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March 1, 2017 Beirut, LebanonThe calm that has prevailed for more than a decade along the Lebanon-Israel border is being rattled by a flurry of fiery warnings from both sidesthat has many here concerned another war between the Jewish state and Lebanons Hezbollah organization may be drawing closer.

Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has threatened to hit Israel's nuclear reactor should the Jewish state attack. Israeli officials have warned that all Lebanon will be struck if Hezbollah attacks the Israeli home front.

The prospect of a mutually destructive war unleashed on Lebanon and Israel continues to act as a deterrence, but it remains perilously vulnerable to a miscalculation that could spiral into a conflict before either side can dial it back.

"I don' think [a war] is imminent. But mistakes based on miscalculations and wrong messaging can happen," says Randa Slim, a scholar with the Washington-based Middle East Institute and an expert on Hezbollah. "Despite Nasrallah's blustery rhetoric, Hezbollah is in no position to wage this war now [and] Israel cannot afford to call Nasrallah's bluff about targeting the nuclear plant. The mutual deterrence regime that has been in place on the Israeli-Lebanese border has been beneficial to both Israel and Hezbollah and I don't think either side is ready yet to upend it."

The latest mutual threats were provoked by the new Trump administration signaling an intention to roll back the growing influence of Iran, Hezbollahs sponsor, across the Middle East.But given the extensive influence Iran wields in Syria and Iraq and to a lesser extent in Yemen, a new US effort to dent the Islamic Republic's reach could have ramifications for the more pressing goal of defeating the self-declared Islamic State, and could incur a potent backlash against American interests from Iran-backed groups across the region.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon handed the White House a preliminary plan to defeat the self-declared Islamic State which Trump has touted as a top foreign policy priority. While the proposal remains classified, some reports have suggested the recommendations include expanding the scope to other militant extremist groups operating in the Middle East, among them Al Qaeda and possibly Hezbollah.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hinted at a broader approach to trans-regional threats in the Middle East in comments made last week in which he described Iran as a malign influence in the region.

They [the Iranians] have got a very aggressive proxy war, he told an audience at the Brookings Institution in Washingtonon Friday. We see that in Yemen. We see their influence in Syria. We see their malign influence in Lebanon, as well as in Iraq and the rest of the region.

The renewed focus on Iranian activity in the Middle East has triggered some tough rhetoric from both sides of the Lebanon-Israel border.

Nasrallah sought to bolster his organization's deterrence capabilities by threatening to target Israel's nuclear reactor in Dimona, in southern Israel, and the ammonia storage facilities in Haifa in the north, should Israel attack Lebanon. While Hezbollah was not seeking a conflict with the Jewish state, Nasrallah told Iran's Channel 1 News, "Israel should think a million times before waging any war with Lebanon."

In return, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman dismissed Nasrallahs warnings, saying a dog that barks doesnt bite. Another Israeli minister said that if Hezbollah attacks, all of Lebanon will be hit.

Despite the posturing, both sides understand that the scale of the next war will completely dwarf the last one in 2006. That grim reality has helped ensure 10 years of relative tranquillity along the Lebanon-Israel border.

Still, the risk of a miscalculation by one side or the other could quickly turn the calm into violence. Israel has pushed the envelope more than Hezbollah in recent years, with assassinations of Hezbollah personnel and airstrikes in Syria against suspected arms depots or convoys destined for the Lebanese group. Hezbollah has been careful to tailor its reprisal operations to deliver a slap to Israel, but not be hard enough to upset the balance of terror.

In the past decade, theLebanese group has expanded massively in terms of manpower, weaponry, and experience. Since 2012, Hezbollah fighters have learned a new set of battlefield skills in Syria, where the group has intervened to defend the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Hezbollah, Arabic for the Party of God, has become too small a name for what the organization has evolved into, says a veteran Hezbollah commander who has served multiple tours in Syria.

We should be called Jaysh al-Allah, the Army of God, he says.

With the Assad regime lately gaining an upper hand in the military struggle, some in Israel fret that Hezbollah might turn its attention back to its primary enemy.

The fact that the organization is identified with the winning side will only give it more confidence in its abilities to shift the fighting toward its main enemy Israel, wrote Giora Eiland, a former Israeli national security adviser, in the Yedioth Ahranot daily last week.

Among the tactics practiced by Hezbollah in Syria is offensive operations, hardening the view that in the next war the cadres will cross the border into northern Israel to conduct ambushes and raids, a development first revealed by The Christian Science Monitor in April 2008 and subsequently alluded to by Nasrallah in a speechthree years later. The Israeli military is taking the threat seriously, and in recent months has bolstered its defenses along the northern border with Lebanon, placing concrete blocks at potential breach points and even excavating the sides of valleys adjacent to the frontier into un-climbable sheer cliffs.

Although much of the attention on Hezbollah in recent years has been on the organizations activities in Syria, it has not abandoned the Israel front.

Many of its top fighters, especially anti-tank missile teams and the rocket units, have stayed in Lebanon rather than go to Syria. For the past two months, plain-clothed Hezbollah units have been conducting a thorough but low-key survey of the Lebanon-Israel border, taking extensive measurements of adjacent terrain, including slope gradients, and photographing Israels own new defenses on the other side of the fence, according to sources based in south Lebanon. The survey, which is part operational planning and part psychological needling of Israeli troops watching from the other side of the fence, underlines that Hezbollahs anti-Israel activities have not slowed despite the involvement with Syria.

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As US pressures Iran, parallel tensions grow between Israel and Hezbollah - Christian Science Monitor

I sat in the gallery above the floor of the House of Representatives on Tuesday night surrounded by a broad cross-section of American society that had gathered to witness the national institution known as the State of the Union, or the Address to a Joint Session of Congress as it is known during a new presidents first year in office.

From my seat among the guests, I couldglimpse at least eight women wearing the Islamic hijab, including Aneelah Afzali, a lawyer and the director of the American Muslim Empowerment Network, who wore a scarf with the American flag on it. I could see Mona Hanna-Attisha, an Iraqi American who uncovered the lead in water crisis in Flint, Mich., and Jos Andrs, the Spanish-born chef who is being sued by President Trump after pulling out of plans to open a restaurant at the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Around me, too, were plenty of Republican supporters of the new administration; Layton Ricks, the president of Livingston Parish in Louisiana, was seated next to me.

All had been invited for a particular reason by a politician in the room. And as the main chamber of Congress began to fill, marking the start of the nights pageantry, I felt very aware of the strange circumstances that had brought me to this moment.

At the last State of the Union, President Barack Obamas eighth and final one, some people in this chamber had worn pins with #freejason written on them. My fate had become a public issue in the contentious political struggle over the Obama administrations nuclear deal with Iran and its controversial policy of engaging longtime adversaries. I had also become a symbol of the dangers faced by journalists around the world and the ongoing international struggle for press freedoms. My brother, Ali, an invited guest of my hometown congressman, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), was somewhere in that crowd, still lobbying tirelessly for my freedom.

And I was thousands of miles away, watching the address unfold in radically different surroundings:inside a high-walled compound deep within Tehrans Evin prison.

Watching Obama in Tehran

As The Washington Posts correspondent in Tehran, I had been locked up for nearly 540 days at that point, detained on fabricated charges of espionage and collaborating with hostile governments. Since the moment my journalist wife and I were arrested in July 2014, there had been persistent calls for our release from a broad spectrum of leaders and influential figures in the United States and abroad.

Throughout the ordeal I was denied all my most basic rights: due process, access to legal representation, the opportunity to prepare a defense, bail. But although I was kept isolated from the general population of inmates and the rest of the world throughout my time in Evin, by January 2016 I had access to a television and someone to watch it with me.

The small, flat-screen panel was encased in a white wooden frame high on one of the walls. It received only the range of state-controlled channels and their heavily censored programming, and often I saw myself being slandered by Iranian officials and their propagandists. Yet the TV also gave me a window into what was happening in my home country.

It may seem odd that Iran, a declared enemy of the United States, would permit an American prisoner to watch the State of the Union. The annual address allows our president a unique opportunity to cast the United States in the best possible light, shaping viewers ideas around the world about what America can and should be, according to that administrations agenda.

But the Islamic Republics state television covers American politics more closely one might say religiously than almost any other subject, and will often air live speeches by our presidents. American news, in fact, is an essential ingredient of the propaganda the regime creates to fortify its anti-Americanism.

So there I sat before dawn on the morning of Jan. 13 with my cellmate from a former Soviet republic, who spoke almost no English, but, like so many people around the world, had a fondness for the 44th president of the United States. Whenever Obama appeared on the small screen, he would put his hand to his chest and say my friend in Farsi.

I had found in years past that Obama could be counted on during the State of the Union to fulfill his role of inspiring hope that the country was on the right track. But that day in my Iranian prison cell, I watched as he foreshadowed our growing domestic identity crisis.

When politicians insult Muslims, whether abroad or fellow citizens, when a mosque is vandalized, or a kid is called names, that doesnt make us safer, he said. Thats not telling it like it is; its just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. It makes it harder to achieve our goals.

I knew that he was almost certainly referring to an incident several days earlier when a Muslim American named Rose Hamid was emphatically removed from a Trump campaign rally in South Carolina. All she had done was wear a T-shirt that read, Salam, I come in peace.

I knew this, even imprisoned, because Irans state television like American cable news networks had been giving incredible amounts of airtime to the American politician most likely to bash Islam, thus reinforcing Tehrans narrative of America as being the Great Satan.

I listened closely to see whether Obama would mention me and the other Americans imprisoned in Iran. But he instead struck an optimistic chord.

We built a global coalition, with sanctions and principled diplomacy, to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. And as we speak, Iran has rolled back its nuclear program, shipped out its uranium stockpile and the world has avoided another war, Obama said in his only reference to the Islamic Republic.

Although not mentioned in the speech, we had not been forgotten. Four days later, the other American prisoners and I were free. We were released on the same day that the landmark nuclear deal between Iran and world powers was implemented, but as we learned later, negotiations to release us in exchange for freeing Iranians imprisoned in America had been going on for over a year.

Huffman joined me, my wife, Yeganeh, Ali and my mother in Landstuhl, Germany, where two other Americans and I underwent post-release medical tests before flying backto the States. Huffman then invitedYeganeh and me to be his guests at the next State of the Union and we accepted with enthusiasm.

We could not have imagined at the time that Donald Trump would be the one giving the address, and that his message would be so vastly different from Obamas.

Reasons for hope

I was pondering the epic turn of events for me, and for this country, when I entered the House chamber on Tuesday night. But those thoughtsdissipated when Trump began his speech.

At times, hespoke in tones that often did not reflect the actions of his first weeks in office, adding to what was already a jarring experience for me.

Each American generation passes the torch of truth, liberty and justice, in an unbroken chain all the way down to the present. That torch is now in our hands. And we will use it to light up the world, Trump said.

But then I would hear again the strains thatreminded me of so many speeches delivered by authoritarian leaders.

The chorus became an earthquake, and the people turned out by the tens of millions, and they were all united by one very simple, but crucial demand, that America must put its own citizens first, because only then can we truly make America great again, Trump said.

Like much of the American public, I had come to view Trump as a reactionary, and reactionary rhetoric provokes responsesfrom other reactionaries. This is not a new dance, but the tempo is reaching new speeds, as leaders with no personal filters are taking tosocial media along with everyone else.

But Trump isnt the only leader with a Twitter account, and right now in Tehran, and other capitals, anti-American leaders are licking their lips.

Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has one, too, and he has been using it to share his assessment of the White Houses newest occupant.

We appreciate Trump! Because he largely did the job for us in revealing true face of America, Khamenei tweeted on Feb. 7 on the heels of the executive order temporarily banning arrivals from seven predominantly Muslim countries, including Iran.

Since Yeganeh and I moved back to the United States, we have been welcomed by almost everyone we have encountered. But for us, along with millions of others in America, that feeling of security and belonging was rattled with Trumps travel ban.

Then, earlier this month, Trump called another group that both my wife and I belong to the enemy of the American people. It was not some fringe opposition party he was referring to, but journalists, a community that she and I are proud to count ourselves among.

So in a plot twist worthy of fiction, we are now living in a situation in the United States with discomfiting parallels to our imprisonment in Iran, where we were condemned for practicing journalism and our ties to America. Yeganeh is a native of Iran who has recently come to a country that is showing increasing hostility to immigrants especially those from Iran. And I am an American foreign correspondent whose profession is being slandered by some in my own country as un-American.

Like many Americans, I am apprehensive about Trumps proposals, especially for residentsof minority backgrounds and for journalists and our ability to do this job unimpeded by the state. Given his harsh words, my concerns feel justified.

Yet I remain fundamentally optimistic. I have lived and worked in an authoritarian country and have experienced firsthand what it means to be stripped of my liberties. The moment we are living through, alarming as it is, does not compare.

Trump and his administration may not properly value the ideals enshrined in our Constitution. But I believe the people of this country will not give them away easily. I am heartened as I observe so many other Americans, in Congress on Tuesday night for Trumps address and around the country, refusing to accept this twisted vision of our future.

And I have so much more hope today than I did in early 2016. That is becauseI am here now, a free man in a free country, able to again use the tools of my trade to join in protecting and upholding the liberty and justice for all that we as Americans so rightly cherish.

Post reporter Jason Rezaian, recently freed from an Iranian prison, thanks his family, colleagues and government officials at The Washington Post's grand-opening event. (McKenna Ewen/The Washington Post)

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I watched the 2016 State of the Union address from prison in Iran. This year, I attended it as a free man. - Washington Post

DUBAI Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan agreed on Wednesday to improve ties, including in the fight against terrorism, Iran's state news agency IRNA said, following some angry exchanges between the regional rivals.

Tehran and Ankara support opposite sides in the conflict in Syria. Largely Shiite Muslim Iran backs the government of President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey, which is majority Sunni, has backed elements of the Syrian opposition.

Last month Erdogan and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu both accused Iran of trying to destabilize Syria and Iraq and of sectarianism, prompting Tehran to summon Ankara's ambassador.

In an apparent response to Ankara's accusations, Rouhani was quoted by IRNA as saying on Wednesday: "Iran supports the territorial integrity of regional countries ... especially Iraq and Syria."

"Resolving political differences (between Iran and Turkey) can lead to regional stability," Rouhani was quoted as saying at his meeting with Erdogan, on the sidelines of an economic cooperation summit in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

Regional rivalry between Iran and Turkey is nothing new, but political analysts have linked Ankara's tougher rhetoric to U.S. President Donald Trump's approach to the Middle East.

Trump has been sharply critical of Iran, including a nuclear deal it clinched in 2015 with major powers, while Turkey, a NATO ally, is hoping for improved ties with Washington after a chill caused partly by U.S. criticism of Ankara's human rights record.

In another conciliatory move by Turkey on Wednesday, Cavusoglu told IRNA in an interview that Ankara had appreciated Tehran's expressions of support for his government during a failed military coup against Erdogan on July 15, 2016.

"Iran was with us to support our government in every minute at that night while some other countries only called us days or even weeks after the attempted coup," IRNA quoted him as saying.

Last week Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had called Turkey an ungrateful neighbor.

"They (Turkey) accuse us of sectarianism but don't remember we didn't sleep on the night of the coup," he said.

Despite their differences, Turkey and Iran, along with Assad ally Russia, have been sponsoring Syrian peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana in an attempt to end the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Gareth Jones)

KUALA LUMPUR Malaysia on Wednesday charged two women, an Indonesian and a Vietnamese, with murdering the estranged half brother of North Korea's leader in a bizarre airport assassination using a super-toxic nerve agent that killed in minutes.

MOSUL, Iraq U.S.-backed Iraqi army units on Wednesday took control of the last major road out of western Mosul that had been in Islamic State's hands, trapping the militants in a shrinking area within the city, a general and residents said.

GENEVASyrian government aircraft deliberately bombed and strafed a humanitarian convoy, killing 14 aid workers and halting relief operations, U.N. investigators said on Wednesday in a report identifying war crimes committed by both sides in Syria's war.

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Iran, Turkey presidents meet to defuse tensions - Reuters

Charlize Theron, standing next to Shirley MacLaine, whose outfit was not digitally manipulated, moves away from the photoshopped sleeves and neckline on her dress at the Oscars.

The victory for Asghar Farhadis film The Salesman at the Oscars on 26 February sent a strong message from Hollywood to US president Donald Trump, whose attempted travel ban caused the director to boycott the ceremony. Trumps policy was felt by many to have triggered a rash of protest votes for the film and it is the second time Iran, and Farhadi, have taken the prize this decade.

Such a triumph was proudly reported on back in Iran but with a few changes. The Iranian Labor News Agencys coverage of the win included censorship of the outfits worn by presenter Charlize Theron, and by Anousheh Ansari, the first Iranian in space, who accepted the award in lieu of Farhadi.

Therons gold lam gown by Christian Dior initially has blurry black sleeves and a collar added to it to preserve her modesty but such additions do not consistently move with the actor. Then the effect is swapped for a more general torso blur, which then transfers to Ansaris upper body.

In 2006, Ansari, an engineer and businesswoman, became the first female tourist to visit the international space station.

The news clip was shared by My Stealthy Freedom, a lobbying organisation aiming to raise awareness of state rules in Iran which dictate that women should be flogged or imprisoned for failure to wear the hijab.

The founder of the group, Masih Alinejad, condemned the censorship on the organisations Facebook page. Another typical example of the Islamic Republics fear of naked arms of Iranian women, she wrote. It is shameful indeed, but that is how the Iranian media outlets based within the country have been covering such events for years.

At a time when Farhadi chooses an astronaut and Nasa scientist to prove a point about human rights not having borders, the Islamic Republic of Iran does the complete opposite by using Farhadis wonderful Oscars statement for their own propaganda while blind to the meaning of his point.

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Iran news agency gives Charlize Theron a polo neck in altered Oscars footage - The Guardian

EU Mulls Options to Appease Trump Over Iran Nuclear Deal Wall Street Journal (subscription) BRUSSELSEuropean officials are compiling options for tightening implementation of the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement, hoping to bolster their case that U.S. President Donald Trump should stick to the accord he has repeatedly criticized. Officials ...

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EU Mulls Options to Appease Trump Over Iran Nuclear Deal - Wall Street Journal (subscription)