LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
June 01/15

Bible Quotation For Today/He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit
John 15/01-08/: ""‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples."

Bible Quotation For TodayThis Jesus is "the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.
Acts of the Apostles04/05-12/: 'The next day their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. When they had made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, ‘By what power or by what name did you do this?’ Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, ‘Rulers of the people and elders, if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. This Jesus is "the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone." There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.’"

Welfare Jihad in Europe
Soeren Kern/Gatestone institute
May 31, 2015
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5856/welfare-jihad
Social welfare fraud of the kind perpetrated in Denmark is being repeated throughout Europe.
Because Anjem Choudary's welfare payments are not taxed, his income is equivalent to a £32,500 ($50,000) salary. By comparison, the average annual earnings of full-time workers in Britain was £26,936 ($41,000) in 2014.
A Swedish soldier deployed in Afghanistan said that he was likely to get less help when he came back to Sweden than returning jihadists were.
More than 30 Danish jihadists have collected unemployment benefits totaling 379,000 Danish krone (€51,000; $55,000) while fighting with the Islamic State in Syria, according to leaked intelligence documents.The fraud, which was reported by Television 2 Danmark on May 18, comes less than six months after the Danish newspaper BT revealed that Denmark had paid unemployment benefits to 28 other jihadists while they were waging war in Syria.The disclosures show that Islamists continue to exploit European social welfare systems to finance their activities both at home and abroad — costing European taxpayers potentially millions of euros each year.According to Television 2 Danmark, the welfare fraud was discovered after the Danish intelligence agency PET began sharing data about known Danish jihadists with the Ministry of Employment to determine if any of these individuals were receiving unemployment benefits.As a percentage of the overall population, Denmark is the second-largest European source of foreign fighters in Syria after Belgium. At least 115 Danes have become foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq since Syria's civil war broke out in March 2011, according to a recent report by the Center for Terrorism Analysis, an agency of PET. The report states:
"CTA assesses that approximately half of those who have gone abroad are now back in Denmark, while a quarter of them remain in the conflict zone. CTA assesses that two thirds of these individuals have been in the conflict zone for more than a year. The remaining travelers are located elsewhere abroad. CTA assesses that at least 19 travelers from Denmark have been killed in Syria and Iraq."
The CTA admits that, "the number may be higher" than 115. The comment is a tacit recognition that it does not know exactly how many Danes have become jihadists abroad.In April, it emerged that the parents of Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein — a Danish-Jordanian jihadist responsible for the terror attacks in Copenhagen in February 2015 in which two people died — have been welfare recipients in Denmark for more than 20 years. Omar's parents received a total of 3.8 million krone between 1994 and 2014, amounting to roughly 500,000 euros or $560,000.Social welfare fraud of the kind perpetrated in Denmark is being repeated throughout Europe.In Austria, police arrested 13 jihadists in November 2014 who were allegedly collecting welfare payments to finance their trips to Syria. Among those detained was Mirsad Omerovic, 32, an extremist Islamic preacher who police say raised several hundred thousand euros for the war in Syria. A father of six who lives exclusively off the Austrian welfare state, Omerovic has benefited from additional payments for paternity leave (Väterkarenz).Austrian police also arrested, in August 2014, nine other jihadists who were attempting to join the jihad in Syria. Their trip was being financed by Austrian taxpayers by way of social welfare payments.In Belgium, 29 jihadists from the Flemish cities of Antwerp and Vilvoorde were prevented from receiving social welfare benefits from the state. The move came after an investigation found that the individuals had been accessing their Belgian bank accounts by withdrawing money from banks in Turkey, just across the Syrian border.Per capita, Belgium is the largest European source of jihadist fighters going to the Middle East; up to 400 Belgians have become jihadists in Syria and Iraq.In Britain, Terri Nicholson, an assistant commander at the Metropolitan Police's counter-terrorism command unit, told the Telegraph newspaper in November 2014 that taxpayers' money was being claimed fraudulently and used by jihadists in Iraq and Syria. "We are seeing a diverse fraud, including substantial fraud online, abuse of the benefits system, abuse of student loans, in order to fund terrorism," she said.Nicholson added that women were increasingly being used to smuggle welfare money out of Britain to fund terrorists abroad, because they supposedly arouse less suspicion.In November 2014, for example, Amal El-Wahabi, a British mother of two, was jailed for 28 months for trying to arrange to smuggle €20,000 to her husband, a jihadist fighting in Syria. She persuaded her friend, Nawal Msaad, to carry the cash in her underwear in return for €1,000. Msaad was stopped at Heathrow Airport. The money she was carrying is thought to have come from social welfare payments.Anjem Choudary, a British-born radical Islamic cleric who lives off the British welfare state, has repeatedly urged his followers to quit their jobs and claim unemployment benefits so they have more time to plot holy war against non-Muslims.Choudary believes that Muslims are entitled to welfare payments because they are a form of jizya, a tax imposed on non-Muslims in countries run by Muslims, as a reminder that non-Muslims are permanently inferior and subservient to Muslims.In 2010, The Sunreported that Choudary takes home more than £25,000 ($39,000) a year in welfare benefits. Among other handouts, Choudary receives £15,600 a year in housing benefit to keep him in a £320,000 ($495,000) house in Leytonstone, East London. He also receives £1,820 council tax allowance, £5,200 income support and £3,120 child benefits. Because his welfare payments are not taxed, his income is equivalent to a £32,500 ($50,000) salary. By comparison, the average annual earnings of full-time workers in Britain was £26,936 ($41,000) in 2014.Although analysts are divided over the question of how many followers Choudary actually has, no one disputes the fact that he is far from alone in exploiting the British welfare system.British taxpayers have footed the bill for the Moroccan-born Najat Mostafa, the second wife of the Egyptian-born Islamic hate preacher Abu Hamza, who was extradited to the United States in October 2012. She has lived in a £1 million, five-bedroom house in one of London's wealthiest neighborhoods for more than 15 years, and has raised the couple's eight children there.Abu Hamza and his family are believed to have cost British taxpayers more than £338,000 in benefits. He has also received £680,000 in legal assistance for his failed U.S. extradition battle. The cost of keeping him in a British prison since 2004 is estimated at £500,000.Fellow extremist Islamic preacher Abu Qatada, a Palestinian, has cost British taxpayers an estimated £500,000. He has also won £390,000 in legal aid to avoid deportation to Jordan.The Islamic preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed, a Syrian, obtained £300,000 benefits before being exiled to Lebanon. The money was provided to raise his six children, including Yasmin Fostok, a single mother who makes a living as a pole-dancer in London nightclubs.More instances of British welfare abuse can be found here.In France, the government in March 2015 cut welfare benefits for 290 persons identified as jihadists. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve downplayed the problem. "We shouldn't make a controversy of this subject or allow people to think no action has been taken. We're taking this seriously and will continue to do so," he said.In Germany, an analysis of the estimated 450 German jihadists fighting in Syria found that more than 20% of them were receiving welfare benefits from the German state. In addition, the 150 jihadists who have returned to Germany are eligible to begin receiving benefits again.The Interior Minister of Bavaria, Joachim Herrmann, said:
"It should never come to this. German taxpayers' money should never directly or indirectly finance Islamist terrorism. The benefits of such terrorist parasites should be eliminated immediately. Not working and spreading terror at the expense of the German state is not only extremely dangerous, it is also the worst provocation and disgrace!"
Separately, a study by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research found that Muslim immigrants were more likely to be unemployed and living off the social welfare state than any other immigrant group in Germany.According to the study, 55% of the immigrants from Lebanon are unemployed, as are 46% from Iraq, 37.5% from Afghanistan, 37.1% from Iran, 27.1% from Morocco and 21.5% from Turkey. In real terms, immigrants from Turkey (140,000) constitute the largest number of unemployed. The report said the root cause for the high unemployment rates was the lack of educational attainment and job training qualifications.In the Netherlands, a Dutch jihadist named Khalid Abdurahman appeared in a YouTube video with five severed heads. Originally from Iraq, Abdurahman was living on social welfare benefits in the Netherlands for more than a decade before he joined the Islamic State in Syria. Dutch social services declared him to be unfit for work and taxpayers paid for the medication to treat him for claustrophobia and schizophrenia.Meanwhile, city councils across the Netherlands are attempting to help rather than to prosecute returning jihadists. In the city of Delft, for example, local politicians are using taxpayer money to "reintegrate" jihadists and to help them "rebuild their lives." Dutch public television explained it this way: "The idea is that the local authorities do not want to alienate the returnees by means of a repressive approach which might lead to their further radicalization."Separately, several Dutch-Moroccan organizations sent a letter to the Labor Party (Partij van de Arbeid, PvdA) in which they threatened to urge Dutch-Moroccans to stop supporting the party if it agreed to a proposal by its Minister of Social Affairs, Lodewijk Asscher, to cut social welfare payments to Moroccans who do not live in the Netherlands. Asscher accused the organizations of using an "improper electoral threat."In Spain, police arrested five Muslims in the Basque Country who allegedly pocketed the social welfare payments of Redouan Bensbih, a Moroccan immigrant killed on the battlefield in Syria in March. Despite his no longer living in Spain, Bensbih continued receiving monthly payments of €836 euros ($920), which the suspects are accused of having wired to Morocco.Meanwhile, a network of more than 250 butcher shops, grocery stores and telephone call centers was accused of financing the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. The network used the so-called hawala system — defined by Interpol as money transfer without money movement — where money is transferred through an informal and virtually untraceable system.According to the El País newspaper, "the secret hawala network in Spain is comprised of about 300 hawaladars — the majority of them Pakistanis — who run clandestine offices in Barcelona, Tarragona, Lleida, Bilbao, Santander, Valencia, Madrid, Logroño, León, Jaén and Almería, and other cities with large Pakistani communities." They manage the savings of over 150,000 Muslims, many of whom are believed to be receiving social welfare payments from the Spanish state, without any legal oversight.The network allegedly paid the salaries of Spanish jihadists in Syria: They received about $800 if they were single and $1,200 if they were married.In February 2015, a Pakistani couple residing in the Basque capital of Vitoria was accused of falsifying identity documents to fraudulently obtain social welfare payments for ten fictitious individuals. The man was receiving six different welfare payments and his wife was receiving four. Each welfare payment was between €6,000 ($6,600) and €10,000 ($11,000) per month. Police say that over a period of three years, the couple defrauded the Basque government of more than €395,000 ($453,000).The Basque Country is known for its liberal social welfare policies; all residents, including illegal immigrants, are eligible to receive welfare payments. In 2012, a massive wave of immigrants from Morocco and Algeria arrived in the Basque Country in order to — in the words of a local politician — "live off of welfare benefits without working."According to local observers, more than 65% of the immigrants from Morocco and Algeria are receiving benefits. Auditors found that in 2012 alone the Basque Country made €86 million ($95 million) in dubious welfare payments.In Sweden, the state employment agency, Arbetsformedlingen, terminated a pilot program aimed at helping immigrants find jobs. Information had emerged that Muslim employees at the agency were helping jobseekers find jobs as jihadists for the Islamic State. Operatives from the Islamic State had also allegedly bribed — and in some cases issued death threats against — agency employees in efforts to recruit fighters from Sweden.Also in Sweden, the government said it wanted to impose a special tax to finance a jobs program for returning jihadists. The project is based on a scheme in the Swedish city of Örebro, where the city is using taxpayer money to help returning jihadists find employment. Town councilor Rasmus Persson said:
"We have discussed how we should work for these guys who have come back, to ensure that they do not return to the battlefield. They should be helped to process the traumatic experiences they have been through."
The project was challenged by a Swedish soldier deployed in Afghanistan, who said that he was likely to get less help when he came back to Sweden than returning jihadists were. Soldier Fredrik Brandberg wrote:
"It would be wonderful if I was met with a comparable program after my homecoming, after which I could feel safe in having a regular job, with monthly income and a social stable situation in the society where I wouldn't need to wonder whether I'm wanted or not."
A spokesperson for the Swedish Armed Forces said that what happens to soldiers upon their return from war was not an issue that fell under its mandate.

 Sisi calls for 'religious revolution' at Cairo's Islamic University
By REUTERS/05/31/2015
"You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world is waiting. The entire world is waiting for your next word because this nation is being torn apart," Sisi told clerics.
An army helicopter flies over a mosque in Cairo
In his battle against militant Islam, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is relying not just on bomber planes and soldiers but on white-turbaned clerics from al-Azhar, Egypt's 1,000-year-old center for Islamic learning. He wants clerics to counter radicalism in the classroom.
In a televised speech in January at an al-Azhar conference center in Cairo, Sisi called for "a religious revolution" in Islam. Radicalized thinking, he told the audience of Islamic scholars, had become "a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world."
That had to change - and the scholars had a leading role to play, in schools, mosques and on the airwaves.
"You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world is waiting. The entire world is waiting for your next word because this nation is being torn apart."
Surprised by the president's bluntness, the scholars went "white as sheets," some of those in the audience told a Western official.
The president's warning is part of a much larger project. To contain the radical Islamist movement roiling his nation, Sisi has most conspicuously been using the law and brute force. But he is also promoting a more moderate and less politicized version of the faith.
In that struggle the al-Azhar institution is one of the most important fronts for Sisi - and for the wider region. The outcome of the struggle in Egypt, the intellectual and cultural capital of the Arab world, has ramifications far beyond its borders.
Today the university's various faculties and research centers have 450,000 students, many from countries across Asia and Africa. It also has a network of more than 9,000 schools across Egypt attended by more than 2 million students.
al-Azhar's teachers, preachers, and researchers have so far introduced a few small changes. They include tweaking text books and setting up an online monitoring center to track militant statements on social media so the institute can better refute them. But there is no detailed reform program yet, and al-Azhar officials openly acknowledge the magnitude of the challenge ahead.
To be successful, Sisi will need to achieve what many before him have not: balancing tough security measures with education to encourage a more moderate version of Islam. Past experiences in Egypt, Syria, Algeria, and Iraq show that attempts to crack down on extremism can also stoke it. So far the results of Sisi's drive have been mixed.
The president is deeply religious and has a mark on his forehead from years of pressing his head to the carpet in daily prayer. His wife and daughter wear the veil. His reputation for piety was so well known that his predecessor, Mohamed Mursi, a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt's first freely-elected president, appointed him army chief in August 2012.
Yet Sisi was also bold enough to seize power from Mursi after the Brotherhood leader became increasingly unpopular. Since then, he has cracked down hard on the Brotherhood. Hundreds of the group's supporters have been killed, and thousands jailed. This month a Cairo court recommended the death sentence for Mursi in connection with a mass jail break in 2011.
Balancing that sort of force with a message of moderation is difficult. Some students at al-Azhar say they are deeply skeptical of the institution, and of the government's plans. Many dismiss al-Azhar as a mouthpiece for the state, which favors the military and political elites over the poor masses where militants find most of their recruits.
Some students told Reuters the security crackdown was counterproductive. Cairo's heavy-handed tactics, they say, are radicalizing people who may have been open to a message of moderation.
Western officials praise Sisi's calls for action but question whether he has any real plan. "There's a kernel of a very big idea in what Sisi wants to do," said one. "But his vision of it is not exactly clear and it's not clear how it will be implemented."
Since Sisi seized power, Al-Azhar has purged Mursi-era professors and teachers, and returned to an appointment system in which the state plays a major role. It has also publicly backed Sisi's crackdown on the Brotherhood and militants. Al-Azhar's Grand Imam, Ahmed al-Tayeb, was one of a few public figures who flanked Sisi as he announced the military takeover in 2013 after days of mass protests against Mursi.
The university has issued new rules stating that any student or faculty member who incites, supports or joins in protests that disrupt learning or promote rioting or vandalism will be expelled or fired.
Beginning in 2013, al-Azhar also started to simplify its curriculum to make it more compatible with the modern age, said Abbas Shuman, Al-Azhar deputy head. School text book passages describing the spoils of war and slavery have been removed, he said, because they were applicable during the Muslim conquests but are now considered out of date.
The university insists that students should not read old religious texts without guidance. And Professor Abdel Fattah Alawari, dean of the Islamic theology faculty at al-Azhar, said specialized panels had also been created to review books written by professors to make sure they do not lean towards extremism.
Clerics are also trying to modernize methods of communication. al-Azhar recently started a YouTube channel to counter Islamist propaganda with its own, and has begun using social media to condemn Islamic State atrocities. Sheikhs from al-Azhar have embarked on tours of youth centers around the country to promote moderate thought and discourage radicalism.
The reforms have not been universally welcomed. al-Azhar's university campuses saw several violent pro-Brotherhood protests after Mursi was deposed. Some students are opposed to changes to the curriculum.
Yousef Hamdi, a third year student studying Islamic theology, said he was upset that he has not been taught the four mainstream schools of thought on Sunni learning and the differences between them. They include rulings by early prominent clerics such as "using force against oppression and rejecting the ruler."
"A number of students have become radicalized as a result of that, because they turned to these texts on radicalization without aid and instruction from al-Azhar," he said.
Another student, who met with Reuters in the Cairo metro to avoid detection by security services, said the move to a softer version of fiqh - the interpretation of Islamic Sha'ria law - has made people angry. "They want to change the curriculum ... They've turned it into 'fiqh-lite'," he said.
It is not hard to find radical texts. Just outside al-Azhar mosque in Cairo's old quarter, a maze of alleyways is filled with scores of bookshops that sell both mainstream Islamic titles and books by more extreme Islamist scholars, including Ibn Taymiyya and Sheikh Kishk.
One booklet by Ibn Taymiyya contains stand-alone statements such as "Honesty in faith is not complete without jihad for the sake of God." More moderate Islamic scholars have criticised such statements because they lack any context for when jihad is justified.
Bookshop owners said that they even quietly sell books by Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian Brotherhood leader in the middle of last century who is widely seen as the father of modern radical Islamist ideology.
The security crackdown may be undermining the attempted education reforms, hardening the outlook of students already sympathetic to Islamists and ostracizing some moderates.
The tough tactics spark a deep hatred for the police, but Egypt's government denies allegations of human rights abuses and says the Brotherhood, Islamic State and al-Qaida pose a grave threat to Egypt.
At the same time, security sources say authorities do target universities. One police officer told Reuters that "most of al-Azhar students are under suspicion" and are regularly monitored. Depending on what is detected, students are either subjected to further monitoring or it is stopped. "al-Azhar students have the tendency [towards extremism] and are usually a fertile ground to be deceived into joining terrorist cells," the officer said.
Others also take a tough line. Abdul Ghani Hendi, a religious affairs adviser in the Egyptian parliament, thinks al-Azhar should be completely restructured to allow for self-criticism. "All the thought which dominates the society is extremists' thoughts. We should confess that frankly," he said.
In April, an official at the education ministry burned books in the courtyard of a private school, saying the literature included Islamic texts that incited violence. The action sparked ridicule from Islamists and secularists alike, who pointed out that some of the burned books had nothing to do with Islam. Nevertheless, Sisi remains committed to his drive against militancy and thinks Al-Azhar can do more to promote a moderate form of Islam. In a recent speech, he said: "We need to move faster and more effectively."

Iran is America’s de-facto ally in the war against ISIS
Raghida Dergham/Al Arabiya
Sunday, 31 May 2015
There have been many recent surprises in the Arab world, mainly heading towards the direction of a developing U.S.-Iranian relationship that goes beyond mere appeasement. This is while the U.S.-Israeli relationship remains a quintessential alliance and while the U.S.-Arab relationship continues with various brandings across the Gulf to Africa, through the Orient and its torn countries.
The Americans want to say that U.S. public opinion does not care about what is happening in the Arab region and that the talk about American roles in the terrible changes that have played out there for years is part of “conspiracy theories.” As for the Arabs, from various affiliations and orientations, they seem “certain” that it is U.S. policy that is manipulating the Arab region, and leading it to partition and fragmentation.
What is clear is that there is a decline in the trust and increase in suspicions in the U.S.-Arab relationship, in parallel with the realignment of Iran in the direction of becoming a reliable partner for the United States. The Obama administration has a big appetite for Iranian offers and for upgrading the bilateral relationship. However, developments on the ground sometimes raise questions about whether the silent U.S. blessing of the Iranian role in the Arab countries is an endorsement of Iranian ambitions or an attempt to implicate Iran in a way that would make Syria and perhaps even Iraq the “Vietnam” of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its allies.
What ISIS is doing in Syria is astonishing, but equally astonishing is how the Iraqi army and the Syrian regime army have handed over to ISIS extremely important areas in both countries. The entry of the Popular Mobilization forces, which are sometimes called Shiite militias, to the Anbar province alongside the Iraqi army to repel ISIS is a dangerous development that exacerbates concerns and suspicions. However, what is happening in Iraq and Syria is not completely separate from what is happening in Yemen, where the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia is fighting the Iranian influence represented by the Houthis and their current ally former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. And from the cracks created by the sectarian and tribal wars in the Arab region, the projects for fragmentation and partition are returning to the fore.
Convincing Washington
Among the most important statements to be made in public this week following ISIS’ takeover of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, were those made by Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the top Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander. Soleimani quoted his message with criticism of the United States, which he said did nothing to help the Iraqi army against ISIS, has no will to fight, and is establishing false alliances as he put it. However, the most important message he sent out was when he said that only the Islamic Republic of Iran can fight ISIS.
If only federalism could make its way to realistic Arab strategies
Soleimani’s message is important because it means that Tehran wants to convince Washington that it is the only party able to repel ISIS and not the Arab, international or Sunni coalition. What Tehran wants is to be the only de facto ally of the United States, which has made the war against ISIS a top priority. Tehran wants to tell Washington that it must not oppose its presence in Iraq or Syria, directly or through Shiite militias in Iraq and Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon. Only in a ground battle, Tehran says, not through aerial bombardment, can ISIS be defeated; and there are no Saudi or Gulf forces on the ground.
Subsequently, one of Iran’s priorities is to convince Washington that regional Iranian ambitions are not expansionist but necessary.
Washington seems almost convinced of the Iranian narrative. Washington believes it is in its interests to ignore the expansionist goals of the Islamic Republic and focus on partnership with Iran against ISIS. Especially so when Tehran sees the ISIS project as an existential threat to its so-called Shiite Crescent project.
That project had emerged during the tenure of former U.S. President George W. Bush at the hands of the neoconservatives, who believed U.S. strategy must be based on supporting that crescent because it served U.S. and Israeli interests. The neocons believed that partitioning the Arab countries was an indispensable necessity to allow the creation of a “Petrostan” from the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia to Iran to parts of Iraq, with corridors to Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. In the view of the neocons ten years ago or so, the tools for achieving this partition include roles to be played by al-Qaeda and similar groups, like ISIS now, to carry out sabotage in Saudi Arabia and help partition and fragment Iraq and Syria.
Obama’s two phases
U.S. President Barack Obama for his part underwent two phases: The first at the start of his tenure when he adopted the idea of mainstreaming the Turkish model with the Muslim Brotherhood taking power in Egypt and other Arab countries. Obama believed this would encourage “moderate” Islam against Islamic extremism. In the second phase, Barack Obama decided that the U.S. interest requires a détente with the mullahs in Tehran, and so he complied with all their conditions under the title of encouraging “moderation in Iran, as the Iranian regime sold it through Hassan Rouhani.
What is common between the Obama administration and the neocons in the Bush administration is that they both agree on the project for a Petrostan/Shiastan, and what this requires in terms of strengthening Iran, weakening the Arab states that are confronting it, and partitioning the Arab countries. This is a shared interest for Iran, Israel, and Turkey, because removing the Arabs from the regional balance of power suits all three countries.
Therefore, the Arab interest definitely requires that none of the leaders in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE make a strategic mistake that would end up weakening this important axis trying to restore the Arab role in the regional balance of power. In this regard, the Egyptian media – and not just the Egyptian leadership and the public – must not slip into arrogance, one-upmanship, or petulance with regard to the Gulf contribution to saving Egypt and empowering it. For their part, the Gulf states must be alert to Egyptian sensitivities, including history, to understand the causes of Egyptian hesitation with respect to the war in Yemen, which has shaken Gulf trust in the Egyptian partner. This is not a time for accountability, but a time for a realistic review of the requirements of the Gulf-Egyptian partnership and protecting it against erosion or collapse. The responsibility falls on the shoulders of all those concerned with the partnership.
What the Gulf leaders heard at the Camp David summit two weeks ago with President Barack Obama regarding Yemen was not encouraging and did not show understanding of the importance of the war in Yemen from the Arab, Gulf, or Saudi perspective. The opinion of Obama’s advisers in this issue is that Iran is not a key player in Yemen, and that Iran does not interfere in Yemen’s internal affairs. The opinion of Obama and his advisers is that Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Arab coalition have exaggerated the Yemeni threat, and that it was necessary for them to become involved as a party in this war. If Yemen ends up being a quagmire for the Arab coalition, then they would have no one else to blame but themselves, according to the U.S. thinking, which is radically at odds with the Saudi and Arab thinking. The latter holds that the war in Yemen was extremely necessary to stop the Iranian encroachment on the Arab countries, and that there is zero room for defeat in Yemen, as this would threaten Saudi national security.
Iran, Iran, Iran
At Camp David, the Gulf leaders found the U.S. president fully focused on Iran as a priority, and that his main message was that no one would be allowed to sabotage his main strategy of Iran, Iran, Iran.
According to sources, Barack Obama did not hear the language of decisiveness that the Gulf leaders had pledged to use. The Gulf leaders did not call for establishing, for example, a no-fly zone in Syria in order to bring about a quantum leap in the support for the moderate armed Syrian opposition. They only listened to Barack Obama say that his priority is repelling ISIS at any cost, that his support for moderate opposition forces will not be upgraded, and that he will not become involved.
The opinion of Obama’s advisers is that if Iran, the Revolutionary Guards, and Hezbollah are the instruments by which ISIS can be expelled then so be it. Obama will not become involved in Syria. Let Hezbollah fight the war on ISIS, and let them both perish, after they exhaust the Assad regime and fragment Syria, because Washington no longer cares.
The U.S. policy on Iraq, as the Gulf leaders heard, is that the priority there too is for repelling ISIS at the hands of no matter whom. The Obama administration has decided to ignore the danger of enabling the Popular Mobilization at Iran’s hands. For this reason, Washington decided to ignore the fact that the Iraqi army handed over Ramadi without fierce resistance would inevitably lead to calls for help from the Shiite militias in the capital of Sunni-majority Anbar. In other words, Iran has entered Anbar, and this will have very serious implications.
ISIS’s adventures in Iraq and Syria raises questions because of the ease at which it is making its sweeping gains. Indeed, the mysterious organization may have been born in Syrian and Iraqi prisons, and was subsequently unleashed by Bashar al-Assad and former Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki – both allies of Iran – to tarnish the Syrian revolution. After that, ISIS became ISIS Inc., and a cocktail of intelligence agencies are exploiting ISIS for both divergent and convergent objectives. What is strange, however, is that all these parties do not seem to be concerned by ISIS, which has otherwise spread terror and panic in ordinary hearts.
The Arab region will undergo a difficult and complex period ahead. The mistakes made by Arab leaders are major mistakes. Iranian ideas have found a sponsor with Barack Hussein Obama.
 

Iran sanctions to ‘snap back’ if nuke deal breaks
By Louis Charbonneau, John Irish and Parisa Hafezi | Reuters, United Nations
Sunday, 31 May 2015
Six world powers have agreed on a way to restore U.N. sanctions on Iran if the country breaks the terms of a future nuclear deal, clearing a major obstacle to an accord ahead of a June 30 deadline, Western officials told Reuters.
The new understanding on a U.N. sanctions "snapback" among the six powers - the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China - brings them closer to a possible deal with Iran, though other hurdles remain, including ensuring United Nations access to Iranian military sites.
The six powers and Iran struck an interim agreement on April 2 ahead of a possible final deal that would aim to block an Iranian path to a nuclear bomb in exchange for lifting sanctions. But the timing of sanctions relief, access and verification of compliance and a mechanism for restoring sanctions if Iran broke its commitments were among the most difficult topics left for further negotiations.
U.S. and European negotiators want any easing of U.N. sanctions to be automatically reversible if Tehran violates a deal. Russia and China traditionally reject such automatic measures as undermining their veto power as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.
As part of the new agreement on sanctions snapback, suspected breaches by Iran would be taken up by a dispute-resolution panel, likely including the six powers and Iran, which would assess the allegations and come up with a non-binding opinion, the officials said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would also continue regularly reporting on Iran's nuclear program, which would provide the six powers and the Security Council with information on Tehran's activities to enable them to assess compliance.
If Iran was found to be in non-compliance with the terms of the deal, then U.N. sanctions would be restored.
The officials did not say precisely how sanctions would be restored but Western powers have been adamant that it should take place without a Security Council vote, based on provisions to be included in a new U.N. Security Council resolution to be adopted after a deal is struck. "We pretty much have a solid agreement between the six on the snapback mechanism, Russians and Chinese included," a Western official said. "But now the Iranians need to agree."
Another senior Western official echoed his remarks, describing the agreement as "tentative" because it would depend on Iranian acceptance.
A senior Iranian diplomat said Iran was now reviewing several options for the possible "snapback" of Security Council sanctions against Tehran.
It was unclear exactly how the snapback mechanism would function, and the officials did not discuss the precise details. It was also unclear how the proposal would protect the United States and other permanent Council members from a possible Chinese or Russian veto on sanctions restoration. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power has made it clear that Washington does not want Russia's and China's recent slew of vetoes on resolutions related to Syria to be repeated with an Iran nuclear agreement.
France's Ambassador to the United States Gerard Araud said in Washington last week that, under a French idea, sanctions would be reinstated automatically in the event of non-compliance, avoiding the threat of a veto.
Under that idea, which Araud said had not to date been approved by the six powers, the onus would be on Russia or China to propose a Security Council vote not to re-impose sanctions.
Russian and Chinese officials did not respond immediately to requests for confirmation that they signed off on the snapback mechanism.
Reviewing the options
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Geneva on Saturday. They discussed progress and obstacles to an agreement in the Iran nuclear talks a month before the deadline for a deal aimed at reducing the risk of another war in the Middle East.
Restoring U.S. and EU sanctions is less difficult than U.N. sanctions because there is no need for U.N. Security Council involvement.For their part, Moscow, Beijing and Tehran have wanted assurances that Washington cannot unilaterally force a sanctions snapback - a risk they see rising if a Republican wins the U.S. presidency in 2016. A senior Iranian diplomat confirmed that discussions of specific snapback options were underway. He told Reuters Tehran was preparing its own "snapback" in the event the Western powers fail to live up to their commitments under the agreement. "At least three or four different suggestions have been put on the table, which are being reviewed," he said. "Iran also can immediately resume its activities if the other parties involved do not fulfill their obligations under the deal."
He added that it was "a very sensitive issue."If Iran accepts the proposed snapback mechanism, there are other hurdles that must be overcome, including IAEA access to Iranian military sites and nuclear scientists and the pace of sanctions relief. Iran says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and rejects allegations from Western countries and their allies that it wants the capability to produce atomic weapons. It says all sanctions are illegal and works hard to circumvent them.

Canada’s police edited out Islamic prayers from jihad murderer’s video
May 31, 2015 / By Robert Spencer
This is their explanation: the withholding was for “security purposes”: “In order to maintain the integrity of the ongoing investigation, the RCMP was limited in the amount of information it was able to publicly release.”
That’s a lot of hooey. There is nothing relating to security in the withheld sections — only Islamic prayers. They cut them out so that the public wouldn’t be in danger of getting the idea that Zehaf-Bibeau’s attack had anything to do with Islam. For whatever reason, Canadian authorities, as well as those in the United States and Europe, are determined above all else — even security considerations — to keep their people ignorant and complacent regarding the jihad threat. This cannot, and will not, end well.
“Canada Releases Full Video of Gunman Before He Ambushed Parliament Last Year,” by Justin Ling, Vice, May 29, 2015:
Canada’s federal police service has finally released the full cellphone video taken by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau moments before the attacker stormed Parliament Hill in October and murdered a soldier.
In it, the 32-year-old Canadian-born man prays in fluent Arabic and asks for forgiveness.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police released part of the video in March, which shows Zehaf-Bibeau sitting in his car, just a few hundred meters from where he would begin his attack, withholding 18 seconds, at the time, for security purposes.
“In order to maintain the integrity of the ongoing investigation, the RCMP was limited in the amount of information it was able to publicly release,” the federal police service said in a statement today. “We are now at a point in our investigation where we are able to share the full, unedited version of the video.”
Recent reports from the Canadian Press quoted sources who claimed that Zehaf-Bibeau named individuals of Middle Eastern origin and called for fresh attacks within Canada. Those two details appear to be incorrect.
The previously-withheld sections, however — 13 seconds at the beginning, five at the end — contain Zehaf-Bibeau praying in Arabic.
“In the name of Allah the most gracious and merciful, All praise to Allah, the Lord of the universe.” Zehaf-Bibeau begins. “We seek his help and ask for his forgiveness.”
According to the RCMP, it withheld the sections of the video while it had analyzed the Arabic portions.
“The RCMP also needed time to fully analyze the language used, including the dialect of Arabic being spoken, consult subject matter experts and follow up on a number of investigative leads,” the news release said.
The service said it would not be commenting further on what they learned from the video.
“Lord, open for me my chest, ease my task for me and remove the impediment from my speech,” Zehaf-Bibeau says in Arabic, according to the translation provided by the RCMP, as he appears visibly nervous and at times stumbling over his words in later sections of the video.
The first section of the video, which Zehaf-Bibeau recorded in a car that he purchased specifically in preparation for the attack, also contains a quick shot identifying where in downtown Ottawa Zehaf-Bibeau was parked. That information may have been of importance during the investigation.
In the English portion, which is already public, the Canadian citizen says the attack is in retaliation for Canada’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan, and because “you guys have forgotten God and have let every indecency and things running [sic] your land.”
In the five seconds at the end, which was withheld until today, Zehaf-Bibeau stares upward and mumbles in Arabic, “Lord accept from me and peace be upon you and upon the Mujahadeen. May Allah curse you.”…