By Juan Cole Israel shot down a Syrian MiG fighter jet on Tuesday, saying it had penetrated into Israeli airspace over the Golan Heights. The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad took little time to imply that the Israelis were thus protecting the al-Nusra Front, instead of joining in the fight against al-Qaeda offshoots. The […]
Climate Protesters Flood Wall Street – And A Polar Bear Is Arrested
AJ+ “Hundreds of people attended the #FloodWallStreet demonstration to protest the role big business plays in fueling climate change. The protest was largely peaceful, but police arrested a number of people by the end of the night, including a polar bear.” AJ+ : “Protesters Flood Wall Street – And A Polar Bear Is Arrested”
Shock & Awe In Syria: It never Works
By Juan Cole The London pan-Arab daily “Hayat” [Life] reports this morning on the air strikes conducted on ISIL positions in Raqqah, Syria, by the United States and several Arab allies. The Syrian government acknowledged that the US gave fair warning it would bomb Raqqah to the Syrian ambassador to the UN. That is, the […]
NYC Climate Demo: Top 5 Massive Rallies that had no Effect
By Juan Cole Don’t get me wrong. I am all for demonstrating and admire everyone who came out in New York City on Sunday (some 400,000 according to Time magazine) to demand that world leaders deal urgently with climate change. But I just do have to point out that holding large rallies doesn’t always result […]
The Arab Political Crisis: It isn’t a Matter of Civilization and it isn’t Unique
By Juan Cole Hisham Melhem has a piece on what he calls the collapse of Arab civilization. The piece is riddled with contradictions and fuzzy thinking and with all due respect to Milhem, who is a knowledgeable and experienced correspondent, I am going to disagree with it vehemently. I think he is arguing that Arabs […]
Changing US-Iran Relations: Kerry: Iran has a Role in Defeating ISIL Militants
by Juan Cole Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday that Iran has a role to play in defeating ISIL. Addressing a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, he said that the military alliance put together by the US and its allies is only one part of the task, and that the other […]
Education, Health, and Global Warming: Top 5 Reasons 45% of Scots Wanted to Leave the Right Wing UK
by Juan Cole The US media coverage of the Scottish referendum is oddly lacking in any reference to actual politics. As usual, the corporate media concentrates on issues in ethnicity to cover up issues in social class and social policy. The “Washington consensus” of Neoliberalism, substituting blind so-called “market forces” for good governance, has been […]
Shiite Militias of Iraq Reject US Return, Threaten to Attack US Forces
By Juan Cole The pan-Arab, London-based daily, “Al-Sharq al-Awsat” (The Middle East) reports that the major Shiite militias of Iraq are denouncing Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi for welcoming US air support in the fight against the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Prime Minister al-Abadi himself rejected conventional US ground troops for […]
Should US policy toward ISIL be Containment?
By Juan Cole The US launched air strikes on Tuesday on ISIL targets, south of Baghdad and also in the north. The ones south of Baghdad were in support of the Iraqi Army, for the first time since the ISIL crisis broke in early June. US close air support to the Iraqi army and the […]