Articles by: Juan Cole

China and the Axis of the Sanctioned – How America’s Divide-and-Rule Strategy in the Middle East Backfired

China and the Axis of the Sanctioned – How America’s Divide-and-Rule Strategy in the Middle East Backfired

A photo Beijing released on March 6th of Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a seismic shock in Washington. There was the Secretary-General of the Chinese Communist Party standing between Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, and Saudi National Security Adviser Musaad bin Mohammed al-Aiban. They were awkwardly shaking hands on an agreement to reestablish mutual diplomatic ties. That picture[Read More…]

by — 16/05/2023 — Comments are Disabled — World
The American War from Hell, 20 Years Later

The American War from Hell, 20 Years Later

Who remembers anymore that, in 2003, we were Vladimir Putin? Today, our cable and social-media news feeds are blanketed with denunciations of the president of the Russian Federation for his lawless and brutal invasion of Ukraine. When Secretary of State Antony Blinken met briefly with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in New Delhi on March 2nd, he told him in no uncertain terms,[Read More…]

by — 10/03/2023 — Comments are Disabled — World
A flooded road is seen during the passage of Hurricane Fiona in Villa Blanca, Puerto Rico on September 18, 2022. (Photo: Jose Rodriguez/AFP via Getty Images)

Climate Crisis and the Age of the Super-Typhoon: Storms Batter Puerto Rico, Pakistan, Japan, and Shanghai

A mere category 1 hurricane dumped so much water on Puerto Rico so quickly that one of its rivers has swollen to 25 feet above normal, even more than it rose during Hurricane Maria in 2017, which was a Category 5 hurricane. The island is beset by flash floods, and is getting 16-30 inches of rain. The usual average amount of rainfall[Read More…]

by — 20/09/2022 — Comments are Disabled — Climate Change
Girls use a temporary raft across a flooded street in a residential area after heavy monsoon rains in Karachi on July 26, 2022. A weather emergency was declared in Karachi as heavier-than-usual monsoon rains continue to lash Pakistan's biggest city, flooding homes and making streets impassable. (Photo: Rizwan Tabassum/AFP via Getty Images)

CO2 Levels Are the Highest in a Million Years as Extreme Weather and Flooding Rage Across the Globe

CNN reports that satellite photos show that the overflowing Indus has created a new body of water in southern Pakistan some 62 miles (100km) wide. It will take days or weeks for the water to recede, and in the meantime millions are left homeless and over all, 33 million people have been affected by the worst monsoon floods in recorded history. CNN quotes Pakistan’s[Read More…]

by — 02/09/2022 — Comments are Disabled — Climate Change
Islamophobia and the Capitol Insurrection

Islamophobia and the Capitol Insurrection

How the FBI Ignored White Radicals While Spying 24/7 on Muslim Americans Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson excused one of the leaders of the extremist Oath Keepers organization implicated in the January 6th insurrection by describing him as “a devout Christian.” It’s safe to surmise that he wouldn’t have offered a similar defense for a Muslim American. Since September 11th, and even[Read More…]

by — 31/01/2022 — 1 comment — World
Displaced Afghans from the northern provinces are evacuated from a makeshift IDP camp in Share-e-Naw park to various mosques and schools on August 12, 2021 in Kabul, Afghanistan. People displaced by the Taliban advancing are flooding into the Kabul capital to escape the Taliban takeover of their provinces. (Photo: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

US Empire’s Afghan Ponzi Scheme Comes to Ignoble End

The United States lost the Afghanistan War a long time ago, as is quickly becoming apparent as the Taliban take city after city. After 2002, it was never clear what the US war aim was. You can’t win a war if you don’t have a clear objective. The war is lost before it begins. The initial US military action against the[Read More…]

by — 14/08/2021 — 2 comments — World
Excellent vivid images of flags for you. With the texture of fabric at 100 percent view.

COVID-19: Iran and the U.S., An Irony of Curious Affinity

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 polar opposites and enemies: Supreme Leader Ali Khameini’s Iran and Donald Trump’s America. On the U.S. side of things, New Orleans pastor Tony Spell, for instance, has[Read More…]

by — 20/05/2020 — Comments are Disabled — World
The Saudi Axis and Israel’s Drone War on the Shiite Crescent

The Saudi Axis and Israel’s Drone War on the Shiite Crescent

In the past week, Linah al-Saafin at Al Jazeera English points out, an Israeli drone hit a Hizbullah target in Lebanon, Israeli fighter jets bombed a base in Syria with Iranian personnel, and Israel somehow hit bases of a Shiite militia in Iraq, including one on the Syria-Iraq border, killing a militiaman. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed that the Iraqi[Read More…]

by — 29/08/2019 — 1 comment — World
Climate Crisis: Panic as 74,000 Amazon Wildfires Plunge Sao Paulo into Darkness, Can be Seen from Space

Climate Crisis: Panic as 74,000 Amazon Wildfires Plunge Sao Paulo into Darkness, Can be Seen from Space

Brazil’s big commercial hub, Sao Paulo, went dark on Wednesday afternoon. I’ve been to Sao Paulo in late August. It is bright. Accu-Weather quoted Brazilian meteorologist Josélia Pegorim from an O Globo interview: “The smoke didn’t come from fires in the state of Sao Paulo, but from very dense wildfires that have been happening for several days in Rondônia and Bolivia.” That[Read More…]

by — 23/08/2019 — 1 comment — Environmental Protection
“I Am a Nationalist”: Donald Trump Apes Mussolini in Drive to Destroy America

“I Am a Nationalist”: Donald Trump Apes Mussolini in Drive to Destroy America

Trump proudly says he is a “nationalist.” He is, of course, saying this to shore up support among white nationalists. The Nazi sites on the web were all having wet dreams in the aftermath. From the 1990s, polling has found that about 10% of Americans support far right militias. These are the white nationalists. Trump came to power by mobilizing[Read More…]

by — 25/10/2018 — 2 comments — World
Torture Works…To Produce Fake News (And That’s How We Got Into Iraq)

Torture Works…To Produce Fake News (And That’s How We Got Into Iraq)

I told this story back in 2005 but it is a good story, has held up, and bears repeating now that President Trump is again promoting torture as “effective.” Torture is a good way to get people to tell you what they think you want to hear so that you will stop torturing them. That is, torture may occasionally turn[Read More…]

by — 29/01/2017 — 2 comments — Imperialism
Trump's inauguration speech had unsettling echoes of 1930s Germany. (Photo: Stephen Melkisethian/flickr/cc)

Translating Trump’s Inaugural Speech From the Original German

Donald Trump’s inaugural speech, like the candidate himself, was a chain of falsehoods, saber-rattling and scary Neofascist uber-nationalism. But it could be difficult to follow because so much of it seemed stolen from the mass politics of the 1930s in central and southern Europe. So here is a plain English translation of some key passages. Today’s ceremony, however, has very[Read More…]

by — 22/01/2017 — 3 comments — World