Middle East

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Even as the Syrian army defeated a counter-offensive by al-Qaeda in Syria and its battlefield allies at Aleppo, French President Francois Hollande warned that al-Qaeda should not be allowed to replace the declining Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) in Syria. On Saturday and Sunday, al-Qaeda (the Nusra Front) […]

Iraq War

Why you can’t explain the Iraq War without mentioning oil

contributors

By Bulent Gökay | (The Conversation) | – – Well before the US and UK led the invasion of Iraq, the two countries were under suspicion about their intentions for Iraq’s oil. When asked on February 6 2003 in a BBC Newsnight programme whether the war in Iraq was about oil, Tony Blair responded: Let […]

Israel/ Palestine

Palestinian mayor: West Bank water crisis worsened by decaying infrastructure

contributors

Ma’an News Agency | – – BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — An ongoing water crisis in the occupied Palestinian territory has been exacerbated by neglected infrastructure, the mayor of a town in the southern occupied West Bank said on Sunday. Beit Fajjar Mayor Akram Taqatqa said that his town’s water network had not had any maintenance work […]

Bashar al-Assad

If East Aleppo Falls to Regime, is the Syrian War over?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Reuters is reporting that the Syrian Arab Army and its Shiite militia allies have taken Malah Farms to the northwest of the city and so have cut the last remaining road by which the rebel forces in East Aleppo were resupplied with armaments. (Reuters is too […]

Bush

The other Casualty of Iraq War: The Country’s Whole Health System

contributors

Ahmed Aber | (The Conversation) | – – Thirteen years ago, American and British troops launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Iraqis were promised freedom from tyranny, but the subsequent destruction of the Iraqi state apparatus as well as the cycle of violence that continues to this day destroyed the health system that cared for the […]

Culture

Goodbye to Abbas Kiarostami, a Filmmaking Legend Whose Vision ‘Transversed His Persian Roots’

contributors

By Mahsa Alimardani | ( Global Voices) | – – News trickled out of a Paris hospital on the evening of 4 July that Iranian cinematic auteur Abbas Kiarostami lost his battle against cancer at the age of 76. Kiarostami had been admitted to Tehran's Arad Hospital in mid-June, where he had undergone an operation […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israeli commander testifies: soldier unjustified in point-blank Hebron execution

contributors

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — An Israeli army commander testified on Wednesday in the ongoing trial of Elor Azarya, an Israeli soldier accused of shooting and killing a prone Palestinian in Hebron in March, saying that there was no justification for the shooting, which has been labeled by the UN as an “extrajudicial execution.” Col. Yariv Ben […]

Iraq War

Surprise! It was a War Crime

contributors

By Rebecca Gordon | (Informed Comment) | – – So now it’s official. The British Chilcot Report confirms what the world has known for 13 years: the invasion of Iraq was a legal, strategic, and moral disaster. The report runs to 12 volumes – 2.5 million words – but its primary author, Sir John Chilcott, […]

Iraq

The Iraq War Never Ended: An Interview with Anand Gopal

contributors

An Interview with Anand Gopal by Charles Davis | ( TeleSur) | – – The United States is winning the war on terror, just as it always has. The Islamic State group is “on the defensive,” Col. Steve Warren told reporters earlier this year. In Iraq, it has reportedly lost 40 percent of its territory […]