Juan Cole Interviewed by Francesca Fiorentini:
How To Lose a Country In 100 Days with Josh Gondelman & Juan Cole (Ep 278)
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I fed the computer-generated transcript through ChatGPT to clean it up. AI isn’t perfect, so caveat emptor:
Host (Francesca Fiorentini):
We’ve got another amazing guest for you — the editor-in-chief of Informed Comment, which publishes deep geopolitical analysis that’s also accessible to a general audience. I can attest to that as a general audience member. He’s also a professor of history at the University of Michigan and the author of several books. Please welcome Juan Cole.
Juan Cole:
Hi Francesca.
Francesca:
Hey, welcome Juan. You know, I wasn’t going to ask you this question, but I’m going to now, given that you’re at the University of Michigan — I had forgotten. The kinds of aggression we’ve seen toward students speaking out for Palestine — Palestinian students, and others — having their doors broken down, targeted for participating in encampments and demonstrations… From your vantage point as faculty, just tell me what the vibe has been like on campus and how this has impacted your students?
Juan Cole:
It’s not entirely clear to me exactly who was targeted. They don’t — and rightly so — give out the names. So nobody in my immediate circles has been affected, to my knowledge. Not all of the demonstrators responsible for occupying the administrative building, for instance, in the fall after the war began, were necessarily students — or still are.
But obviously, breaking down people’s doors and terrorizing or brutalizing them in this way is deeply upsetting. The big issue is that we have an internal way of handling things at the University of Michigan.
There were 11 students who occupied the administrative building. That building has been occupied over and over through the decades. I myself was at Northwestern during the Vietnam War and could easily be given a life sentence for what I did back then, protesting that war.
So, these 11 students were given an internal disciplinary hearing, and the university’s disciplinary body decided there was no case against them. They were let go.
Then the regents took the case to the county prosecutor, who also refused to prosecute. After that, the regents reached out to the state attorney general — and had the state bring charges.
In Michigan, there are no misdemeanor trespassing charges. It’s a felony. So these 11 young people could end up being tried and convicted of a felony — which would ruin their lives — for protesting a genocide. It’s really quite shameful.
The attorney general has made remarks showing she’s not objective about this case. In fact, there’s now a move to try to have her removed from the case. Even her own lawyers admitted in a different case that she’s not objective on this issue.
The entire situation reflects very badly on the University of Michigan, on the regents, and on the state government — and mostly, the bad actors have been Democrats.
[Update: The state attorney general has now by mid-May 2025 dropped the charges against the students, partially on the grounds that she was not seen as impartial.]
Francesca:
That’s really important to underscore. You’re right that we haven’t confirmed if any of those 11 students were involved in the door-breaking incidents. But, as you said, occupying buildings has been done generation after generation.
In my case, it was the Iraq War. In your case, the Vietnam War. The idea that now these cases are being elevated to the state level — that they’d press felony charges — is wild. And terrifying. Imagine being 17 or 18 years old.
And the fact that it’s being done by so-called liberal institutions and Democrats — it’s really ominous, Juan. It says a lot about the trust young people will have in the Democratic Party going forward, and in the institutions we should be supporting, especially now that they’re under attack by authoritarians. Instead, these institutions are focused on prosecuting their own. We can’t pull together.
Juan Cole:
Amen.
Francesca:
Let me pivot now. I want to get your thoughts on everything else happening in the world. Before we talk about Gaza and Israel, give me your take on the new neocolonial efforts from the Trump camp — like randomly trying to annex territory: Canada as the 51st state, taking over the Panama Canal again, Greenland for fresh water, or whatever — even inventing a new colony called “PRAIS,” or whatever it is. What’s your read on how this shapes U.S. global influence and how other countries are responding?
Juan Cole:
It’s alarming everyone. There’s a big debate in political science about whether countries can really be friends. At what level does that mean anything? Aren’t they always acting in their own national interest?
Friendly relations mean you have a common objective for a time. Harry Truman once said, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”
Realists might argue that Trump isn’t acting differently from any other U.S. president. Bush woke up one day and decided he wanted Iraq — and he took it. I thought it was a bad idea. But the rest of the world largely said “welcome to it.” There were polite objections from Beijing, Moscow, and Paris.
In many ways, Trump’s behavior isn’t so different from Bush’s — or from U.S. support for Israel in occupying 5 million Palestinians and keeping them stateless. Regardless of the State Department’s mythical two-state solution talking points, the U.S. is all-in on the occupation. Now it’s openly U.S. policy — articulated by Trump — to expel Palestinians from their homeland. Ethnic cleansing.
Saying it out loud is new, but the policy was already there under Biden.
Yes, Trump’s open talk of taking Greenland and Canada is unusual. But the U.S. has long been an imperial power. It grabbed the Philippines, Iraq, tried to take Vietnam. And it always had a cover story — international communism, terrorism, etc.
Remember, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but the Bush administration kept implying Saddam and bin Laden were somehow linked. It’s not new.
Francesca:
Yeah, absolutely. But what is new is that these are supposed to be allies. Canada, for example, is part of the “coalition of the willing” when we want to invade brown countries. JD Vance hates Europe. We don’t have to dissect NATO now, but this changes the global balance — for better and worse.
Trump is hastening the demise of the American empire by undermining the alliances that once propped it up. Ironically, he’s obsessed with American exceptionalism — but his actions are accelerating decline.
George W. Bush arguably did the same with Iraq and Afghanistan.
Let’s shift to Yemen. Reports now say that the U.S., according to the Houthis, bombed a prison and killed 68 people — mostly African migrants — and wounded 47. On April 18, another 74 people were killed at a fuel port, with 171 wounded. This was the deadliest attack of the campaign so far.
Also, Hegseth leaked war plans on Signal — which is terrifying. But the bigger issue is the civilians being killed. What’s your read on what’s happening in Yemen?
Juan Cole:
Francesca, anytime one country is bombing another without committing ground troops, it’s all for show. Not a serious military effort.
I remember the U.S. carpet bombing Vietnam. It didn’t help win the war.
Yemen has been bombed since 2015, when the Houthis — “Helpers of God” — came to power in the north. Saudi Arabia and the UAE formed a coalition to push them out. They succeeded in the south, in Aden, but never in the north, where the Zaydi Shi’a (to which the Houthis belong) are strong.
Not all Zaydis are Houthis. The Houthis are a movement within them, and they have Sunni tribal allies. They likely rule 80% of the population.
The Saudis never wanted to put boots on the ground. Yemen is rugged — I’ve been there — not a place for tanks. So they just bombed for seven years, then made a truce when it didn’t work.
Now Trump wants to rerun the movie. Unless someone’s willing to fight on the ground, bombing won’t change much — except that it constitutes war crimes against civilians.
Francesca:
The idea that they didn’t know they were bombing a prison is just ridiculous. It’s either incompetence or indifference. These people — mostly migrants — were helpless. And the Houthis are targeting Red Sea shipping in protest of the U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza.
They haven’t been dropping bombs from the sky. Their focus has been on disrupting commerce, not mass killing.
Juan Cole:
Actually, we should acknowledge that Houthi actions in the Red Sea have endangered sailors — merchant and military. They’ve also bombed Israel. The drones and missiles they use are inaccurate. I believe it’s always a war crime to launch such unguided munitions. Israeli civilians have been injured.
The Houthis are militant. From their point of view, they’re standing against genocide in Gaza. But most ships they hit aren’t Israeli. They claim they are, but it’s propaganda. They’ve targeted Eilat, but not military infrastructure.
In my view, they’ve acted irresponsibly.
Declaring them terrorists — as Trump did — created big problems. Biden initially reversed that, but they remain under terrorism-related sanctions.
If I were an aid group trying to bring food to Sanaa, I’d have to deal with the Houthis. But if they’re labeled terrorists, I’m guilty of material support. So aid groups won’t operate there.
That designation, plus bombings of fuel infrastructure, has devastated civilians. In Yemen’s terrain, people need fuel to get to markets. Without it, they rely only on subsistence farming. And the country was already impoverished.
[ Update: Trump abruptly announced in early May that he would cease bombing Yemen. The campaign was revealed to have cost $1 billion, with nothing to show for it.]
Francesca:
We saw mass starvation under U.S.-Saudi attacks. Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul tried to block arms sales to the Saudis during that time.
Also, Biden bombed the Houthis — this isn’t just a Trump issue.
And now we have that Israeli Channel 13 documentary, translated by Drop Site News, where Biden officials admitted they never pressured Netanyahu for a ceasefire. People like Jake Sullivan and Tom Nides defended unwavering support. One aide even described it as “killing for the sake of killing.”
What’s your reaction to that?
Juan Cole:
It was obvious. Anyone with eyes could see they weren’t pushing for a ceasefire.
The U.S. is still a superpower. Biden just needed to pick up the phone and tell Netanyahu to stop. Early on, Israel ran out of ammunition. The U.S. resupplied them in real time — daily — to continue the assault on Gaza. and the UN has looked into some of those one-ton bombs that were dropped — on apartment complexes where people were living. And the UN said it couldn’t find any evidence of there being a military installation or facility anywhere in that neighborhood. They just dropped bombs on civilian apartment buildings.
And maybe, you know, there was a Hamas guy in there someplace, but they seem willing to kill 20 people to get one. That is a war crime. This is one of the worst atrocities we’ve seen in the 21st century -— by the metric of civilians killed per combatant.
You know, the Israelis put out these figures: “Oh well, 13,000 of the people killed were actually militants.” And so they argue the ratio of militants to civilians is only 1:2, which they claim is common in military affairs. You hear this all the time from supporters of Israel -— that this is not out of the ordinary.
Well, first of all, the Israelis don’t actually know how many militants they’ve killed.
Francesca:
They’ve said as much. They’ve been asked point blank and admitted they don’t know.
Juan Cole:
So you can’t make a ratio out of that.
And then there’s the issue of how you count “militants.” Hamas was a political party -— a civilian party with a paramilitary wing. The civilian party ran Gaza, a territory of 2.2 million people. So obviously, there were many Hamas members.
But the number of people in the Qassam Brigades, the paramilitary wing? That’s maybe 30,000.
Is it a legitimate military goal to kill every single one of them? The October 7th atrocity that Hamas carried out -— we have to condemn it. It was a horrific act. But it appears to have been planned by just a few top commanders. It’s not even clear the civilian wing of the party knew it was coming.
The CIA has even said they don’t believe Hamas told the Iranians about it in advance.
So among those 30,000 fighters, how many even knew it was coming? And even if they’re in the Qassam Brigades, which functioned partly as Gaza’s self-defense force, is it justified to kill them all?
And the way the Israelis are killing them is to follow them home with drones at night -— and kill them, along with their families, their children, their neighbors, anyone visiting.
And they justify it with a ratio: “It’s okay to kill 15 to 20 civilians for every Hamas member killed.”
Francesca:
If it’s a high-ranking official, that number goes up —- 60 to 100 civilians is considered acceptable.
And this is the thing about all of this, Juan. The reason I find the Hasbara line so hard to take seriously is because we see the IDF not distinguishing at all between militants and civilians—or between Hamas’s political and military wings.
Whether it’s their ministers, their propagandists online, their tweets -— they lump everyone together.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a four-month-old baby or Mr. Hamas himself—they make no distinction. So how is the rest of the world even supposed to react?
We hear how their extremists speak. We know that, as Trump put it, they want to create a “Riviera of the Middle East.” Ethnic cleansing is the goal, and they haven’t been shy about it.
It’s devastating to know now that no ceasefire was ever being seriously pursued. And to bring it back to the earlier point, this is devastating for the Democratic Party.
It says so much about who gets elevated in these matters—especially considering how much influence the Israeli lobby has through money. They’ve infiltrated our primary and general elections, mostly funneling money to Republicans, but also thwarting progressive Democrats—regardless of whether those candidates even have positions on Palestine.
So it’s just like, yeah —- we knew it. We saw the smoke. Now the hood is lifted and it’s all confirmed. Everything we suspected was true.
You’ve got Ilhan Omar out here saying, “We all knew this was a lie.” And I love it.
Meanwhile, people are reaming AOC because she once said at the DNC that Kamala Harris was “working tirelessly for a ceasefire.”
But I think the truth is Kamala Harris was kept as far away from all this as possible.
Juan Cole:
The vice president doesn’t actually have any power. It’s not like she could just volunteer to take over Gaza policy. She was kept away from it -— by Biden, Blinken, and others.
I suspect, given her background, that she wasn’t happy about the Gaza situation. But she didn’t have a say -— and wouldn’t have been allowed to anyway.
What I want to emphasize is that people have every right to support Israel. It’s a UN-recognized country. It’s a sovereign state.
The problem is, Israel doesn’t like to adhere to international law -— even though it’s a UN member.
Now, this is the U.S.—- we’ve got ethnic lobbies here. The Armenians, for instance, want recognition and reparations for the Armenian genocide—and that’s fair.
So having ethnic lobbies is part of American politics. What’s wrong is that Netanyahu, who had been ousted and was under corruption charges, got back into power by aligning with the Israeli equivalent of neo-Nazis.
These people were a red line. They had been convicted of racial incitement and violence. They openly believe in ethnic cleansing.
And the Religious Zionism and Jewish Power parties -— they’re one of the main reasons the war is still going. They want all Gazans either dead or expelled. They’ve told Netanyahu they’ll collapse the government if he doesn’t deliver.
That any Jewish American organization -— AIPAC or otherwise —-could support that is what’s truly dismaying.
It’s not just that they’re pro-Israel or support Jewish sovereignty. It’s that they’re backing the most despicable criminals -— people whose values echo those that led to the Holocaust.
And then they have the nerve to tell us we can’t criticize them?
Francesca:
One hundred percent. You’re absolutely right.
There’s so much more we could say. But I want to end by pivoting quickly to Iran.
For those who don’t know: Iran and the U.S. are reportedly talking again. Oman is helping coordinate. There’s even talk of possibly re-entering the Iran deal -— the one from Obama’s time that essentially neutralized Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
It was a crowning achievement -— no thanks to Hillary Clinton, by the way. I still resent her tenure at State.
But I want your sense of this, Juan. I’m worried. I don’t trust the U.S. to negotiate in good faith.
I think their allegiance to Netanyahu is too deep. He’ll never allow another deal with Iran. They freaked out last time.
So what’s your read? Is there a chance to prevent a hot war or Yemen-style attacks on Iran?
Juan Cole:
Well, Francesca, maybe I’m a bit outside the mainstream on this, but I don’t believe Iran has, or ever had, a nuclear weapons program.
That’s the view of most major U.S. intelligence agencies too. They’ve never made the decision to weaponize their nuclear program.
What they do have is a civilian enrichment program. You need uranium enriched to about 3.5% to run a reactor -— and the Russians built one for them at Bushehr.
What’s suspicious is that they’ve enriched more uranium than they need and at higher levels than a civilian reactor requires.
If you enrich to 95% or more, then yes -— you’re close to having weapons-grade material. But it’s unclear if they’re there technologically.
It’s worrying that they’ve recently enriched to 60%. That’s why Obama’s deal was so crucial.
It limited centrifuges, capped enrichment, and removed excess uranium—some of which was shipped to Russia or rendered unusable.
Trump ripped up the deal -— not because it failed to address nuclear issues, but because it didn’t address Iran’s regional influence in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.
The Trump camp wanted Iran to not just scale back enrichment, but to withdraw from those geopolitical arenas entirely.
Now, though, there might be an opportunity. Iran’s influence in Syria is diminished. Iraq is a mixed bag. Yemen isn’t as pivotal.
And honestly, if Trump could put his name on a new deal—I’ve always thought that if Iran just said, “Yes Mr. President, we’ll call it the Trump Peace of 2025,” he might go for it.
He’s such a narcissist. That might work.
But who knows? He’s erratic. We could just as easily end up with war.
Francesca:
I love it.
And if you go to Informed Comment—which you all should—you repost such valuable reporting from around the web about the Middle East and the U.S.’s role in it.
Just recently you shared a piece from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Iran accuses Netanyahu of trying to derail nuclear talks. So -— kind of as we suspected.
We’ve covered a lot -— many countries, many issues -— and still there’s so much more.
Thank you so much for being here.
Juan Cole:
Thanks so much for having me, Francesca.
If you just Google “Juan Cole,” my Informed Comment blog will come right up—juancole.com. That’s the best way to keep up with my work.
Francesca:
I’ve been reading your work since the so-called War on Terror. It’s always been solid.
I’m so glad you’re still teaching, still writing, and creating space for deep analysis. Thank you again.
Juan Cole:
Thank you. I’m a real fan. The American left needs your voice. I’m so glad you’re doing what you’re doing.
Francesca:
I appreciate that. I can only do it because of folks like you.
Everyone -— juancole.com if you’re not already in the know. Decades of good, digestible analysis. Don’t miss it.
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