By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Other people are celebrating the defeat of Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on the battlefield and its destruction as a territorial state. Russia issued an announcement last week that ISIL has been wiped out in Syria. Iraqi prime minister Haydar al-Abadi said Saturday that Iraq had been completely […]
Massive worldwide Rallies Condemn US, Courtesy Trump Jerusalem Call
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Ayat Ahmad reports for Elbalad (Beirut, liberal) that Friday saw huge, angry demonstrations against the United States in the Palestinian West Bank, Jordan, Yemen, Tunisia, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia and elsewhere in protest of Trump’s announcement recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. AFP starts […]
Trump-Mideast: Much More than a ‘Kiss of Death’ to Palestinians
By Baher Kamal | (Inter Press Ervice) | – – ROME, (IPS) – US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital does not represent only a ‘kiss of death’ to the two-State solution, but also a strong blow in the face of 57 Muslim countries, let alone igniting fire in this easily […]
Trump’s Gift to Hizbullah weakens Saudi Hand in Beirut
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Hassan Nasrullah, the secretary general of Lebanon’s Hizbullah, called for a new Palestinian uprising or intifada in the wake of Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. He said Trump had thereby issued “A second Balfour Declaration.” (The first was in 1917 when the British cabinet […]
How Trump’s Jerusalem Move Just Helped Iran Win the Mideast
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Some sections of the crazy quilt that makes up the Trump administration want to push Iran back out of the Arab world and weaken it, in support of Israel and Saudi Arabia. Those actors have just been handed a big setback by Trump’s slurred and crazed […]
Another way Trump will get us Killed: to move US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The White House says that the US is preparing to move its embassy to Jerusalem and recognize that city as Israel’s capital instead of Tel Aviv. It is calling this move a “recognition of reality.” It is not, it is the creation of a deadly and […]
German Poll: Trump a bigger Challenge than N. Korea, Russia or Syria
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – A public opinion poll on German foreign policy carried out by the Koerber Foundation for its annual Berlin Forum has a bombshell finding: Germans are more disturbed about Trump and see relations with him as a bigger challenge than relations with North Korea, Russia, or than […]
If you’re not Driving an Electric Car you’re Losing Money
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Guardian reports on a new study showing that right now, in 2017, owning and operating a purely electric car such as the Chevy Bolt or a Tesla 3 or a Nissan Leaf is cheaper than operating a gasoline/ petrol automobile. For the moment, the researchers […]
How Hezbollah deals with Hariri Crisis will affect Mideast Stability
By Elias Ghazal | (The Conversation) | – – When the prime minister of Lebanon, Saad Hariri, suddenly resigned from office while visiting Saudi Arabia on November 4, the Lebanese people and their leaders struggled to make sense of it. First they were shocked when they watched Hariri’s deeply unsettling eight-minute resignation video, which was […]