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Archives for January 2020

Donald Trump
Trump's New Year Fireworks this time were Chaos in Iraq

Trump’s New Year Fireworks this time were Chaos in Iraq

Peter Crowley

Boston (Special to Informed Comment) – The last day of 2019 saw a huge contrast between scenes of New Year’s joy in Times Square in the United States with interminable conflict and a kind of US global dictatorship at the periphery, in Iraq. There, if the US kills militia members who are part of the […]

Iran
No Fair!  Iran put its Country Right next to Bases used by US Military in Middle East

No Fair! Iran put its Country Right next to Bases used by US Military in Middle East

Juan Cole

Political Cartoon | – “No Fair! Iran put its Country right next to Bases used by US Military in Middle East h/t Middle East Eye

Libya
Will Turkey sending its Troops to Libya Prolong the Civil War?

Will Turkey sending its Troops to Libya Prolong the Civil War?

Middle East Monitor

By Mustafa Fetouri | – Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government submitted a bill to the Turkish parliament seeking approval for its plans to send troops to Libya. The parliament approved the bill Thursday, given that the president’s AK Party has a majority in the chamber. The vote was originally planned for 7 January, after the winter […]

Donald Trump
Trump, Troll-in-Chief, wags the Impeachment Dog by Going to War with Iran

Trump, Troll-in-Chief, wags the Impeachment Dog by Going to War with Iran

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The madman in the White House has been sulking and raging for weeks about his impeachment proceedings, tweeting manically on some days more than 100 times. With the release by JustSecurity.org of unredacted emails on the Ukraine scandal showing that Trump personally (and illegally) withheld congressionally mandated military aid to […]

Afghanistan
Top Five Countries that will Present Foreign Policy Challenges in 2020

Top Five Countries that will Present Foreign Policy Challenges in 2020

The Conversation

By Catesby Holmes | – Where will the world’s attention turn in 2020? The United States’ impeachment trial of Donald Trump and the United Kingdom’s long-awaited Brexit are sure bets. And after the U.S. military withdrawal from northern Syria in October, Bashar al-Assad may well win his civil war this year. Many other countries will […]

Donald Trump
Two 'divinely chosen' Great Leaders, Trump and Iran's Khamenei, in Heated Tweet War over Iraq

Two ‘divinely chosen’ Great Leaders, Trump and Iran’s Khamenei, in Heated Tweet War over Iraq

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – I suppose it was foreseeable that at some point it would happen, but we’re finally here. President Donald J. Trump and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran are in a tweet war. The two leaders have many things in common. Trump’s cabinet members such as Rick Perry have said that Trump […]

Climate Crisis
Top 3 Practical Solutions to our Most Pressing Environmental Crises

Top 3 Practical Solutions to our Most Pressing Environmental Crises

The Conversation

By Jennifer Weeks | – From climate change to omnipresent plastic waste, 2019 delivered a lot of discouraging environmental news. Several special reports this year from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change documented how global warming is altering the planet’s lands, forests, oceans and frozen regions. Another U.N. report warned that the Earth is losing […]

Omar Khayyam
How to Write Rubaiyat

How to Write Rubaiyat

Juan Cole

Edward FitzGerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was a worldwide publishing phenomenon from about 1880 until the 1970s, and is still beloved by many readers. Rubaiyat is actually a plural, meaning “quatrains.” The singular would be ruba’i, with a long a and “a” long “i.” The word is from the Arabic root for […]

Israel/ Palestine
Trolling: Time to Realize what Smearing Palestinian Rights Activists as "anti-Semitic" Really is

Trolling: Time to Realize what Smearing Palestinian Rights Activists as “anti-Semitic” Really is

Ramzy Baroud

(Middle East Monitor ) – At a talk I delivered in Northern England in March 2018, I proposed that the best response to falsified accusations of antisemitism, which are often lobbed against pro-Palestinian communities and intellectuals everywhere, is to draw even closer to the Palestinian narrative. In fact, my proposal was not meant to be […]

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