Middle East

Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – Clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh threaten to destabilize the Caucasus. Turkey and Russia – the major foreign actors in this proxy conflict – are still not directly involved in bloodshed that erupted on September 27, although Ankara openly supports Baku by providing full […]

Arab World

Democracy for the Arab World Now! Khashoggi’s Legacy is Launched

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed by the Saudi government for working for democracy in the Middle East. His brainchild was Democracy for the Arab World Now or Dawn, which he envisaged as an organization that would bring together expatriate activists from the Arab world to put pressure […]

Corruption

Did Trump Throw Kurds under the Bus for Turkey because of his Istanbul Revenue Stream?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The New York Times reported, in the scoop of the decade, that Trump has $420 million in loans and other obligations coming due in the next four years, and that most of his core businesses hemorrhage money, so that he has no way to pay them back. In the past […]

Feminism

Ginsburg Would Want Women to Fight, Not Despair

OtherWords

By Sophia Paslaski | – (Otherwords.org ) – The late justice dedicated her career to women and other marginalized Americans, and we owe her the same faith she had in us. By Sophia Paslaski | September 23, 2020 In August 1993, the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg took her seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. I […]

Donald Trump

Talk of Baghdad Embassy Closing: Will Erratic Trump’s whacking of Gen. Soleimani End US Presence in Iraq?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Amid ongoing katyusha attacks by Shiite militias on the Green Zone, the site of the US Embassy in Iraq, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has threatened to close the embassy. Analysts are saying he is unlikely to follow through on the threat, but the Iraqi government of prime minister Mustafa […]

Barack Obama

Six Years later, remembering how Socialist Kurds and the US Air Force defeated the ISIS Siege of Kobani

Brian Glyn Williams

By Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Troy Souza | – Dartmouth, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – Six years ago, in October, 2014, the brutal ISIS terorist group came for the Kurds in the Syrian enclave of Kobani. It would have been a gateway for them into Turkey, on which it bordered. The US intervened […]

Democracy

Montesquieu in Najd: Saudi Arabia, World’s Last Absolute Monarchy, Challenged by New Democratic Political Party

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A group of expatriate Saudi intellectuals announced this week the formation of the National Assembly Party, which they intend as an opposition party working for a rule of law and separation of powers in the kingdom. The group’s manifesto is printed here, declaring that they want to see democracy implemented […]

Qatar

Qatar: Significant Reforms for Gulf Labor give Workers new Freedoms

Human Rights Watch

( Human Rights Watch ) – (Beirut) – The success of the significant labor reform measures that Qatar introduced on September 8, 2020, will depend on how well the government enforces and monitors them, Human Rights Watch said today. The reforms will allow migrant workers to change jobs without employer permission and set a higher […]

Donald Trump

Russia tells Trump to Jump in Lake, commits 80,000 Personnel to War drill alongside Iran, China

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – This week, Russia is deploying 80,000 personnel, including 12,000 troops, alongside 1,000 troops from friendly countries in its region, in its Caucasus 2020 (Kavkaz 2020) military drills. Its partners include Iran, China, Belarus, Armenia, Pakistan, and Myanmar. The choice of Iran was deliberate. The Trump administration has threatened the most […]