By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Several members of Donald Trump’s new team, including National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and proposed Secretary of Defense Mike Mattis have expressed themselves troubled about “political Islam” (or in Flynn’s case, just “Islam”). Mattis seems to have confused Daesh’s (ISIS, ISIL) idea of a neo-Caliphate (bringing […]
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political Islam
Shadow Wars: The Secret Struggle for the Middle East
By Christopher M. Davidson | (Informed Comment) | – – Swept along on a tidal wave of euphoria, by spring 2011 many had cautiously begun to believe that the wave of Arab uprisings that had already managed to topple the regimes of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak would herald the dawn of […]
The myth and history of Sunni-Shia divide
By Amir Ahmadi Arian | ( OpenDemocracy ) | – – Sunnis and Shias have lived together in peace for centuries, and up to the new millennium have barely had a history of bloody conflict. Why now? Head of the Shiite opposition, left, and Sunni Muslim leader of a liberal opposition party, right, hold a […]
The Millenarian Dimensions of the Attempted Coup in Turkey and implications for Muslim Modernism & Traditionalism
By Mohammed Nuruzzaman | (Informed Comment) | – – The failed July 15 coup in Turkey has generated a whole range of debates on who was really behind the coup, Turkey’s future relations with NATO and the U.S., and President Erdogan’s possible pivot to Russia and Iran. A more serious debate that did not receive […]
Nearly 500 more US Troops sent to Iraq for Mosul Attack in advance of Election Day
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Stars and Stripes is reporting that the number of US troops in Iraq has risen from 4,000 to 4,460 in preparation for the Iraqi government campaign against Mosul. The WSJ reported that the government of Iraqi prime minister Haydar al-Abadi wants to begin the campaign in […]
How Twitter robots spam critics of Saudi Arabia & Shiite Muslims
By Brian Whitaker | ( Al-Bab.com ) | – – For several weeks now there has been growing evidence that Twitter is being used for a covert and highly organised propaganda operation which disparages Shia Muslims while supporting the Sunni Muslim governments of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The tactic is to deluge Twitter with multiple […]
Will Iraq’s next Government be . . . Iran-backed Shiite Militias?
By Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | – – The [so-called] Islamic State [IS] group has caused a realignment of Iraq’s political map. Next year’s provincial elections will signal who will rule the land after the security crisis has passed – and it may not be to everyone’s liking. In April 2017 Iraq will […]
Defeating ISIL in Iraq will Take Sunni-Shiite Reconciliation, not Just Tanks
London (Informed Comment) – As Iraqi, Kurdish and Syrian forces squeeze its territory in the Arab world and Turkey hunts down the group’s support networks and sympathisers inside its territory, it can seem like the days of Islamic State (IS) are finally numbered after a two year reign of terror in the region. However it […]
Is Religion really Driving Middle East Violence?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Pew Research has released a report saying that “As a whole, the region continued to have the highest levels of religious hostilities in the world. In 2014, the median level of religious hostilities in the Middle East and North Africa reached a level four times that […]