On August 19, the Qatari-owned Al-Quds al-Arabi daily carried the following lead editorial: “There has been many occasions on which Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah es-Sisi used his power of conviction to ask the people to donate to the state he heads or to projects he likes. For example, the people recall his statement: “If each one of those using their mobile phones gives Egypt one pound a year, we will collect four billion pounds,” adding a special sentence that says: “By God, if I could be sold, I would have been sold” (a sentence that features a funny idea, which is that no one can buy the president). And of course, they recall his urging of the Egyptians to donate 100 million pounds a day to the “Long Live Egypt” fund, and four billion pounds to the Zewail City of Science project (in which the Armed Forces would act as a contractor)… (Read More)

On August 16, a commentary by Ali Akbar Farazi in the reformist E'temad said: "More than six months has elapsed since the implementation of the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1, during which, proponents and opponents of the JCPOA inside and outside the country, have announced their stances on its achievements. Naturally, under such circumstances, some proponents of the JCPOA might have exaggerated the achievements of the nuclear deal, manoeuvred about its capacities, and made comments that have increased expectations of the people and social groups about implications and achievements before its implementation. In other words, they have caused unreal expectations from the nuclear agreement in such a way that the people thought they could take advantage JCPOA outcomes very soon. Unlike this group, opponents of the JCPOA have taken maximum advantage of the short period of time since the start of the implementation of the nuclear agreement. They have made effort to politicise the issue and link it to election matters and say that not only has the JCPOA not have any achievement, it has also regressed the country. Although, this group knows that its stances on the nuclear issue and its achievements are inappropriate, they seek to take maximum advantage of the existing ambiguous atmosphere, and in other words, they are attempting to fish in troubled water, in order to justify their attitude towards the upcoming 1396 presidential election and add to their basket of votes… (Read More)

On August 14, a commentary by Omid Adib in the daily Khorasan said: "One can easily say that developments and interaction in West Asia can be divided into two parts; before and after the 33-day war, the anniversary of which is fast approaching. To mark this occasion, Abrams, US national security adviser at the time of George W. Bush's presidency, openly announced that one of the main objectives behind this war was to undermine Iran, emphasising that: "There were efforts to undermine Iran's status and strengthen Israel's position in the region through this war." The roots of the 33 day war and the details of its start and finish, are not the topic of this editorial, but in order to understand the effects of this war on our country's status and security, we have to take a brief look at it. On June 2006, the Zionist regime begins a comprehensive attack on Lebanon and Hezbollah ; the most important goal of which was to destroy or at least to weaken the structure of Hezbollah for pursuing subsequent goals (for example to attack Iran). More than a month since the start of the war, Israel puts an end to the conflict without having achieved any of its predetermined goals. The function and the main outcome of this war in the short-term and in the long-term was to confirm Hezbollah's military power to influence Lebanon and the region on the one hand, and the complete defeat of the Israeli army for the first time in the history of this regime, on the other. Witnessing the collapse of Israel's false self-confidence (as Iran's most major regional enemy), and in return creating a sense of self-respect for the Arabs in order to deal with this cancerous tumour, was the other outcome of the war, which has played a role in subsequent developments to this day. In addition, Hezbollah was able to establish itself as a newly-emerged regional power in this war, and to enter actively into later developments… (Read More)

On August 19, the independent Al-Jarida newspaper carried the following report by its correspondent in Tehran Farzad Qasimi: “After the Revolutionary Guard proclaimed a state of mobilization and the Iranian army received orders to take an offensive position on Iraq’s border, leaders from the Kurdistan province started arriving to Tehran to appease the situation, offer guarantees that the security bodies will contain the Democratic Party and Mojahedin-e-Khalq organization, and call on the Iranians to stop bombarding the Kurdish cities. So, Interior Minister of the Kurdistan Province Karim Sinjari visited Tehran at the head of a security delegation, and met on Sunday with Secretary General of Iran’s National Security Council Ali Shamkhani, before meeting with the country’s security officials throughout two days... And last week, Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Province and former Assistant Iraqi Prime Minister Barham Saleh conducted a similar visit to Tehran… (Read More)

On August 19, the Qatari-owned Al-Quds al-Arabi daily carried the following report by its correspondent in Erbil Akram al-Qassem: “The Islamic State organization is continuing to extract oil from fields south of Mosul City, in an attempt to collect the largest quantity of oil before the fields are lost, if the Iraqi armed forces are able to seize them. Eyewitnesses said to Al-Quds al-Arabi at this level that ISIL was extracting crude oil from the Nejmah and Qiyarah fields south of Mosul City, and selling it to local merchants inside the city. They continued that the organization had intentionally set fire to a number of fields to obstruct the warplanes’ flyovers and prevent them from targeting it, at a time when it is still extracting oil from other fields. As for the cisterns transporting the oil, they are subject to constant attacks by the international coalition and Iraqi air forces… (Read More)

On August 19, the Ad-Diyyar daily newspaper carried the following report Fadi Eid: “The head of the Democratic Gathering, MP Walid Jumblatt, is working on shielding the Jabal [the Druze areas] at this difficult phase in light of the concerns that he has and that he constantly expresses in front of his friends and visitors. This concern is based on his knowledge of the course of the military and political developments around Lebanon… (Read More)

On August 19, the Ad-Diyyar daily newspaper carried the following report by Abbas Saleh: “Pieces of information coming from Bayt al-Wasat allude to a hidden arms’ wrestling between [former] PMs Sa’d al-Hariri and Fouad Siniora with the features of this conflict slowly emerging and with some of its repercussions and outcomes becoming clear to the public in the context of the major struggle over the monopolization of the blue movement’s authority and inheriting the Sunni representation in power… (Read More)

On August 19, the Al-Akhbar daily newspaper carried the following report by Hassan Olleik: “…During his external visits and press conferences, the Minister of Interior, Nouhad al-Mashnouk, prides himself by stating that Lebanon probably occupies the first place in the world in the field of preventive, counter-terrorist security. Many believe that Al-Mashnouk is exaggerating and that the achievements of the preventive security are only appearing to the public in the form of statements… (Read More)

On August 19, the independent, leftist As-Safir daily newspaper carried the following report: “More than 800 days were not enough to complete the presidential elections. So will the months separating us from the end of this year be enough to produce a president along with a comprehensive basket including a cabinet and the electoral law? Hezbollah will not be backing away from supporting its strategic ally, Gen. Michel Aoun. Meanwhile, the General is not concerned about any alternative “B or C” plans. The man does not have this luxury. This is his last chance and he will not be risking it or trading it with something else… (Read More)

On August 19, the independent Al-Jarida newspaper carried the following opinion piece by Saleh al-Qallab: “Now that it has military bases in Iran that are much more important than the Hmeimim base in Syria, Russia, which awakened from the collapse of the Soviet Union very late and following a difficult and rough transitional state, can stick out its tongue at the United States, and claim that what could not be achieved during the communist era that lasted more than 70 years, was achieved under Vladimir Putin... Before the victory of Khomeini’s revolution in February 1979, all of Iran was an American base, and Nojeh in Hamedan was ready to confront whichever sudden military standoff between the West and the East, i.e. between the US and the Soviet Union, and between NATO and the Warsaw Alliance. But today, Nojeh has become a Russian military base… (Read More)

On August 19, the Qatari-owned Al-Quds al-Arabi daily carried the following report by its correspondent in Istanbul Ismail Jamal: “In exclusive statements to Al-Quds al-Arabi, political analysts excluded the sealing of a real alliance between Turkey, Russia and Iran despite the recent rapprochement that was seen, assuring that the disputes between those states were much greater than the points of concord, and that consequently, one could talk about bilateral or tripartite cooperation over some files in the region, particularly the Syrian one... On Wednesday, the Iranian Fars Agency said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visit Iran next week, just a few days after the Iranian foreign minister’s visit to Ankara, where he called - following his meeting with Erdogan - for cooperation and consultations between Iran, Russia and Turkey, as influential powers in the region… (Read More)

On August 18, the electronic Rai al-Aam daily newspaper carried the following piece by Abdul Bari Atwan: “The fact that the giant U-22 Russian jets took off from the Iranian Hamedan airbase for the first time in seventy years represents a political development rather than a military tactic. This development opens a new page in the Russian-Iranian strategic alliance, which has started to increase in the region on the expense of the USA and its Arab allies… (Read More)

On August 19, the privately-owned Lebanese En-Nashra news website carried the following exclusive report by Maher al-Khatib: “Although the instigative message addressed by Hamza bin Laden - the son of the late leader of Al-Qa’idah organization Osama bin Laden - against Saudi Arabia is not the first of its kind, it draws it importance from its timing, as it came out shortly after the disengagement decision between the organization and the terrorist An-Nusra Front, which is now called Fath ash-Sham Front. Moreover, it might point to the transfer of Jihadi focus from one arena to another, after all the calls used to talk about “migration” and “Jihad” in Syria “in preparation for the liberation of Palestine,” as per Bin Laden’s previous message on May 6. It is worth noting at this level that Bin Laden’s message is the first episode in a series of messages headlined “Prevalence of the best of the Ummahs in the uprising of the people of the Sacred House… (Read More)

On August 18, the pro-Syrian regime Al-Watan daily carried the following report: “The repercussions of the controversial meeting between the Russian president’s envoy to the Middle East and Africa and the Vice Foreign Minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, and oppositionist Moaz al-Khatib, are still prevailing over the political circles mainly the opposition ones. In this context, there were leaks quoting the high-ranking Russian diplomat who reportedly indicated that Russia and Turkey reached an agreement on preventing the expansion of the Kurdish territory. In return, the Turks are to shut the borders with Syria in the face of the terrorists… (Read More)