Featured

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Turkey’s government is very unhappy today about developments in Syria. President Obama’s special envoy, Brett McGurk, said Sunday that the some 50 men from special operations forces will arrive in Syria in the very near future. But Turkey has been upset that the US troops will […]

Domestic Surveillance

Trump’s call for Spying on US Muslims recalls FBI bugging of MLK, Black Churches

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – As Donald Trump supporters beat a ‘Black Lives Matter’ protester at his rally in Birmingham, Ala., Trump himself reminded us of the dark days when a paranoid J. Edgar Hoover had the FBI monitor the Rev. Martin Luther King and black Churches of the Southern Christian […]

Featured

“For Paris” on Russian Missiles hitting Syria as ISIL Oil Facilities Targeted

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Coment) | – – the Syrian observatory said that the Russian strikes on the eastern province of Deir al-Zor killed 36 on Friday. Meanwhile, Russia also bombed positions in Idlib and other provinces, including with a cruise missile, which, according to the Russian foreign minister, killed 600 fighters of Daesh […]

Featured

If Trump can track Muslims, close Mosques, what can he do to You?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump, having said earlier that he might seek to close down mosques if he were president, on Thursday went further and said he would implement a registration and tracking database for Muslim-Americans. Rabbi Jack Moline of the Interfaith Alliance pointed out that […]

Featured

Did Daesh/ ISIL’s Paris attacks bolster al-Assad? Spain calls him ‘lesser of evils’

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Spanish foreign minister José Manuel García Margallo said Wednesday in the course of a television interview: “At the end of the day, the thesis has begun to clarify that it is the lesser evil to make an agreement with Bashar al-Assad and to thereby achieve a […]

Barack Obama

A New Yalta? Can France Craft an alliance of Putin & Obama against Daesh/ISIL?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – French President Francois Hollande is seeking a new relationship with Russia after the attacks on Paris by Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) and the Russian conclusion that a bomb downed a Russian airliner in Egypt’s Sinai last month. Le Monde reports that France and Russia have agreed on […]

Displaced and Refugees

Top 10 Reasons Governors are Wrong to Exclude Syrian Refugees

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Some half of US governors have announced their opposition to their states taking in Syrian refugees after the Paris attacks. Although they can bother refugees, they can’t actually dictate to people who are here legally where they can live. But anyway, here are the reasons for […]

Displaced and Refugees

Whether Jewish Refugees in ’30s or Syrians today, USA Falls Short of own Ideals

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Reprint ed., slightly revised. More than half of US governors have abruptly announced that they will not welcome Syrian refugees. Governors cannot actually tell people in America where they can live. Germany, a country of 80 million, will take in 800,000 refugees this year, many of […]

Featured

Is Daesh/ ISIL a modern Raiding Pirate state?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Some analysts trying to understand Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) had suggested that it differs from al-Qaeda in its emphasis on taking and holding territory, thus becoming a state– something that al-Qaeda was largely uninterested in. They expected the self-proclaimed “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to concentrate his resources […]