Juan Cole

Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on Iraqis to kill US troops in Iraq in revenge for the Israeli assault on the people of Gaza. “I call upon the honest Iraqi resistance to carry out revenge operations against the great accomplice of the Zionist enemy,” Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki from Baghdad attacked the international community for […]

Soren Schmidt writes in a guest op-ed for IC Analysis. The fighting in Gaza is closely linked to two other conflicts: Israel’s relationship with Syria and Iran’s role in the region. All three conflicts need to be solved in order to achieve peace. Israel’s attack on Hamas in Gaza has led to Syria breaking off […]

Soren Schmidt writes in a guest op-ed for IC Analysis. The fighting in Gaza is closely linked to two other conflicts: Israel’s relationship with Syria and Iran’s role in the region. All three conflicts need to be solved in order to achieve peace. Israel’s attack on Hamas in Gaza has led to Syria breaking off […]

My column is out in Salon.com, “Neoconservatism dies in Gaza: The recent Israeli offensive has put the final nail in the coffin of the Bush administration’s Middle East fantasy.”.Excerpt: ‘ The Gaza War of 2009 is a final and eloquent testimony to the complete failure of the neoconservative movement in United States foreign policy. For […]

BBC interviews a former captain in the Israeli army who condemns that attack on Gaza and warns that because of US-Iran tensions, “we are very near WW III.” /End.

The Telegraph: 60 Family Members Killed at Zeitoun/End

In 1996, Israeli jets bombed a UN building where civilians had taken refuge at Cana/ Qana in south Lebanon, killing 102 persons; in the place where Jesus is said to have made water into wine, Israeli bombs wrought a different sort of transformation. In the distant, picturesque port of Hamburg, a young graduate student studying […]

Hey, an update. Please vote for Informed Comment, which has been nominated for the 2008 Weblog Awards. If you voted 24 hours ago, you can now vote again. IC is losing! But not by much so every vote counts. I’ve been busy with other things, but should ask my readers to vote for Informed Comment […]

Aljazeera Arabic this evening interviewed Sayyid Najm, an Egyptian novelist and literature specialist on war in literature. He is author of, among other things, Ayyam Yusuf Mansi (Cairo: Zahran, 1990). He made some interesting points about the structure of war novels, and the way the pacing has to be picked up during the battles. The […]