Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

contributors

al-Qaeda
330 US drone strikes in Pakistan recorded in Leaked official document

330 US drone strikes in Pakistan recorded in Leaked official document

contributors

(By Alice K. Ross) The Bureau is today publishing a leaked official document that records details of over 300 drone strikes, including their locations and an assessment of how many people died in each incident. The document is the fullest official record of drone strikes in Pakistan to have yet been published. It provides rare […]

History
La Follette’s Anti-Imperialism is Still Controversial at the Wall Street Journal

La Follette’s Anti-Imperialism is Still Controversial at the Wall Street Journal

contributors

(By Richard Drake) On 11 January 2014, Lewis Gould reviewed my book, The Education of an Anti-Imperialist: Robert La Follette and U.S. Expansion, in The Wall Street Journal. One of the chapters in particular, “La Follette Discovers the Middle East,” inspired claims and charges by the reviewer that I answered in a letter published by […]

Bashar al-Assad
Don't Break up Syria:  WW I-Style Imperial Divide & Rule is a Failure

Don’t Break up Syria: WW I-Style Imperial Divide & Rule is a Failure

contributors

(By Christopher Dekki) Since the beginning of this terrible conflict in Syria, I have been closely listening to people’s reactions to the violence and devastation occurring there. What is astonishing is how quickly Syria transformed from a place of relative obscurity to a topic of constant discussion among so many. Even more astonishing, the solutions […]

Asia
US Pivot to Asia Should Deploy Soft Power, not the Marines

US Pivot to Asia Should Deploy Soft Power, not the Marines

contributors

(By John Feffer) In a future update of The Devil’s Dictionary, the famed Ambrose Bierce dissection of the linguistic hypocrisies of modern life, a single word will accompany the entry for “Pacific pivot”: retreat. It might seem a strange way to characterize the Obama administration’s energetic attempt to reorient its foreign and military policy toward […]

Dissent
NSA sucks up Phone App data from Google Maps to Angry Birds

NSA sucks up Phone App data from Google Maps to Angry Birds

contributors

(By Andrea Germanos) As part of their arsenal of spying tools, the National Security Agency and its British counterpart, the GCHQ, are sucking up personal data leaked from smartphone apps, according to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. One of the apps the NSA and GCHQ used to gather data is the popular game […]

Africa
Using up Everything Fast: Extractive Capitalism, Sealing and Muslim Slaves in Latin America

Using up Everything Fast: Extractive Capitalism, Sealing and Muslim Slaves in Latin America

contributors

(By Greg Grandin) The Two Faces of Empire Melville Knew Them, We Still Live With Them By Greg Grandin A captain ready to drive himself and all around him to ruin in the hunt for a white whale. It’s a well-known story, and over the years, mad Ahab in Herman Melville’s most famous novel, Moby-Dick, […]

Asia
Is Iran Back?  Foreign Policy after the Nuclear Deal

Is Iran Back? Foreign Policy after the Nuclear Deal

contributors

(By Paul Rogers) Iran Foreign Minister Javad Zarif with EU High Representative Catherine Ashton at the EU+3 and Iran talks, November 2013 Summary If Iran and the P5+1 succeed in negotiating a robust agreement on the nuclear issue, then Iran will be less preoccupied with rebalancing its relationship with antagonistic western powers and its role […]

Human Rights
Despite Reform Pledges, Rouhani's Iran remains Human Rights Nightmare

Despite Reform Pledges, Rouhani’s Iran remains Human Rights Nightmare

contributors

(By Sarah Leah Whitson) (Beirut) – Iranians are facing serious rights abuses, despite President Hassan Rouhani’s numerous promises to respect people’s rights following his June 14, 2013, electoral victory, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2014. Authorities have released some prominent political prisoners but executions continued at high rates. Officials continued to […]

censorship
Only post-Snowden did FISA Court even Consider if NSA Bulk Phone Collection is Legal

Only post-Snowden did FISA Court even Consider if NSA Bulk Phone Collection is Legal

contributors

(By Michael Masnick) FISA Court Waited Until After Snowden Leaks To Actually Explore If Bulk Phone Record Collection Was Legal (via Techdirt) One of the most common defenses of the NSA’s bulk phone record collection (in which they get access to the record of basically every phone call in the US) is that the program […]

  • « Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • …
  • Page 543
  • Page 544
  • Page 545
  • Page 546
  • Page 547
  • …
  • Page 556
  • Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Siamese Criminals: Trump and Netanyahu
  • Early Farming in Middle East, Sometimes Matriarchal, Spread through Learning, not Conquest
  • Misreading and Misrepresenting Iran
  • 12 Days Of War: Takeaways From The Israel-Iran Conflict
  • Ibn Battuta, a 14th-century Judge and Ambassador, travelled further than Marco Polo. The Rihla records his Adventures

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved