Middle East

A key group of Saudi feminists have called off their planned protests for Saturday against Saudi Arabia’s bizarre ban on women driving. (Some individuals may go ahead). They did so in response to dire threats from the Saudi Interior Ministry (i.e. secret police) of condign punishment against women who got behind the wheel today, and […]

Egypt

Is the Arab World turning back to Russia? Egyptian Delegation heads for Moscow

Juan Cole

An Egyptian delegation heading to Moscow just after the United States cut $300 million out of its aid package to Cairo to punish the July 3 military coup there has raised speculation that Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s military junta is shopping for a new superpower patron. In the 1960s at the height of the Cold […]

Afghanistan

The Horrors of Peace for the US Elite: Bashing ‘Isolationism,’ Blaming it for War (Bacevich)

Juan Cole

Andrew J. Bacevich writes at Tomdispatch.com: The abiding defect of U.S. foreign policy? It’s isolationism, my friend. Purporting to steer clear of war, isolationism fosters it. Isolationism impedes the spread of democracy. It inhibits trade and therefore prosperity. It allows evildoers to get away with murder. Isolationists prevent the United States from accomplishing its providentially […]

Energy

Why the US needs Electric Cars: Saudi Arabia threatens Pivot away from US

Juan Cole

The royal family of Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy with no constitution and no elected legislature, is in a snit about US foreign policy. King Abdullah doesn’t like even the mild American criticism of the Sunni Bahrain monarchy’s brutal crackdown on the majority Shiite community in that country. He is furious that President Obama went […]

Drones

Rights Groups: Some US Drone Strikes are War Crimes (Oldroyd)

Juan Cole

Rachel Oldroyd writes at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: Leading human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have raised serious concerns about the legality of drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen. The two organisations have conducted separate investigations into specific strikes to highlight how civilians are being killed. Such killings, they claim, are […]

Christianity

Egypt’s Coptic Christians Protest Killing by Fundamentalists of 4 at Church

Juan Cole

Coptic Christians in Egypt staged a big demonstration on Monday to protest the shooting deaths of four church-goers at the Church of the Virgin in the working class al-Warraq district in Cairo on Sunday. Two of the victims were children. Assailants came in on motorcycles with guns blazing. Many Coptic Christians blamed the deposed Muslim […]

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia in Unprecedented Withdrawal from UN Security Council over Syria, Palestine

Juan Cole

Saudi Arabia mysteriously withdrew, after having campaigned for and won a seat on the UN Security Council. They said it was over Western inaction on Syria and the the Palestinians. The UN Security Council consists of 5 permanent members (China, Russia, US, Britain and France), essentially the victors in WW II. These 5 get a […]

Iraq War

The American Genocide Against Iraq: 4% of Population Dead as result of US sanctions, wars

Juan Cole

A new household survey of Iraqis has projected the civilian death toll from the Bush administration’s invasion and occupation of Iraq at roughly 450,000. Passive information-gathering techniques like logging deaths in the Western press have produced estimates closer to 150,000, but such techniques have been proven to miss a lot of people. (To my knowledge […]

Iran

Top Ten Ways the US and Iran could avoid a Catastrophic War

Juan Cole

On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, presented his government’s proposals for ending the international stand-off over Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. Iran maintains that the program is for the production of fuel for the country’s nuclear reactors. The US, Western Europe, Israel and the Gulf Cooperation Council oil monarchies are convinced that Iran is […]