Shiites

( RFE/RL ) – Hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi has been declared the presumptive winner of Iran’s June 18 presidential vote, which was marred by the disqualification of prominent moderates that paved the way for Raisi’s path to presidency. Concerns have been raised that Raisi’s rise to power could bring more social and political restrictions for […]

Elections

Disgruntled Iranians Say ‘No Way,’ Call For Boycott Of June Presidential Election

Golnaz Esfandiari

( RFE/RL ) – Less than a month before Iran’s June 18 presidential election, there are few signs of enthusiasm about the vote. For many Iranians, voting in the Islamic republic has often been a choice between bad or worse. Elections in Iran are tightly restricted, with candidates being preselected by hard-liners on the country’s […]

Iran

The Iranian Government is more Pragmatic in dealing with Sunnis than its Sectarian image Implies

Shivan Mahendrarajah

St. Andrews (Special to Informed Comment) – The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran is often depicted by its enemies and their press (the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel in particular) as an ideological and sectarian Shiite state, drunk on fundamentalism. Religious fundamentalism, however, is a key part of the politics of these […]

Featured

Ayatollah Sistani Affirms Religious Freedom to Pope Francis in HIstoric Iraq Meeting

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Saturday, Pope Francis met in the holy city of Najaf with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of most of the world’s Shiite Muslims outside Iran. Back in 2004 when US Marines were fighting young Shiite militiamen in Najaf (quite against Sistani’s will), I tried to signal to […]

Iraq

Pope’s upcoming visit brings attention to the dwindling population of Christians in Iraq

The Conversation

By Ramazan Kılınç | – Pope Francis will arrive in Iraq on Friday in a first-ever papal visit to the country that is expected to raise awareness about the challenges facing Iraqi Christians – a majority of whom are Catholic. In the past two decades, the Christian population in Iraq has fallen by over 80%. […]

Featured

Why the US needs to get out of Syria: Biden orders Bombing that kills 17 in Proxy dance with Iran

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Al-Quds al-`Arabi [Arab Jerusalem]’ reports that at least seventeen fighters were killed in U.S. air strikes on Thursday night on small bases on the Syrian border with Iraq. The bases south of Al-Bu-Kamal belong to the Brigades of the Party of God [Kataeb Hezbollah] and the Brigades of the Prince […]

Donald Trump

“Trump Heights”: Illegal New Israeli Squatter Settlement on Occupied Syrian Golan Approved

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israel’s government has formally greenlighted a new squatter settlement on the Syrian Golan Heights, to be named for US president Donald J. Trump. Israel has has militarily occupied much of the Golan Heights since 1967 and which it has illegally stolen from Syria. The United Nations Charter, to which Israel […]

Books

Fundamentalist Pandemics: What Evangelicals and Khomeinists Could Learn From The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam

Juan Cole

This essay by Juan Cole was originally published in Tomdispatch.com. See the original for a perceptive introductory essay by Tom Engelhardt. This spring, the novel coronavirus pandemic has raised the issue of the relationship between the blindest kind of religious faith and rational skepticism — this time in two countries that think of themselves as […]

Fundamentalism

Could Instability in Lebanon Further Strengthen Hezbollah, or Will the Sectarian order Collapse?

Tareq A. Ramadan

Detroit (Special to Informed Comment) – Since its inception as a French mandate at the San Remo Conference in 1920, Lebanon has lived on the cusp of chaos economically, militarily, and politically. For many, life in the mountainous country has been synonymous with major political crises (like the events of 1958 and Operation Blue Bat, […]