Featured

Why the Int’l Criminal Court’s Arrest Warrant for Putin should make Israeli PM Netanyahu Afraid, Very Afraid

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The specific statute under which the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on war crimes concerned The Rome Statute, 8, 2, a, (vii) “Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement” and (viii) “Taking of hostages.” ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim A. Khan, a prominent British […]

Bush

20 Years Ago, the Bush Administration Launched the Iraq War: Juan Cole: “I Have a Bad Feeling About This”

Juan Cole

To mark the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War, here are some brief blog entries Juan Cole made in the run-up to the war expressing caution and pessimism about the triumphalist rhetoric issuing from the White House and many US news organizations. Juan Cole 01/28/2003 (Remarks delivered in late 2002). The Journal of the International […]

Featured

A Crucial Year: Turkey at a Turning Point

Marc Martorell Junyent

Reviews of Gönül Tol, Erdoğan’s War: A Strongman’s Struggle at Home and in Syria (London: Hurst and Co., 2022) and Dimitar Bechev, Turkey Under Erdoğan: How a Country Turned from Democracy and the West (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2022). Augsburg, Germany (Feature: Special to Informed Comment) – At the beginning of […]

Authoritarianism

Iranians are done with Kings and Ayatollahs, and look back to Mosaddegh for a Way forward

Fariba Amini

Newark, Delaware (Feature — Special to Informed Comment) – The debate over the coup 1953 still lingers on especially now that there are discussions whether the Shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, after forming a coalition with a few opposition figures, might even seek the return of monarchy, the monarchy which ended in 1979. On Facebook, clubhouse […]

Featured

Israeli President cautions against Complacency and Warns of Real Possibility of Civil War

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – All of a sudden, civil war is on the minds of prominent Israeli politicians, who warn that if the current impasse between the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Israeli people is not resolved, it could come to that. Last Sunday an estimated half a million demonstrators came […]

Featured

Boycotters of Israel were denounced as Antisemites, but now 255 US Jewish Businessmen Threaten to pull Investments over Netanyahu’s Plan to gut Courts

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Times of Israel reports that 255 American Jewish businessmen, who have billions of dollars invested in the country, have warned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that they will cease investing in Israel if he goes forward with his plans to gut the Israeli judiciary. The huge irony is that pro-Israeli […]

Climate Crisis

Saudi Aramco Reports Gargantuan $161 Bn in Profits, But will Electric Cars kill the Oil Market within 2 Decades?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Dan Murphy at CNBC reports that the giant Saudi Aramco oil company posted an unprecedented profit of $161 billion for 2022. The company’s CEO, Amin Nasser, commented that this was probably the biggest profit ever made in the course of one year by any private company. Murphy reports that Nasser […]

Democracy

As Half a Million Israelis Protest Netanyahu Regime, it Faces setbacks in Arab World

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Hadas Gold and Amir Tal report for CNN that the tenth major weekend of protest against the plans of the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to gut the judiciary grew to half a million people, with about 250,000 massing in the streets of Tel Aviv and a similar number […]

China

Is China the New Indispensable Nation? Beijing Brokers Iran-Saudi Relations as U.S. and Israel are Sidelined

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In an interview with Al Jazeera English, veteran Washington Iran watcher Hillary Mann Leverett asserted that, in the wake of the reestablishment of Iran-Saudi diplomatic relations in an agreement brokered by Beijing, China is now “the indispensable nation” in the Middle East. She underlined that the United States could not […]