Arab World

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Alexander Titov at Queen’s University, Belfast, has argued that the commonly met with meme that Vladimir Putin has gone off his rocker is incorrect. Titov locates Putin’s grand strategy in the tradition of great power politics. I agree that it doesn’t add anything significant to our analysis to resort to […]

Displaced and Refugees

US would be on firmer Ground declaring Putin a War Criminal if George W. Bush had been Tried

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – NPR reports that on Wednesday, President Biden called Russian dictator Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” for the first time. The report notes that this outburst is unusual for Biden, who prizes personal diplomacy and must know that such a charge would make it more difficult to negotiate with Putin down […]

censorship

Saudi Arabia: Mass Execution of 81 Men: Rampant Abuses in Criminal Justice System, lack of Fair Trials

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – Saudi authorities’ execution of 81 men on March 12, 2022 was its largest mass execution in years despite recent promises to curtail its use of the death penalty, Human Rights Watch said today. Rampant and systemic abuses in Saudi Arabia’s criminal justice system suggest it is highly unlikely that […]

Authoritarianism

Syrians Watch Ukraine with Fear and Hope: International Protections Provided to Ukrainians Can Still Be Extended to Syrians

Human Rights Watch

By Maya Ghazi | – ( Human Rights Watch ) – Over the past couple of years Syria has settled into a grim status quo: a crumbling economy, a fragmented nation, and the continued peril refugees face from forced returns home. Yet in the lead-up to the 11th anniversary of the Syrian revolution, there have […]

Bashar al-Assad

This is Where We came in: Will Russia’s Syrian Mercenaries in Ukraine form a new Al-Qaeda?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Thursday, according to Alarabiya (quoting Tass) Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he would permit foreign fighters from the Middle East to aid the Russian war effort in Ukraine. At the same time, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that some 16,000 fighters in the Middle East had expressed […]

Climate Crisis

Oil Sheikhs have us Behind the 8-Ball: The UAE’s mixed Signals on Oil underline need for US to move Rapidly to Green Transportation

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – America is paying the price for lagging behind in its adoption of electric vehicles and in putting in more electric mass transit. Because we are still mostly a society that moves on gasoline, we are dependent on the worst people in the world for our energy. Even where we produce […]

Libya

Ukraine, Libya, and the Enduring Global Disorder

Sabina Henneberg

Washington, D.C. (Special to Informed Comment) – According to some analyses, the ongoing war in Ukraine appears to have finally put to rest the illusion of global governance. Instead, it illustrates the emergence of what Libya expert Jason Pack calls the Enduring Global Disorder. In Pack’s view, irrespective of Russian victory, the international response to […]

Arab Spring

Ukraine: What the Libya War tells us about Why we Really don’t want a NATO No-Fly Zone

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Tracy Wilkinson at the Los Angeles Times writes about the no-fly zone proposed by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and the flat refusal of the Pentagon to go in that direction. The clamor for a no-fly zone among some in Congress and in US civil society, however, displays a remarkable […]

Arab Americans

US Media (Rightly) focuses on Ukrainian Rights, but it Racializes Muslims deprived of those Same Rights

Assal Rad

(Special to Informed Comment) – Speaking about the significance of knowledge and its role in democracy, President John F. Kennedy once stated that only an “informed people will be a free people, that the ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.” One of the most important institutions that informs public […]