By Juan Cole | The Republican Party is already conniving at ways to derail the US-Iran negotiations over Tehran’s civilian nuclear enrichment program. When they take over the senate in January, the GOP senators will be in a good position to deep-six the talks and deny President Obama a diplomatic breakthrough. Iran does not have […]
A Day Late & a Dollar Short: Obama & China agree on Languid Climate Goals
By Juan Cole The good news is that US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping have reached an agreement on limiting carbon emissions in their two countries. The US puts out 5.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, and China does 7 – 9 billion. The US did 5 billion metric […]
Internet Liberty at Stake in Obama World Wide Web Policy
By Juan Cole President Barack Obama on Monday called on the Federal Communications Commission to treat Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) as common carriers, sort of like television networks such as NBC or CBS. The relevant law is called “Title II.” As the world wide web was originally conceived by framers such as Tim Berners-Lee, it […]
Ferguson & Israel? Netanyahu Calls for Stripping Palestinian-Israelis of Citizenship
By Juan Cole On Sunday Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said he was looking into whether Israel could strip citizenship from those who speak out against the continued statelessness of the Palestinians. (There are millions of stateless Palestinians outside Israel. Netanyahu began his political career as a far-right Likud politician calling for the forced deportation […]
Why it Isn’t that Important Whether ISIL Leader was Killed
By Juan Cole Revised 11/10 Rumors are swirling that ISIL leader Ibrahim al-Samarra’i (who goes by the nom de guerre of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) was severely wounded and that some of his chief lieutenants were killed by a US air strike on a meeting of ISIL leaders on Friday. (Update: ISIL is confirming the injury […]
When will US admit Boots on Ground in Iraq (3000 Troops)?
By Juan Cole President Obama’s announcement that he will send 1500 more troops to Iraq was made on a Friday, a day usually reserved in Washington for the release of bad or embarrassing news that officials hope won’t still be fresh enough for Monday’s newspapers and so will quietly sink. That these troops will be […]
Why McCain & GOP are Slamming Obama for Writing Iran re: ISIL
By Juan Cole President Obama wrote a letter to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the possibility of US-Iran non-military cooperation in defeating ISIL, as a sidebar to the ongoing negotiations with Tehran over the shape of its civilian nuclear enrichment program and ways of making sure the program is not militarized. The Wall Street Journal’s […]
Top 5 Reasons Obama is Seeking Congressional Approval for War on ISIL
By Juan Cole President Obama said Wednesday that he would seek Congressional authorization for his war on ISIL or the “Islamic State” Group in Iraq and Syria. This statement comes after months of his administration maintaining that the AUMF of 2001 was still sufficient to underpin this effort. (In fact, it referred to war on […]
How a Republican Congress could Entangle the US further in the Middle East
By Juan Cole The midterm elections in a president’s second term have historically been a time when the president’s party lost seats in both houses of Congress. Only a little over a third of the electorate typically votes in these elections, and they are disproportionately white, wealthy and elderly. In short, a different country voted […]
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