Syria

By Jack Gillum and Justin Elliott | – ( ProPublica ) – As Turkey launched a military offensive against Kurdish minorities in neighboring Syria in early 2018, Facebook’s top executives faced a political dilemma. Turkey was demanding the social media giant block Facebook posts from the People’s Protection Units, a mostly Kurdish militia group the […]

Donald Trump

Trump targeted innocent Muslims with Visa Ban on phony pretext of ‘Terrorism,’ then unleashed real White Terrorism on Capitol

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Muslim visa ban that Trump got through on his third try, and in which the Supreme Court to its everlasting shame acquiesced, is no more. President Biden abolished it with a stroke of his pen on his first day in office. That isn’t enough. Congress needs to legislate explicitly […]

Featured

Time for Biden to end the Forever Wars and bring Iran in from the Cold

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Although former president Trump claims to have avoided starting any new wars, he in fact put the US on a war footing in the greater Middle East, and significantly increased the number of US troops in the region. He tried to strangle Iran economically and assassinated one of its foremost […]

Displaced and Refugees

In Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestinian territories: Refugee camps contain the hidden victims of Covid-19

Ramzy Baroud

( Middle East Monitor) – With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in late 2019, interest in the plight of the world’s most vulnerable populations, refugees, began to wane. A year later, and it is as if the refugee crisis has disappeared completely. It hasn’t, though. In fact, the world’s erstwhile leading humanitarian crisis has […]

censorship

Exiled Turkish journalist Can Dündar sentenced to 27.5 years in prison for Reporting on Ankara’s aid to Syrian Fundamentalist Rebels

Committee to Protect Journalists

( Committee to Protect Journalists) | – The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned a Turkish court’s conviction and sentencing of exiled journalist Can Dündar. On December 23, the 14th Istanbul Court of Serious Crimes announced that Dündar, who lives in Germany, had been sentenced to 18 years and nine months in prison for an espionage […]

Donald Trump

Peril in the Middle East, Peril at Home: Our Top 10 Stories of 2020

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – 2020 was a monster of a year, leaving three million Americans dead (a record), probably nearly half a million of them of Covid-19 once everyone is counted. The fecklessness of the outgoing Trump administration was responsible for a good deal of this national catastrophe, one that did not strike our […]

Kurds

Will Syrian Kurds be crushed between the Russian Hammer and Turkish Anvil?

Nikola Mikovic

Major global actors in the Middle East are traditionally using the Kurds as bargaining chips for their own geopolitical trade. Russia is no exception. The Kurds of northern Syria could soon “fall victim” of the Russo-Turkish lucrative deals. Moscow has reportedly recently asked Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – an alliance composed of Kurdish, Arab, and […]

Russia

Why is the Russian Public Paying for Bombing Schools in Syria?

Human Rights Watch

By Belkis Wille | – Senior Researcher, Crisis and Conflict Division | – ( Human Rights Watch) – The Russian military marked the fifth anniversary of its intervention in the armed conflict in Syria on September 30. The consequences have been devastating for many Syrian civilians, with hundreds of thousands killed and millions more forced […]

Authoritarianism

Trump aping Mideast Tinpot Dictators and raving about declaring Martial Law, which even Iran Prohibits

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – With Trump raving in White House meetings, prompted by the equally certifiable Michael Flynn, about declaring martial law, it sets an old Middle East hand like me thinking. In my part of the world, leaders declare martial law or a “state of emergency” at the drop of a helmet. And […]