By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Fascism as a political ideology is difficult to define, in part because it usually contains a big dose of populism, and the content of populism differs from people to people. In my view Mussolini’s fascism in Italy is a fair exemplar of the phenomenon. One characteristic […]
America’s Biggest Mideast Foreign Policy Challenges in 2018
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In some ways, the United States faces a more favorable foreign policy environment in 2018 than it has in some years, with regard to facts on the ground. Ironically, some of the more severe challenges emanate not from objective conditions abroad but from the erratic and […]
Are Iran’s protests Economic or Political?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Neoconservative poobah Elliott Abrams slammed the New York Times for headlining an article about the Iran protests as being about the economy. (Abrams was an Iran-Contra fraudster supporting nun-killing right wing death squads in Central America who was convincted of lying to Congress but was rehabilitated […]
Top 5 Signs Trump doesn’t Actually Care about Iranian Protesters
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump has tweeted as though he cares about the welfare of the Iranian protesters in small towns across that country who are upset about reduced government subsidies for commodities such as eggs and gasoline. His administration tried to prosecute protesters for laughing at VP Mike Pence. […]
Did the US cause Iran’s Economic Protests & will Trump Take Advantage?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The scattered urban protests that began in Mashhad on Thursday spread to several other provincial cities on Friday, including Qom, Rasht, Kerman and Qazvin. This is like protests in the US starting in Boston and spreading to Denver and Cleveland. Predictably, Trump had to get involved, […]
Goodbye to 2017, the Year Trump Coarsened our World
From ignoring Rohingyas to threatening Trade Wars to deep-sixing Mideast Peace
No, Trump, you don’t want more Climate change for Northeast
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump said Thursday that given the cold snap in the northeast, that region could do with some global warming. As others have pointed out, Trump does not get the difference between climate (long term patterns) and weather (one-off phenomena). The cold snap is weather. The heating […]
Tehran Police say Iranian Women won’t be arrested over Dress Code
Middle East Monitor | – – TEHRAN, IRAN – JUNE 5: Iranian women perform as they train Far East Fighting Arts to be able to defend themselves, at the Jughin castle which is located 40 km’s far from Tehran, Iran on Police in Iran’s capital said Thursday they will no longer detain women who violate […]
Russia: Permanent Bases planned in Syria to fight Terrorism
By Juan Cole | (informed Comment) | – – The US military says that the number of ISIL fighters in eastern Syria has fallen from 3000 a month ago to only 1000 today. Moreover a lot of the latter are fleeing into al-Assad-controlled territory, a severe security concern for the Syrian state. The US is […]
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