Middle East

The pan-Arab daily al-Hayat [Life] reports that 14 bands of fighters in Syria have broken with the moderate Syrian National Council led by Ahmad al-Jarba and have repudiated its Free Syrian Army. The importance of this development should not be underestimated. It will throw a scare into Baghdad and Amman, and will provoke serious thought […]

Iran

US, UN Sanctions on Iran Hurt Most Vulnerable

Juan Cole

In smug Washington-speak, US ‘sanctions’ on Iran have forced it to the negotiating table, making it possible to ‘stop’ the Iranian ‘nuclear weapons program.’ Even President Obama has started talking this way. They leave out the story of the children who die because they can’t afford medicine. The US doesn’t just have sanctions on Iran, […]

Iran

Iranian President Rouhani acknowledges Holocaust as Crime against Jewish People

Juan Cole

The speech of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to the UNGA pledged that Iran has no nuclear weapons program and said that Iran never would. The new Iranian president said he was committed to a time-bound set of negotiations over the country’s nuclear enrichment program. His remarks were encouraging, but unspecific about the ways he could […]

Iran

Is Iran Ready to do a Deal with Obama over its Nuclear Program?

Juan Cole

The United States, France, Germany, the UK, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE form a bloc that are convinced that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program is intended ultimately to produce a bomb. Iran maintains that the program is solely intended to produce fuel for nuclear reactors, which will allow it to avoid using its petroleum for […]

Egypt

Is Hamas Finished? Facing a Youth Rebellion and Egyptian, Iranian Hostility

Juan Cole

The party-militia Hamas, a distant offshoot in Palestinian Gaza of the Muslim Brotherhood, has seldom been on the sunny side of the street. But a combination of difficult political choices has left it more isolated and more broke than ever before in its history, as China’s Xinhua wire service points out. Adding insult to injury, […]

European Union

Israeli Troops attack European Diplomats on Aid Mission

Juan Cole

First the Israelis again erased a Palestinian population, ruling that the 120 Bedouin inhabitants of Khirbet Makhul in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank did not have proper “building permits” for the huts in which they lived. These people have lived in Palestine since forever, and they are not in Israel. It is the Israelis who […]

Iran

Iran’s President Rouhani and the New Hopes for Diplomacy (Sternfeld)

Juan Cole

Something about hope Since coming to office in August, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has done everything to spell out the profound difference between his administration and the previous one. No, Iran is still not a liberal democracy, but what we are witnessing today is an amazing journey of a struggling country with barriers, obstacles, and […]

Iran

Iran’s Rouhani: Not Seeking the Bomb, Willing to show Flexibility

Juan Cole

Ann Curry of NBC News gets a scoop, with an interview with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, in which he restates Iran’s position that it is not seeking, and will never seek, a nuclear weapon. He said that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, had recently stressed ‘heroic flexibility.’ US economic sanctions are severely affecting the Iranian […]

Syria

UN Report Conclusive Sarin used on wide Scale, Points to Syrian Regime

Juan Cole

When reports of a chemical weapons attack in Rif Dimashq near Damascus on August 21 first surfaced, some observers questioned whether these were really chemical weapons. Others questioned whether the force that deployed them, if that was what they were, was the Syrian army. T The UN-commissioned Sellstrom report on the August 21 chemical weapons […]