Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources For October 05/13

Bargaining Chips In Iran's Nuclear Program And Syria/Walid Choucair/Al Hayat/October 05/13

On Arab Inaction/Husam Itani/AlHayat/Al Hayat/October 05/13

The Deep State: The Cause Of Downfall And Salvation/Mohammad Salah/Al Hayat/October 05/13

All with Al-Assad/Zuheir Kseibati/Al Hayat/October 05/13

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources For October 05/13
Lebanese Related News

Report: Fatah al-Islam Inmates Plotting Mass Breakout from Roumieh|
Miqati Meets Ban: Lebanon to Facilitate Passage of Humanitarian Aid to Syria
Mansour: We Will Prove to World that Israel is Taking our Share of Offshore Wealth|
Israeli Drill near Fatima Gate, Troops Photograph Lebanese Army Posts
Berri Tells World Bank VP Int'l Support for Lebanon 'Insufficient'
Basbous Orders Recruitment of ISF Reserves for Active Duty
Girl Killed as 6-Year-Old Brother Fires Hunting Rifle in Baalbek
U.N. to Send Envoy to Lebanon to Address Means to Deliver Aid to Civilians in Syria
Non-Essential Staff Return to U.S. Embassy in Beirut
Syrians, Lebanese Job Competition Adds to Tensions
Lebanese Delegation to Indonesia Starts DNA Testing, Seeks to Complete Legal Procedures

Miscellaneous Reports And News
Pope says Church should rid itself of 'worldliness'
Pa. gov: Gay marriage is like marriage of siblings
 How Iran is winning the U.S. government shutdown
Poll Shows Most Israelis Support Iran Strike
Israel slams 'racist' EU rights resolution on circumcision
Assad Warns Turkey Will 'Pay Dearly' for Rebel Support
Inspectors report progress on Syria chemical weapons
Insight: After chemical horror, besieged Syrian suburb defiant
Experts Report Progress over Syria Chemical Weapons
France Offers Right to Asylum to Protesting Syrian Refugees
Clashes as Thousands of Morsi Backers March in Cairo
Egyptian riot police fire tear gas at protesters
Russia 'Disappointed' No Putin-Obama Talks in Bali

On Arab Inaction
Husam Itani/AlHayat/Al Hayat
In their difficult moments, the Syrians, Palestinians, Lebanese, and Iraqis send calls of distress from the injustice of their kinfolk or foreign enemies, howling “we were let down by the Arabs and Muslims.”
In addition, the denunciation of Arab inaction began to have writers, commentators, and poets, all contributing to an entire industry promoting the claim that the current Arab condition and regimes were responsible for the deterioration of the situation throughout the nation and its overpowering – along with its weak populations – by its enemies and tyrants.
However, looking into these sayings with a little insight leads to conclusions which might be completely different, i.e. closer to calls for the generalization of the inaction that is the object of the complain, as being one of the best formulas for inter-Arab relationships.
In reality, none of the “let down” populations carried out their uprisings, revolutions or civil wars to please the Arab and Muslim brothers. Indeed, each event witnessed in the region firstly had its domestic reasons and necessities, related to the interests of the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Lebanese, the Yemenis, and others. And seeing the Arabs respond to the call to support the Syrian revolution for example, based on the conditions set by the opposition, is as unlikely as seeing rain in the Empty Quarter.
This is due to the fact that the revolution represented - at its core – everything that is rejected by the Arab governments capable of offering the type of aid that is wanted by the Syrian opposition. This means an aid exceeding the provision of food and medicine and reaching the level of performing a political and military role in support of the revolution, provided that no interference is seen at the level of its course and that these governments retreat after offering their aid, as though it were some sort of political and military charitable work that has no other purpose.
This insistence on urging the Arabs to offer the aforementioned type of aid is astonishing, considering that the conditions of this call are similar to the assistance offered by Abu Mu’tasim the Abbasid to a woman from Amorium during the ninth century. In other words, the intervention should be based on gallantry, magnanimity and chivalry – as mentioned by Abu Tammam in his poem – without any consideration for obvious interests and political and strategic revenue.
As for the real Arab aid in modern history, it is closer to a disaster, from the wars of Mohammad Ali and his son Ibrahim Pasha in the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula, to Saddam Hussein’s rescuing of the Kuwaiti population (as per the Baathist account of Saddam’s occupation of the neighboring state), going through the intervention of the Egyptian troops in Yemen in the sixties and the Syrian presence in Lebanon throughout thirty years. This is not to mention the series of cold Arab wars and divisions into fighting axes.
Hence, the condemnation of Arab inaction appears to be the product of fake awareness, based on the whimsical and fictive interpretation of inter-Arab relations in a way going against the simplest definitions of foreign policy, even for states that have not yet achieved their full national potential in terms of institutions, laws and constitutions, as is the case in our Arab countries.
This whimsical vision features similarities with a wider and older practice, that of evading responsibility and blaming the imperialistic West and international Zionism for our tragedies, from civil wars to technical and educational backwardness, while refusing to recognize our failure to confront these problems. Consequently, the evasion of the urgent tasks (such as the unification of the Syrian opposition or the ending of Palestinian division) is blamed on Arab inaction, which one can say is far better than any Arab intervention in the affairs of the afflicted brothers throughout history.
Although the blaming of others for our calamities is an old practice, and although this saying has spread and become prominent in the Arab cultural and media space, one must confirm that assuming national political responsibility is much more useful than seeking a Mu’tasim to achieve the “ultimate conquest” then return to Samarra satisfied.
 

Bargaining Chips In Iran's Nuclear Program And Syria
Walid Choucair/Al Hayat
It would have been silly in the first place to expect quick and clear results from the commotion over a likely military solution to the Syrian crisis, because of the US-Russian agreement over getting rid of Syria's chemical weapons, and after other developments: the flurry of US-Iranian openness, as part of bringing about better conditions for negotiating over Iran's nuclear program as long as an American military option has been downplayed by the US itself; and Tehran's resorting to, before and during meetings in New York at the end of last month, a campaign of propaganda in which it tried to entice the west, to convince public opinion and lead it to reducing sanctions, which are a burden on its economy.
In the same way, it would have been premature to base calculations on the notion that an American military strike against the Syrian regime was a certainty. The economic interests of the US and its rivals were at the forefront of reasons behind ruling out this option.
The constant in all of this is a path of negotiations that may have been seriously opened between regional and international powers, one that will be difficult to back away from. It was necessitated by the Syrian regime's mistake in using chemical weapons, and it is natural for this path to encounter ebbs and flows, and stumbling here and there.
The US-Russian agreement restored international cooperation, in the framework of the Security Council and United Nations with regard to the Syrian crisis. However, for this cooperation to continue to the point of outlining solutions to the crisis, it needs to go farther than accord between Moscow and Washington. The former is not the only player in Syria, although it enjoys sufficient influence to prevent the Syrian regime from employing its usual tricks, to empty the agreement with the US of its content. Iran's influence in Syria equals that of Russia, especially in the military arena in the Levant. This raises the question of whether one should wait for the repercussions of the US-Iranian rapprochement before expecting anything of the US-Russian agreement on chemical weapons, in terms of moving ahead with a political solution to the Syrian crisis via the Geneva 2 peace conference. If it is a given that Iran expects to be invited to this conference because of its role, after being excluded from Geneva 1, Paris and Ankara are openly saying that Iran should be present, after they were opponents of this during Geneva 1. Those responsible for the conference, the UN, Moscow and Washington, do not have the slightest idea about which other parties should attend. Saudi Arabia was excluded the first time around, to justify excluding Iran. This time, its attendance should be linked to a minimum of accord on what Geneva 2 will produce, especially in terms of the mechanism of establishing a transitional government with full executive powers. Syrian President Bashar Assad should have accepted this, but he has tried to fight it or get around it ever since June 2012. Iran, which is determined to see Assad survive in power until after his term ends in May 2014, has supported him in these efforts. If it will be difficult to see agreement between the Arab and Saudi view over Assad's departure by turning over power to a transitional executive authority, and the view of Tehran that he should stay. Will Washington and Moscow take the initiative to put forward a formula for what the conference will result in, and a mechanism for a transitional period in Syria? Is such a thing possible, in light of the Gulf dispute with both Russia and the US? The questions over continuing the agreement over chemical weapons in terms of a political solution to the crisis are never-ending, and they represent how limited expectations are.
As for the recent openness between the US and Iran, it seemed like the brakes were put on when the Revolutionary Guard criticized the telephone call between President Hassan Rohani and Barack Obama. Then, Tehran declared its intention to see a visit by Rohani to Saudi Arabia, and was obliged to justify some of what he said in New York. All of these constituted signals that this openness requires some internal Iranian moves to be made, while going forward requires following a policy of step-by-step. If American diplomats have begun to understand this, and believe that it is better for them to deal with Rohani like a man who knows what the Supreme Leader wants, and what the stance of the Revolutionary Guards and decision-making centers in Tehran is, to take his steps, then those in decision-making centers believe that rapprochement with Washington requires a negotiation process that could last a decade. If the negotiations are about Iran's nuclear program, and thus the sanctions, Iran's regional role will be exempted from the discussion. Will the rising level of crisis in the region allow Iran's role to be separated from the nuclear issue, especially since Iran's role in the Syrian crisis is being put on the table these days?
In summary, the aspects of cooperation and openness on these two fronts do not indicate that it will be easy to accept a grand bargain that covers both issues. All sides, and especially those making up the Arab world's political order, need to arrange their bargaining chips, and it will not be surprising if the proxy wars continue.

Report: Fatah al-Islam Inmates Plotting Mass Breakout from Roumieh
by Naharnet /Islamist inmates at Roumieh prison are plotting to carry out a mass breakout from the facility, As Safir newspaper reported on Friday, a day after security forces thwarted an attempt to smuggle explosives to an inmate.“We are not able to estimate the quantity of explosives, arms and communication devices that were smuggled to the Islamist Inmates,” a security source told the newspaper. There are around 190 Fatah al-Islam prisoners at the prison's bloc B. “We don't have a political cover to raid the bloc that the Islamists reside in,” the source added. Thursday's attempt to smuggle explosive material inside sandwiches by a prison guard to inmate Charbel Shalita wasn't a first, the source added. Shalita, the murderer of Roland Chbeir, was delivering the explosives in turn to the Islamist inmates, the daily reported. 150 grams of explosive material were discovered in the sandwich. The guard that was detained confessed that Shalita had requested that he obtain the explosives that can be used to heat water. Shalita was arrested in 2012 after confessing to the murder of his friend Roland Chbeir in October of that year. Roumieh, the oldest and largest of Lebanon's overcrowded prisons, has witnessed sporadic prison breaks in recent years and escalating riots over the past months as inmates living in poor conditions demand better treatment.

Miqati Meets Ban: Lebanon to Facilitate Passage of Humanitarian Aid to Syria
by Naharnet/ister Najib Miqati expressed Lebanon's readiness to facilitate the passage of any humanitarian aid to the neighboring country Syria, hoping that the international community would continue supporting Lebanon to confront the refugee crisis. Miqati called on the international community to support Lebanon through practical measures to help it confront its economic woos and the humanitarian challenges caused by the large influx of Syrian refugees. He lamented during talks with U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon in New York that Lebanon can't bear alone the burdens imposed by the refugee crisis. Miqati voiced hope that the International Support Group for Lebanon would continue its meetings and aid Lebabon. World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim warned recently that Lebanon is heading towards a “disaster” over the alarming influx of Syrian refugees into its territories. For his part, the U.N. chief noted “the importance of continued united international support, including the critical need to assist Lebanon in meeting immediate and longer-term requirements resulting from the growing presence of refugees from Syria.”Ban stressed the importance “that the United Nations attaches to preserving Lebanon’s stability and security, including through the policy of disassociation, as well as preventing a return to impunity in Lebanon.” The meeting was held in presence of Lebanon's ambassador to the United Nations Nawaf Salam. caretaker Minister of Social Affairs Wael Abou Faour said from Geneva that Lebanon counted by Monday evening some 769,000 Syrians registered or in the process of registering as refugees, pointing out that on Monday morning the number had been 763,000. Including all the unregistered Syrians, the actual number is around 1.3 million, he said, or about 30 percent of the Lebanese population. Monday's Geneva conference will form three committees to resolve the Syrian refugee crisis – one that deals with finances, the other works on sending them to other countries and the third to find refuge to them inside Syria.

Girl Killed as 6-Year-Old Brother Fires Hunting Rifle in Baalbek
by Naharnet/ A little girl was killed on Friday when her brother accidentally fired a weapon he was toying with in the Bekaa city of Baalbek. “The toddler Layal Shalha was accidentally killed by a hunting rifle that her 6-year-old brother was toying with inside their home in the city of Baalbek,” MTV reported. It said Layal was two years and seven months old. However, LBCI television said the girl was four years old.

Mansour: We Will Prove to World that Israel is Taking our Share of Offshore Wealth
by Naharnet/Caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour accused Israel of seeking to take Lebanon's share of its offshore gas and oil wealth, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Friday. He told the daily: “We will prove to the world that the Israelis are taking our offshore wealth.” He stressed that Lebanon will resort to diplomatic and international laws to demonstrate Israel's violations, adding: “We will not abandon our rights.” “The Israeli threats against Lebanon are useless,” he declared. Moreover, Mansour said that Lebanon has been monitoring the oil and gas file ever since the offshore reserves were discovered.
“We will demonstrate our claim to this wealth through international legal means,” he stated. On Tuesday, caretaker Energy Minister Jebran Bassil lashed out at Israel, considering that it cannot prevent Lebanon from protecting its oil reserves as he accused it of digging a well 5 kilometers from Lebanese offshore reserves. Lebanon and Israel are bickering over a zone that consists of about 854 square kilometers and suspected energy reserves there could generate billions of dollars. Bassil had previously warned in July that Israel’s discovery of a new offshore gas field near Lebanese territorial waters means the Jewish state could siphon some of Lebanon’s crude oil. In March 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 34.5 trillion cubic meters of recoverable gas in the Levant Basin in the eastern Mediterranean, which includes the territorial waters of Lebanon, Israel, Syria and Cyprus. Lebanon has been slow to exploit its maritime resources compared with other eastern Mediterranean countries. Israel, Cyprus and Turkey are all much more advanced in drilling for oil and gas. The formation of the Petroleum Authority in November was the first major step in future oil exploration since parliament passed a law in 2011 setting Lebanon's maritime boundary and Exclusive Economic Zone. The country will witness the first oil exploration process in 2015 and it will take a year to enter the production stage.

Pope says Church should rid itself of 'worldliness'
(AFP) - Pope Francis on Friday called for the Catholic Church and its faithful to rid themselves of earthly concerns like St Francis of Assisi during a pilgrimage to the saint's Italian hometown. Speaking in the hall where the medieval saint is said to have taken off his robes in a gesture of humility, Francis said the Church should also "divest" itself and return to spiritual basics. "The Church, all of us should divest ourselves of worldliness," a visibly emotional pope said, adding: "Worldliness is a murderer because it kills souls, kills people, kills the Church." "Without divesting ourselves, we would become pastry shop Christians, like beautiful cakes and sweet things but not real Christians," he said. The Argentine pope also referred to the migrant shipwreck tragedy off the Italian island of Lampedusa on Thursday in which 111 people are confirmed to have died and scores more are missing.
The world "does not care about the many people fleeing slavery, hunger, fleeing in search of freedom. And how many of them die as happened yesterday! Today is a day of tears," he said. "Let us hear the cry of those who weep, suffer or die because of violence, terrorism or war in the holy land Saint Francis loved so much, in Syria, in the entire Middle East, in the world," the pope said in his homily.
The pope became the first to adopt the name of St Francis when he was elected in March, saying he was inspired by the saint's humility and his teachings on peace and protecting God's creation. On his visit, the pope met with many poor and disabled people being aided by Catholic charities. He told a group of handicapped children that their "wounds need to be listened to and recognised". In an address to the poor, he said: "Many of you have been stripped down by this savage world that does not give jobs, that does not help that does not care about children dying of hunger." Some 100,000 pilgrims and over 1,000 journalists followed the Argentine pope as he visited the sites associated with the saint in the picturesque hilltown of Assisi in Umbria in central Italy. The son of a wealthy cloth merchant, Francesco Bernardone grew up an arrogant and war-mongering young man before his spiritual enlightenment. The saint, who was born in 1182 and died in 1226, famously renounced earthly riches and donned a sackcloth to live like and for the poor. The saint's gesture of renunciation by derobing took place in the bishop's palace of Assisi on April 12, 1207 when his father asked him to return the riches he had given away to the poor. Francis has called for a "poor Church for the poor" and has said he wants to overhaul the 2,000-year-old institution, making it less "Vatican-centric" and closer to ordinary people. He was visiting Assisi with the eight cardinals from around the world he has handpicked to advise him on overhauling the scandal-hit Church government.
The council of cardinals is an unprecedented instrument of Church government that could end up reforming the Vatican, giving more power to local churches and making the Church less hierarchical.
The eight held their first closed-door meetings with the pope this week in which the Vatican said they discussed how to "refresh" the Church. The head of Italy's crisis-hit government, Prime Minister Enrico Letta, was in the first row of the crowd attending Francis' homily Friday. "Let us pray for the Italian nation, for everyone to look at what unites rather than what divides," Francis said after the two men shook hands.
St Francis, who is also the patron saint of Italy, was said to have heard God tell him: "Francis, go and repair my house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins" -- a reference to the Church.
That is the same message that cardinals expressed for the new pope at the dramatic conclave in which he was elected earlier this year, following a wave of financial scandals and child abuse cases.
Francis's visit to Assisi is different from that of his predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI because it is focused on the saint's message of poverty rather than that of inter-religious peace.
The trip is the pope's third in Italy after he visited the island of Lampedusa in July where he called for more tolerance of immigrants and Cagliari in Sardinia in September when he denounced "an idol called money".

Pennsylvania governor: Gay marriage is like marriage of siblings
Associated PressBy MARK SCOLFORO | Associated Press – FILE - This Wednesday, July 31, 2013 photo shows Gov. Tom Corbett at Dow Chemical's new research-and-development facility in Collegeville, Pa. Corbett compared the marriage of same-sex couples to the marriage of a brother and sister during an appearance on a morning TV news show, Friday, Oct. 4, 2013. The Pennsylvania governor was on WHP-TV in Harrisburg speaking about gay marriage when an anchor asked about a statement his lawyers made in a recent court filing, comparing the marriage of gay couples to the marriage of children because neither can legally marry in the state. Corbett, a lawyer, former federal prosecutor and state attorney general, also said he does not think a pending legal challenge to Pennsylvania's ban on same-sex marriage belongs in federal court. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
View PhotoAssociated Press/Matt Rourke - FILE - This Wednesday, July 31, 2013 photo shows Gov. Tom Corbett at Dow Chemical's new research-and-development facility in Collegeville, Pa. Corbett compared the marriage of …more same-sex couples to the marriage of a brother and sister during an appearance on a morning TV news show, Friday, Oct. 4, 2013. The Pennsylvania governor was on WHP-TV in Harrisburg speaking about gay marriage when an anchor asked about a statement his lawyers made in a recent court filing, comparing the marriage of gay couples to the marriage of children because neither can legally marry in the state. Corbett, a lawyer, former federal prosecutor and state attorney general, also said he does not think a pending legal challenge to Pennsylvania's ban on same-sex marriage belongs in federal court.
The Pennsylvania governor was on WHP-TV in Harrisburg speaking about gay marriage when an anchor asked about a statement his lawyers made in a recent court filing, comparing the marriage of gay couples to the marriage of children because neither can legally wed in the state. "It was an inappropriate analogy, you know," Corbett said. "I think a much better analogy would have been brother and sister, don't you?"
Corbett, a former federal prosecutor and two-term state attorney general, also said he does not think a pending legal challenge to Pennsylvania's ban on same-sex marriage belongs in federal court.
"The Supreme Court left it up to the states to determine under their laws as to what is and isn't a marriage," Corbett said. "The federal court shouldn't even be involved in this. But if they say they are, then they're going to make a determination whether the state has the right to determine that a marriage is only between a man and a woman and not between two individuals of the same sex."
Mark Aronchick, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in that case, called Corbett's remarks "insensitive, insulting and plainly wrong." "In other words, some kind of incestuous relationship," Aronchick said. "He's just out of touch on this one. Gay people marry for the same reasons straight people do — to express their love and to declare their commitment before friends and family."A Corbett spokesman offered no immediate comment Friday morning. Ted Martin with Equality Pennsylvania, which advocates on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, called the governor's remarks "shocking and hurtful" and asked him to apologize. Corbett's attorneys in August included a reference to children in a legal brief involving same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses. In the court filing opposing allowing same-sex couples to intervene in the state's lawsuit to bar a suburban Philadelphia county from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the lawyers made an analogy to a pair of 12-year-olds, saying if the children were issued a marriage license and tried to defend it in court, they wouldn't be taken seriously because the license was never valid. Corbett later rejected that analogy, saying the case revolved around the question of whether a public official had "the authority to disregard state law based on his own personal legal opinion about the constitutionality of a statute." A state judge sided with Corbett in that case, ordering the clerk to stop issuing the licenses. Other challenges to the same-sex ban are also pending in state courts.
A hearing on the federal challenge to the same-sex marriage ban is scheduled for Wednesday in Harrisburg.

Insight: After chemical horror, besieged Syrian suburb defiant
ZAMALKA, Syria (Reuters) - Sixteen-year-old Mohammad al Zeibaa lost his entire family in the sarin gas attack east of Damascus six weeks ago, surviving the world's deadliest chemical weapons strike in a quarter century only because he was out working a hospital night shift. Mohammad's father, who rushed to the scene to help survivors, died from the effects of the sarin, as did his mother and five brothers and sisters who stayed at home. The teenager now lives with a surviving cousin amid the ruined streets and half-collapsed buildings that scar the Zamalka neighborhood and other districts of the Ghouta region on the edge of the capital.
Perhaps numbed by more than two years of bloodshed, he sheds no tears over the August 21 sarin attack which killed hundreds of people and brought the United States and France to the verge of air strikes against President Bashar al-Assad's forces. "We've been seeing people martyred every day - why not my family?" he said. Young men surrounding him nodded in agreement.
Already it is hard to tell exactly where the chemical rockets fell in the rebel-held Ghouta, a mix of suburban sprawl and farmland, because damage from conventional bombardment has reduced the area to a grey monochrome of rubble and wreckage.Street after street is littered with smashed concrete and bent metal. One building, destroyed before the chemical attack, is sliced in half from top to bottom. On one floor, a kitchen can be seen complete with cabinets and washing machine. On another, the headboard of a double bed and a bedroom commode. At the site where residents say a sarin-loaded rocket fell, only mounds of rubble stand amid scorched earth, remnants of houses and patches of garden ringed by narrow streets that were so packed with bodies on the night of the attack that they said it was impossible not to step or drive over the dead.
The rebels and their Western backers blame Assad's forces for the attack, which they say killed 1,400 people. Authorities say rebels carried it out to provoke Western intervention in a civil war which has already killed more than 100,000 people.
COMMUNITY BESIEGED
Like most people in Ghouta, Mohammad vows to remain steadfast until Assad's overthrow - a still distant goal after military gains by the president's forces. He has become an integral part of a community struggling to administer itself despite clashes with government forces and a 13-month government siege that leaves everyone hungry and is starting to starve the youngest and most vulnerable. Every day, Mohammad shows up to work at the field hospital near his home. Thin and child-like for his age, he is too small to bear arms but he resembles the men with his stoic appearance, broken occasionally by a quick smile.Like everyone else he eats many meals without bread, a staple now in short supply, and finishes perishable food quickly because it cannot be refrigerated. The rebel area has been off the electricity grid for a year.
At night he spends his time in the dim half light of rechargeable torches and the droning of electricity generators, along with their noxious fumes. To get around, Mohammad uses a bicycle due to fuel shortages and lack of public transport. At home his landline telephone stopped working long ago and he has no use for a cell phone because it is hard to get a signal. If he needs to communicate, he uses a walkie-talkie to contact a dispatcher and ask him to relay messages. Most of the rebel fighters are further west, on the front line near the Damascus ring-road which separates the rebellious eastern suburbs from the center of the capital. But during a short drive through the area, rebels could be seen two or three to a motor bike, their guns slung over their shoulders. Others walk around, congregating around rebel checkpoints. Almost every family has a gun, sometimes laid openly on a table or hanging by the door. Such is life in the rebel territory linked to central Damascus only via two government checkpoints. There, soldiers confiscate food, baby milk and medicine and at times refuse entry even to people who have queued for hours. Residents, especially the men, cannot leave their district and venture into government controlled Damascus without risking indefinite detention when they try to pass the checkpoint. For food they rely on locally raised poultry and meat, as well as olives, citrus, eggplant and green peppers. But in May, government bombardment set ablaze this year's wheat crop. The handful of doctors complain that dysentery and a lack of antibiotics endanger lives. They say the siege is starting to cause malnutrition among pregnant mothers and children, and that some babies have already died of starvation.
CHILD NURSES
The one thing that East Ghouta has in abundance is men willing to fight. But supported by financing from underground charities and fund-raising by families abroad, it has also set up a network of pro-rebel organizations tackling the community's medical needs, communications, humanitarian relief, education and sanitation, and ensuring something that approximates to the rule of law.
With most schools either bombed out or unsafe, residents have organized "revolutionary education" centers for small children. Teenagers, however, go to work. The most popular choice for boys and girls as young as 14 is medical work, where volunteers are needed and parents feel their children are as safe as they can be in a war zone. Teenage nursing assistants receive on-the-job training in field hospitals and quickly find themselves dispensing medicine and helping to treat battlefield casualties. When the sarin was unleashed on the East Ghouta, dozens of teenage nurses administered injections of atropine - a sarin antidote - to survivors. And many did so at their own peril. Sixteen-year-old Faris, whose home is a short bike ride away from where the chemical rockets fell, woke early the following morning unaware of the calamity that had occurred in the night.
He learned about it at 7 a.m., on his way to the bicycle shop where he works before his shift at the field hospital. He rushed to the hospital and treated dozens of people. "I was shocked. I'm still remembering things that I didn't at that time," he said, sitting up in his bed at the field hospital, his head loosely bandaged and his complexion pale after he too was wounded in the subsequent bombardment.
"For example, today they were telling me that one of my neighbors, Abu Leila, had died in the chemical attack. And after they told me, I remembered that I had seen his body that morning when I arrived at the field hospital," he said. Shortly after he arrived and helped remove dozens of bodies and attend to dozens more survivors, many of them foaming at the mouth and struggling to breathe, Faris developed minor sarin gas symptoms including nausea and eye irritation. No one wore proper gas masks, which are unavailable in Ghouta. Some first responders used surgical face masks or wet towels at the site in a vain effort to protect themselves.
A NIGHT LIKE ARMAGEDDON
Survivors still suffer from insomnia, severe headaches and the mental fog that they say began after their exposure to sarin gas. Everyone around Zamalka speaks of a night of horror that they liken to Armageddon.
Mohammad, who was on duty at the hospital that night, said he heard an unusual-sounding rocket shortly before 2 a.m. It seemed to land without the blast of mortar or tank shells. It was not long before the dispatcher on the walkie-talkie started saying there had been a chemical attack, and ordered volunteers and medics to the scene to help. Then came chaos. As people started to move bodies and take survivors to the field hospital, another rocket carrying sarin hit the crowd, killing four medics and many volunteers.
Locals say they have become accustomed to army shelling whenever they congregate, a practice they say is done on purpose in order to target the largest number of civilians.
No one was sure how many chemical rockets fell, but fierce shelling with conventional explosives continued all night, killing more volunteers and sarin survivors, especially those who fled to higher floors seeking fresh air, escaping the heavier gas which lingers at ground level.
Survivors describe the events as a blur, punctuated by moments of nightmarish lucidity. There was the graveyard that gave up its dead as relentless bombardment pounded its grounds. There were dead animals - goats, sheep and cats, and a tree under which 300 birds lay on the ground, one survivor said.
There were living people mistaken for dead, thrown in among the bodies awaiting burial, until a movement of the head or the faint sound of their moaning saved them. People insist they took  extra care that day to ensure that no body was lowered into the mass grave before a final confirmation of death by one of the few doctors there. They continued to bury their dead for 16 straight hours, then finding more bodies trapped inside homes for several more days during which fierce government bombardment continued. Many of the dead were entire families. Some died in their sleep, or together in the living room. One family of five died huddled in a bathroom, apparently seeking shelter from the gas. Most of the dead were identified by a relative, a friend or a neighbor. But many were newcomers, Syrians who had been displaced from elsewhere. "We found entire families dead in their homes, and no one in our community knew who they were," said an army defector and media activist who used the nom de guerre Mohammad Salahedinne.
One family had scribbled the name of their town, Jarba, on the wall of their living room, and that was how local people figured out their place of origin. Mohammad recalls giving atropine injections to dozens of survivors brought into the field hospital that night including, unsuccessfully, his own father. Asked to name the fallen in his family, he began with the distant relatives first, and continued in a soft but matter-of-fact voice.
"Sheikh Rashad Shams died, and his wife Baraa Nadaf. Shifa Shams. Shayma Shams. Mawada Shams and a boy she was due to give birth to in a week. Those were my maternal uncle's family. "Then my paternal uncle's family: Anas al Zeibaa, Mahmoud and Ahmad al Zeibaa, and Khaled and Mashhoor, my cousins. And my parents, Nasib al Zeibaa and Moameneh Shams and, what's his name, Samer al Zeibaa, 21, the eldest. "Then Aya, Fatimeh, and who else? Oh yes, Asma al Zeibaa, and the last one Abdullah al Zeibaa."Asked who was his favorite, he smiled and said it was four-year-old Abdullah.
(Editing by Dominic Evans and Giles Elgood)

Egyptian riot police fire tear gas at protesters
Associated PressBy TONY G. GABRIEL | Associated Press
CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian riot police fired volleys of tear gas and locked down Tahrir Square and several other Cairo streets Friday as clashes briefly broke out in a rare push by Islamist supporters of the ousted president to take control of the iconic square.With lines of armored vehicles and barbed wire, troops sealed off the square and diverted traffic after the Muslim Brotherhood, the group from which ousted president Mohammed Morsi hails, called on its supporters to march there. Thousands of Morsi's supporters followed suit from different parts in the city, chanting "El-Sissi is the enemy of God" and "Down with the murderer!"
Those were references to Defense Minister Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi, who forced Morsi from power on July 3 after millions took to the streets demanding he step down. In its statements, the Muslim Brotherhood called Tahrir Square "the capital of the revolution." It is the birthplace of the 2011 uprising that forced longtime president Hosni Mubarak from power and led to Morsi's short-lived tenure.
Since Morsi's ouster, nearly 2,000 Muslim Brotherhood members have been arrested, its top leaders referred to courts over charges of inciting murder and violence. Morsi himself has been detained incommunicado.
The Brotherhood appears to be angling to endure a crackdown that — while painful — also helps keep group cohesion under the pressure of a shared plight. It has publicly stuck to its most hard-line demands — the reinstatement of Morsi as president and the restoration of the Morsi-era constitution.
Some Brotherhood members recognize the possibility for that has passed. But the group uses the demands to energize its members and keep up street pressure as leverage in any eventual negotiations, which could bring concessions like easing the crackdown or releasing jailed members. In an attempt to turn Oct. 6, a national holiday seen by Egyptians as a military victory in the 1973 war with Israel, into a milestone, the group called upon its supporters to converge into Tahrir Square in a show of force.
Meanwhile, state media and anti-Islamist private networks aired national songs around the clock along with documentaries of the war glorifying the military.
Protesters encircled security forces and army troops guarding Tahrir Square from two main entrances, one near Egyptian museum and a second from the square's southern edge. That prompted riot police to fire volleys of tear gas to send the demonstrators away. All the way to Tahrir Square, the protesters' chants against the military sparked clashes with civilians believed to be supporters of the military. Shots were fired and rocks were thrown.
An Associated Press reporter saw protesters pushed away by other Egyptians armed with sticks and bottles who chased them in the streets before the two sides started hurling stones just steps from the Egyptian museum.
"We will go protest and take all streets possible," said Mohammed Said, 45, during a march from the Dokki neighborhood to Tahrir. "We will get in Tahrir at any price."There was little sympathy for the protesters among bystanders in the area. "The Muslim Brotherhood won't be able to take the square. None of the people here stands with them," said Ahmed Youssef, a 59-year-old taxi driver. "I wish the state really enforces the state of emergency and outlaws all kinds of protests. We can't live normally this way. Is this the way to democracy?" he said. In southern Cairo, residents holding wooden and metal sticks formed a human chain and closed a bridge leading to the district of Manial, where the pavement on the two sides of the main road was demolished and other streets were littered with stones and broken glass. Another rally ended at a Defense Ministry building and a second at Rabaa el-Adawiyah mosque in eastern Cairo, where a pro-Morsi protest camp was violently dismantled on Aug. 14. Troops backed with armored vehicles beefed up security in the vicinity of the mosque, where protesters chanted slogans against the military.
Protesters flashed four fingers, their symbol in online and street campaigns for demonstrations. By nightfall, hundreds of protesters hurled stones at troops guarding the Defense Ministry. It was unclear if they would try to remain in the street after the curfew starts at 7 p.m. local time. Authorities declared a state of emergency in mid-August and imposed a night curfew in Cairo and several other areas to try to quell the violence.
Across the country, similar clashes broke out with police firing tear gas and gunshots in the air as residents and protesters clashed and threw stones at each other. A Health Ministry spokesman, Khaled el-Khateeb, said that eight people were injured nationwide. In the southern province of Assiut, a security official said 44 protesters were arrested in different towns following pro-Morsi demonstrations.
Earlier in the day, at least two Egyptian soldiers were killed in an attack by suspected militants on an army convoy east of Cairo.

Israel slams 'racist' EU rights resolution on circumcision
AFP –Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel slammed as "racist" and "anti-religious" Friday a resolution of the pan-European human rights body calling for regulation of religious circumcision practices. The Council of Europe resolution urged its 47 member states to ensure the latest medical and sanitary conditions are met during ritual circumcisions, which are often performed on boys at an early age in Judaism and Islam. It called for "dialogue between... medical doctors and religious representatives, so as to overcome some of the prevailing traditional methods, which do not take into consideration the best interest of the child and the latest state of medical art." The Israeli foreign ministry slammed the resolution, which passed by 77 votes to 19 with 12 abstentions on Tuesday, saying it fostered "racist trends." "After the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution against circumcision, Israel calls on the Council to rescind immediately the resolution," the ministry said. "Claims that circumcision harms young boys’ health and body are false, and do not rest on any scientific evidence," it added.
"This resolution casts a moral stain on the Council of Europe, and fosters hate and racist trends in Europe." Israel took particular objection to PACE's adoption of a single resolution dealing with both female genital mutilation and the circumcision of young boys on religious grounds. "Circumcision of male children is an ancient religious tradition... Any comparison of this tradition to the reprehensible and barbaric practice of female genital mutilation is either appalling ignorance, at best, or defamation and anti-religious hatred, at worst," the ministry said. Ritual circumcisions in Judaism, Israel's dominant religion, are usually carried out by a religious official specialised in the practice.

How Iran is winning the U.S. government shutdown
With U.S. sanctions monitors furloughed, it's a great time to launder some cash and crank up those centrifuges, Tehran By Peter Weber |/n about two weeks, diplomats from the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany will sit down in Geneva with their Iranian counterparts to discuss Iran's nuclear program. In a best-case scenario, Iran will agree to international oversight of its nuclear activities in exchange for the easing of tough economic sanctions.The sanction regime has significantly debilitated the Iranian economy, and is seen as the central factor behind Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's much-ballyhooed charm offensive. After a phone call between Rouhani and President Obama, Western diplomats are cautiously optimistic that a breakthrough on Iran's nukes might finally be on the horizon. But as with most issues, Republicans don't really trust Obama to get this right. Two months ago, the GOP-led House approved tighter sanctions against Iran. While that bipartisan bill awaits Senate action, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) has introduced another bill that would, among other measures, authorize Obama to use military force to prevent Iran from developing nukes. The idea, Franks tells The Guardian, is to strengthen the president's hands in the Geneva talks and "inject into the discussion the importance of Mr. Obama not making a bad deal — because a bad deal is worse than no deal at all."However, as it turns out, House Republicans may have just done Iran a potentially massive favor.
Thanks to the government shutdown, the two programs in charge of overseeing sanctions — the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) and the State Department's sanctions monitoring agency — have been "completely, virtually, utterly depleted," Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday. Furloughs at the NSA and CIA are also hampering intelligence on sanctions violations, she said. The Daily Beast's Josh Rogin and Eli Lake have some numbers that show the scope of the furloughs: 90 percent of the OFAC's self-explanatory Office of Terrorist Financing and Intelligence (TFI) are out, and only 30 of the 345 employees of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) survived the furloughs. FinCEN's network of banks and the OFAC "are two of the most potent tools the U.S. government has used to pressure Iran," say Rogin and Lake. So, what might a lapse in sanctions enforcement mean? In broad strokes, says CNN's Jamie Crawford, the furloughs mean the OFAC "is currently unable to sustain its core functions of issuing new sanctions against individuals and entities deemed to be assisting the governments of Iran or Syria, as well as terrorist organizations, narcotics cartels, or proliferators of weapons of mass destruction."
Mark Dubowitz of the pro-Israel Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is more specific, and more alarmist. "At a time where sanctions pressure is the only instrument of U.S. policy that is actually working to persuade the Iranian regime to negotiate over its illicit nuclear program, the Treasury furloughs could not be timed worse," he tells CNN. "With hyper-partisan politics sidelining Treasury's G-Men, Iran's Supreme Leader is getting his sanctions relief without giving up any nuclear concessions." Speaking to The Daily Beast, Dubowitz predicts that thanks to the furloughs, "the Iranians will engage in massive sanctions busting to try to replenish their dwindling foreign exchange reserves." If the OFAC isn't following Iran's money trail, he adds ominously, "you’ve extended the economic runway of the Iranian regime and increased the likelihood that they could reach nuclear breakout sooner rather than later." The State Department's Sherman says the U.S. sanctions cops have a little breathing room: "We believe that we have some time, but we don't have a lot of time."But nobody is arguing that this is anything but good for Iran.No wonder other countries are laughing at us.

Inspectors report progress on Syria chemical weapons
AFP –Damascus (AFP) - International inspectors were on Friday gearing up to disable war-hit Syria's chemical weapons programme after reporting "encouraging" progress in a day of meetings with regime officials. The regime and its armed opponents have both been accused of carrying out numerous atrocities in the 30-month conflict, which began as a popular uprising and has since snowballed into a full-blown war that has killed 115,000. In a television interview, President Bashar al-Assad again denied having perpetrated an August 21 chemical attacks on the outskirts of Damascus that killed hundreds and prompted Washington to threaten military action.
Syria's chemical arsenal -- to be destroyed under a UN resolution -- is in the hands of "special forces" who were the only ones capable of using them, Assad said.
"Preparing these weapons is a complex technical operation... and a special procedure is necessary to use them which requires a central order from the army chief of staff. As a result it is impossible that they were used," he said.
A team of inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the United Nations has been tasked with implementing the resolution to destroy the banned arsenal by mid-2014.
They arrived in Syria on Tuesday, and reported "encouraging initial progress" after a day of meetings with the authorities on Thursday.
The 19-member OPCW team faces a daunting task, as Syria is understood to have more than 1,000 tonnes of the nerve agent sarin, mustard gas and other banned arms at dozens of sites. Their immediate aim is to disable production sites by late October or early November using "expedient methods" including explosives, sledgehammers and pouring concrete, an OPCW official said. It is The Hague-based organisation's first mission in a country embroiled in a civil war. The conflict has forced 2.1 million Syrians to flee their homeland, and nearly another six million people are displaced inside the country, while hundreds of thousands are trapped in besieged towns and neighbourhoods.On Wednesday, the Security Council demanded "unhindered humanitarian access" across the conflict lines "and, where appropriate, across borders from neighbouring countries."Syria has blocked aid missions from those nations, saying supplies will go to rebels.Turkey will 'pay dearly' In the interview with opposition Turkish channel Halk TV, Assad said Syria's neighbour would pay for supporting the rebellion.
Turkey's parliament on Thursday extended for one year a mandate that would allow the country to send troops to Syria if necessary. "In the near future these terrorists will have an impact on Turkey. And Turkey will pay very dearly for its contribution," Assad said. Reacting to his remarks, anti-Assad protesters took to the streets on Friday in flashpoints across the country, under the slogan "Thank you, Turkey". Fierce battles meanwhile gripped Barzeh in northern Damascus, as troops pressed a campaign aimed at crushing rebel enclaves around the capital, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.In Hasakeh in the north, fighting between the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Kurdish forces left an unknown number of dead on both sides, the Observatory said. The monitoring group later reported several air strikes across the country, including in Yabrud near Damascus that was hit by five separate strikes. A man and woman were reportedly killed in the bombardment. The air force also struck Mayadeen in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, killing at least three people. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) meanwhile said tens of thousands of refugees fleeing Syria into Iraq in recent weeks have made an arduous journey by foot through the desert. "Most of the refugees arrive at the border on foot after a long journey through a desert valley in intense heat. Many have left everything behind: family members, homes, and belongings," it said. Some 60,000 Syrians have fled to Iraq since August 15.

Assad Warns Turkey Will 'Pay Dearly' for Rebel Support
by Naharnet/Syrian President Bashar Assad warned Turkey it will "pay dearly" for supporting rebels fighting to overthrow his regime, in an interview broadcast Friday on Turkish television. "In the near future these terrorists will have an impact on Turkey. And Turkey will pay very dearly for its contribution," Assad told the opposition station Halk TV. He was being interviewed over the presence of al-Qaida-linked rebels on the long and volatile border between the two nations. There are several hardline Islamist groups among the numerous rebel formations fighting in Syria. "It is not possible to use terrorism as a card and put it in your pocket. Because it is like a scorpion which won't hesitate to sting you at any moment," said Assad. Relations between once close allies Damascus and Ankara have deteriorated since a popular uprising which began in March 2011 in Syria snowballed into a full-blown conflict that has claimed more than 115,000 lives and forced millions to flee. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted conservative government has become one of the most fervent supporters of the Syrian rebellion. "All that he says about Syria and its people is a heap of lies, that is all... Erdogan is doing nothing but supporting the terrorists," said Assad. On September 17, Turkey downed a Syrian military helicopter that it said had violated its airspace, in a move Damascus said was aimed at heightening tensions between the two countries. Assad admitted the helicopter had violated Turkish airspace, but said it was justified to prevent "the infiltration of a large number of terrorists". He said the two pilots had been "savagely decapitated" by Syrian rebels who captured them when the helicopter came down on Syrian territory. Turkey's parliament on Thursday extended for one year a mandate that would allow the country to send troops to Syria if necessary. Turkey authorized military action against Syria shortly after a mortar attack fired from the neighboring territory killed five of its civilians in October last year. Since then, the Turkish military has retaliated in kind for every Syrian shell that has landed on its soil. Source/Agence France Presse.

The “Deep State”: The Cause Of Downfall… And Salvation
Mohammad Salah/Al Hayat
After having talked of legitimacy, the democracy of ballot boxes, the democratically elected civilian president and other such notions, the Muslim Brotherhood refuses to admit that the rule of Doctor Mohamed Morsi had failed to meet people’s hopeful expectations and disappointed those who had supported him and voted in his favor, from among non-Islamists and even from among the “Lemon Squeezers” – those who, although known for their stances in opposition to Islamists, were forced to vote for Morsi out of spite for Air Marshal Ahmed Shafik. The Brotherhood, even during the year in which it governed and controlled Egypt’s affairs, constantly rejected the accusations leveled at the elected president of failing to manage the affairs of the state, and adopted a discourse that warned against the media of “foreign agents”, against “the Pharaoh’s sorcerers” from among reporters and journalists, and against “Western agents” from among politicians and remnants of the former regime, “who seek to return to the past”. And it would always blame every failure on “meddling fingers”, “obstructionist parties”, and “institutions hostile to the Revolution”, reaching the conclusion that “the Deep State has been fighting against change, thwarting every achievement initiated by Mosri, and discrediting him among the people every time it feels that his popularity might be growing”.
Morsi himself never missed an opportunity, in his addresses and speeches to family and tribe, to hint and insinuate at times, and declare and state at others, pointing to specific names and parties, and accusing them of being involved in a plot to sabotage the Renaissance Project. He, along with all of the Muslim Brotherhood’s prominent figures and electronic committees, always sought to clear himself of accusations of failure, of falling short or of focusing on “Brotherhoodization” and giving it priority ahead of concerns for people’s needs and for the affairs of the state. And every time a crisis would erupt, responsibility for it would quickly be evaded by referring it to the “Deep State”, which is fighting the new regime and seeks to overwhelm it. No matter how diverse the crises might be, or how different their aspects and effects on people, the justification for the President and for the Brotherhood would always be the same. Thus, the “Deep State” has been the cause of the fuel crisis, rising prices, traffic congestion, judicial verdicts, security unrest, demonstrating protesters… and even the worsening garbage problem! This was to such an extent that, in one of his famous speeches, Morsi, after expressing his sympathy for citizens and his understanding of their anger at electric power cuts, told them that the reason for this was an employee affiliated with the “Deep State” who every day “pulls the plug” on their electricity!
All of this is well known, and people have come to understand its reasons. Indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters will never admit that the democratically elected President had failed to manage Egypt’s affairs, that his policies were among the reasons for the revolution against him, that “Brotherhoodization” made Brotherhood sympathizers turn against it, or that the greatest Arab country was being run from a suburban building located at the top of Mokattam Hills, home to the headquarters of the Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau. Let us leave aside all other reasons for the failure of the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, or the clash between the President and state institutions such as the Judiciary, the police, the army, and the media, or even his failure to manage the conflict with this “Deep State” and to subdue it, so that it may find itself forced to admit to the de facto situation. Let us instead take note of the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood believes what it says and is not pretending. Thus, after the Brotherhood has been overwhelmed by the “Deep State”, it now seeks to overwhelm the new government in the same way and with the same methods, and through the “Deep State” as well! Indeed, the Brotherhood is not just expressing its anger at the fact that Morsi was deposed and toppled in the form of protests or demonstrations, or even by inciting the West, foreign nations and international organizations, and by summoning foreign intervention. It has also resorted to “harassing” the people, and has sought to affect the way of life of Egyptians, to do harm to their means of livelihood and to obstruct their businesses, whether by blocking roads, gathering in metro stations, withdrawing funds from banks all at once, or placing obstacles before students in schools and universities, and other such actions that should make people, as the Brotherhood believes, rise up in a revolution against the new government! It is as if the “Deep State” were the cause for the downfall of any ruling regime, not just that of the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet the latter has failed to notice this time as well, just as it has failed to notice many other things in the past, that the “Deep State” stands against it whether it is in power or in the opposition, and thus that the cause of its downfall will never become its means of salvation.

All with Al-Assad!
Zuheir Kseibati/Al Hayat
All surprises have become possible and likely to be seen in the context of international political anarchy and games. And all crimes have become probable in our Arab region under the ceiling of misleading and lies, such as the one issued by a Syrian minister who believed that “all the Syrian people” insisted on President Bashar al-Assad’s stay in power, because the “heaven” of chemical massacres, the killing of 115,000 people, and the displacement of millions inside and outside the country are achievements that are specific to them.
In that same logic, the leader of Kremlin and the ally of the Syrian regime, i.e. President Vladimir Putin, has become a “peace hero” and a wise man who deserves a Nobel prize according to some Russians participating in the deceitful PR game. Hence, they believe that he spared the world a third cosmic war, regardless of the fall of another hundred thousand victims in the “heaven” of the steadfast regime in Damascus.
In parallel to the party of misleading and blatant lies, by which crimes are turned into virtues and in which the policies of the game of the nations has fallen, there is an Iranian-Israeli party of exchanged complaints that is only making more room in the region, its wars and tragedies for further lies. True, the Iranian foreign minister of the new mandate, i.e. Mohammad Javad Zarif, was right to accuse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of lying. But the minister may not have heard that some among the Iranians do not exclude President Hassan Rohani’s lying, as his tale contradicted the American one in regard to the backdrop of the cell phone diplomacy between him and President Barack Obama.
Between Rohani “the wolf” in Netanyahu’s opinion, Putin the “wise” in that of the simple Russians and Al-Assad who cannot be relinquished by “all the Syrian people despite everyone’s will” as per the minister’s testimony, the only truth in the region is the sea of blood seen in Syria and Iraq, the killings that are now being conducted on a daily basis in Egypt, Yemen and Libya, and the ones threatening to swallow Tunisia. Also true is the presence of dozens of brigades raising the banner of Islam while massacring the Muslims, claiming to resist the tyrants but killing only the civilians, and paving the way before the surrender of the Arab world to a new generation of dictators.
Once again, one must ask the following question: What do Putin, Rohani, and Netanyahu, i.e. the “wise man,” “the wolf”, and the liar, have to do with our causes? They are simply fighting over the Arabs’ corpse. In the game of nations, there is no pessimism, but rather a reality saying we have become a big zero, a thing which we never were even in the darkest days of colonialism. Dictatorship is rooted deep within our cells and we only topple one tyrant to confiscate his chair. Then the only freedom left is that of the successor to supervise the distribution of the spoils.
We have become a big zero and we still wonder: What does the Iranian nuclear file have to do with Iran’s extension of its hand and tongue to Bahrain while pursuing the regional deal for which it has been preparing for twenty years? What does Tehran have to do with Yemen, the “rights” of the Houthis, Hezbollah’s caretaker share in the affairs of the Lebanese state – or what is left of it – and the immunization of Nouri al-Maliki’s rule, regardless of the number of victims of the booby-trapped cars? And after Mahmud Ahmadinejad, what does Rohani have to do with the suppression of the Syrian revolution’s cause and the preparation of the cards for the deal in Geneva 2?
We have become a big zero and if one asks about the hundreds being killed every day in Iraq and Syria, the immediate answer is: This is fine. Iraq and Greater Syria are here to stay. Hence, the corpses become mere figures, at a time when violence does not differentiate between the rights of the victims, whether Muslims, Christians, Sunnis or Shiites. And what prevents the detonation of funerals? Are the killers not “liver eaters” as described by Putin? Minister Sergei Lavrov for his part is only worried about their alliance with those seeking the establishment of the Caliphate state.
Let us thank Putin for his extraordinary efforts in preventing a third world war. On the other hand, the ever-escalating bloodbath in Syria and Iraq, the displacement of the Christians from both countries, of the Sunnis from South Iraq and the Syrians from all of Syria, and the Lebanese’s burdening with the troubles of the refugees and their country’s map, are all outside the scope of interest of Kremlin and the other major actors.
We cannot - as a big zero - deny these Western actors’ concerns for the rights of the minorities, their compassion for the victims of the chemical weapons in Syria and the tears they shed in defense of the Syrian oppositionists’ rights. However, the revolutionaries mistakenly and naively believed the promises of the West, i.e. the protector of freedoms in the West alone, knowing that what is worse is the region’s affliction with the blindness of brigades that only produce armies of destruction and emirs of calamities.
In the presence of the latter, does the race between Obama, Putin, Netanyahu, and Rohani not become a project within the context of the game of interests?