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Juan Cole

Egypt
Mubarak: W. Naive, controlled by Subordinates

Mubarak: W. Naive, controlled by Subordinates

Juan Cole

We now have the full text of the May 19, 2009 cable giving background in preparation for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s visit to President Obama at the White House. This is the one where he said Iraq basically needs strong man rule. But the cable is full of other insights: 1. Mubarak boycotted the Bush […]

Uncategorized
Paul Defends Wikileaks: Neocons Don't Like Losing Grip on Empire

Paul Defends Wikileaks: Neocons Don’t Like Losing Grip on Empire

Juan Cole

Rep. Ron Paul defends Wikileaks on the House Floor:

Israel/ Palestine
Obama Should Let the UN apply Economic Sanctions to Israel

Obama Should Let the UN apply Economic Sanctions to Israel

Juan Cole

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his far rightwing government have slapped President Obama in the face with mail gloves by refusing to extend the freeze on new colonies in the Palestinian West Bank. Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas reaffirmed his refusal to go forward with direct negotiations if Israelis were going to be seizing […]

Islam
On Reading the Qur'an: Hazleton

On Reading the Qur’an: Hazleton

Juan Cole

Leslie Hazleton on reading the Qur’an: Hazleton is author of After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam

Saudi Arabia
Can ‘Desperate Housewives’ Defeat al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia?  Wikileaks

Can ‘Desperate Housewives’ Defeat al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia? Wikileaks

Juan Cole

US consulate confirms what everybody already knows. Jeddah in Saudi Arabia has bipolar disorder. The Red Sea Port wears a sober puritan mien during the day, but at night turns into Party Central. While the US consulate seems to have taken a certain amount of satisfaction in the knowledge that the Saudi middle and upper […]

Israel/ Palestine
Israelis Jettison Peace Talks in Favor of Massive Land Theft; Brazil, Argentina Recognize Palestinian State

Israelis Jettison Peace Talks in Favor of Massive Land Theft; Brazil, Argentina Recognize Palestinian State

Juan Cole

The victory of the Republican right wing in the November elections for the House of Representatives has allowed the Israeli government to simply refuse to cooperate with a weakened President Barack Obama on a renewed peace process with the Palestinian leadership. The message of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to Obama? Translated from the Hebrew, […]

Afghanistan
Why our Afghanistan War Dead don’t Seem to be News

Why our Afghanistan War Dead don’t Seem to be News

Juan Cole

Tom Engelhardt makes an argument for why the US casualties in Afghanistan are nowadays virtually ignored by television news and get buried in the back pages in the print media. He suggests that the war dead are mostly young, rural or small-town, and working or lower-middle class. It is certainly the case that if the […]

Israel/ Palestine
Cole in Truthdig:  Iran is Winning, Israel Losing

Cole in Truthdig: Iran is Winning, Israel Losing

Juan Cole

My new column is out in Truthdig: Leaks Suggest Iran Is Now Winning in the Middle East” Excerpt: Iran is winning and Israel is losing. That is the startling conclusion we reach if we consider how things have changed in the Middle East in the two years since most of the WikiLeaks State Department cables […]

Egypt
Egyptian Official: Israelis Might be Behind attacks by Sharks, which seem to be Beasts of Prey

Egyptian Official: Israelis Might be Behind attacks by Sharks, which seem to be Beasts of Prey

Juan Cole

Even shark attacks in the Middle East get caught up in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The fifth victim of a shark attack this week at Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt’s Sinai, an elderly German woman, was killed this weekend. The governor of southern Sinai, Muhammad Abd al-Fadil Shosha, said that it is not unlikely that the […]

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