By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The front page news today that US and coalition aircraft (mostly American joined by French and British pilots) struck last Saturday at an ISIL base in eastern Syria where hundreds of fighters had regrouped, killing 150 of them. There are lots of question marks about this […]
Jordan’s King Abdullah warns Pence-Trump of Major instability over Jerusalem
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Political scientist John Mearsheimer wrote a book on the tragedy of great power politics. While that subject is indeed shockingly depressing, imagine the tragedy of small power politics. Poor King Abdullah II of Jordan was forced to host Trump’s vice president Mike Pence, the world’s biggest […]
Top Trump officials, in Syria’s Raqqa, vow “Stabilization” w/out “Reconstruction”
Middle East Monitor | – – The US government’s aid chief, Mark Green, made an unannounced visit to Raqqa in Syria on Monday, the most senior US civilian official from the Trump administration to visit the war-struck northern city months after it was retaken from Daesh, Reuters reports. Green was accompanied by head of the […]
World’s Richest 1% Acquired 82% of Wealth in 2017: Report
TeleSur | – – Only 42 people own the same amount of wealth as the poorest 50 percent worldwide, the report claimed. Nearly 82 percent of global wealth generated last year went to one percent of the population, while the bottom 50 percent saw no increase at all, according to a new Oxfam report that […]
Turkey launches Land invasion of Syria, Calls France opposition “Terrorism”
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – BBC Arabic reports that Turkey has launched a land invasion of the Kurdish-majority Afrin canton in northern Syria, home to some 500,000 Kurds. Turkey has also flooded Arab fundamentalist fighters into the region, calling them “Free Syrian Army.” The move comes after some 72 Turkish F-16s […]
The worst thing about Year One of Trump: Fascistization of Cable News
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – American mass media journalism is broken. There are some simple elements of US journalistic practice that have proved easy for special interests to hack, and the editors at least have allowed themselves to be used by sinister forces. (I am speaking primarily of television news here, […]
Syria: Turkey Begins Military Operation against US-Allied Kurds in Afrin
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Reuters reports that on Friday, Turkey began cross-border shelling of the Kurdish-majority Afrin canton in northern Syria. There are also reports of busloads of Sunni Arab guerrillas of the rebel Free Syrian Army, who had been sheltered in Turkey, being sent into Afrin. The region is […]
A Mountain Kingdom? Iraqi leaders unconcerned About New PKK ‘Region’
Special Correspondent | Erbil | (Niqash.org) | – – Late last month the Kurdistan Worker’s Party – an organization some describe as terrorist – declared a region of self-rule in the Qandil mountains. Strangely enough, nobody seems all that upset about their claim. The road into the Qandil mountain area run by the PKK. Only […]
Russia accuses US of destabilizing Syria with Kurdish-Turkish Clash
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s angry threat to invade a Syrian Kurdish canton in response to the US announcement that it would train and arm a 30,000-man Syrian Kurdish border force produced anxiety in Moscow. Russia has made a big bet, worth billions of rubles and involving […]
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