Oman’s Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the Mideast’s longest-ruling monarch who seized power in a 1970 palace coup and pulled his Arabian sultanate into modernity while carefully balancing diplomatic ties between adversaries Iran and the U.S., has died. He was 79.

The state-run Oman News Agency announced his death early Saturday on its official Twitter account. Later Saturday, the Al Watan and Al Roya newspapers reported Qaboos’ successor, his cousin, Haitham bin Tariq al-Said, according to Reuters.

The sultan was believed to have been in poor health and traveled to Belgium for what the court described as a medical checkup last month. The royal court declared three days of mourning.

The news agency mourned the death of the Sultan and praised the “towering renaissance” he had presided over. It said his “balanced policy” of mediating between rival camps in a volatile region had earned the world’s respect.

Reclusive, educated in Britain

The British-educated, reclusive sultan reformed a nation that was home to only three schools and harsh laws banning electricity, radios, eyeglasses and even umbrellas when he took the throne.

Under his reign, Oman became known as a welcoming tourist destination and a key Mideast interlocutor, helping the U.S. free captives in Iran and Yemen and even hosting visits by Israeli officials while pushing back on their occupation of land Palestinians want for a future state.

“We do not have any conflicts and we do not put fuel on the fire when our opinion does not agree with someone,” Sultan Qaboos told a Kuwaiti newspaper in a rare interview in 2008.

Oman’s longtime willingness to strike its own path frustrated Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, longtime foes of Iran who now dominate the politics of regional Gulf Arab nations. How Oman will respond to pressures both external and internal in a nation Sultan Qaboos absolutely ruled for decades remains in question.

“Maintaining this sort of equidistant type of relationship … is going to be put to the test,” said Gary A. Grappo, a former U.S. ambassador to Oman. “Whoever that person is is going to have an immensely, immensely difficult job. And overhanging all of that will be the sense that he’s not Qaboos because those are impossible shoes to fill.”

The sultan had been believed to be ill for some time, though authorities never disclosed what malady he faced. A December 2019 report by the Washington Institute for Near-East Policy described the sultan as suffering from “diabetes and a history of colon cancer.”

Fashionable figure, outsized influence

Sultan Qaboos cut a fashionable figure in a region whose leaders are known for a more austere attire. His colorful turbans stood out, as did his form-fitting robes with a traditional curved khanjar knife stuck inside, the symbol of Oman. He occasionally wore a white turban out of his belief that he spiritually led Oman’s Ibadi Muslims, a more liberal offshoot of Islam predating the Sunni-Shiite split.

The sultan’s willingness to stand apart was key to Oman’s influence in the region. While home only to some 4.6 million people and smaller oil reserves than its neighbors, Oman under Sultan Qaboos routinely influenced the region in ways others couldn’t.

Oman’s oil minister routinely criticizes the policies of the Saudi-led OPEC oil cartel with a smile. Muscat hosts meetings of Yemen’s Houthi rebels, locked in a yearslong bloody war with Saudi Arabia. When Americans or dual nationals with Western ties are detained in Iran or areas under Tehran’s influence, communiques that later announce their freedom routinely credit the help of Oman.

Iran nuclear deal

The sultan’s greatest diplomatic achievement came as Oman hosted secret talks between Iranian and U.S. diplomats that led to the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers. The agreement, which limited Iran’s atomic program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions, has come unraveled since President Donald Trump withdrew from it in May 2018.

As he grew older, Sultan Qaboos also grew increasingly reclusive. He is known to have had three major passions — reading, music and yachting.

He “read voraciously,” Grappo said, played the organ and lute. He created a symphony orchestra and opened a royal opera house in Muscat in 2011. His yacht “Al Said” is among the world’s largest and was frequently seen anchored in Muscat’s mountain-ringed harbor.

Sultan Qaboos was briefly married to a first cousin. They had no children and divorced in 1979.

…

Iran announced Saturday that its military unintentionally shot down a Ukrainian jetliner, killing all 176 aboard.

The statement came Saturday morning and blamed human error for the shootdown.

The jetliner, a Boeing 737 operated by Ukrainian International Airlines, went down on the outskirts of Tehran during takeoff just hours after Iran launched a barrage of missiles at U.S. forces.

Iran had denied for several days that a missile downed the aircraft. But then the U.S. and Canada, citing intelligence, said they believe Iran shot down the aircraft.

The plane, en route to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, was carrying 167 passengers and nine crew members from several countries, including 82 Iranians, at least 63 Canadians and 11 Ukrainians, according to officials.
 

…

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi has told the U.S. secretary of state to send a delegation to Iraq tasked with formulating the mechanism for the withdrawal of U.S troops from Iraq, according to a statement released Friday.

The statement, from the office of the Iraqi caretaker prime minister, said the request came in a telephone call between Abdul-Mahdi and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday night. It says Pompeo called the Iraqi premier.

Abdul-Mahdi’s comments to Pompeo suggests he was standing by his previous statements that U.S troops should leave Iraq despite recent signals toward de-escalation between Tehran and Washington following the tit-for-tat attacks that brought Iraq to the brink of a proxy war.

Tensions eased on Wednesday when President Donald Trump signaled that Washington was stepping away from escalation.

The Iraqi prime minister said his country rejects all violations against its sovereignty, including the barrage of ballistic missiles that Iranian forces fired targeting against U.S. troops in Iraq and also America’s violation of Iraq’s airspace in the airstrike that killed a top Iranian general last week.

The Iraqi leader asked Pompeo to “send delegates to Iraq to prepare a mechanism to carry out the parliament’s resolution regarding the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq,” the statement said.

“The prime minister said American forces had entered Iraq and drones are flying in its airspace without permission from Iraqi authorities and this was a violation of the bilateral agreements,” the statement added.

Top American military officials including Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper have said there were no plans for the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq.

Iraqi lawmakers passed a non-binding resolution to oust U.S. troops following a strike that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and senior Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis last Friday.

The latest escalation was set off when a rocket attack blamed on the Iranian-backed militia group Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades, caused the death of an American contractor at a base in Kirkuk province. The U.S. replied with a barrage of strikes on the militia’s bases, killing at least 25 people.

…

The U.S. has deployed tens of thousands of troops across the Middle East region, many of them stationed in countries near Iran. Here is a look at U.S. troops in each country in the region at a time of high tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

…

President Donald Trump wrongly dismissed the continuing threat of the Islamic State group and spread a false tale of the U.S. paying out billions of dollars to Iran as part of the multinational deal freezing its nuclear program in an address Wednesday that fell short on facts.

Full Text of Trump’s Speech on Iran

Remarks by President Donald Trump on Iran, released by the White House

He also made an assertion that is as dubious as it was provocative: that the Iranian missiles fired by Tehran at two military bases hosting U.S. forces in Iraq were paid for by money “made available” to Iran by the Obama administration.

A look at some of the president’s claims in his remarks on Iran’s missile strike on the two Iraqi bases:

TRUMP: “Three months ago, after destroying 100% of ISIS and its territorial caliphate …”

THE FACTS: His claim of a 100% defeat is misleading as the Islamic State still poses a threat.

IS was defeated in Iraq in 2017, then lost the last of its land holdings in Syria in March, marking the end of the extremists’ self-declared caliphate.

Still, extremist sleeper cells have continued to launch attacks in Iraq and Syria and are believed to be responsible for targeted killings against local officials and members of the Syrian Democratic Forces.

As recently as this week, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the fight against ISIS in Syria was continuing.

IS controlled large swaths of northern and eastern Syria, where it declared a caliphate in 2014, along with large parts of neighboring Iraq.

U.N. experts warned in August that IS leaders are aiming to consolidate and create conditions for an “eventual resurgence in its Iraqi and Syrian heartlands.”
___

TRUMP: “Iran’s hostility substantially increased after the foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2013. And they were given $150 billion, not to mention $1.8 billion in cash.”

THE FACTS: There was no $150 billion payout from the U.S. treasury or other countries.

When Iran signed the multinational deal to restrain its nuclear development in return for being freed from sanctions, it regained access to its own assets, which had been frozen abroad. Iran was allowed to get its money back. The deal actually was signed in 2015, after a 2013 preliminary agreement. Trump has taken the U.S. out of it.

The $1.8 billion is a separate matter. A payout of roughly that amount did come from the U.S. treasury. It was to pay an old IOU.

In the 1970s, Iran paid the U.S. $400 million for military equipment that was never delivered because the government was overthrown and diplomatic relations ruptured. After the nuclear deal, the U.S. and Iran announced they had settled the matter, with the U.S. agreeing to pay the $400 million principal along with about $1.3 billion in interest.

The $400 million was paid in cash and flown to Tehran on a cargo plane, which gave rise to Trump’s previous dramatic accounts of money stuffed in barrels or boxes and delivered in the dead of night. The arrangement provided for the interest to be paid later, not crammed into containers.

___

TRUMP: “The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration.”

THE FACTS: That accusation comes without corroboration. The administration has offered no information supporting the contention that in regaining access to $150 billion of its assets that had been frozen abroad, Iran steered a chunk of that money to the missiles that hit the bases in Iraq.

“I doubt anyone has the insight into Iran’s budgetary mechanisms to say that this money was used for this purpose,” said Gerald Feierstein, a career U.S. diplomat who retired in 2016 as the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs.

“It’s a funds-are-fungible kind of argument,” he said. “I mean, if they have money, can you say that dollar went directly to buy a missile, as opposed to freeing up another dollar that went to buy a missile?”

Gen. Joseph Votel, who retired from the U.S. Army in March as the top military commander for the Middle East, said he was not aware of any specific intelligence on this question. “I don’t have anything that would particularly support that,” he said. “I’m not saying it did or it didn’t, but I don’t have details to demonstrate it one way or the other.”

As President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, John Kerry said it was possible Iran would use some of the money being returned to it for malign activities. Whether it did in this case has not been established.

Iran has many sources of revenue, despite the severe pinch of sanctions. Oil sales to China and other countries dominate its exports. It also sells chemicals, plastics, fruits and more abroad.

___

TRUMP: “We are independent, and we do not need Middle East oil.”

THE FACTS: Trump’s declaration of energy independence is premature. The U.S. still needs plenty of oil from the Mideast.

The volume of U.S. oil imports from the Persian Gulf alone — 23 million barrels in October – would not be easy to make up elsewhere, at least not without major changes in U.S. demand or production.

Technological advances like fracking and horizontal drilling have allowed the U.S. to greatly increase production, but demand remains brisk and the country still imports millions of barrels of oil from Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iraq and other countries. Moreover, much of what the U.S. produces is hard for domestic refiners to convert to practical use. So the U.S. exports that production and imports oil that is more suitable for American refineries to handle.

On energy more broadly, the U.S. is indeed close to parity on how much energy it produces and how much it consumes. In some months, it produces more than it consumes. But it has not achieved self-sufficiency. In the first nine months of last year, it imported about as much energy as it exported.

___

TRUMP: “The American military has been completely rebuilt under my administration, at a cost of $2.5 trillion.”

THE FACTS: That’s an exaggeration.

It’s true that his administration has accelerated a sharp buildup in defense spending, including a respite from what the U.S. military considered to be crippling spending limits under budget sequestration.

But a number of new Pentagon weapons programs, such as the F-35 fighter jet, were started years before the Trump administration. And it will take years for freshly ordered tanks, planes and other weapons to be built, delivered and put to use.

The Air Force’s Minuteman 3 missiles, a key part of the U.S. nuclear force, for instance, have been operating since the early 1970s and the modernization was begun under the Obama administration. They are due to be replaced with a new version, but not until later this decade.

…

French rail workers, teachers, doctors, lawyers and others joined the fourth nationwide day of protests and strikes on Thursday to denounce President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to overhaul the pension system.

As the government and unions pushed on with crucial negotiations about the changes, street protests were staged in Paris and other French cities, and the railway strikes that began Dec. 5 entered their 36th day.

The Paris march, which unions said comprised 370,000 demonstrators, started from the Republique square in the city center and was accompanied by a large police presence. The Elysee presidential palace was barricaded as protesters were due to head toward the area. Police said by late afternoon that they had made over a dozen arrests.

The Eiffel Tower was shut as employees joined the protest movement. Paris metro traffic was severely disrupted, except for one automatic line running normally.

The national rail company, SNCF, said about a third of its workers were on strike Thursday. Three high-speed trains out of five were running. Regional trains were also affected and many schools were closed.

Unions have also called on workers to block road access to major ports, including in the southern city of Marseille.

Philippe Martinez, head of hard-left CGT union, said “there are many people on strike” yet the government doesn’t appear “willing to discuss and take into account the opinion of unions.”

Talks between the government and labor unions resumed Tuesday but no compromise has yet been reached. A new round of negotiations focusing on the financing of the new pension system is scheduled for Friday. Macron has asked his government to find a quick compromise with reform-minded unions.

So far, the government is sticking to its plan to raise the full retirement age from 62 to 64, the most criticized part of the proposals.

The changes aim to unify France’s 42 different pension schemes into a single one. Under specific pension schemes, some people, like railway worker, are allowed to take early retirement. Others, like lawyers and doctors, pay less tax.

Unions fear people will have to work longer for lower pensions, and polls suggest at least half of French people still support the strikes.

…

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has netted an endorsement from Rep. Anthony Brown of Maryland, the first black member of Congress to throw his support to the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

The endorsement is significant for Buttigieg, who has been criticized within the party for his scant support among African Americans.

Brown, 58, belongs to the Congressional Black Caucus, whose membership is courted aggressively by Democratic presidential candidates, and includes a total of 54 lawmakers in the U.S House and Senate.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has the most endorsements from members of the Congressional Black Caucus among 2020 Democratic presidential candidates — a total of nine.

Brown, also a former lieutenant governor of Maryland, is an Iraq War veteran and vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. The former combat veteran has been named a co-chairman of Buttigieg’s national campaign.

…

China’s close alliance with Cambodia has been forged, in large part, with billions of dollars in aid and investment tied to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, which provides developmental assistance around the world to strengthen trade ties and political influence. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and his government have welcomed this assistance, saying it comes without “strings attached” compared to western nations that link aid to democratic reforms. But VOA’s Brian Padden reports that China’s massive loans and investment in Cambodia come at a price.

…

In southwestern Kentucky, near the border with Tennessee sits Fort Campbell, a US Army base that is one of the largest military installations in the world. Its personnel and families are profoundly affected by all things military. VOA’s Martin Secrest reports on how the community is dealing with recent hostilities in Iraq involving the United States and Iran.

…

Investors are closely watching the escalating tensions between the United States and Iran. Oil prices have fluctuated since the targeted killing of Iranian General Qassem Suleimani, but overall are holding steady. VOA’s Ardita Dunellari spoke with market analysts to understand what investors are thinking.

…

Volcanoes can be among earth’s deadliest natural phenomena, challenging researchers tasked with monitoring surface pressure and other conditions to, ultimately, save lives.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports on one scientist who hikes off-the-grid to keep tabs on an active volcano in Ecuador.

…

For decades, U.S. universities have attracted large numbers of foreign students, who add brainpower to American classrooms while adding billions to the U.S. economy. But international students seem less enthusiastic about the United States of late. VOA’s Kathleen Struck and Bronwyn Benito take a look at the factors prompting a growing number of foreign students to look elsewhere.

…