Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources/September 04/13

Obama gains key House allies on Syria strike

Hezbollah chief discusses Syria with Iran's Boroujerdi

Iranian MPs Meet Top Officials, Nasrallah amid Call for Obama 'Wisdom' on Syria

Suleiman in Nice and New York this Month as Refugee Crisis Looms
Sleiman discusses Syrian refugees ahead of UN meet

Suleiman Calls for Political Solution to Syrian Crisis, Rejects Military Action
Aoun: Cabinet blocking oil extraction

Power Barge Orhan Bey Connected to Grid, Ready to Produce Electricity

Court of Cassation Adjourns Minkara Trial over Lack of Quorum

Report: Abou Faour Could Brief Hariri on Cabinet Deadlock

Report: Hizbullah and Other Groups Try to Infiltrate U.S. Intelligence

French intelligence pins attack on Syrian leader; Assad warns against Western military action

Arab Ministers to Meet Kerry on Mideast Peace Talks

Obama: Assad Must Be Held to Account
Syria's Assad warns foreign strikes would have repercussions
Israel says it conducts joint missile test with US over Mediterranean
Obama makes case to Congress, skeptics for US military force in Syria

UN: Syrian refugees exceed 2 million

Obama presses Congress as Syria refugee crisis mounts
Obama, Japan PM Discuss Syria
Explosion on Turkey-Syria border kills six: Turkish media
France's Hollande calls on Europe to unite on Syria crisis
G20 foreign ministers to attend Russia summit to discuss Syria

Israel Says Mediterranean Missile Launch Joint Test with U.S., Pentagon Assures 'Not Linked to Syria'

Britain's Cameron to Push G20 for Syria Solution

Syria Neighbors Brace for Refugees Fleeing U.S. Strike

Report: Cost of Syria Devastation Over $73 Billion

Report: Egyptian attack helicopters kill 15 jihadists in Sinai

Obama gains key House allies on Syria strike
By MICHAEL WILNER/J.post
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK -- President Barack Obama hosted leaders of the House of Representatives on Tuesday at the White House, calling for a "prompt vote... as soon as all of Congress comes back early next week." Obama gained important allies in House Republican and Democratic leaders John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi who, in a rare display of bipartisanship, agreed on the need to demonstrate to the world that America keeps its commitments and will enforce the longstanding ban on the use of chemical weapons.Boehner confirmed that a vote would be held the week of September 9, once House members reconvene in Washington.
But as of Tuesday, Obama administration officials still remained unclear how much support exists among House members for the resolution, with no one whipping votes and with Republicans and Democrats crossing over conventional party lines to form alliances of hawks and humanitarians, doves and libertarians.
"We recognize that there are certain weapons that, when used, can not only end up resulting in grotesque deaths, but also can end up being transmitted to non-state actors; can pose a risk to allies and friends of ours like Israel, like Jordan, like Turkey," Obama said before the meeting, "and unless we hold them into account, also sends a message that international norms around issues like nuclear proliferation don't mean much."
Obama said he was confident that the resolution would pass, and that he was comfortable with Congress changing its language to limit the scope and duration of the mission.
"The use of these weapons have to be responded to, and only the United States has the capability and capacity to stop Assad and to warn others around the world that this type of behavior is not going be tolerated," Speaker of the House John Boehner said after the meeting. "I am going to support the president's call for action," he said, calling on his Republican colleagues to do the same. "This is something that the United States, as a country, needs to do."Former Democratic speaker Nancy Pelosi will also support the president's call, though she notes that Obama does not need congressional approval-- even if the House votes against the resolution once it reaches the floor next week. "There are compelling reasons. The intelligence is clear that Assad perpetrated this attack of using weapons of mass destruction," Pelosi said. "Deterring their use is a pillar of our national security."
She said that "humanity drew a line decades ago" on WMD use, not first drawn in red by the US president; and that such use "cannot be ignored, or else we cannot say, 'never again.'"
Vice President Joe Biden was scheduled to travel to Florida on Tuesday, but postponed the trip to rally support in Congress for the resolution. Obama will still leave for Europe on Tuesday night for meetings in Sweden and the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg. One of six US Navy destroyers left the Mediterranean on Tuesday, its crew due home for a shift change. Russia sent an additional ship on Monday into the area that provides them with the capability of monitoring the transmissions and communications of US warcraft. The reconnaissance ship can detect once a Tomahawk missile has been fired, for instance, and determine its trajectory within seconds, granting them the ability to warn targets that a missile is incoming.

Hezbollah chief discusses Syria with Iran's Boroujerdi
September 03, 2013/The Daily Star/BEIRUT: Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah discussed an anticipated U.S.-led military strike on Syria with a senior Iranian official, a statement from the Lebanese party said Tuesday. The talks between Nasrallah and Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the chairman of the Iranian parliamentary committee for national security and foreign policy, focused on developments in the region particularly related to Syria and Lebanon. The short statement said the meeting was also attended by Iran’s Ambassador to Lebanon Ghadanfar Roknabadi. For security reasons, Hezbollah did not say when or where the meeting took place. On Monday, Boroujerdi warned that a military strike on Syria would engulf the entire region and threaten American and Israeli interests. It was the latest in a series of stern warnings issued by Iranian and Russian officials against a possible Western military strike on Syria to punish the regime over its alleged use of chemical weapons. Boroujerdi held talks Tuesday with a series of officials including President Michel Sleiman and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati as well as caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour. In Beiteddine, the president’s summer residence, Sleiman stressed the dangers that could result from a military strike on Syria, a statement from the president’s office said. Sleiman also renewed “Lebanon’s fundamental principle which calls for non-military intervention while condemning the use of chemical weapons [in Syria].” Earlier Tuesday, Boroujerdi reiterated his warning that the Jewish state would suffer the most from any military action against Tehran’s ally Syria. “The first party that will be most affected from an aggression on Syria is the Zionist entity,” he told reporters following talks with Mansour. He said his views matched with both Mikati and Mansour as to the "need for unity in order to spare the region this anticipated catastrophe.” He also expressed hope that the U.S. Congress would exercise self-restraint, just like President Barack Obama, and adopt a rational decision “that will avoid problems that could threaten the region.” Last week, Obama said he would seek the authorization of Congress for a military strike on Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons. In response to a question, Boroujerdi slammed U.S. intelligence, accusing it of fabricating evidence of the presence of chemical weapons in Syria. He said lack of confidence was the key problem between Tehran and Washington. “The Americans should work to promote a climate of confidence with us by giving up hostile policies against the Iranian people,” he said. The Iranian official also voiced hope that Saudi Arabia, as a Muslim country in the region, would change its regional policies.

Sleiman discusses Syrian refugees ahead of UN meet
September 03, 2013/The Daily Star/BEIRUT: President Michel Sleiman discussed the Syrian refugee crisis with the ambassadors of top world powers Tuesday ahead of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York later this month. A meeting chaired by Sleiman at his summer residence in Beiteddine brought together ambassadors of the five permanent members of the Security Council as well as the representative of U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and representatives from the European Union and the Arab League, according to a statement from the presidential palace. “These countries will look into ways to support Lebanon economically and safeguard its stability and also help it cope with the growing burden caused by the increasing number of refugees from Syria,” the statement said. The “preparatory” talks come ahead of a Sept. 25 U.N. meeting to discuss the more than 700,000 Syrians who fled the war next-door and sought refuge in Lebanon. Lebanese officials say the Syrians refugees are severely taxing the country’s infrastructure and the nation is running out of resources to care for them.

Report: Hizbullah and Other Groups Try to Infiltrate U.S. Intelligence
Naharnet/Hizbullah and al-Qaida have repeatedly sought to infiltrate U.S. intelligence agencies, which are investigating thousands of their employees to counter the threat, The Washington Post reported Monday.
The CIA found that about a fifth of job applicants with suspect backgrounds had "significant terrorist and/or hostile intelligence connections," the Post cited a classified budget document as saying.
The document was provided to the paper by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, now a fugitive in Russia under temporary asylum. Although the file did not describe the nature of the jobseekers' extremist or hostile ties, it cited Hamas, Hizbullah and al-Qaida and its affiliates most often. The fear of infiltration is such that the NSA planned last year to investigate at least 4,000 staff who obtained security clearances.
The NSA detected potentially suspicious activity among staff members after trawling through trillions of employee keystrokes at work. The suspicious behavior included staffers accessing classified databases they do not usually use for their work or downloading several documents, two people familiar with the software used to monitor staff told the Post. But serious delays and uneven implementation have hit the multimillion-dollar effort, and the spy agencies never detected Snowden copying a wide range of the NSA's highly classified documents. The fugitive leaker is wanted by Washington on espionage charges linked to media disclosures about U.S. surveillance programs. "Over the last several years, a small subset of CIA's total job applicants were flagged due to various problems or issues," one official told the Post.
"During this period, one in five of that small subset were found to have significant connections to hostile intelligence services and or terrorist groups." The NSA is also creating a huge database known as WILDSAGE to help share sensitive intelligence among cybersecurity centers, according to the budget document. But the move has raised concern that the database could be infiltrated. Intelligence agencies have stepped up scrutiny of insider threats following the disclosure of hundreds of thousands of military and diplomatic files by WikiLeaks in 2010. Army Private Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst now known as Chelsea Manning, had leaked the documents to the anti-secrecy group. In 2011, Congress ordered Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to set up an "automated insider threat detection program" to prevent further such leaks, stop possible abuses and identify double agents. But the project was delayed several times as the intelligence community dealt with the aftermath of Manning's leaks, the Post said. President Barack Obama's administration has cracked down on insider threats.
In November 2012, Obama issued a National Insider Threat Policy that defined the threats as coming from "espionage, terrorism (or) unauthorized disclosure of national security information."
The policy places whistleblowers, spies and "terrorists" in a single category, and has triggered outcries from critics who say the three are distinct. SourceAgence France Presse.

Aoun: Cabinet blocking oil extraction
September 03, 2013 /The Daily Star/BEIRUT: MP Michel Aoun criticized the Cabinet Tuesday for failing to convene to take action on oil-related decrees needed to award companies contracts and begin lucrative oil extraction off Lebanon’s coast. “The deadline to issue the decrees to assign the maritime blocks to certain companies expired yesterday [Monday] and this indicates unwillingness on the part of the Cabinet to extract oil,” the head of the Change and Reform bloc told reporters after his bloc’s weekly meeting in Rabieh. Aoun said the Cabinet would have another chance to fix the situation, noting that caretaker Energy Minister Gebran Bassil will set another deadline for the Cabinet to convene and pass the decrees. The decrees, demarcating 10 maritime oil exploration blocks and establishing a revenue-sharing model, require Cabinet approval before oil and gas contracts can be awarded to bidding companies. The delay could postpone offshore drilling and exploration, Aoun said. Earlier this year, Lebanon officially launched its first oil and gas licensing round with 46 international energy companies prequalifying to bid for offshore exploration contracts. Aoun also said the delay was a “loss of morale” for the Christians, saying: “They don’t want us to succeed in this ministry and this is a big loss for us.”
“No one has ever been able to achieve anything in this ministry in terms of electricity, water, or energy,” he said.
 

G20 foreign ministers to attend Russia summit to discuss Syria
Reuters/PARIS: Foreign ministers from key G20 member states will convene on the sidelines of this week's meeting in St Petersburg to discuss Syria, France said on Tuesday. "(French) Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius will travel on Sept. 5 and 6 to meet foreign ministers present at the G20 summit, notably those of the United States, Brazil, China, Russia and Turkey," Foreign Ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot told reporters. A French diplomatic source said the ministers, who do not usually attend G20 summits, would meet to specifically talk about the Syria crisis and discuss political perspectives.

France's Hollande calls on Europe to unite on Syria crisis
Agence France Presse/PARIS: French President Francois Hollande called on Europe Tuesday to unite in response to the Syria crisis, ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the weekend. "Europe must also unite on this issue. It will do so, each with its own responsibility. France will assume its own," Hollande said during a joint press conference with German President Joachim Gauck. "When a chemical massacre takes place, when the world is informed of it, when the evidence is delivered, when the guilty parties are known, then there must be an answer," Hollande said. "This answer is expected from the international community," he said. France is pushing, along with the United States, for military strikes against the regime of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in response to an alleged August 21 chemical weapons attack that Washington says killed more than 1,400 people. "This crime cannot remain unpunished," Hollande said, adding that "global security is at stake" in the crisis.

Explosion on Turkey-Syria border kills six: Turkish media
Reuters/ANKARA: An explosion on the border between Turkey's southern province of Hatay and Syria killed six people on Tuesday, Turkish media said, but there were conflicting reports about the cause and exact location of the blast. Some Turkish television reports said the explosion was at an ammunition depot in the Altinozu district of Hatay, while other media reports said the blast happened in a vehicle carrying scrap metal on the Syrian side of the border.

Syrian forces capture strategic northern town-opposition
September 03, 2013 /Reuters/BEIRUT: Syrian forces seized the strategic northern town of Ariha on Tuesday, an opposition group said, in a move that would open the supply line between the coastal stronghold and pockets of army control in a region that is largely rebel controlled. Other activists, however, said the battle was not over and that rebels were still fighting the regime in Ariha, located near a major highway in the northern province of Idlib.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which reported the Assad military gain, said loyalist paramilitary forces, known as the National Defence Forces, stormed and captured Ariha under the cover of a fierce army artillery assault. "This allows the regime in (coastal) Latakia to reconnect the land routes between them and their forces in Idlib province, which were under strain in an area surrounded by rebel forces," said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Britain-based Observatory. He said the army was now pummelling other nearby towns and mountainous territories where rebels may be based in an effort to cement control of the area.
Syria's 2-1/2-year conflict between Assad's forces and the rebels seeking to oust him has killed over 110,000 people, most of them civilians, according to the Observatory, which uses a network of activists across the country.
Some activists in Idlib said Assad's military had not yet captured the town, with air strikes and fierce clashes raging; but they were not optimistic the opposition would be able to push back the army.
"They still haven't taken it. But they will. They've seized a large piece and they'll slowly advance if the situation stays like this," said Ahmad, an activist living in the province, speaking by Skype. "They've been using air strikes and have reduced much of the town to rubble." Other activists in the area reported seeing large numbers of Assad forces being moved in the direction of Ariha. Assad's forces in recent months have gained ground in central Syria and around the capital Damascus, but have made no major dent in rebel control of large swathes of northern or eastern Syria. The army has threatened a new campaign in the north but so far there has been no major assault. Instead, they appear to be trying to bolster their pockets of territory and slowly build up their forces. Activists say civilian residents have mostly fled Ariha in the past weeks, due to the heavy air and artillery strikes. According to the Observatory, NDF forces began raiding and looting the town after storming it.
Ariha has been in and out of rebel control. It was taken by Islamist rebel brigades, including the domestic Ahrar al-Sham group and other units linked to al Qaeda, on Aug. 24.

French intelligence pins attack on Syrian leader; Assad warns against Western military action
By Sylvie Corbet, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press – PARIS - France released an intelligence report on Monday alleging chemical weapons use by Syria's regime that dovetailed with similar U.S. claims, as President Bashar Assad warned that any military strike against his country would spark an uncontrollable regional war and spread "chaos and extremism."
The verbal crossfire, including a rejection of the Western allegations by longtime Syrian ally Russia, was part of frenzied efforts on both sides to court international public opinion after President Barack Obama said he would seek authorization from Congress before launching any military action against Assad's regime.
In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro, Assad was quoted as saying that Syria has challenged the U.S. and France to provide proof to support their allegations, but that their leaders "have been incapable of doing that, including before their own peoples."
"If the Americans, the French or the British had a shred of proof, they would have shown it beginning on the first day," he said, deriding Obama as "weak" and having buckled to U.S. domestic political pressure.
"We believe that a strong man is one who prevents war, not one who inflames it," Assad said.
French President Francois Hollande and Obama have been the two world leaders most vocally calling for action against Assad's regime, accusing it of carrying out a deadly chemical attack against rebel-held suburbs of Damascus on Aug. 21. The U.S. said it has proof that the Assad regime is behind attacks that Washington claims killed at least 1,429 people, including more than 400 children. Those numbers are significantly higher than the death toll of 355 provided by the aid group Doctors Without Borders.
It has marked an intolerable escalation in a two-year civil war in Syria that has left some 100,000 people dead.
The Syrian government denies the allegations, and blames opposition fighters. In the Figaro interview, Assad questioned whether an attack took place at all and refused to say whether his forces have chemical weapons, as is widely believed.
If the U.S. and France strike, "Everyone will lose control of the situation ... Chaos and extremism will spread. The risk of a regional war exists," he added.
To back up its case, the French government published a nine-page intelligence synopsis Monday that concluded Assad's regime had launched an attack on Aug. 21 involving a "massive use of chemical agents," and could carry out similar strikes in the future.
In all, though, the French report provided little new concrete evidence beyond what U.S. officials provided over the weekend in Washington. Along with it, the French Defence Ministry posted on its Web site six clips of amateur video showing victims, some of which has already been widely available online and in the international media.
In the Figaro interview, Assad said "all the accusations are based on allegations of the terrorists and on arbitrary videos posted on the Internet."
The French report made no specific reference to the agencies involved or how the intelligence was collected about the attack, aside from referring to videos of the injured or killed, doctors' accounts, and "independent evaluations" such as one from Paris-based humanitarian aid group Doctors Without Borders three days after the attack.
A French government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak about the matter because of its sensitivity, said the analysis was written by the spy agency DGSE and the military intelligence unit, DRM, and was based on satellite imagery, video images, and on-the-ground sources — plus samples collected from the alleged chemical attacks in April.
The assessment said it was "very unlikely" that Syria's opposition had falsified images of suffering children that turned up online. It also said intelligence indicated the opposition "does not have the means to conduct such a large attack with chemical agents." Around the time of the attack, Assad's regime feared a possible opposition strike on Damascus: "Our evaluation is that the regime was looking to loosen the vice and secure the strategic sites for the control of the capital," the report said. The synopsis also said French intelligence services had collected urine, blood, soil and munitions samples from two attacks in April — in Saraqeb and Jobar — that confirmed the use of sarin gas. France is "determined to take action against the use of chemical weapons by the regime of Bashar Assad, and to dissuade it from doing so again," Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said after hosting lawmakers to discuss the intelligence on Syria. "This act cannot go without a response."
France won't act alone and Hollande was "continuing his work of persuasion to bring together a coalition," Ayrault said. French parliament will debate the Syria issue Wednesday, but no vote is scheduled. The French constitution doesn't require such a vote for Hollande, though he could decide to call for one.
Russia, which along with Iran has been a staunch supporter of Assad through the conflict, brushed aside Western evidence of an alleged Syrian regime role.
"What our American, British and French partners showed us in the past and have showed just recently is absolutely unconvincing," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday before the French report was released. "And when you ask for more detailed proof they say all of this is classified, so we cannot show this to you."
"There was nothing specific there, no geographic co-ordinates, no names, no proof that the tests were carried out by the professionals," he said, without identifying which tests.
Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to send a delegation of Russian lawmakers to the U.S. to discuss the situation in Syria with members of Congress. Two top Russian legislators suggested that to Putin, pointing to polls that have shown little support among Americans for armed intervention in Syria.
On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington received new physical evidence in the form of blood and hair samples that show sarin gas was used in the attack. It wasn't immediately clear whether that evidence had been shared with Russia.
U.N. chemical inspectors toured the stricken areas last week, collecting biological and soil samples. A U.N. statement said the team "worked around the clock" to finalize preparations of the samples, which were shipped Monday afternoon from The Hague and would reach their designated laboratories "within hours," the statement said.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon planned to brief the Security Council's 10 non-permanent members on the Syria crisis Tuesday morning. Angela Kane, high representative for disarmament affairs, planned a Tuesday briefing for member states that requested the investigation of alleged chemical weapons use in the Ghouta area outside Damascus on Aug. 21.
The Obama administration has failed to bring together a broad international coalition in support of military action, having so far only secured the support of France.
Britain's Parliament narrowly voted against the country's participation in any military strike last week, despite appeals by Prime Minister David Cameron. The Arab League has stopped short of endorsing a Western strike against Syria. In an emergency meeting Sunday, the 22-state League urged the United Nations and the international community to take "deterrent" measures under international law to stop the Syrian regime's crimes. Russia or China would likely veto any U.N. Security Council resolution sanctioning a Western strike against Syria.
*Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow, Frances D'Emilio in Rome, Ryan Lucas and Karin Laub in Beirut, and Jamey Keaten and Lori Hinnant in Paris contributed to this report.
 

Syria's Assad warns foreign strikes would have repercussions
CBC – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has challenged the U.S. and France to provide evidence his regime used chemical weapons on civilians in August, warning that any strikes on his country would result in dire repercussions, and "chaos and extremism" would spread. "Those who make accusations must show evidence," Assad said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro."We have challenged the United States and France to come up with a single piece of proof," he said in excerpts published Monday in the daily.
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Assad said U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande "have been incapable" of proving Syria was behind a chemical attack on Aug. 21, allegations the Syrian president has repeatedly denied.
The interview with Assad was published as Obama set out on Labour Day Monday to persuade congressional leaders to approve strikes against the Syrian military for the alleged chemical attack that the U.S. has said killed more than 1,400 people, about a third of them children. Obama, in an emotional and hard-nosed speech on Saturday, said the U.S. should take military action against Syria, but that he will seek approval from Congress when it returns to business Sept. 9.
But Assad said in his Le Figaro interview: "Anybody who contributes to the financial and military reinforcement of terrorists is the enemy of the Syrian people. If the policies of the French state are hostile to the Syrian people, the state will be their enemy. There will be repercussions, negative ones obviously, on French interests."
He also warned that "the whole world will lose control of the situation. Chaos and extremism will spread."
Earlier on Monday, Syria pressed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon "to shoulder his responsibilities for preventing any aggression" against the country. Bashar Ja'afari, Syrian envoy to the UN, also said in a letter to Ban and Security Council President Maria Cristina Perceval that the UN needs to push towards "reaching a political solution to the crisis in Syria," state news agency SANA said.
The letter from Ja'afari calls on the Security Council to "maintain its role as a safety valve to prevent the absurd use of force out of the frame of international legitimacy." He also said the U.S. should only "play its role, as a peace sponsor and as a partner to Russia in the preparation for the international conference on Syria and not as a state that uses force against whoever opposes its policies."
The UN estimates the uprising has led to the deaths of more than 100,000 people. As well, the UN refugee agency released figures Monday showing that nearly one-third of the population — about seven million Syrians — has been displaced since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011.
UN refugee agency spokesman Tarik Kurdi said five million of the seven million displaced Syrians are still in the country, and that about two million have taken refuge in neighbouring countries. As well, two million of those directly affected by the war are children.
Kurdi told The Associated Press that UN assistance has been a "drop in the sea of humanitarian need," and that the funding gap is "very, very wide." He says international donors have sent less than one-third of the money needed to help those displaced by the war.
The situation in Syria began heating up late last week, with Secretary of State John Kerry releasing figures that the U.S. says show 1,429 people were killed by chemicals in the August attack. Doctors Without Borders pegs the death toll at much less.
A UN team spent four days in Syria investigating claims of chemical weapons use, and briefed Ban on preliminary information about their findings, UN’s media office said.
UN investigators examined the area of the alleged gas attack for four days. They left Syria on Saturday for The Hague, where their findings were to be sent to laboratories around Europe for analysis.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons based in The Hague says examination of evidence could take up to three weeks.
Obama is set to host Republican Senator John McCain, his 2008 presidential election opponent, on Monday evening to help him sell the idea of U.S. military intervention in Syria.
Obama made it clear Saturday, when he spoke on the White House lawn, that he supports direct military action in Syria, saying chemical weapons use amounts to a "serious danger" to national security and "an assault on human dignity."
However, Obama added that he would turn to Congress to get the go-ahead to take any military action, and that it will be ready to debate and vote on the issue when it resumes Sept. 9. U.S. navy ships in the Mediterranean Sea are ready to strike, said Obama, who has the power to unilaterally order an attack. However, he said, he has determined that the U.S. "will be better off" if Congress comes up with its own opinion.
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While the U.S. is seeking allies to come onboard for action against Syria, Obama's attempt to garner support took a blow Friday when British politicians voted against any military response. Prime Minister David Cameron lost the vote 285-272, and said later that while he "strongly" believes in the need for a tough response to chemical weapons use, he also believes in respecting the will of the House of Commons.
In Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has also said that the country has no plans for a military mission of its own in Syria, but said the government supports its allies and has been convinced of the need for "forceful action."
Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, reacting to a proposal by two Russian legislators, said Monday he hopes to send some lawmakers to the U.S., to try to persuade legislators to take a "balanced stance" on the Syria issue. The Russian news agency Interfax said Putin supported the proposal by Valentina Matvienko and Sergei Naryshkin. The proposal, which requires formal approval by the Foreign Ministry, follows polls that have shown little support among Americans for armed intervention in Syria.
Russia is a loyal Assad ally, and Putin had already said on the weekend that the idea of a U.S. military intervention in Syria would be "foolish nonsense" that "defies all logic."
On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said evidence presented by the U.S. to Moscow of the alleged chemical weapons use by the Syrian regime as "absolutely unconvincing. There was nothing specific there, no geographic co-ordinates, no names, no proof that the tests were carried out by the professionals."
The head of NATO, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, also weighed in Monday, saying that "personally, I am convinced, not only that a chemical attack has taken place ... but I am also convinced that the Syrian regime is responsible." Rasmussen said dictators around the world need to be sent a message that such weapons cannot be used with impunity. He also said NATO would remain a strong defender of Turkey if the member state was attacked as part of the Syria crisis, and it would remain a forum for allies to consult about action. However, he added, he does not see an additional NATO role.
Syrian Dr. Mohammed Abu Omar, who lives in Moadamia City, a western suburb of Damascus, was reached by Derek Stoffel, Middle East correspondent for CBC News, to describe the horrors facing the people of Syria.
Omar said via Skype that Syrians welcome military intervention, but until now, "we didn’t have the trust in the West to do that, because we have two years of being killed at every moment and no one wants to stop the killer – Bashar [al-Assad’s] regime." Speaking about the dire situation in Syria, the doctor said: “We don’t have food. We don’t have medical supplies. We are under siege since 10 months ago. We are under huge shelling every day. We are being killed every single moment. ... We just want to live the rest of our lives peacefully, without getting killed in every single moment.”

Obama presses Congress as Syria refugee crisis mounts
By Yara Bayoumy and Erika Solomon | Reuters –
BEIRUT (Reuters) - President Barack Obama urged Congress on Tuesday to approve U.S. strikes on Syria soon as the United Nations said two million Syrians had fled a conflict that posed the greatest threat to world peace since the Vietnam war. Having startled friends and foes alike in the Middle East by delaying a punitive attack on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad until Congress reconvenes and agrees, Obama met congressional leaders at the White House to urge a prompt decision and assure them it did not mean another long war like Iraq or Afghanistan.
Repeating his confidence of winning votes, expected next week, Obama said strikes aimed at punishing the use of chemical weapons would hurt Assad's forces while other U.S. action would bolster his opponents - though the White House has insisted it is not seeking "regime change" that might end Syria's civil war.
"What we are envisioning is something limited. It is something proportional. It will degrade Assad's capabilities," Obama said. "At the same time we have a broader strategy that will allow us to upgrade the capabilities of the opposition." Assad denies deploying poison gas that killed hundreds of civilians last month. His enemies were dismayed by Obama's decision on Saturday to seek congressional approval before action that he says is necessary to penalize chemical warfare.
The Syrian opposition, which on Tuesday said a forensic scientist had defected to the rebel side bringing evidence of Assad forces' use of sarin gas in March, has appealed to Western allies to send them weapons and use their air power to end a war that has killed more than 100,000 and made millions homeless.
The presence in rebel ranks of Islamist militants, some of them close to al Qaeda, has made Western leaders wary, while at the same time the undoubted - and apparently accelerating - human cost of the conflict has brought pressure to intervene.
REFUGEE CRISIS
After two and a half years of war, nearly one Syrian in three has been driven from home by violence and fear.
The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said there had been a near tenfold increase over the past 12 months in the rate of refugees crossing Syria's borders into Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon - to a daily average of nearly 5,000 men, women and children.
This has pushed the total living abroad above two million.
That represents some 10 percent of Syria's population, the UNHCR said. With a further 4.25 million estimated to have been displaced but still resident inside the country, close to a third of all Syrians living away from their original homes.
Comparing the figures to the peak of Afghanistan's refugee crisis two decades ago, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, said: "Syria has become the great tragedy of this century - a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history."
Speaking of the acceleration in the crisis, he said: "What is appalling is that the first million fled Syria in two years.
"The second million fled Syria in six months."
Speaking in Geneva, Guterres noted that a total of six million are displaced by the war: "At this particular moment, it's the highest number of displaced people anywhere in the world. And if one looks at the peak of the Afghan crisis we have probably very similar numbers of people displaced.
"The risks for global peace and security that the present Syria crisis represents, I'm sure, are not smaller than what we have witnessed in any other crisis that we have had since the Vietnam war," said Guterres, a former Portuguese prime minister.
The conflict has divided the Middle East on sectarian lines, with Shi'ite Iran backing Assad and Washington's Sunni Arab Gulf allies supporting the mainly Sunni rebels. It has also revived Cold War-style tensions between the Western powers and Moscow.
In an interview in Tuesday's Le Figaro, Assad told the Paris newspaper: "Everybody will lose control of the situation when the powder keg blows. There is a risk of a regional war."
The rebels have been struggling to hold ground in recent months, let alone advance. According to one opposition report, government forces took the strategic northwestern town of Ariha on Tuesday, though others said the battle was not over.
MISSILE JITTERS
While Obama's wait for Congress to return from its summer recess seems to rule out Western military action this week, Israeli forces training in the Mediterranean with the U.S. navy set nerves on edge in Damascus on Tuesday with a missile test that triggered an alert from Assad's ally Russia. When Moscow raised the alarm on Tuesday morning that its forces had detected the launch of two ballistic "objects" in the Mediterranean, thoughts of a surprise strike on Syria pushed oil prices higher on world markets and must have put the troops operating Syria's Russian-equipped air defense system on alert.
A Syrian security official later told a Lebanese television channel that its early warning radar had picked up no threats. Clarification came only later when the Israeli Defence Ministry said that its troops had - at the time of the Russian alert - fired a missile that is used as a target for an anti-missile defense system during an exercise with U.S. forces. The jitters reflected a nervousness both within Syria and further afield since Western leaders pledged retribution for the use of chemical weapons.
Britain has dropped out of planning for attacks since its parliament rejected a proposal by Prime Minister David Cameron but France, western Europe's other main military power, is still coordinating possible action with the Pentagon.
President Francois Hollande has resisted opposition calls to submit any decision to wage war to parliament. His government presented lawmakers on Monday with what it said was evidence of Assad's responsibility for a "massive and coordinated" chemical attack on rebel-held suburbs of Damascus on August 21.
However, Hollande said on Tuesday that there would be no French action if the U.S. Congress fails to back Obama.
(Additional reporting by Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Steve Gutterman and Timothy Heritage in Moscow, Jeffrey Heller and Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Dasha Afanasieva in Istanbul and Jeff Mason in Washington; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Giles Elgood)...

Israel says it conducts joint missile test with US over Mediterranean
By Daniel Estrin, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press – JERUSALEM - Israel and the U.S. conducted a joint missile test over the Mediterranean on Tuesday, an apparent display of military prowess as the Obama administration seeks congressional support for strikes against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Any U.S. strikes, in retaliation for alleged chemical weapons use by the Assad regime, are not expected before next week when Congress gets back from summer recess. The Israeli Defence Ministry said the test was performed together with the U.S. Defence Department. A Sparrow missile was launched successfully at 9:15 a.m. and followed its planned trajectory. The Arrow missile defence system successful detected and tracked the target, the ministry said. It was not clear from the statement if the Sparrow was shot down.
The Sparrow is a medium-range guided missile that can be launched either from the surface or the air to hit aerial targets, according to the manufacturer.
In Washington, there was no immediate White House comment. The missile test came at a time of heightened tensions as Washington weighs sea-launched strikes against Syria. Israel has been increasingly concerned that it will be drawn into Syria's brutal civil war which has repeatedly spilled over into neighbouring countries.
Since the weekend, the Obama administration has been lobbying for congressional support for military action against the Assad regime.
The administration says it has evidence that Assad's forces launched attacks with chemical weapons on rebel-held suburbs of the Syrian capital of Damascus on Aug. 21. The U.S. has alleged that the nerve agent sarin was used and that at least 1,429 people were killed, including more than 400 children.
Last week, President Barack Obama appeared poised to authorize military strikes, but unexpectedly stepped back over the weekend to first seek approval from Congress, which returns from summer recess next week.
On Monday, the U.S. administration won backing from French intelligence and reportedly also from Germany's spy agency for its claim that Assad's forces were responsible for the suspected chemical weapons attacks.
A nine-page intelligence synopsis published by the French government concluded that the regime launched the attacks involving a "massive use of chemical agents" and could carry out similar strikes in the future.
In Germany, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported that the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) also believes Assad's regime was behind the attacks. On its website, the magazine reported that BND head Gerhard Schindler recently told top government officials in a secret briefing that while the evidence is not absolutely conclusive, an "analysis of plausibility" supports the idea of the Syrian government as the perpetrator.
The Assad regime has denied using chemical weapons, blaming rebels instead. Neither the U.S. nor Syria and its allies have presented conclusive proof in public.

Obama makes case to Congress, skeptics for US military force in Syria
By The Associated Press | The Canadian Press
WASHINGTON - Congress is holding its first public hearing about U.S. plans for military intervention in Syria as President Barack Obama tried to convince lawmaker and skeptical Americans about the need to respond to last month's alleged chemical weapons attack outside Damascus. Secretary of State John Kerry, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey were to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday. A classified briefing open to all members of Congress was planned as well. Obama surprised the world over the weekend by announcing he would seek congressional authorization for limited military strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.
The U.S. says it has proof that the Assad regime is behind attacks that Washington claims killed at least 1,429 people, including more than 400 children. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which collects information from a network of anti-regime activists, says it has so far only been able to confirm 502 dead.
Now Obama is sending his top national security advisers to the Capitol for briefings. And Obama was to meet Tuesday with leaders of the House and Senate armed services committees, the foreign relations committees and the intelligence committees.
That's shortly before Obama leaves on a three-day trip to Europe, with a visit to Sweden and a G-20 summit in Russia. The White House said Tuesday that he spoke to a key ally in the G-20, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, by telephone Monday night to discuss Syria and pledged to continue to consult on a possible international response.
On Monday, Obama won conditional support from two of his fiercest foreign policy critics, Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham.
A congressional vote against Obama's request "would be catastrophic in its consequences" for U.S. credibility abroad, McCain told reporters Monday following an hour-long private meeting with the president.
The senators said they'd be more willing to support Obama if the U.S. sought to destroy the Assad government's launching capabilities and committed to give more support to rebels seeking to oust Assad from power.
"There will never be a political settlement in Syria as long as Assad is winning," Graham said.
McCain said Tuesday he is prepared to vote for the authorization that Obama seeks, but he said he wouldn't support a resolution that fails to change the situation on the battlefield, where Assad still has the upper hand. He told NBC on Tuesday that it was "an unfair fight."
Sen. Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he believes the panel will back Obama if the administration explains "the full case" for the use of force and what it sees as the end result. "Not acting has huge consequences," Menendez said on CBS on Tuesday.
"It sends a message" not just to Syria but to Iran, North Korea and terrorist groups, he said.
After a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, polls show most Americans opposed to any new military action overseas.
Some lawmakers say Obama still hasn't presented good enough evidence that Assad's forces were responsible for the Aug. 21 attack. Others say the president hasn't explained why intervening is in America's interest.
Those questions come a decade after the Bush administration badly misrepresented the case that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
The Obama administration argues that the United States must exert global leadership in retaliating for what apparently was the deadliest use of chemical weapons anywhere over the past 25 years.
Obama has insisted he was considering a military operation that was limited in duration and scope.
The administration argues that the alleged sarin gas attack last month violated not only the international standard against using such weapons but also Obama's "red line," set more than a year ago, that such WMD use wouldn't be tolerated. Syria's conflict has claimed more than 100,000 lives in the past 2 1/2 years. The fight has evolved from a government crackdown on a largely peaceful protest movement into a full-scale civil war scarily reminiscent of the one that ravaged Iraq over the last decade. Ethnic massacres have been committed by both sides, which each employ terrorist organizations as allies.
**Associated Press writer Bradley Klapper contributed.
 

From the Arabia Archieve/Saudi terror arrests suggest U.S. not alone in war against al-Qaeda
Dr. Walid Phares - Special to Al Arabiya
In the United States, the general perception is that the war against al-Qaeda is an American war against a specific anti-American organization. This perception has been stretched at times, by apologist academia, to a point where the public has been made to believe that the United States is alone in this confrontation and all it would take to bring about a cease to hostilities is for Washington to withdraw from the region. Parallel to this oversimplification is the other common assertion that no one else is fighting this battle, and if they are, Arab and Middle Eastern efforts are meaningless. These approaches have been proven wrong as events in the region and worldwide are demonstrating.
Two men have recently been arrested in Saudi Arabia on suspicion of planning terrorist strikes, part of the uncovered information which prompted the closure of several Western embassies in the region last week. Saudi officials said the two suspects, from Yemen and Chad, were planning suicide attacks connected to recent al-Qaeda threats on American and British diplomatic interests. According to Saudi media reports, the two jihadists were arrested towards the end of July after having exchanged information on social media about attacks. Officials in Riyadh said the two men investigated used mobile phones and encrypted electronic communications to discuss the terrorist plot.
The Saudi official statement explained, "The two recruited themselves for the service of deviant thought (al Qaeda's ideology), as evidenced by their seized items which included computer hardware, electronic media and mobile phones and which indicated their communication with the deviant group abroad either by electronic encrypted messages or through identities via the social networks (such as Abu Alfidaa, Hspouy, Muawiya Almadani, Rasasah fi Qusasah, and Abu El Feda Aldokulai) so as to exchange information about impending suicide operations in the region." The timing of this arrest parallels U.S. drone attacks in neighboring Yemen as well as Egyptian military operations in Sinai and Tunisian troop movements against the Jihadists in the south of their country.
Operating in ‘national clusters?’
The arrest by the Saudis of two suspected jihadists operating inside the Kingdom and planning attacks via sophisticated communications suggests several conclusions. One is regarding their nationalities. One culprit is from Yemen, and the other is from Chad but residing in Saudi Arabia. This fact shows that al-Qaeda personnel, volunteers or supporters do not necessarily operate in “national clusters.” As much previous evidence has shown for years, if not for decades by now, there is an international network of followers of a radical doctrine whose members hail from as many countries as the indoctrination machine can reach. After the attacks of September 11, the most popularized slogan in U.S. counterterrorism commentary was that 14 of the 19 perpetrators were “Saudis.” But years later, it was clear that the Jihadists have no specific “nationality” or “ethnicity.” They operate where they can with what they have. As I argued in my book The War of Ideas in 2007, the ideology of al-Qaeda does not recognize countries and national boundaries. A Chadian was recruited to prepare an attack against the United States out of Saudi Arabia. A Nigerian was indoctrinated by a Yemeni to strike in Detroit. U.S. citizens were mobilized to strike in Somalia, and an Egyptian leads the world’s terrorist network. There are no local agendas in Yemen or in Mauritania that are producing the international brand of Jihadi terrorists. Rather, it is a radical, systemic, totalitarian doctrine that is using – and often abusing – causes, grievances and historical conflicts. A victory for this ideology and its supporters and promoters will not solve the problems of the peoples oppressed under their regimes. In fact, a victory for the Jihadists will exacerbate such problems. The developments in Afghanistan, Tunisia, Libya and now Egypt are striking examples. Living under the other type of Terror, Khomeinism in Iran or Hezbollah in Lebanon is another example of the failure of these violent doctrines. The al-Qaeda threat is global, and Washington learned about it one more time last week as a result of intercepted messages between Zawahiri and Wuhaishi, possibly during a conference call of Terror leaders. The U.S. decided to shut down many embassies showing that the threat is up and running across large swaths of land, not on “its way to decline” as the Obama Administration affirmed so adamantly during the electoral year of 2012.
Back to the arrests in Arabia: The networks planning on massive strikes against American interests are also at war with several Arab countries. The latter’s armies and peoples are also resisting them. In Arabia, there are arrests of al-Qaeda; in Yemen, the armed forces are battling terrorist invasions of entire villages; in Tunisia, soldiers and officers are machine-gunned down on the highways; in Libya, the Jihadists target the country’s defense officials; in Lebanon, army commanders are killed; and in Egypt, the Army is leading a massive campaign against al-Qaeda linked brigades in Sinai. There is an all-out Arab war against Terror, with casualties at present higher than NATO’s confrontation with the Taliban. More Arabs were killed in each one of these countries by al-Qaeda terrorists than all the U.S. citizens massacred by homegrown jihadists in the United States since 9/11.
The United States is not alone
The rational conclusion for Washington to reach at this point is that the United States is not alone in this fight against al-Qaeda and it is not the only victim of terror in the world. Another consequence of this reality should be for the U.S. government to set its priorities in accordance with strategic logic. When millions in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya march against the extremists, it should stand with them; when Egyptian, Tunisian, and Arabian and other armed forces battle al Qaeda, there should be a concerted global effort to defeat the Terror network. In short, the U.S. must support the Arab fight against al-Qaeda as part of international efforts to reduce the threat. At the same time, however, those Arab countries battling the Jihadists within their borders must also act as part of a global alliance and participate in the War of Ideas. All partners in the campaign to defend the international community against violent extremists must learn to put local and historical grievances aside and fight Terror as one body – the suicide bombers of Zawahiri and his henchmen strike both Arabs and Westerners alike.
**Dr. Walid Phares is the Co-Secretary General of the Transatlantic Parliamentary Group on Counter Terrorism and advises members of the U.S. Congress on the Middle East. He is the author of The Coming Revolution.

Egypt: Christians Killed for Ransom
by Raymond Ibrahim
September 2, 2013
http://www.meforum.org/3601/egypt-christians-killed-for-ransom
Not only are the churches, monasteries, and institutions of Egypt's Christians under attack by the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters—nearly 100 now have been torched, destroyed, ransacked, etc.—but Christians themselves are under attack all throughout Egypt, with practically zero coverage in Western media.
Days ago, for example, Copts held a funeral for Wahid Jacob, a young Christian deacon who used to serve in St. John the Baptist Church, part of the Qusiya diocese in Asyut, Egypt. He was kidnapped on August 21 by "unknown persons" who demanded an exorbitant ransom from his impoverished family—1,200,000 Egyptian pounds (equivalent to $171,000 USD). Because his family could not raise the sum, he was executed—his body dumped in a field where it was later found. The priest who conducted his funeral service said that the youth's body bore signs of severe torture.
In fact, kidnapping young Christians and holding them for ransom has become increasingly common in Egypt. Last April, 10-year-old Sameh George, another deacon, or altar boy, at St. Abdul Masih ("Servant of Christ") Church in Minya, Egypt, was also abducted by "unknown persons" while on his way to church to participate in Holy Pascha prayers leading up to Orthodox Easter. His parents said that it was his custom to go to church and worship in the evening, but when he failed to return, and they began to panic, they received an anonymous phone call from the kidnappers, informing them that they had the Christian child in their possession, and would execute him unless they received 250,000 Egyptian pounds in ransom money.
If those in Egypt being kidnapped and sometimes killed for ransom money are not all deacons, they are almost always church-attending Christians. Last April, for example, another Coptic Christian boy, 12-year-old Abanoub Ashraf, was also kidnapped right in front of his church, St. Paul Church in Shubra al-Khayma district. His abductors, four men, put a knife to his throat, dragged him to their car, opened fire on the church, and then sped away. Later they called the boy's family demanding a large amount of money to ransom child's life.
The hate for these Christians—who are seen as no better than dogs—is such that sometimes after being paid their ransom, the Muslim abductors still slaughter them anyway. This was the fate of 6-year-old Cyril Joseph, who was kidnapped last May. In the words of the Arabic report, the boy's "family is in tatters after paying 30,000 pounds to the abductor, who still killed the innocent child and threw his body into the toilet of his home, where the body, swollen and moldy, was exhumed."
As for Christian girls, they are even more vulnerable than Christian boys and disappear with great frequency. As an International Christian Concern report puts it, "hundreds of Christian girls … have been abducted, forced to convert to Islam, and forced into marriage in Egypt. These incidents are often accompanied by acts of violence, including rape, beatings, and other forms of physical and mental abuse."
Thus, while it is good that the nonstop attacks on Egypt's churches have received some media attention, let us not forget the many, often young, Christian lives quietly being destroyed in Egypt, by those who would have the Muslim Brotherhood return to power.
**Raymond Ibrahim is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War in Christians (published by Regnery in cooperation with Gatestone Institute, April 2013). He is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an associate fellow at the Middle East Forum.

The Privatization of the Arab Spring
Ali Ibrahim/Asharq Alawsat
In his last speech on Syria, in which he sought mandate from the congress for a US military intervention in the embattled country, president Barack Obama pointed that “the hopes of the Arab Spring have unleashed forces of change that are going to take many years to resolve,” in a reference to the changes that several republics have witnessed since 2011. Obama implicitly conceded, like many, that stability will take some time to achieve, perhaps years or even decades. The changes that took place have produced conflicting forces that will need time to be able to work out a common formula for building new and stable societies that can create prosperity and fulfill the needs of their citizens.
Seeking an international, multilateral mandate for a limited military intervention, which Washington is trying to do, is an act of conflict management or containment rather than a plan for the future. The US does not plan to change the Assad regime or side with one party in order to build a new system on the rubble of the current one whose collapse, as everybody knows, is a matter of time. No one has a clear plan for the future of Syria, whose uprising went from being peaceful to a sectarian civil war in a manner that has nothing to do with the objectives of the Arab Spring.
The conflicting sides are behind all of the chaos and stability as well as the unique and rare—and sometimes bizarre—phenomena occurring in the region from Tunisia to Egypt and from Libya to Yemen. This state of chaos created a vacuum allowing the likes of Al-Qaeda-affiliated organizations that foster terrorism and destruction to operate. Failure on everybody’s part to devise an acceptable formula for managing the political conflict is the reason behind the state of turmoil, and the inability to reach a place of safety so far.
One of these countries is Libya, which many have bet would be able to use its oil resources to achieve rapid economic growth, particularly after the revenues returned to the public and were no longer wasted on the former regime’s costly external adventures that were used for propaganda more than anything else. However, there is a vast gap between wishful-thinking and reality. Oil production—the country’s most important resource and perhaps its main source of revenue—plummeted by 70 per cent two years after the former regime fell as a result of attempts to control production and revenues on the part of militias that operate across the country. These militias threatened to strike government tankers entering ports to ship “illegitimate” oil. Simply, this is like privatizing the revolution of the Arab Spring for the benefit of militias, each of which believes it played a role in toppling the former regime for which it now it must be paid in cash. These militias cannot wait for an effective state with functioning institutions to be formed, one that can foster development in the country and provide mechanisms for economically distributing the income as most countries do.
The problem in Libya is that the former regime deliberately weakened state institutions and left territorial disagreements unresolved, some of which are surrounded with a sense of injustice. This made it extremely difficult for the ones who came to power, who now need a long time to build these institutions and establish a state of law. Unless armed militias and the aspirations of each political faction block them, these efforts need stability and, most importantly, national consensus.
Like Egypt and Tunisia, a big part of the fluctuations and the continuous state of instability lies in the absence of national consensus. This is due to an attempt to monopolize power or to hijack the status quo amid the chaos and power vacuum on the part of a certain political faction or trend at the expense of the others or the majority of people who, although desirous of political change, did not want it to end this way.
This became clear in Egypt when the Muslim Brotherhood, which was the only organized faction enjoying public support, emerged thinking that this moment could last for a hundred years. The Brotherhood tried to monopolize power and impose its vision, instead of building consensus and thus privatized the Arab Spring for its own benefit. After one year it suffered a historical defeat and it is still too short-sighted to see the degree to which it is rejected and distrusted by the public.
In Tunisia a similar conflict has occurred whose outcome will be determined by the sides’ ability to reach consensus and have a common vision that is based on trust rather than tactics.
Certainly, spring in its real sense is yet to come, and will take some time. The most important lesson drawn from the last two years and a half year is that bringing about change in societies is extremely difficult and takes time. Furthermore, the worst case scenario is that each side attempts to view society from the perspective of its narrow ideology, instead of achieving consensus on a common framework that is satisfying to all and prepares the ground for a civil and normal form of political competition.