Uncategorized

Theodoric Meyer writes at ProPublica Authorized by Congress, the CIA has started sending weapons to Syrian rebels. But under a legal definition of terrorism adopted by the U.S. government after the Sept. 11 attacks, those same rebel groups are considered terrorist organizations. The designation could prevent some of the more than 2 million refugees who have fled […]

Climate Change

With a Solar Minimum and La Nina’s, Why isn’t it Really, Really Cold?

Juan Cole

2013 is witnessing another year of very low sunspot activity, showing that we are in a years-long solar minimum. It may not last much longer, but something is going on more than just the usual drop in solar activity every 11 years. Even that 11-year cycle affects the weather. But we’ve seen remarkably low sunspot […]

al-Qaeda

Taliban on the Euphrates: Syria fighters Dump Moderate SNC, Aim for Fundamentalist State

Juan Cole

The pan-Arab daily al-Hayat [Life] reports that 14 bands of fighters in Syria have broken with the moderate Syrian National Council led by Ahmad al-Jarba and have repudiated its Free Syrian Army. The importance of this development should not be underestimated. It will throw a scare into Baghdad and Amman, and will provoke serious thought […]

Uncategorized

Americans Drawing the Line on Day of Action against Keystone XL (Lazare)

Juan Cole

Sarah Lazare writes at Commondreams.org: In towns and cities across the U.S., demonstrators are 'drawing the line' Saturday demanding that President Obama protect people and the environment by rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline. Billed a national day of action, and spearheaded by the climate campaign 350.org, over 200 rallies will take place in all 50 […]

European Union

Israeli Troops attack European Diplomats on Aid Mission

Juan Cole

First the Israelis again erased a Palestinian population, ruling that the 120 Bedouin inhabitants of Khirbet Makhul in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank did not have proper “building permits” for the huts in which they lived. These people have lived in Palestine since forever, and they are not in Israel. It is the Israelis who […]

Uncategorized

I lived to See the Day when the Pope and the President of Iran are more doctrinally Flexible than the GOP

Juan Cole

The United States has all along been a society dominated by the wealthy, and more especially by the business classes. But businesspeople are not all cut from the same cloth. You had high-minded responsible businessmen like Benjamin Franklin and you had mean-spirited businessmen, including the plantation slave-owners. In recent months we have been bombarded by […]

Uncategorized

Top 5 Ways to Get a more Equal America (Reich @ Moyers)

Juan Cole

Bill Moyers interviews former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich on the ways Americans could effect a more equal society: Reich wants to cap the size of the too-big-to-fail banks, reestablish the wall between commercial and financial banks, increase the size of the earned income tax subsidey, have a $15 minimum wage, and have more equitable […]

Iran

Iran’s President Rouhani and the New Hopes for Diplomacy (Sternfeld)

Juan Cole

Something about hope Since coming to office in August, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has done everything to spell out the profound difference between his administration and the previous one. No, Iran is still not a liberal democracy, but what we are witnessing today is an amazing journey of a struggling country with barriers, obstacles, and […]

Iran

Iran’s Rouhani: Not Seeking the Bomb, Willing to show Flexibility

Juan Cole

Ann Curry of NBC News gets a scoop, with an interview with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, in which he restates Iran’s position that it is not seeking, and will never seek, a nuclear weapon. He said that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, had recently stressed ‘heroic flexibility.’ US economic sanctions are severely affecting the Iranian […]