MESOPOTAMI NEWS REPORT : Reports on Turkey-Qatar military training accords questioned by Erdogan critics
A military education agreement between Turkey and Qatar drew backlash from opposition members in Ankara after local media reporting misrepresented its content, though rumors persist.
Diego Cupolo AL MONITOR – June 29, 2021 – ISTANBUL — The deepening cooperation between strategic allies Turkey and Qatar has long drawn scrutiny from opposition parties in Ankara, and an accord published in the nation’s Official Gazette on June 24 stirred fresh controversy after its contents were misrepresented in local media reports.
Titled the Turkey-Qatar Military Health Education and Cooperation Protocol, the agreement establishes opportunities for both Turkish and Qatari military students to pursue diplomas from university programs involving dentistry, pharmaceutical and other health-related studies.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS IDEAS : The Iran Nuclear Deal Isn’t the Problem. Iran Is.
If and when a return to the agreement is reached, the Biden administration will also need to counter Iran’s escalating efforts in the Middle East. – By James Jeffrey and Dennis Ross – THE ATLANTIC
About the authors: James Jeffrey is the Chair of the Middle East program at the Wilson Center, and a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and Iraq. Dennis Ross, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama, is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute.
Ebrahim Raisi’s election as president of Iran came as no surprise. All those who might have been a threat to him were disqualified. He was the choice of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and small wonder: Few people better embody the ideology of the Islamic Republic. He will not open Iran up to the outside world, and will certainly not look to accommodate the United States in any way. As for Iran’s behavior in the Middle East, he has made clear that it is “not negotiable.”
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS NEW : WHO INSTRUCTS JOHN BOLTON FOR TURKEY ?
John Bolton joins newly launched Turkish Democracy Project
The group describes its mission as “encouraging Turkey to adopt more democratic policies and responding to the steady erosion of Turkey’s democratic institutions.”
Al-Monitor Staff June 25, 2021 – John Bolton, the former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, says he’s joined the advisory council of the Turkish Democracy Project, a newly launched nonprofit, “to shine a light on the darkening situation” in Turkey.
“It’s time to sound the alarm on Turkey,” Bolton wrote in his Twitter announcement Wednesday. Bolton went on to describe Ankara as a one-time reliable NATO ally that has grown too close to Russia.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS FOCUS : DETERRING MILITIAS IN IRAQ: WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T
by Michael Knights – PolicyWatch 3506 – June 28, 2021
Striking back one time in twelve will not stop Iranian proxy attacks, so Washington must consider more consistent and painful retaliation in order to protect Americans in the Middle East.
On June 28, the United States struck three militia sites—two in Syria and one in Iraq—in retaliation for escalating drone attacks against U.S. sites in Iraq. The nighttime strikes appear to have hit drone storage and testing facilities, causing material damage and up to five fatalities. Yet the Biden administration needs to do much more if it hopes to repair U.S. deterrence—thus far, it has struck back just twice in response to twenty-four rocket and drone attacks over the past five months. If this response ratio continues, militias will simply keep escalating, and American lives will be lost.
The Deterrence Scorecard: Two Administrations
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS INVESTIGATIONS: NAFTALI BENNETTS UNCLEAN HANDS !
Behind Bennett’s Payoneer payday, a firm that profited off smut and alleged cons
Leaked US Treasury documents reveal that the soon-to-go-public company, where the new prime minister was an early investor, did business with bottom feeders of the internet – By Simona Weinglass 27 June 2021 – Today, 2:04 pm TOI TIMES OF ISRAEL
For Naftali Bennett, 2021 isn’t only the year he realized his dream of becoming prime minister of Israel. It will also see him profit handsomely from a financial services firm he invested in over a decade ago that has, among other things, helped companies operating in the seedy underbelly of the internet make money.
The company, Payoneer, is set to go public on the NASDAQ at the end of the month via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) at a valuation of $3.3 billion.
According to Forbes Israel [Hebrew link], Bennett is set to make some $5 million from the move, having invested several hundred thousand shekels in Payoneer some 13 years ago. Bennett’s spokesman confirmed to The Times of Israel that he invested in the company, but declined to specify how much Bennett stands to earn from the acquisition, stating that the amount is “a few million dollars.”
Payoneer was founded in 2005 in Israel by Yuval Tal and Yaniv Chechik. Today, it is characterized as one of the largest online money transfer platforms in the world, allowing online businesses and gig economy freelancers in different countries to seamlessly transact with each other and with clients. It counts Amazon, Airbnb and Fiverr among its partners and transfers payments between buyers and sellers on these platforms.
But a recent leak of US Treasury Department documents reveals that alongside its regular customers, Payoneer has also provided services to murky offshore companies allegedly involved in pornography, scam dating websites, a forex company investigated by French law enforcement and companies involved in the fraudulent binary options industry.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS FORECAST FOR THE FUTURE : After a Decade of War in Syria, Israel Should Change its Policy
Israel has preferred “the devil it knows” – Bashar al-Assad, who opened the door to Iran – over the chance to change the reality in Syria. Now, however, is the time for a paradigm shift in Israel’s approach – to stop sitting on the sidelines, recognize that Syria will remain divided, and work intensively to obstruct efforts by Iran and its proxies to consolidate their power in the northern arena over time
Udi Dekel Carmit Valensi – INSS Insight No. 1451, April 7, 2021 – ISRAEL
With the help of military aid from Russia and Iran, the regime of Bashar al-Assad has been able to survive and overcome the military setbacks it experienced in the early years of the civil war. Still, after a decade of warfare, the regime is unable to gain control over the entire country, which remains divided and unable to function effectively. As long as Assad controls Syria, no stabilization or recovery seems a viable possibility. Nonetheless, political and military elements in Israel continue to adhere to the idea that Assad, who opened to door to Iran and Hezbollah in Syria and is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, is preferable to any other governmental option in Syria.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS AFTER NETANJAHU : LET’S TALK WITH THE MULLAHS!
“The prime minister and I have changed Israeli policy regarding this process and the Americans were happy to accept it,” Foreign Minister Yair Lapid told בן כספית Ben Caspit this week.
Unlike Netanyahu, Bennett opts for discreet dialogue with US on Iran
The Biden administration seems to welcome the approach of the new Bennett government, of conducting a discreet yet open dialogue on the Iranian file.
Ben Caspit@BenCaspit AL MONITOR – June 25, 2021 – Israeli reports suggesting the United States had agreed to “suspend” negotiations on a return to the nuclear deal with Iran in order to delve into Israel’s reasons for opposing it were exaggerated. “The Americans are not withdrawing from negotiations and not delaying them,” a senior Israeli diplomatic source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “But they will hear us intensively in the coming weeks, which they have not done before, and they are approaching this process willingly and with an open heart.”
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS LEBANON – ANTI-NORMALIZATION LAWS: A POWERFUL WEAPON IN THE FIGHT AGAINST PEACE
Featuring Majid Harb, Nadim Koteich, and Hanin Ghaddar Policy Forum Report
June 24, 2021
A panel of experts discuss Hezbollah’s efforts to neutralize the Abraham Accords by threatening and prosecuting Lebanese citizens who interact with Israelis, including expatriates living or working in Gulf countries.
On June 22, The Washington Institute held a virtual Policy Forum with Majid Harb, Nadim Koteich, and Hanin Ghaddar, moderated by Joseph Braude. Harb is a Beirut attorney and legal activist who has courageously sued Hezbollah in Lebanese courts. Koteich is a renowned Emirati-based political analyst and satirist who hosts the Sky News Arabia show Tonight with Nadim. Ghaddar is the Friedmann Fellow in the Institute’s Geduld Program on Arab Politics and former managing editor of Now Lebanon. The following is a rapporteur’s summary of their remarks.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : Erdoğan is already playing politics ahead of the next Supreme Military Council meeting
- Hakan Demiray – Jun 24 2021 02:20 Gmt+3 – The Justice and Development Party (AKP) started its journey with the dream of creating a democratic country where citizens would not have to know the name of the military’s chief of general staff.
Yet two decades later, Turkey remains a garrison-like country, where not only the top commander’s name, but also that of numerous other soldiers, continue to invade the public sphere.
Eyes have already turned to next August’s Supreme Military Council (SMC) meeting, where decisions on appointments, discharges, and retirements are made about generals, colonels, and admirals.
Chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the next SMC meeting will offer insights into the state of Turkey’s ruling coalition. Indeed, Erdoğan has already started to shape the battlefield with ‘long-range artillery fire’ as the SMC meeting approaches.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS NEW BOOK BY TWO CIA ALLIES
Accidental Allies
The US–Syrian Democratic Forces (PKK/PYD) Partnership Against the Islamic State – By Michael Knights and Wladimir van Wilgenburg
The story of America’s military and political partnership with the Syrian Democratic Forces is a controversial one. To some, it is a shining example of an economy-of-force effort that minimized U.S. casualties, wrested control of northeast Syria from the Islamic State, and improved the area’s general political trajectory. To others, it is a cautionary tale of a U.S. military that was hoodwinked by a charismatic and capable partner closely tied to a U.S.-designated terrorist group, the Kurdistan Workers Party, with Washington deliberately averting its eyes from the strategic, political, and moral costs of the partnership. The subject deserves a neutral, data-led investigation that follows the facts wherever they lead.
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