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

Juan Cole

Featured
Even Red States are going Solar, dumping Coal, as just Good Business

Even Red States are going Solar, dumping Coal, as just Good Business

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Arizona, despite being GOP-dominated, is number 3 in the US for residential solar power production. In the first quarter of 2019 alone, Arizona homeowners put in 52.83 megawatts of new solar installations. As for industrial-scale solar, Arizona utility APS generates 1.4 gigawatts worth of solar power, equivalent to a small […]

Featured
Is Trump setting the US up for further al-Qaeda attacks by putting Troops in Saudi Arabia?

Is Trump setting the US up for further al-Qaeda attacks by putting Troops in Saudi Arabia?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump is sending US troops to be based in Saudi Arabia, and King Salman has signed off on the paperwork. Several hundred US military personnel will be at Prince Sultan Air Base, accompanying fighter jets and Patriot missile defense systems. US troops were first based in Saudi Arabia during the […]

Arab Americans
No, John McCain's Response to Obama being Called "an Arab" was not Exemplary: Here's Why

No, John McCain’s Response to Obama being Called “an Arab” was not Exemplary: Here’s Why

Juan Cole

A video of Sen. John McCain from the 2008 presidential campaign wherein he disagrees with a woman at one of his campaign rallies about Obama being “an Arab” has gone viral again. It is being contrasted with Trump’s insouciance as his blackshirts chanted “send her home” concerning Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). People who are holding […]

Colonialism
Putting the American in Somali-American: Why does Ilhan Omar put a Scare into the US Power Elite?

Putting the American in Somali-American: Why does Ilhan Omar put a Scare into the US Power Elite?

Juan Cole

Reprint edition. By Juan Cole | – Trump has attempted to depict Rep. Ilhan Omar’s reformism as an expression of hatred for the US. It is not. It is a recognition of the dark underbelly of this country’s history, its entanglement in colonialism and slavery and class oppression. She makes this critique from a unique […]

Donald Trump
Notorious Moments in Modern History when Dictators Sent their own Citizens "Back"

Notorious Moments in Modern History when Dictators Sent their own Citizens “Back”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s crowds have started chanting “Send her back!” referring to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a Somali-American who came as a refugee when a child and was naturalized. The idea that some citizens are less loyal or less patriotic or less deserving of residency than other citizens is not new in […]

Featured
Pew: 'Israel is as Religiously Restrictive as Iran,' as Ed. Minister backs LGBTQ Conversion Therapy

Pew: ‘Israel is as Religiously Restrictive as Iran,’ as Ed. Minister backs LGBTQ Conversion Therapy

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Haaretz reports that the PewForum has found Israel one of the twenty most religiously restrictive countries in the world. Indeed, it rivals theocratic Iran on that measure. One of Pew’s criteria is whether a government explicitly favors a particular religion. Israel favors Judaism big time. It also takes account of […]

Donald Trump
It isn't just the Racism: Trump's Stupid Trade Wars have Driven US Manufacturing into Recession

It isn’t just the Racism: Trump’s Stupid Trade Wars have Driven US Manufacturing into Recession

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – It’s official. Trump has put US manufacturing, which is about 14% of the US gross national product, into recession, according to AFP. Recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of decline. The recession in manufacturing has many reasons, including a cyclical slowdown in the Chinese economy. But on top of […]

Featured
Top 4 Ways the Squad of young Congresswomen represent more Americans than Trump

Top 4 Ways the Squad of young Congresswomen represent more Americans than Trump

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump is again making a spectacle of himself, quite deliberately, in attacking the four congresswomen known as “the Squad.” They champion progressive principles like the Green New Deal, describe themselves as socialists or don’t object to the term, and most useful for our neo-Nazi president, they are not white. Trump […]

Featured
UK Ambassador: Trump Breached Iran Deal to Spite Obama & was "Diplomatic Vandalism" driven by "Personality Reasons"

UK Ambassador: Trump Breached Iran Deal to Spite Obama & was “Diplomatic Vandalism” driven by “Personality Reasons”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Former British ambassador to the US Kim Darroch alleged in a diplomatic cable that Trump’s motivation in breaching the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was motivated by nothing more than spite, according to the Daily Mail , which saw the text. In spring of 2018, then foreign secretary Boris Johnson came […]

  • « Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • …
  • Page 223
  • Page 224
  • Page 225
  • Page 226
  • Page 227
  • …
  • Page 1599
  • 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