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By Juan Cole Iraq’s former oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, warned on Thursday that the so-called “Islamic State” terrorist organization could hit the Iraqi oil fields in the south around Basra. Basra is deep in the Shiite south, so IS could not take the city of 2 million as it did largely Sunni Mosul. But […]

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What do Iraq’s Sunni Arabs have in common with Ferguson, Mo. African-Americans?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole If prime minister-designate Haydar al-Abadi in Iraq is to hope to defeat the so-called “Islamic State” (actually a kind of mafia made up of serial murderers and marauders), he must find a way to re-incorporate Iraq’s Sunni Arabs into the government, which has been dominated by Shiite religious parties since 2005, partly […]

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ISIS to US: We’ll drown you in Blood; beheads US Journalist, Holds Tikrit

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The Iraqi military made a push on Tikrit north of Baghdad on Tuesday, but had to call off their campaign when they ran into minefields, booby-trapped buildings, sniping and artillery and mortar fire on the part of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which now styles itself the “Islamic State” […]

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Israel: Crowd shouts “Death to Arabs” at Jewish-Muslim Wedding

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole An Israeli crowd gathered outside the wedding of a Muslim man and a Jewish woman in Rishon Lezion, shouting “death to Arabs” on Sunday. They were from the far right Lehava group, and make a specialty of harassing couples in mixed marriages. They called Maral Malka, 23, a traitor for converting to […]

African-Americans

The New Jim Crow: Has the Right finally Repealed the Civil Rights Act?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The 45 million African-Americans in the United States are unequal before the law vis-a-vis European-Americans and becoming moreso. In the age of Jim Crow (the white South’s attempt to prevent them from having the full rights of citizens after their emancipation from slavery), African-Americans often were denied the right to vote and […]

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Can al-Abadi win over Iraq’s Moderate Sunnis?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Arguably, the so-called Islamic State (actually a vicious gang of serial killers) could never have taken over northern and Western Iraq if the largely Sunni Arab populations there had not been deeply alienated from the government in Baghdad by the openly sectarian politics of former Shiite prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. Al-Maliki systematically […]

Apartheid

Dutch Lawyer who saved Jewish Boy in WWII returns Medal to Israel over Bombing of his Family in Gaza

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Henk Zanoli, a 91-year-old Dutch attorney who in 1943 saved a Jewish boy from the Nazis, has returned to Israel the “Righteous among the Nations” medal awarded him three years ago by the Yad Vashem museum. Zanoli’s mother had sheltered the boy, Elchanan Pinto, at risk to her own life, until the […]

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Top 10 Mistakes of former Iraq PM Nouri al-Maliki (That Ruined his Country)

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Now that Nouri al-Maliki has resigned as prime minister, it is worth looking at the way his two terms as prime minister (2006-2010, 2010-2014) shaped Iraq. Did his policies help create the country’s current impasse? 1. Al-Maliki was so partisan in 2006 when he first came to power that he denied that […]

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The Appeal of Intervention: New Iraqi Premier, Libyan Parliament ask for Int’l Troops

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole According to a spokesman for his Da’wa Party (Islamic Call or Islamic Mission), Iraq’s prime minister-designate Haydar al-Abadi is preparing a platform on the basis of which he will see to form a new government; one of the planks is a joint Iraqi- international military push against the so-called Islamic State in […]