LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
July 02/12

Bible Quotation for today/the Spirit of your Father speaking through you
Matthew 10,16-25: "‘See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. ‘A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
Dr. Walid Phares/Pluralism Is Key/01 July/12
Pointless days for Hezbollah/By: Michael Young/Now Lebanon/July 01/12
Turkish deterrence/Ana Maria Luca/Now Lebanon/July 01/12
Syria: From ethnic cleansing to enclave partitions/By: Harry Hagopian/Now Lebanon/July 01/12

Pluralism Is Key
Dr. Walid Phares is an advisor to the United States Congress on the Middle East and the author of "The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East."
JUNE 25, 2012/President elect Mohammed Morsi leads the "Freedom Justice Party" (FJP) an emanation of the Muslim Brotherhood, thus he is bound to implement the political agenda of the Party and the ideological principles of the Brotherhood. These are, according to his own supporters and his opponents, the parameters that would frame his Presidency. But he is also aware of the several political realities of Egypt today, particularly since the downfall of Mubarak. I think that Morsi will act with pragmatism at first, but will eventually attempt to implement his fundamental set of goals, which aims to establish an Islamist state. He cannot abandon the long term objectives of his movement, which have been clear and historically stable since the late 1920's. But many of these policy objectives, particularly those with social and constitutional ramifications on women’s status and the Copts, would encounter international outcry. The key for success is a massive reform from within the Islamist movement. If Morsi’s team forms a wide government, inclusive of all political and religious strides, and allows pluralism in politics, arts and culture, he could create the context and framework for a historic dialogue to begin. In that case, his Party (FJP) would have to emulate the AKP Party of Turkey first, then lead the Muslim Brotherhood as a whole, to a major reform reminiscent of a Perestroika. In that case, Morsi could unify Egypt and address its deep cleavages. But he may chose to gain time using political pragmatism and not proceed with fundamental reforms aimed at pluralism. He might be able to start a dialogue between former opponents to the traditional military government and dialogue with the current army, but ultimately refrain from strategic liberal reforms. In this case divisions would run deeper.
The key for success is a massive reform from within the Islamist movement first, as a way to give rise to a liberal democracy. The next few years will depend on this historic decision.

Pointless days for Hezbollah
Michael Young, June 29, 2012 /Now Lebanon
Lebanese burn tires after a Shia man was arrested for setting fire to the Al-Jadeed TV station. Were the protesters mobilized by Hezbollah and Amal to spur a sense of communal solidarity? (AFP photo)
You have to wonder when Prime Minister Najib Mikati will use the single weapon he has, a threat of resignation, to impose some order on that ghastly assemblage some insist on calling a government.
When March 14 demanded that Mikati resign some weeks ago, the idea sounded, justifiably, terrible. The fighting in Tripoli had started, and it was no time for Lebanon to enter into a governmental vacuum. Nor, in the present political mood, is there any chance that Hezbollah and Michel Aoun will accept a technocratic, or a neutral, government to replace the one that they dominate. In other words, the proposal of March 14 was political, designed to embarrass Mikati, and made in the full knowledge that it would not be taken seriously.
However, Mikati has done himself no favors since then. The situation has morphed from ruinous into catastrophic. A major part of the problem is that Hezbollah appears to be going through a schizophrenic seizure, as it tries to both stabilize the political system and has simultaneously destabilized it, so as to guarantee that it retains the initiative over a perceptibly disgruntled Shia community.
What does Hezbollah offer its flock these days? It dominates the government, but cannot even give its supporters electricity. In recent weeks the cutting off of roads has troubled the party, as it has struggled to contain the spontaneous rage, and it may even be seen as partly responsible for the abysmal condition of the power sector.
At the same time, the crime rate in Lebanon, especially in Shia districts, has sharply risen. Shia throughout the Middle East, notably in the Gulf, have been targeted as pariahs because of their alleged sympathy for Iran. Hezbollah has been unable to liberate the Shia pilgrims kidnapped in Syria. And almost daily there seems to be an armed confrontation in the southern suburbs, usually between untamed Bekaa families, which Hezbollah has been unable to prevent.
Does this mean the party is losing support? Perhaps not in a decisive way. But it does show that Hezbollah can be just as mediocre when it comes to governing Lebanon as anyone else, even as the patience of the Shia community is fraying. The party can manage big issues, but has never been adept at managing smaller bread and butter issues.
Which makes you wonder: Is the mobilization of Shia youths in recent days on behalf of Wissam Alaeddine, the arsonist caught after trying to set the Al-Jadeed TV station alight, an effort by Hezbollah and the Amal Movement to create an artificial crisis that re-imposes communal solidarity and detracts from their own shortcomings?
It’s difficult to say, but what a disgraceful step down it has been for the purported paragons of the Resistance. Here they are deploying rowdy youths to block roads, making life miserable for all Lebanese, in order to release someone caught on tape committing a crime. The Israelis must be quivering in their boots. Next year in Jerusalem!
And who is it that the Hezbollah and Amal boys are actually demonstrating against? The very government that Hezbollah put together and wants to keep in place until parliamentary elections next year. When the party’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, affirms that he aspires to a “strong state,” he has to explain how the forcible release of Alaeddine would enhance the state’s credibility.
For that matter, how might the Mikati government, or the security forces and army, look after such a decision? Mikati must resign if this blackmail stands. If Alaeddine walks, then I walk, the prime minister has to warn Nasrallah. And if Mikati is reminded that Shadi Mawlawi, who was detained in Tripoli several weeks ago, was released thanks to pressure from the Sunni street, then the prime minister should ask Hezbollah whose side they’re on, before reminding them that Mawlawi’s arrest was a provocation by Syria in coordination with the party, using an organ of the state over which Hezbollah has influence.
Some might argue that Mikati doesn’t have the latitude to resign. The prime minister would respond that he cannot, in good conscience, leave behind a void. Both statements may be true. But the cabinet’s worst enemy is the cabinet itself. We are watching spontaneous combustion, and Mikati is being burned beyond recognition.
Hezbollah’s strategy is to win a parliamentary majority in the elections next year. The party’s intention is to anchor itself in the political system to better navigate through the aftershocks of the Assad downfall. Yet everything its followers are doing is alarming the Christians, whose electoral choices will decide who controls parliament. No one has been more discredited by the road closures and the ambient thuggery in Beirut than Michel Aoun, while his son-in-law has become a lightning rod for discontent in the streets.
Intimidation is Hezbollah’s way of setting markers around its Lebanese foes at a time of great volatility. The Al-Jadeed assault was a reminder to media outlets that criticism of Hezbollah and Amal, or interviews like those with Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, who has been unsparing in his attacks against Nasrallah, is forbidden. But Hezbollah cannot possibly emerge from these sordid scraps looking better off. Rarely has the party seemed so pointless, and one gets a sense that its followers, loyal as they may be, sense this.
*Michael Young is opinion editor of The Daily Star newspaper in Lebanon. He tweets @BeirutCalling.

Al-Asir’s Sit-In ‘Continuous’, Osama Saad Refuses ‘Targetting Resistance from Sidon’
Naharnet/01 July 2012,
The Imam of Sidon’s Bilal bin Rabah mosque Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir stressed that he will not suspend the sit-in that he has been staging in the city until his demands are met.
Al-Asir met Sunday with a delegation of Sidon shopkeepers who informed him that 450 merchants support his demonstration, urging him not to cancel the sit-in.
He said that the people of Sidon can tolerate hardships “but they refuse living without their dignity.”
For his part, Popular Nasserite Organization head Osama Saad and his supporters distributed flowers on to passengers returning from the South to Beirut.
Saad told MTV that “this step comes to reassure our choice of resistance” adding that the arms issue “should be discussed exclusively within the framework of a Lebanese defense strategy.”
Refusing to comment on al-Asir’s sit-in, he told Al-Manar Television that “we will not allow anyone to make Sidon a stage for targeting the resistance.”
Al-Asir told the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat earlier: “The sit-in will be followed by future steps that I will not disclose.”
“We have not yet seen any tangible steps that would help incorporate non-state arms in a national defense strategy,” he added.
Asir is demanding an end to the “hegemony of illegitimate arms,” saying that he will not put a stop to the Sidon sit-in until this goal is achieved.
“We have no doubt that Hizbullah is not pleased when a small number of Sidon residents become the talk of the country,” he said in response to a question that the sit-in has not affected the party.
Sources close to Hizbullah meanwhile condemned to the daily An Nahar in remarks published on Sunday the “fundamentalist approach adopted by Asir.”
They accused Arab intelligence of supporting the cleric “in order to create strife in Lebanon.”
“We are aware of such plans and we will not be lured into the trap,” they stressed.
Concerned sources also told An Nahar that the Army Command has taken the decision to prevent the demonstrators from blocking any part of the international road in Sidon.
The army has deployed patrols throughout the city to facilitate the people’s transportation, they added.
Furthermore, they did not rule out the possibility of security measures being taken to force the protesters to reopen the road and restore traffic on the main road in the city.
They noted however that such a decision requires an official decision, stressing that any security action will resort to peaceful measures.
Interior Minister Marwan Charbel had stated on Saturday that he is personally handling Asir’s sit-in in, saying that he is optimistic that the case will be resolved soon.
Asir had started his open-ended sit-in three days ago in protest against the “non-state arms in Lebanon.”

Aoun Says Jumblat Suffering from Inferiority Complex: Govt. to Blame for Security Unrest
Naharnet/01 July 2012/Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun reiterated that the adoption of proportional representation in the parliamentary electoral law will help reflect Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat’s real political weight, reported An Nahar daily on Sunday. He told the daily: “Jumblat is suffering from an inferiority complex. He fears the Christians, Shiites, and Sunnis because they outnumber him.”He added that proportional representation is the best solution for the long run. “Proportionality provides sectarian and mental stability,” he explained.A dispute had recently erupted between the two MPs, with Aoun declaring on Tuesday that he will no longer respond to the PSP chief’s “insults.”The Druze leader had recently accused the FPM and Energy Minister Jebran Bassil for the ongoing electricity crisis in Lebanon. Aoun, Hizbullah, and AMAL have voiced their support for proportional representation, while Jumblat and the Mustaqbal bloc have expressed their opposition to it. Addressing the resumption of the national dialogue, the FPM leader said: “The talks are aimed at discussing a defense strategy, not Hizbullah’s arms.”“A defense strategy encompasses the army and resistance and it also seeks to maintain peace and stability on the internal scene,” he explained. National dialogue was resumed on June 11 after a 19-month absence. It held another session on June 25 and is set to hold its third meeting on July 24. Commenting on the recent security instability in Lebanon, Aoun noted: “The chaos can be blamed on the government due to its lax approach in tackling such affairs.” Told that his Shiite allies are staging demonstrations against the frequent power cuts, Aoun replied: “This isn’t my responsibility. I am performing my duties.”“I have a reform plan and I am serving the people,” he declared. “Some ministers and MPs do not care about electricity, but they prefer darkness in order to continue criticizing the energy minister,” explained Aoun. “No power on earth can stop us from pursuing our projects. They may delay them, but they will eventually be implemented,” he said. On the Syrian crisis, he noted: “Syria is ruled by a secular system, which is closest to democracy.” “The United States and Europe will lose the battle against the Syrian regime,” he added. “They will reach a settlement or their influence in the Middle East will come to an end,” he noted.

Turkey scrambles jets after Syrian helicopters approach border
July 1, 2012 /Turkey scrambled fighter jets after Syrian helicopters flew close to the border, the army said Sunday, hiking tensions following last month's downing of a Turkish plane.Four F-16 warplanes took off from Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey after Syrian helicopters flew four miles closer to the border than is normal, the statement said.Two more F-16 jets scrambled from a base in Batman after one helicopter approached the border in the south of Mardin province.There were three incidents but there had been no violation of Turkish airspace, the army said.-AFP/NOW Lebanon

Lebanese Army reopens Mount Lebanon highway following protest
July 1, 2012 /The Lebanese army on Sunday reopened the international highway in the Mount Lebanon town of Jumhour after protesters briefly blocked it, the National News Agency reported.
The report said the demonstrators were protesting against a decision to move a power transformer from Al-Jomhour Power Company to Zahrani in South Lebanon. Change and Reform bloc MP Naji Gharios attended the protest and said the demonstration aimed to voice the people’s rejection of “partial solutions to the electricity [crisis].”He also called on the government to implement solutions presented by Energy Minister Gebran Bassil. As for the attempts to move the power transformer to Zahrani, Gharios said: “This is a partial solution and [it aims to supply] power to one area at the expense of [others].”
-NOW Lebanon

Israeli PM, president send letters to Egypt's Morsi
July 1, 2012 /Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sent a letter to Egypt's newly-elected President Mohamed Morsi, urging him to uphold a peace treaty between the two countries, a source told AFP on Sunday. The letter, first reported by Israeli daily Haaretz on Sunday morning, "stressed Israel's desire to continue cooperation and to strengthen the peace," an Israeli source said on condition of anonymity. The letter was sent "in the last few days," the source added, with Haaretz reporting that it was delivered to Morsi, who ran as the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, via the Israeli embassy in Cairo. Israeli President Shimon Peres, a Nobel peace laureate, sent Morsi a message of his own on Sunday, his office said, in which he wrote that "contrary to war, peace is the victory of both sides." Congratulating Morsi on his election, Peres also expressed hope "for continued cooperation with you, based upon the peace accords signed between us more than three decades ago and which we are committed to preserve and develop for future generations of both our people."
Haaretz said that Netanyahu in his message "offered to cooperate with the new government in Cairo and expressed... hope that both parties will observe the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty."
Netanyahu "emphasized that honoring the agreement is in the interest of both countries," the newspaper added, saying the Israeli premier had also wished Morsi good luck in his new role.
Haaretz said Israeli officials, after consulting with Washington, had decided to put off attempts to organize a phone call between Morsi and Netanyahu, but said the Israeli leader had dispatched an envoy for meetings with Egyptian security officials. Netanyahu's letter repeated much of the content of a statement he made publicly after Morsi was officially declared the winner of Egypt's first post-uprising presidential election. "Israel values the democratic process in Egypt and respects the results of the presidential election," he said in the statement at the time.
"Israel hopes to continue cooperation with the Egyptian government on the basis of the peace treaty," which the two countries signed in 1979. Israel has watched warily as the Muslim Brotherhood has gained increasing power in post-uprising Egypt, concerned about the future of the cold but key peace the two neighbors have maintained since signing their peace deal.-AFP/NOW Lebanon

Syrian opposition says “some positives” in transition deal
July 1, 2012 The Syrian opposition spokesperson on Sunday welcomed "a few positive elements" in a transition deal hammered out by world powers aimed at resolving the bloody conflict, but said the plan was too vague. The final declaration of the meeting on Syria "seems to suggest a few positive elements," Basma Qadmani, spokesperson for the opposition Syrian National Council, told AFP. But she added: "Important elements remain too ambiguous... and the plan is too vague to foresee real and immediate action."
At a meeting Saturday, world powers agreed a plan for a transition in Syria that could include current regime members, although the West did not see any role for President Bashar-al Assad in a new unity government. Both Russia and China, which have twice blocked UN Security Council resolutions on Syria, insisted that Syrians themselves must decide how the transition should be carried out rather than allow others to dictate their fate. However, both Moscow and Beijing signed up to the deal. "There are two positive elements," that emerged out of the talks in Geneva Qadmani said in a telephone interview.
"The first one is that the final declaration says that the participants agree to say that the Assad family cannot rule the country any more, and therefore the Assad family cannot lead the transition period."
"The second positive element is the agreement that the transition should comply with the legitimate aspirations of Syrian people", she explained. "For us this means that Assad should go because Syrian people have already said that they want Assad to go." But she underlined that the plan was too vague for immediate action. "We are totally opposed to the fact that stopping violence is not a precondition to the political process." Though the SNC had yet to publish its official position, former chief Burhan Ghalioun described the plan as a "farce," according to the opposition coalition's official Facebook page.
Ghalioun called a "mockery" the notion that Syrians should negotiate with "their executioner, who has not stopped killing, torturing... and raping women for 16 months."
"The Syrian people only have one option now, and that is to fight a war of popular liberation," he said. The Local Coordination Committees, which organizes protests on the ground in Syria, said the outcome showed once again the international community's failure to adopt a common position. It called the transition accord "just one version, different in form only, of the demands of Russian leaders allied to the Assad regime and who cover it militarily and politically in the face of international pressure." "The new agreement contains obscure turns of phrase that give the Assad regime's gangs another chance to play for time in suppressing the popular revolution and to silence it through violence and massacres."-AFP/NOW Lebanon

Dispute between UNIFIL Troops, Civilians in Maroun al-Ras
Naharnet/30 June 2012/United Nations Interim Force spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said on Saturday that a dispute occurred between peacekeeping troops and the residents of the southern border town of Maroun al-Ras .According to the National News Agency, the UNIFIL peacekeepers were taking snapshots of the area when several civilians came across and took the camera from them.
The UNIFIL and the Lebanese army are working on resolving the incident and recover the camera, the NNA said.
However, security sources told Future News that a UNIFIL patrol was intercepted by members from Hizbullah.

Lebanon's Grand Mufti Sheikh Qabbani Urges Abductors of 11 Lebanese Pilgrims to Release them
Naharnet/30 June 2012/Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani urged on Saturday the abductors of the 11 Lebanese Shiites pilgrims to release them as soon as possible.
“We haven’t received any new information on the abducted men,” Qabbani said after holding a meeting with the families of the 11 men in the presence of AMAL and Hizbullah representatives.
He pointed out that the families of the abductees vowed not to obstruct the general life in the country, voicing his support to their demands.
Qabbani stated that he will exert his efforts until the 11 pilgrims are released.
The 11 Shiite pilgrims were abducted by gunmen in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo on May 22 as they were returning from a pilgrimage to Iran.
The rebel Free Syrian Army has denied involvement. No news has been heard of the men except for a video aired on al-Jazeera TV earlier this month in which the abductees claimed they were doing well.
Asked about the recent protests in Lebanon, he slammed all forms of demonstrations that disrupt life in Lebanon.

Charbel Optimistic on Ending Asir’s Sit-in Peacefully
Naharnet/30 June 2012/
Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said Saturday he was personally taking charge of negotiations with Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir to persuade him into ending the sit-in that he launched in the southern city of Sidon earlier in the week.
In remarks to Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) and As Safir daily, Charbel said he was personally negotiating with the Imam of Sidon's Bilal bin Rabah mosque to end the sit-it after al-Asir defied calls by the leaders of the city to reopen the highway and said he will keep his supporters on the road pending a solution to Hizbullah’s arms.
The interior minister also told An Nahar newspaper that he understands al-Asir’s demands but “he knows that the issue of arms is being discussed at the (national) dialogue table.”
“I am optimistic that the issue will be resolved with Sheikh al-Asir soon,” Charbel said.
A security source told As Safir that a security solution to the sit-in that has obstructed transportation in Sidon is the last resort, but did not set a timeline for any forceful opening of the road.
Political negotiations to end the crisis are ongoing and could lead to the expected result, the source said.
No one is against the right to hold a protest as a peaceful and a civilized way of expression but at the same time no one has the right to obstruct the people’s lives, he added.
A security source also told An Nahar that the Lebanese army doesn’t interfere in such cases and it is up to the Internal Security Forces to end the sit-in.
But if there was a clash, then the army could support security forces in resolving the dispute, the source said.
The ISF took extra measures in the area of the sit-in and the roads that lead to it on Friday.
The army also reinforced its presence in Sidon’s entrance, conducting patrols at the Awali bridge area and the seafront Corniche after reports that al-Asir could move his sit-in to Riyad al-Solh street near the stadium, which has remained the only main road open for traffic.

Morsi Sworn in as President, Urges End to Bloodshed in Syria
Naharnet/30 June 2012/Mohammed Morsi took the oath of office on Saturday to become Egypt's first Islamist president and its first elected head of state since Hosni Mubarak's overthrow last year.
The ceremony took place in the constitutional court rather than parliament, the result of an ongoing tussle with the military that took charge after Mubarak's overthrow and insists on retaining broad powers now.
"I swear by the Almighty God to sincerely preserve the republican order and to respect the constitution and law, and completely care for the people's interest," he said at the ceremony at the court.
Morsi had wanted to take the oath before parliament, but the military has disbanded the Islamist-dominated house following a court order.
In an address at Cairo University following his swearing-in, Morsi thanked the military for seeing through the presidential elections but pointedly mentioned the "elected parliament" several times.
"The elected institutions will return to fulfilling their roles. And the great military will devote itself to the task of protecting the country," he told his audience, which included the military's leader, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi.
He then set out some of his international and domestic objectives, saying he would be a "servant of the people" in a "democratic, modern and constitutional state".
Internationally, he said Egypt respected would back the Palestinians and called for an end to the bloodshed in Syria.
"I announce from here that Egypt, its people and presidential institution stand with the Palestinian people until they regain all their rights," he said.
"We support the Syrian people. We want the bloodshed to stop," he added.
He repeated that Egypt would respect its international treaties, in an allusion to its 1979 peace accord with Israel.
"We carry a message of peace to the world, accompanied and preceded by a message of right and justice."
Morsi, who resigned from the Muslim Brotherhood after winning the election this month, had spoken out forcefully in support of Palestinians during his campaign.
The Brotherhood is vehemently opposed to Syrian president Bashar Assad and supports the uprising against him.
But as president, Morsi is not expected to radically change his country's foreign policy, especially towards Israel, in which the military is expected to exercise its clout.
In a Friday speech before tens of thousands of supporters in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the revolt that ousted Mubarak, he said that he would insist on retaining all the presidency's powers.
"I renounce none of the prerogatives of president," he said.. "You are the source of power and legitimacy," he told his supporters.
"There is no place for anyone or any institution ... above this will."
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) assumed parliament's powers after disbanding it and also formed a powerful national security council headed by the president but dominated by the generals.
The military also reserves the right to appoint a new constituent assembly should the one elected by parliament be disbanded by a court decision expected on September 1.
The Muslim Brotherhood insists that only parliament can appoint the assembly.
Media reports said Morsi was consulting a cross-section of Egyptian society before appointing a premier and a cabinet made up mostly of technocrats.
In a meeting with newspaper editors reported by most dailies on Friday, he pledged there would be "no Islamization of state institutions" during his presidency.
Morsi has already met SCAF head Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, as well as a delegation from the Sunni body Al-Azhar and another representing Egypt's Coptic Church.
International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde has told him the lender stands ready to help Egypt, whose tourism-dependent economy took a battering in the upheaval that accompanied and followed Mubarak's overthrow, a spokeswoman said on Friday.
Morsi became the Brotherhood's candidate to succeed Mubarak only after its first choice, Khairat El-Shater, was disqualified. He beat Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak's last premier, with 51.73 percent of the vote.
Many had written him off as an uncharismatic substitute, saying he would be unable to muster widespread support.
But the powerful Brotherhood mobilized its formidable resources and supporters behind Morsi, who was appointed last year to head its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party.
In a 2005 election, which gave the Brotherhood one fifth of the seats in parliament, Morsi kept his seat. But he was soon arrested and jailed for seven months after taking part in protests supporting reformist judges. By the 2010 election, Morsi had become a spokesman for the Islamists and a member of their politburo.
SourceAgence France Presse.

World Powers Agree Syria Deal, U.S. Eyes Post-Assad Regime
Naharnet /30 June 2012/..World powers agreed Saturday to a plan for a transition in Syria that could include current regime members, but envoy Kofi Annan doubted if Syrians would pick leaders "with blood on their hands".U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made it clear that Washington did not see any role for President Bashar Assad in the new regime, even though there was no explicit call for him to cede power. "Assad will still have to go. He will never pass the mutual consent test," said Clinton. While Annan did not name names and said it was up to the Syrians to decide who they want in a unity government, he added: "I would doubt that Syrians... would select people with blood on their hands to lead them."
The deal came despite initial pessimism from participants about the prospects of the Geneva talks due to deep divisions between the West and China and Russia on the future of Assad.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said following the meeting that Moscow had convinced other parties to accept that the transition would be decided by Syrians and that no party should be excluded from the process."How exactly the work on a transition to a new stage is conducted will be decided by the Syrians themselves," he said.
"There are no demands to exclude from this process any one group. This aspect had been present in many of our partners' proposals. We have convinced them that this is unacceptable," Lavrov said.
A long-time Syria ally, Russia is loathe to cast Assad aside, even as relations between Moscow and Damascus have cooled. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi also stressed that "outsiders cannot make decisions for the Syrian people."As divisions threatened to scupper talks earlier Saturday, Annan had warned at the opening of the meeting that history "will judge us all harshly" if world powers failed to bridge their gaps on how to end the bloodshed in Syria and chart a transition. A failure to unite also raised the spectra that the conflict that has claimed 15,800 lives over 16 months in the strategic Middle East country could spill over to the region and expose the world to fresh threats, said the former U.N. chief. "History is a somber judge -- and it will judge us all harshly if we prove incapable of taking the right path today," Annan told the five permanent Security Council members -- the United States, Russia, Britain, China and France -- as well as regional powers Qatar, Turkey, Kuwait and Iraq.

Turkish deterrence
Ana Maria Luca/Now Lebanon
June 30, 2012 /Since a Turkish Phantom F-4 jet was downed by the Syrian army over the eastern Mediterranean Sea on June 22, the world’s eyes have been on Ankara. The incident raised fears of an escalation between Syria and Turkey, which have been at loggerheads for the past year and a half since Ankara started sheltering Syrian refugees, activist and rebel fighters who use Turkish territory to get supplies and organize their rebellion against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
But despite Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s warning that his country would not hesitate to respond to any military aggression coming from Syria, analysts say Ankara is not ready for an open, armed conflict.
Almost a week after Syria’s downing of the Turkish jet, and with NATO’s blessing, Turkey started a policy of deterrence: It sent missile batteries, tanks and troops to the border with Syria to form a “security corridor.” In return, the Syrian government deployed Thursday close to 200 tanks north of Aleppo near the Turkish border, according to opposition Free Syrian Army sources.
For the Syrian opposition, the incident brought hopes that Ankara might intervene militarily and might establish the humanitarian corridor the rebels need to defend civilians and reorganize their armed insurgence. But Ankara denied any intention of doing so. A source in the Free Syrian Army told NOW Lebanon on condition of anonymity that some opposition members are disappointed with Turkey’s prudence. “They are not helping the uprising much; they are just trying to defend themselves,” the source said.
Ankara is not ready for an open conflict, said professor of International Relations Oytun Orhan from the Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies in Ankara. “At least not for the moment, although the attack was obviously premeditated. The official results of the investigation show it very clearly, despite the fact that the Syrians have another version,” he said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the Turkish military jet had only crossed into Syrian air space for five minutes. After being warned by the Turkish radar, not the Syrian, the jet changed direction. It was shot down by the Syrian army over 10 minutes after it had left Syrian air space. The Syrian version is different: The jet was spotted flying at low altitude around one mile from the Syrian coast, and the Syrian army fired without warning because it was surprised. The plane crashed 10 kilometers away from coastal village of Om al-Tuyour, say Syrian officials. However, Turkish radars and recordings showed the jet went down in international waters.
“This makes it obvious that the attack was premeditated and that the order came from the top. It was not a spontaneous reaction to a Turkish violation of Syrian air space, as the strike came after the jet had left Syria,” Orhan said. After studying the incident in detail, he said that there is one more factor that played a role in the incident: Russian support. “It is difficult to assume that Syria has the military capability to instantly detect a short violation and immediately shoot down the target,” he said, noting the Israeli Defense Forces’ bombing of a camp near Damascus and a building in Deir al-Zor in 2007, which Tel Aviv claimed was a nuclear reactor. The Syrians weren’t able to shoot down any of the Israeli jets that carried out the mission.
But in mid-June, the head of the main Russian arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, announced that Moscow had shipped to Syria the Pantsyr-S1, a radar-guided missile and artillery system capable of hitting warplanes at altitudes well above those typically flown during bombings; Buk-M2 antiaircraft missiles, capable of striking airplanes at high altitudes; and land-based Bastion anti-ship missiles that can fire at targets 180 miles from the coast.
Orhan says that Damascus decided to show its new military capabilities because it needed to prove to the international community that its military is still able to control the country’s territory and to the internal population that it’s still able to fight the rebels.
Although the incident caused some public distress in Turkey, polls showed that a large majority of Turkish citizens do not support military intervention in Syria and are in favor of a calmer approach. Orhan agrees that the government, loyal to its voters, cannot afford to make any radical move. “I think the Turkish government is aware of where the population stands. It will stick to striking precise targets, such as Syrian anti-missile radar stations or military bases, in case other incidents occur,” he said.
*Luna Safwan contributed reporting.

Syria: From ethnic cleansing to enclave partitions?
Harry Hagopian, June 28, 2012
Now Lebanon/Less than a week ago, at a colloquium entitled Violence in Syria & the Assad Regime organized by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) think tank in Washington DC, Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member John McCain addressed a group of analysts and interns about President Bashar al-Assad’s indiscriminate use of violence against the Syrian population. During his talk, the Senator excoriated the non-interventionist approach of the Obama administration to the conflict in Syria and called upon the US to assist the opposition groups more directly with logistics and organizational skills.
Following his speech, four key panelists discussed those viewpoints. In their own statements, as well as in the Q&A session, they pondered over the creation of safe havens that might inevitably lead to mission creep and thus entangle a war-weary America further into the Syrian debacle. They surmised that such heightened involvement could also lead to unintended military consequences and end up creating even uglier and more unpredictable scenarios. They discussed the fate of the chemical and biological weapons stocked by the military authorities in depots near Homs and Hama. They speculated about the increasing lethal force of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) operations when compared with the hopelessness of the Syrian National Council (SNC) as an umbrella opposition body. The panelists then elaborated on the seeming inaction of the US administration toward the mounting Syrian deaths and on the disparity between General Martin Dempsey’s statement as Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs on June 7 that he does not know what Syrian scenario to opt for, when President Obama himself had stated on August 18, 2011 that President Assad must step down.
However, I was struck by three less recycled themes that those top-notch analysts addressed on the panel. Firstly, panelists were of the opinion that the Kofi Annan Plan was dead and that none of its six points had been properly implemented to date. Not only so, they also agreed that the plan was in fact stillborn, and one analyst suggested ruefully that it had simply rolled back the teeth of the earlier plan of the Arab League and had wasted precious weeks, which the Syrian war machinery had seized in order to pummel different towns and villages.
Secondly, while they disagreed on whether Syria is already in a state of civil war (something that Donatella Rivera, a crisis situation expert with Amnesty International, denied on June 8, as did Hanin Ghaddar, Managing Editor of NOW Lebanon in her recent op-ed entitled “The fabrication of civil war in Syria”, they averred that the specter of civil war served the purposes of the Assad regime in that it deterred the West from any robust intervention. Nonetheless, according to the panelist Brian Fishman, Counterterrorism Research Fellow at the New America Foundation and Research Fellow with the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point, jihadi elements such as the new and ostensibly legitimate Jabhat al-Nusra li Ahl Ash-Sham had begun operating in the country.
But perhaps the boldest postulation by those panelists—at least for a Western readership—was that President Assad holds two plans up his sleeve. Plan A pre-supposes he will manage to browbeat the protesters into submission, regain full control of Syria and in so doing rescue his totalitarian regime. However, in the event that this plan failed, the Assad regime would then default to Plan B. This is more sinister in that it envisages the partition of the country and the creation of enclaves along the coastal areas and mountainous regions of Latakia, as well as in central parts of Syria. In the opinion of one panelist, this is why key locations such as Haffe, Talbisseh, Rastan, Houle, Baniyas, Homs, Hama, Idlib and the Sahl al-Ghab area are being pounded repeatedly. The regime and its acolytes are trying to drive Sunnis away from those centers toward the east of the Orontes River—or modern-day Nahr al-Asi. (To date, for instance, 600,000 Sunnis have reportedly fled Homs). Once cleansed of Sunnis, the Alawites would inhabit those segregated areas and effectively lead to a Syria that becomes partitioned into enclaves or worse, cantons.
I have serious misgivings about the feasibility of such a plan and question whether the major powers would indeed allow it to happen irrespective of its popularity in some quarters. After all, a wholesale fragmentation of Syria would neither be tenable politically nor sustainable demographically and could well lead to a domino tumble in a region whose boundaries are largely artificial. Such an outcome is inimical with both American and Russian interests.
In my opinion, the present Syrian imbroglio was best described by Peter Harling, Egypt, Syria & Lebanon Project Director at International Crisis Group. In an interview with Voice of America on June 17, he defined the standoff in those stark terms: “Those who support the opposition believe that over time it can turn the tables against the regime on the ground, and those who support the regime believe that it can defeat this uprising. All parties pay lip service to the cease-fire, to a political solution, to the Kofi Annan mission, while fundamentally I think wanting to win the battle on the ground.”
I concur with Harling that further international conferences per se will simply not untangle this logjam but will exact more deaths and wreak further mayhem. It is a firm and concerted response by the international community alone that can break this standoff. However, such a response will not be for altruistic reasons and is predicated on a tangible symmetry of forces on the ground coupled with a political opposition that becomes a viable, cohesive and coherent body not prone to manipulation or egocentrism. This combination of endogenous and exogenous elements joining forces might well succeed in galvanizing the international community to coerce the Assad regime into relinquishing its hold on power.
Sadly, the dividing line between activism as a protest movement and its concomitant maximization within clear political structures remains yawningly wide. So I dread that the new political enchiridion is still some way off from being written for Syria.