RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16105/egypt-christians-persecuted

On May 30, 2020 — two days before President Trump congratulated Copts around the world — Egyptian authorities demolished the village of Koum al-Farag’s only Coptic church, even though it had … served three thousand Christians. According to the report, “The destruction of the church was a punishment for the ‘crime’ of building rooms for Sunday school…. When the work began, some extremist Muslims began to attack Christians.”

Police further arrested and imprisoned 14 Christians overnight. The nearest church to the Christians of Koum al-Farag, most of whom are limited to traveling by foot, is 10 miles away.

“No one should fear for their safety in a house of worship anywhere in the world.” — President Donald J. Trump, “Presidential Message on Global Coptic Day, 2020”, June 1, 2020.

All that former President Barack Obama could bring himself to do [after the 2011 Maspero Massacre, when the Egyptian government slaughtered and ran over dozens of Copts with tanks for protesting the burnings and closures of their churches] was call “for restraint on all sides” — as if Egypt’s beleaguered Christian minority needed to “restrain” itself against the nation’s armed and aggressive military.

On June 1, 2020, President Trump issued a statement titled “Presidential Message on Global Coptic Day, 2020.” (Copts are Egypt’s indigenous Christians, now a minority.) After sending his “best wishes” to the “millions of Coptic Christians in the United States and around the world,” he said that recognizing Global Coptic Day provides “an opportunity for the world to mark the contributions, legacy, and ongoing challenges facing the largest Christian group in the Middle East.” He continued:

“Today is also a time for us to acknowledge the importance of religious freedom and reaffirm our commitment to promoting and defending this core tenet of a free society. Tragically, far too many people the world over face persecution on account of their faith.”

This is certainly true for the Copts. Most recently, on April 14, 2020, an Islamic terror plot to bomb Coptic churches around Easter was thwarted. Previous plots, however — which also targeted churches during Christian holidays, when they are most packed with people and therefore offer the greatest harvest of slain Christian worshippers — came to fruition:

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16106/libya-powers-play-with-fire

Cameron’s friends tell me that he and Sarkozy were both pushed into the Libyan adventure by then US President Barack Obama who wished to test his “leadership from behind” theory which, in turn, flattered the European midgets.

Libya is currently the largest theater of proxy wars in the Greater Middle East. More foreign powers are involved in the Libyan proxy war than in Syria.

According to Moscow sources, Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes to gain a pause-and-resupply base for his navy on Libya’s 1,770-kilometer-long Mediterranean coast to complement the aero-naval base he has obtained in Tartus, Syria.

The second reason why this mini-world war is worthy of attention is that Libya, with the longest shoreline on the Mediterranean, is also neighbor on land to six countries, all of which could be destabilized or worse. It is no surprise that, thanks to Egyptian efforts, the Libyan dossier is slated to come up in the African Union as a threat to security across the continent.

A series of seesaw battles, in some of which Haftar’s forces scored tactical gains, has shown that without military intervention by a bigger player, neither side is able to kick the other out of the game…. The prospect of Libya being Syrianized must be taken seriously.

With coronavirus lockdown gradually whittled down, last week we started working on a series of conferences on the greater Middle East region for one of the local universities. As we suggested topics we came to Libya where a forgotten war has been going on for almost a decade.

The response from committee members was almost unanimous: Who cares about Libya?

Evil tongues might suggest that, coming from French and British academics, this “who cares” sounds like an attempt to hide a shameful family secret.

After all, the tragic mess we witness in Libya today is, in good part, a result of policies pursued by French President Nicholas Sarkozy and British Premier David Cameron, who took on the job of toppling Col. Muammar Gaddafi without knowing what they would need to do next.

Cameron’s friends tell me that he and Sarkozy were both pushed into the Libyan adventure by then US President Barack Obama, who wished to test his “leadership from behind” theory which, in turn, flattered the European midgets.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16108/finally-a-good-new-snap-back-plan-on-iran

The RSC plan also advocates that Congress impose further new sanctions on “Iran’s petrochemical, shipping, financial, construction and automotive sectors.” Legislation would also target “Iran’s human rights violations and regional aggression, including in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. And it suggests sanctioning the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), a European mechanism that the United States has criticized as a way to evade US sanctions on Iran.”

In an unprecedented but welcome manner, the RSC bill would for the first time place “new sanctions on the arms industries of countries like Russia and China that return to selling weapons to Iran, the banks facilitating any sale of weapons to Iran, and the companies shipping weapons.”

Diplomacy will not stop Iran. Real pressure will.

With the new RSC strategy, the US and its allies have a real shot at taking down the regime in Iran. That would indeed signal the success of economic “maximum pressure.”

The Republican Study Committee (RSC) in the House of Representatives, proposed on June 10, 2020, an unprecedentedly strong new Iran policy. The package of proposed legislation would end all Iranian waivers, snap-back economic sanctions in place prior to the Iran nuclear deal, and set severe economic penalties on those seeking to sell advanced weaponry to Iran.

The new GOP plan also advocates that Congress impose further new sanctions on “Iran’s petrochemical, shipping, financial, construction and automotive sectors.” Legislation would also target “Iran’s human rights violations and regional aggression, including in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. And it suggests sanctioning the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), a European mechanism that the United States has criticized as a way to evade US sanctions on Iran.”