Featured

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Saudi Arabia’s King Salman is visiting Turkey today, after his trip to Egypt this past weekend (I wrote about that at The Nation). There are things that have driven Saudi Arabia and Turkey apart, and things that have brought them together again. The tensions center on […]

Featured

How Americans Hate: 8-fold increase in Islamophobic Crime since 2000

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Congress passed the Hate Crime Statistics Act in 1990, and since then the FBI has been issuing annual reports on crimes of bias or hate crimes. I thought it might be useful to compare the year 2000, Bill Clinton’s last in office, with 2013 and with […]

Featured

Syria: Is al-Qaeda rising as ISIL is rolled Back? Is the US de facto Allied with it?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The cessation of hostilities in Syria never included Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) or al-Qaeda (the Nusra Front or Support Front), but it did include some of the de facto allies of al-Qaeda. The Syrian Arab Army and its Shiite militia allies, with Russian air support, have taken […]

Democratic Party

If ISIL falls before November, how will it affect the US Election?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – GOP frontrunner Donald Trump openly attributes his success at the polls to the terrorist attacks on Paris last fall, in which Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) was involved. Ever since Mosul fell to the organization (originally al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia) in June of 2014, it has provoked great concern […]

Bernie Sanders

Is Hillary Clinton responsible for rise of ISIL, as Bernie’s Campaign Manager Alleged?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, alleged on Thursday that Hillary Clinton’s policies are responsible for the ‘rise and expansion of ISIS throughout the Middle East.’ His full statement on CNN: “I think if you look at her record and campaign, her campaign is funded by […]

Bernie Sanders

Are Sanders’ Criticisms of Israeli Occupation Policies unprecedented in a Presidential Campaign?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Bernie Sanders is being attacked for comments on the Middle East in his interview with the editorial board of The New York Daily News, but all he did was restate current US government policy. What is remarkable is that Sanders dared just, like, criticize Israeli policy […]

Corruption

Syria: Al-Assad Family’s Massive Stolen Wealth in Panama Papers helps explain Revolution

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The revelation in the leaked Panama Papers that Mossack Fonseca and Swiss bank HSBC serviced the companies of corrupt Syrian billionaire Rami Makhlouf (first cousin of dictator Bashar al-Assad) long after the US imposed sanctions on him is a reminder of why Syrians revolted against the […]

Featured

What’s at Stake for Israel in al-Sharif Killing: Japanese Officers were Executed for Killing POWs

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Israeli military and security forces have a problem. They are fairly obviously being ordered to commit summary executions of prisoners. The problem: This behavior is one of the more heinous of war crimes as defined in international law. At the very least it is a […]

Authoritarianism

The Panama Papers and Middle East Leaders’ Secret Bank Accounts

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – An anonymous source has handed over to a German newspaper massive amounts of data from the Panama-based, German-run law firm Mossack Fonseca. The firm specialized in providing clients with offshore accounts, which are typically used to avoid taxes or hide ill-gotten gains. Given the enormous problem […]