Arab Israeli Broadcaster Emascualtes Arab Political Leaders on Syria: The BALLS of ONE Women4/10/2017 Pakistan money-laundering verdict: Islamabad’s top court is about to rule on a scandal involving the family of prime minister Nawaz Sharif and accusations of money-laundering and multi-million pound properties in London’s Mayfair. F.M. Shakil reports that the case originates from the database leak of Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca that implicated thousands of global offshore entities, including hundreds of Pakistani politicians, industrialists, business people, judges and luminaries, and included the Sharif family. READ THE STORY HERE
Russia's S-300, S-400 and S-500 vs. America's F-35 and F-22
From Dave Majumdar, The National Interest: “For the Russians, solving the problem of targeting a low observable aircraft is something that they continue to work on—but it is doubtful the Moscow has resolved the issue. Russia's strong investment in layers of air defenses tells us that the Kremlin believes the primary threat to its ground forces comes from U.S. airpower. As such, defeating stealth technology is one of Moscow's top priorities, Kofman notes, and the Kremlin has dedicated a lot of resources to that end.”
Sisi declares state of emergency in Egypt after suicide bombingsEgyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared a three-month state of emergency Sunday after two suicide bombers attacked Coptic churches in Tanta and Alexandria. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for both attacks, which killed at least 47 people and injured 100 others, and warned of future attacks.
The state of emergency allows authorities to search homes and make arrests without warrants. It requires parliament's approval and will likely go into effect Tuesday morning. Pope Francis plans to visit Egypt April 28, where he will meet with Sisi and the grand imam of Al-Azhar.
STEVEN BRYEN EXPLAINS WHY ASSAD LAUNCHED GAS ATTACK
Why Assad, why? The world has struggled to explain why President Bashar al-Assad used nerve gas in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in northern Syria’s Idlib province. Stephen Bryen argues the more likely truth is that Assad was deeply afraid that the US policy shift was part of a secret deal with the Russians and was one that he had to head off. READ THE STORY HERE
Missile Strikes Do Not Signal U.S. Shift on Syria
From Rodger Shanahan, Lowy Institute Interpreter: “This US response has been swift, targeted and, perhaps most importantly, proportionate. One of the constraints in undertaking military action against the Syrian government has been the need to do so without tipping the military balance in favour of opposition forces, whose disunity and increasingly overt Islamist influence long ago wore out Washington's patience with many of them.”
DAMAGE
US warships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea fired 59 cruise missiles overnight at the Syrian air base from which the Pentagon says Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces carried out Tuesday’s chemical weapons attack against rebel-held Homs province. The strikes against Shayrat airfield, in western Syria, are the first targeted US attack against Assad’s regime since the civil war started in 2011. President Donald Trump ordered the strike late Thursday, saying it was in the United States’ “vital national security interest.” Some critics said Trump should have asked Congress before attacking a sovereign nation, but many US lawmakers put out statements approving of the strikes as a one-time “proportional response” to prevent a humanitarian crisis. The Syrian army condemned the attack in a statement today, calling it a “blatant aggression” that makes the US “a partner” of the Islamic State and other terrorist groups. According to the army, six people were killed in the attack, which caused massive material damage. Russian TV said nine planes were destroyed.
Russia is suspending its air safety agreement with the United States in Syria in response to overnight US missile strikes on a Syrian air base, the Foreign Ministry announced today. The ministry has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. Russian President Vladimir Putin, a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, believes the strikes violated international law, the Kremlin said, and will deal a heavy blow to relations between Moscow and Washington. Iran, another Assad ally, also condemned the attack as a violation of international law.
Meanwhile, US allies, including Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Denmark and Turkey, have applauded the strikes as proportional. The Syrian opposition said it hoped the United States will undertake more strikes to stop the regime from launching new raids against the rebels, said Ahmad Ramadan, head of the Syrian National Coalition’s media office. CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY - SYRIAN GAS ATTACK - RUSSIAN MiG'S - TEST FOR TRUMP - DICTATOR'S RULE4/4/2017 Al Qaeda is making a comeback in the Middle East and North Africa by expanding its armies and infiltrating new territories, complicating President Trump’s priority of destroying the world’s other major Salafist Sunni group, the Islamic State. – Washington Times
Week by week, country by country, the Pentagon is quietly seizing more control over warfighting decisions, sending hundreds more troops to war with little public debate, and seeking greater authority to battle extremists across the Middle East and Africa. – Associated Press The appointment of a popular Pakistani general to head a Saudi-led alliance of Muslim countries has set off a furor in Pakistan, amid fears that the move could exacerbate sectarian tensions at home. – New York Times
The men and women arrived late on Saturday at a Sufi shrine in a village in central Pakistan. Followers of a self-described mystic, the pilgrims were accustomed to rituals in which they received spiritual guidance and sometimes removed their clothes to be cleansed of their sins. Instead, the Pakistani police said on Sunday, they were given an intoxicating drink and then beaten with batons and hacked with knives, leaving 20 of them dead and four others injured. – New York Times Hezbollah, founded in the early 1980s to fight Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, became involved in the civil war next door to protect its patrons in Damascus and a supply line of Iranian weapons. After years of growing engagement, including training thousands of mostly Shiite Muslim fighters and beginning to provide social services, Hezbollah is today stronger, more independent and in command of a new Syrian militia that its officials say is ready to be deployed to other conflicts in the region. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Six years after the start of a peaceful Shiite protest movement against the country’s Sunni-led government, U.S. and European analysts now see an increasingly grave threat emerging on the margins of the uprising: heavily armed militant cells supplied and funded, officials say, by Iran. – Washington Post
Saudi Arabia is still believed to be seeking nuclear weapons technology in a bid to counter the threat posed by Iran's nuclear program, which continues to operate in an advanced manner despite the landmark nuclear agreement, according to a new report by a proliferation monitoring organization that labeled the Kingdom a nuclear "newcomer." – Washington Free Beacon The absence of U.S. military assistance to the Sunni Arab coalition fighting the Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen has emboldened the insurgent Houthis over the past two years, according to policy experts. – Washington Free Beacon Lawmakers who pushed former President Barack Obama to curb support for a Saudi Arabia-led coalition fighting in Yemen’s civil war are gearing up to battle President Trump on expanding U.S. involvement. – The Hill
Clifford Smith writes: Trump laid out a number of smart proposals on radical Islam during his campaign. His administration should now use President el-Sisi’s visit to move forward with these ideas. In particular, it should follow up designation of the Brotherhood with the formation of a congressionally authorized commission on radical Islam tasked with developing a strategy for winning the war against Islamic extremists and explaining the threat of Islamism to the American people. – National Review
Michele Dunne and Amr Hamzawy write: Secular parties won a quarter of the seats in the first post-Mubarak parliamentary elections—the ones in which Islamists had the greatest advantage due to their long exclusion from power. Secularists might exceed that share in future elections if they learn from their mistakes and improve their organizational capacity. The question is whether they will be given a chance, or whether Egypt will experience either a consolidation of today’s authoritarianism or an upheaval far less inclined toward democracy than the 2011 uprising. – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Ever since he seized power in a military takeover nearly four years ago, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt has been barred from the White House. But President Trump made clear on Monday that the period of ostracism was over as he hosted Mr. Sisi and pledged unstinting support for the autocratic ruler. – New York Times
President Donald Trump once again dodged any public comment on Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s much-maligned human rights record after their meeting Monday, even as several U.S. families claimed the White House has ignored their pleas to intervene in the cases of at least three wrongfully imprisoned Americans. - Politico President Trump on Monday welcomed the leader of Egypt to the White House for the first time in eight years and vowed to work with him on counterterrorism operations, but it was unclear whether Washington will sustain its $1.3 billion annual military aid package to Cairo. – Defense News Andrew Exum writes: Egypt’s respite will not last forever, though. A collapsing economy could lead to state failure on a scale as yet unseen elsewhere in the region. President Sisi knows this and comes to Washington grasping for a lifeline from the Americans. It’s a lifeline, though, that the Trump administration is unlikely—and unable—to give – Defense One Shadi Hamid writes: My worry is that the next time an American citizen is unjustly imprisoned in Sisi’s Egypt, he or she will begin drafting a similar letter to President Trump, but then quickly realize that the American president will likely not be listening. – The Atlantic
The White House signaled on Friday that it would no longer allow human rights issues to become a public point of conflict with Egypt, another striking shift away from years of American foreign policy by presidents of both parties. – New York Times
When President Trump hosts Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi on Monday in Washington, they will have a packed agenda: the fight against terrorism, the Middle East’s multiple wars, the refugee crisis and Egypt’s anemic economy. But what is unlikely, at least publicly, is any discussion of the plight of Aya Hijazi. – Washington Post Mohamed Soltan, an American who was imprisoned for nearly two years in Egypt, says he is optimistic that President Trump will do a better job than former President Barack Obama in securing the release of the other U.S. citizens detained by the military government in Cairo. – Washington Times An Egyptian human rights lawyer said on Monday he had launched an appeal against a court ruling which backed Cairo's proposed transfer of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia. - Reuters FPI Board Member Robert Kagan and Michele Dunne write: A new administration offers a chance for a new look at this old and increasingly dysfunctional relationship. It’s time to get off autopilot. Sissi is coming to Washington to ask for more: more money, more weapons, more respect. President Trump should ask some hard questions about what the United States has been getting for the $77 billion it has already spent. – Washington Post Jackson Diehl writes: Sissi, however, can’t do the right thing if Trump doesn’t bother to ask for it — and the new president has so far offered no hint of interest in the Hijazi case, or in Sissi’s relentless and vicious campaign against U.S. influence in Egypt more generally. Which is strange: You’d think a country that swallows billions in U.S. aid while blatantly persecuting Americans would raise the ire of a president who supposedly puts America first. – Washington Post Brian Katulis, Daniel Benaim, and Mokhtar Awad write: A White House photo cannot be an end in itself. It must be a means to deliver tangible results that secure American interests and help Egypt progress. What matters most is not what the two presidents say to each other on Monday, but how the governments and people of both countries follow up. - Politico
What Cairo needs that Washington does not have. @erictrager19
https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-trump-cut-a-deal-with-egypt-1490914260 Can Trump Cut a Deal With Egypt Washington has a strong hand to ask for real concessions. By ERIC TRAGER The relationship between Egypt and the U.S. will look sunnier on Monday, when President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi visits President Trump in Washington. Under the Obama administration, Mr. Sisi’s authoritarianism made him persona non grata. The key question: Can Mr. Trump translate the warm welcome into a “good deal” for America? This isn’t the first U.S.-Egypt “reset.” Upon taking office, President Obama courted Mr. Sisi’s predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, who had resented the Bush administration’s “freedom agenda.” Mr. Obama emphasized convergence with Egypt on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, while playing down human-rights concerns. Mr. Obama’s priorities shifted, however, once Mr. Mubarak was overthrown in 2011. The White House backed Egypt’s democratic transition and cooperated with the Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi, who won the 2012 presidential election. ____________ "...“We agree on so many things,” Mr. Trump said as he sat beside Mr. Sisi in the Oval Office. “I just want to let everybody know in case there was any doubt that we are very much behind President el-Sisi. He’s done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation. We are very much behind Egypt and the people of Egypt. The United States has, believe me, backing, and we have strong backing.” In that one moment, Mr. Trump underscored a fundamental shift in American foreign policy since he took office. While his predecessors considered authoritarians like Mr. Sisi to be distasteful and at times shied away from them, Mr. Trump signaled that he sees international relations through a transactional lens. If Egypt can be a partner in the battle against international terrorism, then in Mr. Trump’s calculation, that is more important to the United States than concerns over its brutal suppression of domestic dissent. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/world/middleeast/-egypt-sisi-trump-white-house.html Chuck Frielich writes: The latest negotiating ploy, the “outside-in” approach, in which the Arab states press the Palestinians to go forward on negotiations, is no more than a rebranded tactic unlikely to achieve more today than it has in the past. In the end, if Trump decides to truly engage, it must be an all-out effort, or else its back to conflict management at the margins of a problem that can only get worse with time. – The American Interest
Robert O’Brien writes: Under President Trump, United States policy has reverted to its traditional approach toward Israel as a strong American ally. Nevertheless, Resolution 2344 is an established UN precedent that purports to turn Israel and hundreds of thousands of its citizens into “flagrant” violators of international law. As such, it is an unmistakable diplomatic and international blow to Israel that may have a lasting impact on the nation. – The National Interest |
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