By David Mednicoff | – Editor’s note: Iran’s missile attack on a U.S. base in Iraq in retaliation for the Trump administration’s killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani has dramatically escalated global tensions. Dozens of questions have swirled around the events. Beyond the politics, international law and Middle Eastern scholar David Mednicoff from the University […]
Archives for January 2020
All the Times the US allied with Gen. Soleimani against Common Enemies, giving him Air Support at Tikrit
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Since the US political establishment and press has been demonizing Gen. Qasem Soleimani since he was rubbed out by Trump, it is perhaps worth complicating the story– especially now that Trump is accusing him of having targeted not one but four US embassies. Trump is a notorious and compulsive liar, […]
Trump Backs Down, But Iran Conflict is Still a Landmine
( 48hills.org) – Trump blinked. After threatening to bomb military and cultural sites in Iran, President Donald Trump has apparently backed down on further escalation in his quasi-war with Iran. He tried to spin his decision as a US victory, claiming his administration had supposedly made America safer by assassinating Iranian Major General Qassem Suleimani. […]
Is Russian Imperialism in Syria, with its Vast Human Toll, a Vanity Project for Vladimir Putin?
Radwan Zyada | – (Middle East Monitor) – Russian President Putin made a surprise visit to Damascus [on January 7], during which he met Bashar Al-Assad, not at the Rawda Palace or the People’s Palace, where the latter customarily receives his guests, but rather at the headquarters of the Russian forces in Damascus. This is […]
Trump’s Killing of Gen. Soleimani evokes Dark Themes of Martyrdom in Shiite Islam
By Deina Abdelkader | – Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who promoted the religious and political influence of the Iranian regime across the Middle East with covert military operations, was an important figure in the Iranian government. But that’s not the only reason his targeted killing by the United States has elicited explosive grief and outrage in […]
Americans re: Iran: A Reckless Trump has made us Less Safe, and Congress Should Rein him in
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A USA Today opinion poll reported by Susan Page shows that the American people view Trump’s assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi. Gen. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis has having been “reckless” and having made them “less safe.” The poll of 1005 adults was taken Tuesday and Wednesday. A majority […]
Yemen’s Shock Therapy: How the Peace Process Has Been Jump-started by Transformative Acts of Aggression
Beachwood, Oh. (Special to Informed Comment) – With precarious standoffs in Libya’s Tripoli and Syria’s Idlib on the verge of collapsing amid fresh waves of violence, it is worth considering why peace processes so often fail to preempt such catastrophes and how they might respond to them. Yemen, where the conflict has been mired in […]
The Global War of Error: and No, that is not a Typo
( Tomdispatch.com) – Yes, our infrastructure stinks, our schools are failing, this country’s a nightmare of inequality, and there’s a self-promoting madman in the White House, so isn’t it time to take pride in the rare institutional victories America has had in this century? Arguably, none has been more striking than the triumphal success of […]
We Can Do it: In 10 Years, even Tory Britain Dumped Coal and went to 21% Wind
By Grant Wilson, Iain Staffell and Noah Godfrey | – In 2010, Great Britain generated 75% of its electricity from coal and natural gas. But by the end of the decade*, these fossil fuels accounted for just 40%, with coal generation collapsing from the decade’s peak of 41% in 2012 to under 2% in 2019. […]
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