,” confirmed the source, who asked not to be named. “He is currently being hosted and protected by the Turkish state.”

The source did not give an exact date of the escape but said it was within the last two weeks, that is, the first half of November. The source declined to give Marouf’s whereabouts in Turkey.


As a result, the FSA has lost control over the Bab al-Hawa border gate (opposite from Turkey’s Cilvegözü in Reyhanlı), which is now being held by a weak coalition of smaller groups led by Ahrar al-Sham.

The source said some of the weaponry delivered to the FSA by the U.S.-led coalition in its fight against both Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) and the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria might have fallen into the hands of Ahrar al-Sham and al-Nusra, the Syria branch of al-Qaeda.

....
The news about the FSA evacuation came as claims in the Western media intensified about a rapprochement between al-Nusra and ISIL, which is denied by Turkish government sources.

One source talking on the condition of anonymity gave details about talks between al-Nusra and ISIL last week – information that was not possible to corroborate based on another source. According to field reports in Ankara, Abu Mohammad al-Gulani of al-Nusra has asked the leader of another Jihadist group (Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar - Army of Emigrants and Supporters) in Syria, Salahaddin al-Shishani (The Chechen), to intermediate for a cease-fire between his organization and ISIL. source

Monday, February 15, 2016

#ISR: Chemical weapons had been used by ISIL (#daesh) fighters

    Monday, February 15, 2016   No comments
Islamic State militants attacked Kurdish forces in Iraq with mustard gas last year, the first known use of chemical weapons in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein, a diplomat said, based on tests by the global chemical weapons watchdog.

A source at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed that laboratory tests had come back positive for the sulfur mustard, after around 35 Kurdish troops were sickened on the battlefield last August.


The OPCW will not identify who used the chemical agent. But the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because the findings have not yet been released, said the result confirmed that chemical weapons had been used by Islamic State fighters.

The samples were taken after the soldiers became ill during fighting against Islamic State militants southwest of Erbil, capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.

The OPCW already concluded in October that mustard gas was used last year in neighboring Syria. Islamic State has declared a "caliphate" in territory it controls in both Iraq and Syria and does not recognize the frontier.

Experts believe that the sulfur mustard either originated from an undeclared Syrian chemical stockpile, or that militants have gained the basic know how to develop and conduct a crude chemical attack with rockets or mortars. source

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Turkey at odds with Russia and now the US on Syria: Turkey strikes Syrian airport when it fell under the control of US supported rebels, but did not bomb it when it was under the control of al-Nusra

    Sunday, February 14, 2016   No comments

Kurdish leader: Turkey strikes Syrian airport when it fell under the control of US supported rebels, but did not bomb it when it was under the control of al-Nusra. Do they want the Nusra Front to stay there, or for the regime to come and occupy it?
Turkey's faulty foreign policy choices in Syria since the beginning of the conflict, including supporting Sunnis in the sectarian strife, working for the removal of the Syrian regime from power, undermining the Syrian Kurds and downing a Russian jet, have dragged the country to such a point that today, it is at odds with not only Russia but its close ally the US as well.

After trying to impose its policies on other actors in the region for some time, it seems that Ankara will have no word in the future of Syria ahead of the Geneva peace talks, which have been postponed to Feb. 25.

After downing a Russian jet at the Syrian border over an airspace violation on Nov. 24 of last year, a first for NATO in 50 years, Turkish-Russian relations have been significantly derailed. Russia has demanded an apology and compensation for the damages, but Turkey has refused, saying that it will not apologize for defending its airspace.

Following Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan's remarks calling on the US to choose between its ally Turkey and “the terrorists in Kobani,” a reference to the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which Turkey strongly opposes due to its links to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Ankara is now not on good terms with the US.

Sunday's Zaman has learned that US Ambassador to Turkey John Bass has asked Turkish officials not to publicly bring up the differences between the US and Turkey concerning the PYD. Bass said the US position on the PYD is clear and will not change. The US sees the PYD as one of the leading forces on the ground in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and despite the fact that the PKK is classified as a terrorist organization under US law, the PYD is not considered terrorist. In spite of their differences on Syria, the US and Turkey had previously mostly managed to maintain a balance in their relationship.

Ignoring the remarks of Ambassador Bass, ErdoÄŸan has challenged the US position on the PYD, and following ErdoÄŸan's remarks US officials in Washington have expressed their position in a stronger tone, underscoring that their support for the PYD will continue. US Department State Spokesperson John Kirby said last week that even close friends do not have to agree on everything, while stressing that Turkey and the US are still close allies.



Saturday, February 13, 2016

Kerry says Russia should stop targeting "legitimate opposition" in Syria

    Saturday, February 13, 2016   No comments
Who decides "which group is a "legitimate opposition"? The answer to that question may hold the key to ending the bloody conflict in Syria. 

The U.S. and its Gulf allies and Turkey say that there are "moderate" opposition groups in Syria, but they refuse to identify them by name. Russia has asked, since 2015, who is Syria’s legitimate opposition? That question goes unanswered. But it is certain is that none of those governments who claim that there is a "legitimate opposition", do not and will not tolerate any armed groups to be operating within their countries' borders. In fact, Turkey is bombing a U.S.-vetted moderate, legitimate opposition group, the Kurdish Popular Protection Units, in Syria. 

Major powers could help stop the cycle of violence in Syria by defining terrorism, identifying terrorist groups by name, and push for an end to the fighting. Instead, each actor is protecting its interests by continuing to support armed groups, yet claim at the same time that there is no military solution to the Syrian crisis.


Russia must stop targeting Syria's legitimate opposition as part of an air campaign in support of the Assad regime before a truce can be implemented next week, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday.

"To date, the vast majority of Russia's attacks have been against legitimate opposition groups," Kerry said at the Munich Security Conference. "To adhere to the agreement it made, Russia's targeting must change."


Source

Friday, February 12, 2016

The rulers of Saudi Arabia insist that they will remove #Assad by any means necessary

    Friday, February 12, 2016   No comments
Saudi Arabia is arguing one point of view in one country and negating it by arguing against the same logic in another.
The Saudi minister of foreign affairs justified his regime's bombardment of Yemen by arguing the following point:
"Our intervention in Yemen came in response to a request from the Yemeni government to prevent its collapse... to reinstall the legitimate government that was removed by militias supported by Iran and Hezbollah."
Contrast that logic to the logic used by Russia and Iran to justify their intervention in Syria:


"The legitimate Syrian government requested Russia's assistance to combat terrorist groups supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey."
The problem with the Saudi point of view is that it arbitrarily defines one government legitimate and another illegitimate. The rulers of the Wahhabi kingdom think that regimes like that of Mubarak, Ben Ali, and Mansur Hadi are legitimate. But they declared the Syrian government illegitimate the day the peaceful protest broke out in 2011. 

This logic that is conveniently applied to one country and not another proves that powerful governments are using civilians for geopolitical aims.  The Saudi rulers refuse to define "terrorism" and identify "terrorist" groups because they fear that they will be exposed as sponsors and supporters of many groups that would qualify as terrorists. There is no question that the rulers of Saudi Arabia are using sectarian fighters to achieve one goal: overthrow the Syrian government. To that end, they don't care if overthrowing Assad's government will result in more instability and more deaths.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that foreign governments have supplied Syrian fighters with new weapons:

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's foreign enemies have sent rebels new supplies of ground-to-ground missiles to confront a Russian-backed offensive by the government near Aleppo, stepping up support in response to the attack, two rebel commanders said.

The commanders told Reuters the missiles with a range of 20 km (12 miles) had been provided in "excellent quantities" in response to the attack that has cut rebel supply lines from the Turkish border to opposition-held parts of the city of Aleppo.

Facing one of the biggest defeats of the five-year-long war, rebels have been complaining that foreign states such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey have let them down by not providing them with more powerful weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles.

"It is excellent additional fire power for us," said one of the commanders, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter. The second rebel commander said the missiles were being used to hit army positions beyond the front line. "They give the factions longer reach," he said.
 Source

Followers


Most popular articles


ISR +


Frequently Used Labels and Topics

40 babies beheaded 77 + China A Week in Review Academic Integrity Adana Agreement afghanistan Africa African Union al-Azhar Algeria Aljazeera All Apartheid apostasy Arab League Arab nationalism Arab Spring Arabs in the West Armenia Arts and Cultures Arts and Entertainment Asia Assassinations Assimilation Azerbaijan Bangladesh Belarus Belt and Road Initiative Brazil BRI BRICS Brotherhood CAF Canada Capitalism Caroline Guenez Caspian Sea cCuba censorship Central Asia Chechnya Children Rights China CIA Civil society Civil War climate colonialism communism con·science Conflict Constitutionalism Contras Corruption Coups Covid19 Crimea Crimes against humanity D-8 Dearborn Debt Democracy Despotism Diplomacy discrimination Dissent Dmitry Medvedev Earthquakes Economics Economics and Finance Economy ECOWAS Education and Communication Egypt Elections energy Enlightenment environment equity Erdogan Europe Events Fatima FIFA FIFA World Cup FIFA World Cup Qatar 2020 Flour Massacre Food Football France freedom of speech G20 G7 Garden of Prosperity Gaza GCC GDP Genocide geopolitics Germany Global Security Global South Globalism globalization Greece Grozny Conference Hamas Health Hegemony Hezbollah hijab Hiroshima History and Civilizations Human Rights Huquq Ibadiyya Ibn Khaldun ICC Ideas IGOs Immigration Imperialism india Indonesia inequality inflation INSTC Instrumentalized Human Rights Intelligence Inter International Affairs International Law Iran IranDeal Iraq Iraq War ISIL Islam in America Islam in China Islam in Europe Islam in Russia Islam Today Islamic economics Islamic Jihad Islamic law Islamic Societies Islamism Islamophobia ISR MONTHLY ISR Weekly Bulletin ISR Weekly Review Bulletin Japan Jordan Journalism Kenya Khamenei Kilicdaroglu Kurdistan Latin America Law and Society Lebanon Libya Majoritarianism Malaysia Mali mass killings Mauritania Media Media Bias Media Review Middle East migration Military Affairs Morocco Multipolar World Muslim Ban Muslim Women and Leadership Muslims Muslims in Europe Muslims in West Muslims Today NAM Narratives Nationalism NATO Natural Disasters Nelson Mandela NGOs Nicaragua Nicaragua Cuba Niger Nigeria Normalization North America North Korea Nuclear Deal Nuclear Technology Nuclear War Nusra October 7 Oman OPEC+ Opinion Polls Organisation of Islamic Cooperation - OIC Oslo Accords Pakistan Palestine Peace Philippines Philosophy poerty Poland police brutality Politics and Government Population Transfer Populism Poverty Prison Systems Propaganda Prophet Muhammad prosperity Protests Proxy Wars Public Health Putin Qatar Quran Rachel Corrie Racism Raisi Ramadan Regime Change religion and conflict Religion and Culture Religion and Politics religion and society Resistance Rights Rohingya Genocide Russia Salafism Sanctions Saudi Arabia Science and Technology SCO Sectarianism security Senegal Shahed sharia Sharia-compliant financial products Shia Silk Road Singapore Slavery Soccer socialism Southwest Asia and North Africa Space War Sports Sports and Politics State Terror Sudan sunnism Supremacism SWANA Syria Ta-Nehisi Coates terrorism Thailand The Koreas Tourism Trade transportation Tunisia Turkey Turkiye U.S. Foreign Policy UAE uk ukraine UN under the Rubble UNGA United States UNSC Uprisings Urban warfare US Foreign Policy US Veto USA Uyghur Venezuela Volga Bulgaria Wadee wahhabism War War and Peace War Crimes Wealth and Power Wealth Building West Western Civilization Western Sahara WMDs Women women rights Work World and Communities Xi Yemen Zionism

Search for old news

Find Articles by year, month hierarchy


AdSpace

_______________________________________________

Copyright © Islamic Societies Review. All rights reserved.