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 […]
Pope and French Muslims try Muslim-Christian outreach instead of ‘War on Terror’ Polarization
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – AFP reported from the papal airplane on Pope Francis’s remarks about Islam in the wake of the brutal murder of an elderly priest by two teenagers of North African heritage in Normandy last Tuesday. Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) claimed responsibility. The pope said, “It’s not true and […]
Are the Muslim Khans better Americans than Donald Trump?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald Trump lashed out on Saturday against Ghazala and Khizr Khan over their speech Thursday night in which they criticized the casino and hotel moghul for his unconstitutional tirades. The Khans said at the Democratic National Convention in a speech they crafted, that Trump had ‘sacrificed […]
Russian & Iranian Press deplore Hillary Clinton Hawkishness; Israelis complain she’s Dove
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – How is the international press responding to the Democratic National Convention and the formalization of Hillary Clinton’s status as the party’s standard-bearer in the presidential campaign? BBC Monitoring helped me find these reports, which I’m paraphrasing or quoting from their translation: Boaz Bismuth in the Hebrew […]
Top Five Ways to tell if a Terrorist is still al-Qaeda despite name Change
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The leftist Beirut newspaper al-Safir comments scathingly on the name-change of the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front led by Abu Muhammad al-Julani, to the Syria Conquest Front. Here are some reasons that the name change isn’t going to work: 1. Al-Julani got permission from 9/11 […]
Is the French Press Right to stop Printing Pictures, Names of Terrorists?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Le Monde is reporting that a number of French newspapers and television channels have decided to cease printing the pictures, and sometimes even the names, of those who commit terrorist acts. Le Monde itself is adopting the same policy. France and Belgium have seen a number […]
© 2025 All Rights Reserved