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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | The press is declaring Sadiq Khan, victor in the electoral contest for mayor of London, the “first Muslim mayor of a major European city.” They mean of course, something like ‘the first Muslim mayor of a really big Western European city in the modern period (say the past […]

Climate Change

Wildfire: Syrian Refugees in Canada Donating to help climate Refugees

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Syrian refugees in Canada are using Facebook and web sites to raise donations for climate refugees from the massive tar sands fire that has destroyed much of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada and forced the evacuation of 80,000 people living in the city and its surroundings. […]

Climate Change

Will Climate Change make the Mideast Uninhabitable & trigger mass exodus?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Researchers at Germany’s Max Planck Institute and their scientific partners have found that even with just a 3.6 degree average rise in global temperatures, parts of the Middle East could become too hot to live in. Warming won’t be even around the world. Some places will […]

Bashar al-Assad

A Tale of Two Cities: Muslim Rebels strike back at Hospital in Gov’t held West

contributors

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment)| – – Muslim fundamentalist rebels, including al-Qaeda, took revenge Tuesday on West Aleppo for the heavy government bombardment of East Aleppo that has killed dozens in the past week, including at a hospital run by Doctors without Borders. At the same time that the government was bombarding the slums […]

Bashar al-Assad

Russia declines to ask Syria to halt Bombardment of East Aleppo

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s recent interview with Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter gives some idea of thinking in Moscow about the Syrian civil war. Question: Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has voiced criticism over the airstrikes carried out by Russia in Syria, leaving the impression that relations […]

al Qaeda in the Arabian Penisula

Al-Qaeda Everywhere: US support for Oppressive Gov’t’s made Bin Laden’s Killing Moot

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US government has never understood insurgency for the most part. Smart USG officials with whom I’ve interacted have had a firm belief that leadership is a rare quality and that you can attrite an organization by killing its leaders. This theory is patently false. It […]

Featured

The End of American Iraq: Poor Shiites invade Parliament over corrupt Spoils System

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Baghdad is under a state of emergency on Sunday a day after members of the Sadr Trend stormed the Green Zone and invaded the parliament building, briefly imprisoning parliamentarians in the chamber (and some in a basement) before letting them go. Some apparently were beaten as […]

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‘Monstrous’ violence in Aleppo as ‘Regime of Calm’ begins in rest of Syria

Juan Cole

by Juan Cole: The US and the Russian Federation agreed Friday that from Saturday there would be a “regime of calm” in most of Syria. Two areas where clashes have broken out in the past week are East Ghouta east of Damascus and the northern countryside of the Mediterranean province of Latakia (72 hours), and […]

Featured

Syria: As fierce Fighting reignites, Aleppo on brink of ‘Humanitarian Disaster’

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Syria’s largest city, Aleppo has seen a worrying outbreak of violence in the past week that could fatally undermine the cessation of hostilities that had held between most Free Syrian Army units and the Syrian Arab Army. The ceasefire did not extend to al-Qaeda or Daesh […]