By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald Trump said Tuesday there was nothing that his supporters could do if Hillary Clinton won and got “to pick her judges.” Then he “thought” a moment and amended his pessimism: “Though the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.” Former CIA director Michael […]
Looming Aleppo Battle indicts both sides of Civil War for breaking Cease-Fire
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The only thing worse than the new hero status of now-covert al-Qaeda operative Abu Muhammad al-Julani and his Army of Syrian Conquest (ASC) is the news that he plans to subject all of Aleppo. Aleppo is Syria’s largest city, or at least it used to be, […]
Iowa could go 100% Green with Wind in only 14 years, w/ Few Birds Killed, Mr. Trump
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Iowa gets 31% of its electricity from wind turbines, the highest percentage in the nation (though Texas generates more than twice as many megawatts from wind). But you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. Some Iowa planners think that in only 14 years Iowa will be able to […]
Syria: Key ISIL Smuggling city, Manbij, falls to Kurd-Arab Force
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Syrian War is nowhere near over, but the Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) episode may be drawing to an end. Alarabiya reports that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which is largely leftist Kurds of the YPG but includes a small Arab auxiliary faction, has taken almost all […]
ISIL Captures Thousands trying to flee it in Iraq, Executes a Dozen
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Oman Daily’s Jabbar al-Rubaie reports that Iraqi security sources announced yesterday that Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) had executed a number of the residents of the city of Hawija near Kirkuk in northern Iraq because they attempted to escape the city, over which Daesh holds sway. Hawija […]
Obama not only did not pay Iran Ransom, he denied Iran Billions it had Coming to It
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Zack Beauchamp at Vox has a very clear explanation of why the $400 million the US paid to Iran in January was not a ransom for hostages. The fact is that the Obama administration dodged a likely ruling by an arbitration court against the United States […]
Donald “Dr. Strangelove” Trump and some of the Times We almost had a Nuclear War
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – I have long wondered why no one in Hollywood has remade Stanley Kubricks’s 1964 “Dr. Strangelove: Or How I learned to Stop worrying and Love the Bomb.” They’ve remade almost everything else from the 1960s, but that classic Peter Sellers film languishes in black and white […]
Dear Trumpists: Khizr Khan is not ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ and it wouldn’t matter if he Were
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – A Trump adviser is trying to smear Khizr Khan, the Pakistani-American legal consultant who spoke at the DNC, as a “Muslim Brotherhood agent.” This ignorant discourse is only possible because people just have no idea what they are talking about. It wouldn’t fly if done about […]
6 Signs the Big Global Switch to Solar has already Begun
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – China has installed 20 gigawatts of new solar power just in the first half of this year. This achievement beats analysts’ expectations by a wide margin. China wants to add 20 GW of new solar every year for the next four, but apparently could do twice […]
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