Sunnis

The Obama administration’s fruitless search for effective Sunni “moderate” fighters in Syria continues, with the announcement of a $500 million grant to them for training and weaponry. This policy seems in part to be driven by Saudi Arabia from abroad and by liberal interventionists, including Kerry, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and UN Ambassador Susan […]

Iraq

What Drove Iraqi Sunnis to Revolt and ally with ISIS?

contributors

By Charles Recknagel via RFE/RL As Sunni insurgents have swept across northern Iraq, they have sought to win support by portraying themselves as the liberators of the country’s Sunni population. One of their first acts after routing the Iraqi Army from Mosul on June 6-9 was to open up the gates of the city’s prison. […]

Bashar al-Assad

Iraq in last Throes as Kurdistan Seeks Independence, Syria & Iran intervene

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Former Vice President and unindicted felon Richard Bruce Cheney (they always give the criminals’ names that way, in full) once said that he was sure that the Sunni Arab resistance to the US in Iraq was in its last throes. Nobody in his own administration agreed with him then, and this allegation […]

Arab Spring

Religion and the Fight over Public Space in Egypt

contributors

By Marwa Fikry Abdel Samei | Cairo (Special to Informed Comment) “Have you pronounced blessings on the Prophet today?” These words alarmed the Egyptian regime and impelled it to announce a war on the posters carrying them. Last week, whenever you go around the streets of Cairo and some other governorates, you could hardly miss […]

Featured

Hardliners in Israel & Iran Resist US Pivot to Iran over ISIS

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The continued advances of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL) on Sunday brought the radical Sunni movement to the borders of Jordan and consolidated its control over al-Anbar Province. The Iraqi military continued its rapid collapse into uselessness, losing all the country’s military border outposts to ISIS. There […]

Featured

Neo-Zangid State erases Syria-Iraq Border, cuts Hizbullah off from Iran

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole With the alleged fall to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria of Qa’im on Saturday, and of Talafar a few days ago, the border between Iraq and Syria has now been effectively erased. A new country exists, stretching from the outskirts of Baghdad all the way to Aleppo. In history, it […]

Christianity

Inside Mosul: ISIS fears Popular Uprising; Baathists cry Foul

contributors

By a Special Correspondent via Niqash.org NIQASH’s correspondent takes a walk around Mosul to see how the city has changed since extremists took it over last week. Despite masked men at checkpoints and burned out military facilities, things are strangely calm. Two hundred meters from the eastern entrance to Mosul, the Iraqi Kurdish taxi driver […]

Iran

Is Iraq Actually Falling Apart? What Social Science Surveys Show

contributors

By Mansoor Moaddel Several nationally representative surveys carried out in Iraq between 2004 and 2013 provide important facts about Iraqi orientations toward secular politics, basis of identity, Americans, and Iranians. These facts have serious implications for the territorial integrity of Iraq, support for an Islamic government, and the U.S. policy toward the country. These surveys […]

Iraq

Iraq is more like N. Ireland than Lebanon, Reconciliation is Possible

contributors

By Jocelyne Cesari The attack of The Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) on Mossul and its march on Baghdad has taken the international community by surprise and raised the possibility of another US intervention in Iraq, with the hope it could prevent the downfall of the country into a sectarian war. Such […]