Featured

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in my view never had any chance of becoming president, though he has thrown his hat into the ring for the Republican nomination. So it would be an overstatement to say that he lost the opportunity because of his maladroit response to […]

African-Americans

Our reply to Dylann Roof’s Hate: Donate to “Mother Emanuel” AME Church

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – There are many essential responses to the racist terrorism that attacked Emanuel AME Church, which the state of South Carolina should take. It should stop flying the Confederate flag. It should undo the gerrymandering by the white Republican Establishment that keeps the one-third of the population […]

African-Americans

Another White non-Terrorist Kills 9, Makes Bomb Threats

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Update: Suspected shooter Dylann Roof has been apprehended. He had a gun with him at the time. It is being alleged that he wore Apartheid South Africa flag, complained of African-Americans raping, taking over US. So, then, it was political and indubitably terrorism. Police in Charleston, […]

Arab Americans

Can the GOP live down Donald Trump’s Middle East “Policy”?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Comedians, bloggers, and pundits are ecstatic about The Donald throwing his toupee in the ring for the Republican nomination. The stories write themselves. But the Republican Party establishment is appalled, because Trump will create an image for the party that will hurt it in the general […]

Bush

The Middle East Policy of President John Ellis “Jeb” Bush: Iraq, Iran Wars?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Jeb Bush announced his run for president on Monday. It is hard to know what his Middle East policy would be from his wibbly wobbly pronouncements, but that it would be imperial and aggressive can be deduced from his foreign policy advisory team, including Neoconservatives such […]

Featured

Pres. Erdogan sees Syrian Kurds’ advance against ISIL as “danger” to Turkey

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The leftist Kurdish Protection Forces (YPG) and their Arab allies, the Euphrates Volcano, continued their assault on Sunday on Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) positions in northern Raqqa Province in Syria, taking the village of Salouk on the outskirts of Tel Abyad. Tel Abyad lies on the border […]

Featured

Can Leftist Kurdish Militia cut ISIL/ Daesh off from Turkish Supply Routes and Kill the Caliphate?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The intrepid Liz Sly of the Washington Post gets the story of the attempt of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and their Arab allies, the Euphrates Volcano, to cut Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) off and kill it. Sly’s insightful report is buttressed by one from Ahmad […]

Climate Change

Wind Power rapidly bringing Clean Electricity to masses in Global South

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Google is in talks to invest in Kenya’s enormous Lake Turkana Wind Power Project, which will cost $700 million. The project will increase Kenya’s electricity production by a fifth, adding 300 megawatts, in a country where less than a quarter of the population has electricity. Wind […]

Druze

Al-Qaeda in Syria rubs out 23 members of Druze Religious Minority, Persecutes Others

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The al-Qaeda-linked Support Front has murdered 23 men from a single Druze clan in Qalb Lawzah, Idlib Province, Syria. Druze villagers fled in large numbers to surrounding Sunni hamlets seeking refuge from al-Qaeda. There are some 18 Druze villages in the north of Idlib Province. The […]