By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – King Salman of Saudi Arabia created a high-powered “anti-corruption” commission on Saturday, appointing his son, the crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman, to head it. The committee is a sort of star chamber, with wide powers to freeze bank accounts, ground private jets, and order suspects jailed. […]
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Arab World
Lebanon PM Hariri Resigns in fear for Life, Slamming Iran
Long known for Saudi Ties, Hariri Accuses Tehran of trying to Destroy Arab World
Voices of Yemen’s ‘Forgotten War’ Speak Out, Despite Legal Barriers
Global Advocacy Netizen Report | (GlobalVoices.org) Yemeni blogger Afrah Nasser was awarded this year’s International Free Press Award for her work covering the conflict in Yemen despite the many obstacles faced by journalists in the country. But Nasser, who also holds Swedish citizenship, was nearly unable to attend the awards ceremony in New York in […]
Syrian Army Liberates City of Deir Ezzor from ISIL
TeleSur | – – This marks a decisive defeat for the terrorist group which has seen its territory shrink at an exponential rate during 2017. The Syrian Army has declared a total military victory over the Islamic State group in Deir Ezzor city, the provincial capital of Deir Ezzor, an oil rich province that was […]
Iraq after ISIL: Stuck between US and Iran
Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | – – The US are occupiers, say some of Iraq’s militias. The militias need to disband, say US diplomats. Stuck in the middle is the Iraqi government, caught between two forces, both of which it needs to survive. The Iraqi military is moving towards victory in Al Qaem, […]
The Fall of the House of ISIL: Reduced from State to Random Terror
ISIL or ISIS has collapsed as a state and its fighters face looming defeat
That Time when Muslim Tunisia advised the Antebellum US to Abolish Slavery
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Revised classroom version Some observers imply that in 1861, most people in the world believed in slavery and so you can’t blame the American South for retaining it. This premise is not true. For one thing, a majority of American states had abolished slavery. Ohio did […]
Upshot of Mueller Probe: Putin did to US what we did to Iran and Iraq
US Middle East policy often seemed similar to Putin’s Plot on America via Trump
A mid-6th Century (Christian?) proto-Arabic Inscription from N. Arabia Mentioning Al-Ilah
(Politically oriented readers of IC please excuse this reprint of a path-breaking but extremely technical discussion in Arabian religious and linguistic history. It is highly important for the study of the beginnings of Islam, since it discusses an inscription from al-Jawf, Saudi Arabia dated to 548 CE, i.e. some sixty years before the beginning of […]