Juan Cole

Juan Cole is a public intellectual, prominent blogger and essayist, and the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He has written, edited, or translated 14 books and has authored 60 journal articles; He blogs on the contemporary Middle East at Informed Comment.

Trump Only President Not Invited To Paris Climate Summit

After Syria signed on Monday, the 197th country to join the treaty, the US was left the sole country in the world outside the accord.

Juan Cole
بواسطة Juan Cole
sad trump

Europe1 is reporting that French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that “for the moment” US head of state Donald J. Trump is not invited to the international conference on the climate to be held in Paris in the wake of COP23 in Berlin on 17 November. The summit in Paris to be held on December 12 is being organized by France for the two

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Hezbollah Accuses Saudi Arabia Of Fomenting Lebanese PM’s Resignation

Saad Hariri rendered his resignation from Saudi Arabia, the announcement was first made and circulated on Saudi state television.

Juan Cole
بواسطة Juan Cole
In this photo released on Monday, Oct. 30, 2017 by Lebanon's official government photographer Dalati Nohra, showing Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, right, meets with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Hariri resigned from his post Saturday, Nov. 4, 2017 during a trip to Saudi Arabia in a surprise move that plunged the country into uncertainty amid heightened regional tensions. (Dalati Nohra via AP)

The Secretary-General of Hezbollah, the Lebanese party-militia, Hassan Nasrullah, gave a major speech Sunday in the wake of the resignation of prime minister Saad Hariri. Nasrullah characterized this step as a Saudi move dictated to Hariri by Riyadh. Lebanon’s three big religio-ethnic groups are Sunnis, Shias and Christians. By gentleman’s

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Iraq Rejects Kurdish Offer To Suspend Referendum As Army Retakes Northern Territory

The Kurdistan Regional Government offered to freeze the outcome of the independence referendum as a basis for dialogue with the Baghdad government.

Juan Cole
بواسطة Juan Cole
iran sanctions

Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi was in Tehran on Thursday for consultations with the Iranian government (no, Abadi isn’t afraid of Trump.). During his meeting with Iranian vice president Ishaq Jahangiri, his office released a statement replying to Massoud Barzani. Barzani is the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, an autonomous

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ISIS Was Not Ended By Trump Or Obama – But By Muslims

Extremism was defeated by the Muslims. That should be the headlines. That is what Americans have trouble getting their heads around.

Juan Cole
بواسطة Juan Cole
Iraqi soldiers guard a graduation ceremony of Sunni tribal volunteers joining Iraqi security forces in the town of Amiriyat al-Fallujah, west of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, May 8, 2015. (AP/Hadi Mizban)

Raqqa, the capital of the ISIL phony “caliphate” in eastern Syria, has completely fallen, according to a spokesman for the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. It is just a matter of neutralizing a few remaining cells and defusing booby traps in the city. The SDF is primarily made up of leftist Kurds of the YPG or People’s Protection Units, the

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Trump Blasts Iran For Backing Syria, Ignores Russia, Praises Saudi Arabia

Trump’s speech at the UN was a weird amalgam of white nationalism and Neoconservatism. It abandoned the isolationism of the former and eschewed the idealism of the latter.

Juan Cole
بواسطة Juan Cole
President Donald Trump speaks to world leaders at the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York on September 19, 2017 in New York City. (Photo: MediaPunch/IPX via AP)

Trump more or less threatened to wipe out the 25 million people of North Korea in his speech at the UN. Then he turned to the Middle East, where he again pledged to undermine the Iranian nuclear deal. In other words, he put forward a plan to turn Iran into North Korea as a geopolitical problem. The speech was a weird amalgam of white

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Clashes In Kirkuk As Iraq Supreme Court Strikes Down Kurdistan Referendum

The problem is that the Iraqi Supreme Court’s decision will not be recognized or honored by the elites in the Kurdistan Regional Government, the Kurdish super-province. The Kurds say that no Iraqi government troops from Baghdad can ever set foot on Kurdistan soil.

Juan Cole
بواسطة Juan Cole
A man holds a Kurdish flag with a picture of Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani during a gathering to support next week's referendum in Iraq, at Martyrs Square in Downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Sept. 17, 2017. Iraq's Kurdish region plans to hold the referendum on Sept. 25 to gauge support for independence from Iraq for the autonomous region. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

The Iraqi Supreme Court has ordered that the referendum on independence planned for September 25 be halted. The problem is that the Iraqi Supreme Court’s decision will not be recognized or honored by the elites in the Kurdistan Regional Government, the Kurdish super-province. The Kurds say that no Iraqi government troops from Baghdad can ever

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Trump As Pennywise: Lashing Out At Clinton & North Korea

Trump’s politics are those of a pulp novel horror villain. He is Stephen King’s ‘It.’ Remember that ‘It’ takes the form that particularly horrifies you. It isn’t always necessarily Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

Juan Cole
بواسطة Juan Cole
A street vendor hawks a newspaper emblazoned with an image of Donald Trump with a clown's nose, and a headline that reads in Spanish: "We're screwed!," in front of the Angel of Independence monument, in Mexico City, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

The Beltway Bandits who are always opining about Trump transitioning from campaign mode to presidential stature, and pronouncing after he does something petulant, “Today Donald Trump became president,” are doomed to be wrong for at least 3.5 years. Trump’s politics are those of a pulp novel horror villain. He is Stephen King’s ‘It.’ Remember

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