Featured

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) Making alliances of convenience is a perennial temptation in Washington, where policy-makers often have more ambition than ethics or common sense. Thus, the Washington Post just published a slick op-ed by a representative of the Islamic Movement of Syrian Free Men (Ahrar al-Sham) claiming that the group is “moderate” […]

Culture

Omar Sharif didn’t have to Play a Terrorist

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Omar Sharif is dead at 83. Born Michel Chalhoub in Alexandria to Lebanese Christian parents in 1932, he changed his name and converted to Islam in 1955 in order to marry his co-star Faten Hamama. The two were a power couple in the Cairo film world […]

Featured

Iraq: As Battle Royale to take Falluja from Daesh/ ISIL Looms, Fears for Civilians

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Falluja is surrounded and under siege by the Iraqi Army and its Shiite militia auxiliaries, as these pro-Baghdad forces make plans to take the city back away from Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). The militias call the looming operation “Cutting off the head of the Snake.” Some 20,000 […]

African-Americans

South Carolina removes the Physical Flag: Can it remove the Spiritual Illness of Racial Discrimination?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The South Carolina legislature has voted to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the statehouse. It was put there in 1961 as a show of defiance against the Civil Rights movement, i.e. against the demand that the system of legally-imposed segregation of African-Americans cease. […]

Christianity

As Glaciers Melt in Ecuador, Pope Francis challenges Technocrats, touts “Keeping” the Environment

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Pope Francis continues to preach environmentalism as he addresses crowds in Latin America, a challenging message in poor countries where over-exploitation of natural resources is a constant temptation. These are also countries and populations, however, most at risk from pollution and the ravages of climate change. […]

Featured

Obama: No more US troops to fight Daesh/ ISIL, but more Training

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – President Obama on Monday went for a briefing at the Pentagon on the fight against Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). In remarks afterwards, he acknowledged that training of Iraqi troops has been going much slower than originally envisaged (about 5,000 have been trained in the past year, and […]

Banking

Is Greece’s “No” on Debt Referendum another Youth Revolution?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – During the past 5 years, the old categories of politics– left, right, center or capitalist and socialist– have been challenged by a new one, that of youth. What the Millennials want has begun to matter in addition to the other factors. That Greece has a left-wing […]

Barack Obama

Ghosts of King George III: Top 5 Things that threaten American Independence Today

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The things that irked the residents of the Thirteen Colonies about British rule have reemerged from other quarters to threaten American democracy. The colonists minded being ruled arbitrarily by British-appointed officials, some of them corrupt. They minded not being represented in parliament even though that body […]

Civil Rights

Your Fourth of July and My Fourth of July

Juan Cole

Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Revised for the 2010s: Your Fourth of July is invasions and wars. My Fourth of July is the pure sunbeam of peace. Yours is the Confederate flag and nostalgia for the hierarchies of slavery. Mine is ‘all men are created equal.’ Yours is kowtowing to billionaires in […]