By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – A coalition of extremist groups with al-Qaeda ties managed on Saturday to take the city of Jisr al-Shughur from the Syrian army. Among them were fighters of the Support Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) and the Islamic Movement of the Free Men of the Levant (Ahrar al-Sham). Also involved was […]
US admits it has no Idea who it is Assassinating by Drone
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – The tragic deaths last January, just now being revealed, of two Western hostages in drone strikes on a relatively empty housing complex in northern Pakistan near the Afghanistan border underlines that the Obama administration is killing people from the air without knowing who they are and is killing […]
Rand Paul: GOP Hawks are Obama’s “Lapdogs;” McCain: Paul ‘Worst Candidate’
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) The philosophical difference between the Libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and the GOP hawks has burst into open name-calling. First, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that Paul had been more wrong than right, and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) jumped in, calling him “naive.” On Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom” on […]
Top Ten ways to prove you Love the Earth on Earth Day
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – I was a junior in high school on April 22, 1970, on the first Earth Day, called for by Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-Wi) (d. 1981). The road leading to our school had been littered with trash, and a group of us went out with black plastic bags and […]
Pakistan as Hong Kong West: China’s New Silk Road & US Failure
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Chinese President Xi Jinping made a state visit, full of pomp and circumstance, to Pakistan on Monday, but its centerpiece was a $46 billion investment in the country, dwarfing the US Congress’s $7.5 bn. program initiated in 2008. Whereas the US likes to sell useless weapons systems that […]
Khamenei: US invented nuclear Myth; Iran will Never Invade another Country
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – The clerical leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, gave a speech on Sunday in which he urged that Iran maintain its military readiness in order to fend off any hostile invasion or attack. But, he said, “Iran has never invaded a country and never will.” He also called US […]
As US Consulate in Irbil. Iraq, is Bombed, can US still do Diplomacy in ME?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) A bombing that killed 3 people and wounded 10 on Saturday outside the US consulate in Irbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, raises an important question about the US diplomatic presence in the eastern reaches of the Middle East. Is it still possible for diplomats to do their work this way? The […]
Iraq: Why it doesn’t Matter if Ezzat al-Douri was Killed
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – The currently partly unemployed Iraqi governor of Salahuddin Province, displaced from much of his territory by Daesh (ISIS or ISIL), maintains that former Baath vice president of Iraq under Saddan Hussain, Ezzat al-Douri, has been killed by Shiite militias in a firefight north of Tikrit in the Hamrin […]
Juan Cole: Syria, Yemen Conflicts only seem to be about Sunni-Shiite from 30,000 Feet
David Speedie | (Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs) | – David Speedie of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs interviewed me in New York on Monday. Below is an excerpt of the transcript, but the whole thing is at their web site. Also below is the video of the interview. DAVID […]
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