Middle East

The Israeli Likud Party’s cover story for why it wants to draw the United States into a war with Iran makes no real sense. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been predicting an Iranian nuclear bomb since 1992 (a time when Iran had no nuclear program at all), and he has been wrong for 15 years […]

Israel/ Palestine

The Annals of Settler Colonialism: German Namibia (1) #savagesunite

Juan Cole

Settler colonialism has a long and unsavory history and always involves displacing people from their land, driving them into penury, making and keeping them stateless, and, often, killing large numbers of them. The settlers brand resistance to their squatting on other people’s land “terrorism” by “savages.” One of the few contemporary examples of settler colonialism […]

Libya

Libya Security crisis in Wake of Killing of US Ambassador (Links)

Juan Cole

Libya

‘Free Libya’ Crowds in Benghazi rally against Militias, Drive al-Qaeda out of City

Juan Cole

The attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 was seen by many observers as a sign of Libyan radicalism or instability rather than the work of a small, violent and unrepresentative group. It is a little hard to understand this point of view, since Libyans had just voted in what observers […]

Israel/ Palestine

Why they Hate us: Romney Secretly Plots to Screw Palestinians over Again

Juan Cole

In a conversation with donors he thought private, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney laid out with startling clarity the American policy toward the Palestinians: Mother Jones has the story, and the transcript. Romney typifies the American duplicity toward the 12 million Palestinians. His campaign speaks of a ‘two-state solution.’ But in private he admits that […]

Afghanistan

Top Ten Likely Consequences of Muslim anti-US Embassy Riots

Juan Cole

1. Tourism in Egypt and Tunisia, the economies of which heavily depend on it, is likely to take a nosedive this fall. It is a shame, because Tunisia had been hoping for a near return to 2010 levels of 7 million visitors this year. And Egypt’s tourism was up 16% over the previous year, though […]

Egypt

Romney Jumps the Shark: Libya, Egypt and the Butterfly Effect

Juan Cole

The late science fiction writer Ray Bradbury authored a short story about time travelers. They were careful, when they went back to the Jurassic, not to change anything, but one of them stepped on a butterfly. When they got back to the present, the world was slightly different. When scientists studying complexity put forward the […]

Syria

The West Will Have to Compromise on Syria (Schmidt)

Juan Cole

Søren Schmidt writes in a guest column for Informed Comment: Syria is neither Egypt nor Libya – and the conflict can therefore not be solved as it was in Egypt and Libya respectively. The conflict in Syria worsens with each day that passes, and by now more than 20,000 people have been killed. At the […]

Egypt

Romney Poses, as Militants Burn Benghazi Consulate, killing Ambassador, 3 staffers, & Demonstrate in Cairo, over Islamophobic Film

Juan Cole

Predictably, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tried to make political hay of the tiny demonstrations in Cairo and Benghazi by Muslim militants. The Benghazi mob turned violent in clashes with police and the consulate ended up being burned and an embassy staffer is said to have been the US ambassador and three staffers were killed. […]