Lightning Times

Morning Report 2015-01-23

Saudi Arabia: King Abdullah dies, succeeded by King Salman. The former king's half-brother Deputy Prime Minister Salman bin Abdul Aziz takes the throne after the passing of the 93-year-old monarch. Debka cites an ambitious Iran, the encroaching Islamic State, and revolutionary Yemen (see below) as security concerns facing the new king. Reuters: '"Times are dangerous," said Joseph Kechichian, a scholar of Gulf Arab ruling families. "Mohammed bin Nayef's appointment shows Salman feels it's important to speak quickly with a single determined voice in the face of all these threats."'

Yemen: President Hadi resigns after Houthi takeover. The Iranian-backed, Shi'a Houthis now appear to be running the show in Yemen. To give you an idea of where they're coming from, their slogan is 'God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam.' For Yemen-related updates, follow long-time Yemen watcher Jane Novak on Twitter.

Michael Totten: The Iranian regime and Charlie Hebdo.

The fact that the Iranian regime behaves this way at home does not by itself make a deal with Iran impossible. The United States has a transactional alliance with Saudi Arabia despite its government being no less grotesque. But the geopolitical interests of Washington and Riyadh overlap while the geopolitical interests of Washington and Tehran are entirely at odds with each other. ...

Read it all at the link.

Morning Report: 2015-01-01

Debka: Obama to fund Iranian-dominated Iraqi army. According to this bulletin from Debka, 'The source of the new manpower was disclosed by Deputy Commander of the IRGC Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami, when he announced this week that Iran was assembling a mighty army from the various Shiite militias fighting in Syria and Iraq. “This force will be larger even than the Lebanese Hizballah,” he boasted. All those militias are under the direct command of the Guards. Therefore, the Obama administration has committed the United States to forging a strong military bond with Tehran and providing military and financial assistance for the creation of a strong regional Shiite armed force that will elevate Iran to the standing of leading military power in the Middle East. ...'

Russia offers to lease aircraft to Argentina. The American Interest notes that there's only one plausible target for those twelve Su-24s: the Falklands.

HarperCollins apologizes for erasing Israel. HarperCollins issued a public apology after the discovery that atlases published by its British subsidiary Collins Bartholomew for use in Middle Eastern classrooms had had Israel removed. 'Collins Bartholomew claimed the redrawing of borders was done in order to incorporate "local preferences," and more specifically that their customers in the Gulf States where the maps are sold would find the inclusion of Israel "unacceptable."'

Morning Report: 2012-11-08

Sudan: Rebels say they've shot down government bomber. 'Rebels in Sudan say they have shot down a government military aircraft after it had bombed rebel targets. The Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-North) says the Antonov bomber crashed on Wednesday in the Jau area, South Kordofan state,' the BBC reports.

Iran: Government bans some imports. Reuters: 'Iran has temporarily banned the import of some "luxury goods" including foreign-made cars and mobile phones, a state-run newspaper said on Thursday, to save billions of dollars for essential products in the face of worsening sanctions.'

India: Women banned from Hajj Ali shrine. Telegraph: 'A 15th century mausoleum in the heart of Mumbai has attracted controversy after women were banned from visiting an iconic shrine inside. The move by the Haji Ali mausoleum, less than half a mile from the shoreline of the Arabian sea, has caused outrage on Twitter with men and women condemning the move. ...'

Libya: Benghazi suspects include Egyptians. Catherine Herridge at Fox:

The list of suspects in the Libya terror attack now extends to a handful of suspected militants aligned with an Egyptian group known as the Jamal Network, Fox News has learned.

A U.S. official said the Jamal Network is committed to violence to attain its political ambitions, adding they are "hard-core, violent extremists in Egypt who are trying to develop a relationship with Al Qaeda."

Fox News is told that there are between two- and three-dozen suspects actively being investigated at any one time in connection with the Benghazi attack. The suspect list is fluid, drawn from intelligence ranging from intercepts to witness accounts, with new names being added and dropped on a regular basis. ...'

Jennifer Rubin: What Republicans can do. Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post:

What do Republicans do about this? Well, seriously, nothing is more important than educational reform to teach each generation of Americans some basic U.S. history, simple economics and even ethics. The long-term solution to the problem of a clueless electorate rests with clergy, teachers and parents. (Let’s not kid ourselves that the mainstream media will enlighten the public.)

Now since educating future generations is a long-term undertaking, what do conservatives do in the short run?

First, they must find candidates who are both intellectually sound conservatives and culturally adept. I don’t mean they can play the sax on TV or listen to rap music but rather that they are seen as in tune with modern America, not an idealized America from our childhood or our parents’ childhood. It is more than likability; it is a matter of relatability. If voters, especially in the presidential election year, can’t relate, they’re not going to listen.

Second, therefore, is the need to explain policies in everyday terms rather than in abstract, intellectual terms ...

Read the rest at the link.

Unexpectedly!

"President Barack Obama recently received a new National Intelligence Estimate report on the Iranian nuclear program, which shares Israel's view that Iran has made surprising, significant progress toward military nuclear capability, Western diplomats and Israeli officials have informed Haaretz. ..."

Morning Report: 2012-06-20

Nick Kristof from Iran. Richard Jeffrey Newman at Alas links to two articles by Nick Kristof, who's reporting from Iran. Implicit in Jeffrey's remarks is the suggestion that "readers in the United States" (especially, I presume, us right-wingers) might have forgotten that "Iranians are indeed ordinary people, essentially no different than we are" but perhaps I'm reading too much into it. In any case, readers who follow Kristof know that he is no stranger to friendly Iranians.

Iran nuclear talks break down. To the surprise of no one except those who shouldn't be surprised, multilateral talks in Moscow broke down.

Hong Kong paper accused of censorship. 'A prominent Hong Kong newspaper has come under fire for downplaying coverage of the death of a Chinese dissident, stoking new concerns that Communist Party rulers in Beijing are seeking to limit the former British colony's media freedoms. ...'

Germany claps down on Salafists. 'Last week the German interior ministry stepped up its efforts against a growing Salafist network in the Federal Republic, stating that "[t]he organization acts in opposition to the idea of constitutional order and multicultural understanding." With those words, German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich justified a massive series of raids on Thursday targeting Salafist organizations across seven German states ...'

France: Bank standoff in Toulouse. 'Security forces in Toulouse, France have sealed off a bank where a man claiming to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda is holding several people hostage. The man has fired one shot. ....

Morning Report: 2012-06-11

Iran's former nuclear negotiator spills the beans. Al-Monitor:

Iran undercut its own negotiators by withholding from them key details of its nuclear program, according to a new book by a former senior Iranian diplomat.

The book, Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir by Seyed Hossein Mousavian, reveals nuggets about Iran’s nuclear diplomacy and internal politics that make the failed diplomacy of the past decade easier to understand — and do not portend well for the future.

A top negotiator with the Europeans from 2003-2005, Mousavian notes that Iranian negotiators in 2003 did not know that Iran had obtained from Pakistan drawings for advanced centrifuges known as P-2s along with less sophisticated technology. ...

Internet kills illusions of advertising effectiveness. Walter Russell Mead writes that this applies to pr0n, but not just pr0n. 'The Internet also gutted the value of advertising (and continues to do so relentlessly), as Google and other ad networks revealed just how ineffective most of it actually is. It used to be that companies wouldn’t flinch to drop several million dollars on campaigns in glossy magazines, convinced that the “eyeballs” passing over their slick branding were being converted into customers. With the advent of online analytics, and with conversions becoming a hard statistic rather than something measured through market surveys, this illusion became harder and harder to sustain. ...' No word on how this will affect Snooki.

Pakistan: Chief Of Staff Declines Meeting With American Official. 'Pakistani army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani turned down a request to meet with U.S. Assistant Defense Secretary Peter Lavoy, Pakistani newspaper The News reported June 11, citing unnamed Pakistani and U.S. officials. Americans should not expect to meet with powerful Pakistani officials after undermining Pakistani sovereignty, issuing threats, intensifying strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles, killing Pakistani soldiers and refusing to apologize, and threatening to cut off aid, one Pakistani official said in explaining why the meeting might have been turned down.'

Flame Snuffs Itself

US computer security researchers said Sunday that the Flame computer virus that smoldered undetected for years in Middle Eastern energy facilities has gotten orders to vanish, leaving no trace. Anti-virus company Symantec said in a blog post that late last week, some Flame "command-and-control servers sent an updated command to several compromised computers." "This command was designed to completely remove (Flame) from the compromised computers." ...

Morning Report: 2012-06-01

NYT: Obama stepped up cyber attacks against Iran. New York Times:

Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks — begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games — even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran’s Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet.

At a tense meeting in the White House Situation Room within days of the worm’s “escape,” Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time, Leon E. Panetta, considered whether America’s most ambitious attempt to slow the progress of Iran’s nuclear efforts had been fatally compromised. ...

The current iteration of the virus is known as Flame.

While Stuxnet was crafted to do real-world damage to machinery, Flame was designed to suck information from computer networks and relay what it learned back to those controlling the virus.

Flame can record keystrokes, capture screen images, and eavesdrop using microphones built into computers.

In an intriguing twist, the malware can also use Bluetooth capabilities in machines to connect with smartphones or tablets, mining contact lists or other information, according to security researchers.

Flame was discovered by the Russian firm Kaspersky.

Kazakh border death toll rises to 15. Reuters: 'Two more bodies of Kazakh border guards have been discovered at a burnt-out border post near the frontier with China, the border guard service said on Friday, bringing the death toll in an unexplained incident to 15. "The total number of the dead are 14 servicemen and one civilian - a gamekeeper from a local game reserve," the service said in a statement. ...'

Turkish columnist: Our bleak options in Syria. Semih Ildiz via al-Monitor:

Can our AKP government, which has become a hardline party within the conflict, accept a Yemen model that the Sunnis in Syria will not? Also, will the new administration that would emerge in such a scenario see Turkey as a friend, after all that has taken place?

The events in Syria have exposed a fundamental fault line between Middle Eastern Muslims. Turkey, with its grandiose regional ambitions of soft power, should have remained neutral, but it couldn’t. We now live with the negative consequences of this in our relations with Iran and Iraq.

It is not realistic to expect positive change in near future. ...

Also via al-Monitor, Fikret Bila warns that Ankara's current course may lead to a PKK stronghold in northern Syria - hardly a desirable outcome from Turkey's standpoint.

Jihad in Seattle. 'Last week, Michael D. McCright, a.k.a. Mikhial Jihad, a previously convicted felon from the north Seattle suburb of Lynnwood, pled guilty to lesser charges in a case involving his attempt to force a government vehicle carrying two Marines off the road and cause a collision on an interstate highway in Seattle. The incident occurred on July 12, 2011 and resulted in McCright's arrest in Seattle on Sept. 8. McCright is linked to another American jihadist who plotted a suicide attack against Marines. ...'

Briefly noted. Viva Palestina is dead. Long live Viva Palestina! In Iraq, the wrong name can be dangerous. (This wouldn't be the first time.) Daily roundup for June 1 from Small Wars Journal.

Commentary. The Belmont Club asks: When does compensation become over-compensation?

Night Flashes

Commerce Department considers labeling Arab Americans a disadvantaged minority.

Bomb kills NATO fighter in Afghanistan.

Michael "Jihad" McCright admits to attacking Marines, tied to terror suspect Abdul-Latif.

Tehran fiddles while Flame burns.

Iran Protests Azerbaijan's "Insults to Islam"

Hindustani Times: 'Iran summoned the envoy of neighbouring Azerbaijan on Tuesday and recalled its own ambassador from Baku for consultations to protest what it describes as the Azeri government's "insults to the sanctities" of Islam. Over the past weeks, Iranian clerics have denounced Azerbaijan for hosting the upcoming Eurovision song festival and for allegedly permitting gay rallies, which are banned in Iran.

Baku, however, has never staged a gay pride parade. ...'