By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Syrian War is nowhere near over, but the Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) episode may be drawing to an end. Alarabiya reports that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which is largely leftist Kurds of the YPG but includes a small Arab auxiliary faction, has taken almost all […]
ISIL Captures Thousands trying to flee it in Iraq, Executes a Dozen
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Oman Daily’s Jabbar al-Rubaie reports that Iraqi security sources announced yesterday that Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) had executed a number of the residents of the city of Hawija near Kirkuk in northern Iraq because they attempted to escape the city, over which Daesh holds sway. Hawija […]
Obama not only did not pay Iran Ransom, he denied Iran Billions it had Coming to It
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Zack Beauchamp at Vox has a very clear explanation of why the $400 million the US paid to Iran in January was not a ransom for hostages. The fact is that the Obama administration dodged a likely ruling by an arbitration court against the United States […]
Donald “Dr. Strangelove” Trump and some of the Times We almost had a Nuclear War
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – I have long wondered why no one in Hollywood has remade Stanley Kubricks’s 1964 “Dr. Strangelove: Or How I learned to Stop worrying and Love the Bomb.” They’ve remade almost everything else from the 1960s, but that classic Peter Sellers film languishes in black and white […]
Dear Trumpists: Khizr Khan is not ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ and it wouldn’t matter if he Were
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – A Trump adviser is trying to smear Khizr Khan, the Pakistani-American legal consultant who spoke at the DNC, as a “Muslim Brotherhood agent.” This ignorant discourse is only possible because people just have no idea what they are talking about. It wouldn’t fly if done about […]
6 Signs the Big Global Switch to Solar has already Begun
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – China has installed 20 gigawatts of new solar power just in the first half of this year. This achievement beats analysts’ expectations by a wide margin. China wants to add 20 GW of new solar every year for the next four, but apparently could do twice […]
Pope and French Muslims try Muslim-Christian outreach instead of ‘War on Terror’ Polarization
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – AFP reported from the papal airplane on Pope Francis’s remarks about Islam in the wake of the brutal murder of an elderly priest by two teenagers of North African heritage in Normandy last Tuesday. Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) claimed responsibility. The pope said, “It’s not true and […]
Are the Muslim Khans better Americans than Donald Trump?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald Trump lashed out on Saturday against Ghazala and Khizr Khan over their speech Thursday night in which they criticized the casino and hotel moghul for his unconstitutional tirades. The Khans said at the Democratic National Convention in a speech they crafted, that Trump had ‘sacrificed […]
Russian & Iranian Press deplore Hillary Clinton Hawkishness; Israelis complain she’s Dove
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – How is the international press responding to the Democratic National Convention and the formalization of Hillary Clinton’s status as the party’s standard-bearer in the presidential campaign? BBC Monitoring helped me find these reports, which I’m paraphrasing or quoting from their translation: Boaz Bismuth in the Hebrew […]
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