Arab World

The Drones Team at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism writes: The Bureau is launching an ambitious new investigation, which will seek to identify as many as possible of those killed in US covert drone strikes in Pakistan, whether civilian or militant. The Bureau is raising some of the money for this project through a crowd-funding […]

Arab Spring

Will a declining America Start Having to Obey the same Rules as Everybody Else? (Chomsky)

Juan Cole

Noam Chomsky writes at Tomdispatch.com: [This piece is adapted from “Uprisings,” a chapter in Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire, Noam Chomsky’s new interview book with David Barsamian (with thanks to the publisher, Metropolitan Books). The questions are Barsamian’s, the answers Chomsky’s.] Does the United States still […]

Syria

Syria: Rebels take Aleppo Airport Road; NYT: Obama Nixed Clinton/Petraeus Plan to Arm Rebels

Juan Cole

Syria’s revolutionaries are saying that they have taken a key Aleppo district, Sheikh Said, that enables them to block the road to the airport. The Baath regime has been using its airports and air bases to resupply troops in the north. If the rebels can block the use of Aleppo airport for this purpose, they […]

Egypt

Egyptian Cities Erupt in anti-Morsi Demonstrations

Juan Cole

Tens of thousands of Egyptians demonstrated around the country on Friday, despite cold, rainy weather in Alexandria and along the Canal zone. In Cairo itself, crowds gathered in front of Morsi’s presidential palace in Heliopolis, and some youth threw Molotov cocktails. Aljazeera English reports: Crowds in major cities chanted that they wanted new presidential elections, […]

Iran

Chuck Hagel Mauled in Bizarro World of US Senate

Juan Cole

The confirmation hearing in the Senate for Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, was painful to watch because it displayed the tomfoolery, pretense, self-righteous know-nothingism, and embarrassing lack of contact with reality that dominate the landscape of America’s broken democracy. It was like watching a Nebraska ordinary Joe set upon by circus […]

Israel

Russia slams Israeli bombing of Syria as Violation of UN Charter

Juan Cole

The USG Open Source Center translates the statement at the website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sharply condemning Israel: Text of “Russian Foreign Ministry statement in connection to reports about air strikes by the Israeli Air Force on targets on Syrian territory” published on the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website on 31 […]

Egypt

Is Egypt on the Verge of Civil War? Morsi backs off Emergency Decree

Juan Cole

Minister of Defense Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned Tuesday that if the country’s turmoil continued, Egypt faced the possibility of a collapse of the state. The intrepid Ben Wedeman of CNN reports on the ambivalence of the Egyptian police about being ordered by a Muslim Brotherhood president to crack down on protesting youth. He thereby […]

Syria

Syrian Horror Show, as Obama, Kuwait Pledge Refugee Aid (+ Cole Interview)

Juan Cole

The UN donors’ conference in Kuwait made some progress on Wednesday morning toward its goal of $1 billion in aid to the some 700,000 Syrian refugees, many of whom are shivering in tents in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. Kuwait stepped up big time, pledging $300 million. Kuwait has a long tradition of careful and well-executed […]

Egypt

Egypt: Canal Provinces Defy Morsi, Weakening his Authority

Juan Cole

The canal cities of Port Said, Ismailia and Suez rejected the imposition of a curfew and of emergency laws on them Monday night. In the meantime, the major opposition parties declined President Muhammad Morsi’s call for a meeting to work out differences. The National Salvation Front, made up of leftists and old regime secularists, insists […]