By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Whenever a country falls into civil war, there are always observers who suggest that the problem could be resolved by a partition of that country. It is as though they think the parties to the war are like squabbling children in the back seat of the […]
More districts of East Aleppo fall to Regime & Militia Allies
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Both regime sources and the Britain-based Syria Observatory said Tuesday that the Syrian Arab Army and its Shiite militia allies from Lebanon and Iraq had taken the district of Shaar in the East Aleppo pocket. In the past two weeks rebel forces have lost the northeast […]
After Nov. 8: Countdown to Doomsday
By John Feffer | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – I didn’t vote in the pivotal American election of 2016. Thirty-five years ago, in that unseasonably warm month of November, I was in Antarctica’s Allan Hills taking ice core samples with a hand augur. The pictures I have from that time show my team drilling deep into […]
White Terrorism in the White House? Did Trump’s Bannon, Breitbart inspire Pizzeria Shooter?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Imagine if they had been Muslims. What if a Muslim publication pushed a false conspiracy theory accusing high American officials and an ordinary American restaurant of being involved in child abuse? and then an unbalanced Muslim went into it and shot off a firearm on the […]
In the shadow of Trump, a DAPL Victory and Global Protests against Fossil Fuels
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The surprise announcement Sunday by the Army Corps of Engineers that they will not permit the Dakota Access Pipeline to go under the Missouri River, thus ending the threat to Standing Rock Sioux land and lives, marked a signal success for the environmental protest movement and […]
Why Trump & his Cabinet’s Jihad against “Political Islam” will Fail
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Several members of Donald Trump’s new team, including National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and proposed Secretary of Defense Mike Mattis have expressed themselves troubled about “political Islam” (or in Flynn’s case, just “Islam”). Mattis seems to have confused Daesh’s (ISIS, ISIL) idea of a neo-Caliphate (bringing […]
Russian Pundit: Fall of East Aleppo a Geopolitical Turning Point toward Multi-polar World
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – By Friday evening outside observers like Rami Abdelrahman of the Syria Observatory in the UK were saying that even more of the East Aleppo pocket had fallen to the Syrian Arab Army, Hizbullah and Iraqi militias and that the government forces had consolidated their control over […]
Now that SecDef thinks Israeli Occupation is Apartheid, will the Lobby Blackballing Fail?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The interview of Gen. James Mattis by Wolf Blitzer at Aspen in 2013, in which the recently-retired former CENTCOM commander spoke freely on Middle East policy, has come back to haunt him now that Donald Trump has put him forward as the next Secretary of Defense. […]
Pakistanis Baffled, Buoyant over Trump’s Fantastical Praise
By Frud Bezhan | ( RFE/RL) | – – The office of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has cited a phone conversation with Donald Trump in which it says the U.S. president-elect described nuclear-armed Pakistan as a "fantastic country" and its embattled prime minister as a "terrific guy." The exchange, as described by Sharif’s side, […]
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