Featured

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump said Friday that he finds “credible” the bald-faced and ridiculous lies the Saudi government came up with to explain the death of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. He thereby signaled his intention of sweeping the affair under the table for the sake of Saudi arms sales. His position is no […]

Featured

Buy an Electric Car and Foil Kushner’s Plan to let Khashoggi’s Murder Blow Over

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – It seems fairly obvious that the Trump administration does not intend to let a little thing like the murder and dismembering of a Washington Post columnist with two American children stand in the way of US relations with Saudi Arabia. Jared Kushner is said to believe the whole affair will […]

Featured

Yes, Sen. Lindsey Graham, You have Iranian Ancestry and should be Proud

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sen. Lindsay Graham joked on Fox Cable News that he might do a genetic test to see if he has Native American ancestry, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren does. Then he added that it might show he has Iranian ancestry. “That,” he observed, “would be terrible.” Florida house candidate, Iranian-American Anna […]

Featured

Why a US Divorce from Saudi Arabia would be Good for Us and Them

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Voices from the Right wing, prominently featured in Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, are warning that the grisly murder of Jamal Khashoggi by a hit squad made up of persons close to crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman should not mean the end of the close US relationship with Saudi Arabia. […]

Featured

Saudi war on Yemen: World’s Worst Famine in a Century could Claim 13 Million

Juan Cole

Yemen is a country of some 29 million persons, but over a third of them are at risk of starvation if Saudi and UAE bombing campaigns continue. Lise Grand, the United Nations coordinator for Yemen, has warned that the world has only 3 months to halt the slide toward catastrophe. She seems to think that […]

Featured

Tokyo’s Net Carbon Zero Olympics, as Japan surges toward 65 GW Solar

Juan Cole

I love Japan, but I have to say its government has dragged its feet on renewable energy. But there are signs of a big turnaround on the issue in the world’s third largest economy, which would be huge. Despite worries about the impact of planned phasing out of solar subsidies, there are lots of good […]

Featured

Iran: Khashoggi was Murdered because West Shielded Saudis from Criticism

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment): According to the invaluable BBC Monitoring press surveys of Middle Eastern newspapers, the coverage of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul has differed enormously from country to country. In Lebanon, which has a diverse and somewhat free press, former journalist Paula Yaqoubian told al-Jadid […]

Climate Change

Future of Climate Activism: Dutch Court orders Gov’t to Reduce CO2 Emissions Dramatically

Juan Cole

An appeals court in the Netherlands has upheld a 2015 lower court ruling in a class action case that the Dutch government needs to do more to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 25% below 1990 levels by 2020. So far the Netherlands has only reduced 13% from 1990 levels. The court appealed to the principle […]

Featured

On not Writing Recommendation Letters for the Occupiers in Palestinian Territories

Juan Cole

An Open Letter to the University of Michigan on Palestine | – My colleague John Cheney-Lippold in the American Culture Department of the University of Michigan has been disciplined by the Colleges of Letters, Sciences and Arts for declining to write a recommendation letter for a student to do summer study at Tel Aviv University. […]