Juan Cole

President Barack Obama’s commitment to “finish the job” in Afghanistan by sending 55,000 US troops to that country (counting the 21,000 he dispatched last winter shortly after being inaugurated) depends heavily on a hope of building up an Afghan government and army over to which the US can eventually turn control. But one of the […]

Switzerland on Sunday voted by 58 percent in favor of banning minarets. This campaign poster was banned for being racist, but apparently the goal of the poster, now that is all right. Swissinfo surveys the headlines in Switzerland Monday morning and finds that the press there universally condemned and expressed dismay at Sunday’s vote. Editors […]

Solar Power Costs 50% Lower than Last Year : CleanTechnica Thin-film solar is leading the way down to greater affordability. Higher finance costs have hurt recently, but those are expected to ease, while the equipment is likely to get cheaper. Solar is the only real game in town to decisively solve the world’s energy problems– […]

Afghan border police say they killed 27 Taliban fighters in Khost Province. If the Afghan security forces were that good, however, then they wouldn’t have allowed several captives in a prison, including several Taliban commanders, escape. This is the level of efficiency President Obama can expect from his Afghan partners if he, as expected, does […]

By far the most important news coming out of Pakistan has nothing to do with al-Qaeda or the Taliban. It is a tale of the maneuvering of a wounded, corrupt presidency to avoid snap parliamentary elections, and to avoid renewed scrutiny by a newly feisty Supreme Court. And,I would argue that it is about poor […]

Irony of the decade: How the War on Terror spawned a whole troupe of Middle Eastern-American standup comedians. Q TV’s interview with comedian and actor Maz Jobrani End/ (Not Continued)

The board of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency on Friday condemned Iran for secretly building a new nuclear enrichment facility at Fordo near Qom, and called on it to mothball the new site. The resolution was backed by the permanent members of the UN Security Council, including China and Russia, as well as […]

Text of the International Atomic Energy Agency resolution on Iran from the IAEA website. Derestricted 27 November 2009 (This document has been derestricted at the meeting of the Board on 27 November 2009) Board of Governors GOV/2009/82 Date: 27 November 2009 Original: English Item 4(c) of the adopted agenda (GOV/2009/83) Implementation of the NPT safeguardsagreement […]

IRAN: Authorities confiscate lawyer Shirin Ebadi's Nobel Peace Prize | Babylon & Beyond | Los Angeles Times I was privileged to be at a conference with Shirin Ebadi in early September in Atlanta, and when this relatively short and outwardly unprepossessing woman took the podium, she was transformed into something like an Old Testament prophet, […]