By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Last week an Israeli helicopter gunship targeted Hizbullah outposts in Syria southwest of Damascus, near the front with the rebel Support Front (Syria al-Qaeda), which controls the Golan Heights on the Syrian side. These outposts were not in fact bordering Israel or likely aimed at Israel, but rather […]
The Need for New Blood at State Dept.: Obama’s Problem with the ‘Vision Thing’
By Andrew J. Bacevich | (Tomdispatch.com) – En route back to Washington at the tail end of his most recent overseas trip, John Kerry, America’s peripatetic secretary of state, stopped off in France “to share a hug with all of Paris.” Whether Paris reciprocated the secretary’s embrace went unrecorded. Despite the requisite reference to General […]
Netanyahu & Boehner: How Israel went from being a Democratic to a Republican Project
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) — The audacity of Speaker of the House John Boehner colluding with the prime minister of a foreign country to undermine a sitting president is, I think, still not entirely appreciated. And the whole point of the plot with Binyamin Netanyahu is to stop a sitting president from successfully […]
New Saudi King to Obama: Lower-price Oil Policy won’t Change
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – President Obama cut short his India trip to head off to Riyadh in the wake of the death last Thursday of King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia. Some 30 members of the Washington elite came along, of both parties, including Sen. John McCain and Rep. Nancy Pelosi. This love […]
Obama, Modi and India’s Solar Future
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) In his visit to India, Barack Obama pressed unsuccessfully for India to set specific carbon limits. Nevertheless, he did get agreement from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the USA and India would pursue vigorously non-carbon energy sources, including nuclear and renewables such as solar. That was a better […]
All Lives Matter: from Ferguson to Palestine
By Heike Schotten | (Ma’an News Agency) – In the United States, “Ferguson” — the name of the town where unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was shot to death by police last summer — has become a shorthand name for the free reign given to police officers to murder black people in the streets (and […]
Egypt Cancels Revolution Fete to Mourn Saudi King who derailed Revolution
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) In a great irony, the Egyptian government attempted to cancel the commemoration of the January 25 revolution four years ago, on the grounds that the late King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia needed to be mourned. The Saudis played a sinister behind-the-scenes role in undermining budding Egyptian attempts at democracy, […]
Yemen Civil War? Masses Rally in Capital & South Secedes
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) — From 1967 to 1990, and again briefly in 1994, South Yemen was an independent country. In the first period, of some 23 years, it had a Communist government, the only one in the Arab world. Today, South Yemen is again an independent state. Since the resignation of united […]
Yemen: Freeze on US Drone Strikes as Gov’t Collapses
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) Thousands demonstrated in Sanaa on Saturday morning against the Houthi take-over of the Yemeni government. Down south in Aden, there were big demonstrations on behalf of workers The murky political situation in Yemen has left the US unable to continue its drone strikes and other counter-terrorism operations, since Washington […]
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