By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – AFP is reporting that a news agency linked to Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), “A`maq,” is carrying a video of a Daesh fighter who swears that he and his colleagues will inflict a decisive defeat on the US in Iraq, as the guerrillas spread through the streets of […]
7 Things to Know about Mosul
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Iraqi government has announced that the campaign to take the large northern city of Mosul back from Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) has begun in earnest. The Iraqi Army, the Peshmerga (Kurdistan Regional Government national guard), Sunni Arab tribal levies, and Shiite militiamen from the south are […]
ISIL’s loss of Dabiq: It was never about Armageddon, but Weak States
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Albawaba has an interview with political scientist Khalid Rif`at of the Tayyiba Center for Political Studies, saying that the forced withdrawal of Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) from the town of Dabiq in northern Syria on Sunday under heavy Turkish army bombardment and in the face of advancing […]
The Vanity of the Billionaires: Circuses and no Bread
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Rome was a republic until between 40 and 27 BCE, when the generals overthrew it. Military dictator Gaius Octavius put the nail in the coffin when he made himself Augustus Caesar on the latter date. The later satirist Juvenal, to whom we owe the phrase ‘bread […]
Were Kansas White Terrorists Self-Radicalized? or was it Trumpism?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Tim Potter and Amy Renee Leiker of The Kansas City Star report that 3 southwest Kansas men were arrested Friday after an 8-month FBI investigation of their terrorist cell, the Crusaders. The men had allegedly stockpiled arms and explosives and had considered attacking churches and “city/county […]
Dylan, the American Left, and What We have Lost
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Bob Dylan would no doubt be as distressed as the American corporate media to see an ideological interpretation of his 1960s anthems that helped win him the Nobel Prize in Literature. Especially after his 1966 motorcycle accident and retreat to Woodstock and domesticity, Dylan turned inward, […]
US Goes to War with Houthis in Yemen (Openly)
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US Navy in the Red Sea fired Tomahawk missiles into Yemen early Thursday morning, taking out three radar stations. Those facilities had allowed the Houthi rebels who control North Yemen to target US destroyers in the Red Sea on several occasions in recent days (they […]
Clinton brings back Gore, talks Green, but still Opposes Carbon Tax
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton campaigned in Miami with Al Gore, attempting both to shore up her credentials with both environmentalists and Millennial youth. Gore, Bill Clinton’s vice president, very narrowly lost the 2000 election to George W. Bush, mainly because of a disputed Florida count. Gore […]
Russia and Turkey Make up: What implications for Syria, Kurds?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Turkey on Monday for direct talks with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, in a bid to further normalize relations between the two countries. Russian-Turkish trade and diplomatic ties were stress late last fall when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet […]
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