Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – We now know that Michael Cohen lied to Congress about the timeline of Trump’s negotiations with Russia for a skyscraper in Moscow, telling them that the bid for a Trump Tower hotel in Moscow ended in January, 2016. It did not, but rather continued to be a live possibility into […]
Senate Rebukes Trump, Saudis on Yemen, Advances Withdrawal Bill
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Senate slapped the Trump administration around on Wednesday, voting 63-37 to bring to the floor a proposal to end US involvement in the Saudi-led war on Yemen. I should declare my own interest by saying that I was one of 50-some Middle East experts and policy-makers who signed a […]
Trump wants out of Mideast, blames Oil and Israel for Having to Stay
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday, Trump bruited the notion of removing US troops from the Middle East. He said that Israel and oil were the only reasons the US was in the region and that oil no longer justified the US military presence. The Post reported: […]
Bowing to Saudi Pressure, Trump stops UN Yemen Ceasefire (-CNN)
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – CNN reports that the Trump administration has turned against a UN Security Council resolution calling for a Yemen ceasefire and is now blocking it. The five permanent members of the UNSC have the ability to veto resolutions, so US hostility to it is fatal for the measure. Annual Informed Comment […]
We can Break Saudi Arabia’s Hold over the US by Driving Electric Cars
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump has openly and consistently given Saudi control of oil prices as the reason for which he doesn’t want to sanction Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman for having dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered and then dismembered. Trump is, as usual, wildly exaggerating. Saudi Arabia produces perhaps 11% of the […]
India Doubles Iran Oil Imports: Are Trump’s Sanctions Cratering?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – India’s imports of petroleum from Iran in October doubled in value terms to $1.42 billion in October, year over year. Likewise, during the first 8 months of 2018, the value of India’s oil imports from Iran was double that of the same period in 2017. Even in volume terms, imports […]
3 Charts: What Trump doesn’t Want you to Know about the Climate Emergency
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Trump administration dropped the 1,000-page second volume of a congressionally-mandated study of the impact of the climate crisis on the United States late on Friday of Thanksgiving weekend in order to bury it. This sort of move is designed to make sure the report is not headline news on […]
CIA has Recording of Saudi Crown Prince planning Hit on Khashoggi: Turkish ‘Hurriyet’
The other shoe has dropped in the scandal of the assassination of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, which was almost certainly ordered by crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Ironically enough, the shoe dropped with a thud in Turkey itself. Columnist Abdulkadir Selvi at the Hürriyet [Liberty] newspaper alleges that […]
On Thanksgiving, We must confront our Climate Emergency as the Pilgrims did Theirs
Revised for 2018 By Juan Cole | — The popular story about Thanksgiving is an environmental parable that we would do well to remember today. It was a harvest festival in 1621, participated in by the 50 (out of 100) survivors at Plymouth Plantation and 90 Native Americans. Some of these latter, such as Squanto, […]
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