"Syrian Ceasefire in Tatters as al-Qaeda & allies attack in South Aleppo" - So the regime's 100s of violations including bombing of hospitals did not destroy the ceasefire, only when the rebels got fed up with Assad's violations is the ceasefire broken.
Juan Cole has some valid points on Cruz, but his point about Rubio wanting to enlist Sunnis is quite simplistic. In Syria, Sunni rebels have fought ISIS more than the regime has (Jane's have done an analysis on this showing how Bashar has ignored them for the most part) and have done this without air power like the Kurds. He is right that they want to fight Assad more, but that is the point! Once you get rid of Assad rebels can fight their second enemy. And Rubio's analysis implies a very obvious point - ISIS and Assad have a symbiotic relationship. Assad committing genocide with the world not doing anything to stop it creates a flourishing area for extremists.
Juan is right on most counts; however, he made a slight hash of some figures. Egypt's economic growth rate was 2.3% under Morsi (vs. 1.2% under SCAF) and tourist arrivals have risen 13% under him versus SCAF (and contrary to popular belief he never banned alcohol or bikinis).
Great post. Juan's next graph should be the one that shows that red states, with all their moaning about the federal government, receive more federal money than taxes they pay.
I normally like Juan Cole's blogs, but this one is quite poor - Its seems that he prefers secular dictatorship to a democratically elected parliament where Islamsts win. His comment that the 1/3 of seats were set aside for independents in order to avoid Islamists and felool winning is wrong- the revolutionaries wanted full PR so that the felool could not reinvent themselves as independents. Having 1/3 of seats being first past the post was a sop to allow NDP officials in rural areas to keep their posts as independents and partly to have some stability by having a winner takes all section to the parliament (Germany runs a similar system).
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"Syrian Ceasefire in Tatters as al-Qaeda & allies attack in South Aleppo" - So the regime's 100s of violations including bombing of hospitals did not destroy the ceasefire, only when the rebels got fed up with Assad's violations is the ceasefire broken.
Juan Cole has some valid points on Cruz, but his point about Rubio wanting to enlist Sunnis is quite simplistic. In Syria, Sunni rebels have fought ISIS more than the regime has (Jane's have done an analysis on this showing how Bashar has ignored them for the most part) and have done this without air power like the Kurds. He is right that they want to fight Assad more, but that is the point! Once you get rid of Assad rebels can fight their second enemy. And Rubio's analysis implies a very obvious point - ISIS and Assad have a symbiotic relationship. Assad committing genocide with the world not doing anything to stop it creates a flourishing area for extremists.
Juan is right on most counts; however, he made a slight hash of some figures. Egypt's economic growth rate was 2.3% under Morsi (vs. 1.2% under SCAF) and tourist arrivals have risen 13% under him versus SCAF (and contrary to popular belief he never banned alcohol or bikinis).
Great post. Juan's next graph should be the one that shows that red states, with all their moaning about the federal government, receive more federal money than taxes they pay.
I normally like Juan Cole's blogs, but this one is quite poor - Its seems that he prefers secular dictatorship to a democratically elected parliament where Islamsts win. His comment that the 1/3 of seats were set aside for independents in order to avoid Islamists and felool winning is wrong- the revolutionaries wanted full PR so that the felool could not reinvent themselves as independents. Having 1/3 of seats being first past the post was a sop to allow NDP officials in rural areas to keep their posts as independents and partly to have some stability by having a winner takes all section to the parliament (Germany runs a similar system).