By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Russia rejected as “propaganda” on Saturday renewed Turkish charges that its fighter jets had crossed Turkish territory. NATO asked Moscow to respect its joint airspace. A promontory of Turkish territory sticks down into northern Latakia, and it would be very difficult to conduct the sort of […]
Exasperated by Netanyahu, France Prepares to Recognize Palestinian State
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Even the staunchly pro-Israel French Socialist Party has had it with Israeli expansionism and aggression. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced Friday that France would make one last push to restart diplomatic negotiations between Israel and Palestine, but said that if the endeavor failed then France […]
Rhetorical Terror: GOP Candidates Pledge War Crimes, Carpet-Bombing, Asian Land Wars
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – At the Trumpless GOP debate Thursday evening, the candidates once again promised to bankrupt us with military and intelligence spending and to commit vast war crimes with reckless disregard for the lives of women, children and non-combatant men, of the sort not openly plotted since the […]
Iran Unleashed: Rouhani’s Triumphant European Tour
Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Virtually as soon as the Iran nuclear deal was finally approved by the UN Security Council, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani headed for Europe. He met first with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Rinzi and with Pope Francis. Now he is in Paris at the invitation of President Francois […]
Daesh/ ISIL making Play for Moderate Muslims, as GOP Candidates deny they Exist
By John Feffer | ( Foreign Policy in Focus) | – – While ISIS makes war on the world’s vast majority of “moderate Muslims,” hardliners in the West pretend they don’t exist. In the 13th century, the Italian town of Lucera was a Muslim island in a sea of Christendom. Here Frederick II, the head […]
Why Israel’s Netanyahu has no standing to accuse UN Sec. Ban of inciting Terrorism
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke out this week in an address to the UN Security Council against Israel’s policy of stealing Palestinian land in the West Bank (allotted to Palestinians in the 1947 UN General Assembly partition plan that Israelis celebrate so fiercely), and of building […]
Top 5 Ways Putin has won big in Syria and why Europe is embracing him
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Russia is so far winning big in Syria, and making Moscow’s projection of force in the Middle East a reality that the other great powers have to recognize. As Russia has emerged as a major combatant against Syrian al-Qaeda and against Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), it is […]
Tahrir 5 Years Later: The Hurdles to Democratization & Arab Youth Revolts
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – A frequently met-with Western political and often journalistic narrative of the 2011 youth revolts in the Arab world is that idealistic young people came out into the streets and managed to overthrow four dictators, but then the essential Arab nature (violent, fanatical, tribal and sectarian) came […]
Dragon & Phoenix: Khamenei Lauds New Sino-Iranian ‘Strategic Partnership’
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Iran’s clerical leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, spoke Saturday on the occasion of the state visit to Iran of Chinese President Xi Jinping. He said, “The government and people of Iran have always looked and are still looking for expanding relations with independent and trustworthy countries like […]
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