My esssay, “Iran Breakthrough a Triumph For Pragmatists and a Defeat For the Warmongers” is out in Truthdig today. Excerpt: “By 2011, the U.S. Congress and the Department of the Treasury had imposed what amounted to a financial blockade on Iran. The U.S. strong-armed other countries not to buy Iranian petroleum, cutting exports by a […]
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religion
Turkey Purges Officials in Bid to Quash Corruption Probes
(By AFP) Turkey widens purge after graft probe (via AFP) The Turkish government’s mass purge of police and prosecutors has extended to the banking and telecoms sectors as well as state television, the latest fallout from a wide-ranging corruption scandal plaguing the country’s leaders. Local media reported… —– Related video: Press TV reports on […]
The Shame and the Danger of Egypt’s 98% Vote
(By Juan Cole) The announcement on Saturday by the Egyptian government that there was a 38% turnout for the referendum on the new constitution was unexceptional. It was more than the 33% that turned out to vote on the Muslim Brotherhood constitution of 2012, but not that much more. But the declaration that the constitution […]
The Great Urban-Rural Struggle over the Constitution in Egypt
(By Juan Cole) The tale of two constitutions, 2012 and 2014, in Egypt has to be seen in my view as significantly an urban-rural struggle. Neither referendum had a big turnout, but the one in 2012 only attracted 32.8% of the electorate, while apparently the turnout in the referendum just held was slightly higher at […]
Turkey’s Fierce Battle on the Religious Right
(By Ayşe Soysal) … What is happening in Turkey now doesn’t feel like just a simple political disagreement, or even a war-game. It’s an all-out war, whose opening gambits have been politically damaging to both sides — the [Justice and Development Party or] AKP-led government and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan and the secretive Islamic Gülen […]
Tunisia’s Political Compromise & the Legacy of Mohammed Bouazizi
(By Silvia Colombo) The agreement on the new prime minister that will have the arduous task of lifting Tunisia out of the current impasse came almost exactly three years after the symbolic and at the same time concrete gesture of Mohammed Bouazizi, the street vendor who set himself on fire and by doing so ignited […]
Fallujah Tribes broker extremist withdrawal deal to forestall Gov’t invasion
(By Mustafa Habib) A secret deal was done between the tribes of Anbar and Sunni Muslim extremists this week – the result has seen extremists withdraw from Fallujah. But questions remain: Will PM Nouri al-Maliki still react with military force? How did Al Qaeda manage to take over a city like Fallujah in just two […]
The Wailing Wall, Jerusalem c. 1900 (Photo of the Day)
The Wailing Wall, Jerusalem, c. 1900 (From Gertrude Bell, Syria: The Desert and the Sown, 1908)
Iraq’s Real Problem: A US Occupation legacy of Sectarian Politics
(By Mohammed Alomari) Violence in Iraq is again in the news. The biggest problem we face about what is going on in Iraq is the disinformation campaign to which we have been subjected since the 2003 invasion and occupation. Iraq, which had its infrastructure and institutions demolished in 2003, was rebuilt on political and sectarian […]