Month

Archives: political Islam

Iraq Deployed Shiite Volunteers to defeat ISIL, but now has a Militia Problem

Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) |. - The Iraqi government’s next big problem is coming into view: The group of powerful Shiite Muslim militias loyal to Iran seem to want to…

The top 4 Challenges facing the Arab World

By Tarek Osman | (Project Syndicate) | - - LONDON – Fifty years after the Six Days War, the Middle East remains a region in seemingly perpetual crisis. So it is no…

Saudi v. Qatar: Will Turkish intervention cause Escalation?

By James M. Dorsey | (Inter Press Service) | - - SINGAPORE (IPS) - Turkey’s parliament is this week fast tracking the dispatch of up to 3,000 troops to Qatar, home to…

Could ISIL attacks in Tehran plunge the Middle East into greater turmoil?

By Mohammadbagher Forough | (The Conversation) | - - Iran experienced its first major ISIL attack on June 7, as armed men and suicide bombers targeted two symbols of the Islamic Republic…

What is the Sunni-Shiite Divide into Which Trump just Stepped?

Ken Chitwood | (The Conversation) | - - In his address in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, May 21, while calling on Muslim leaders to lead the fight against terrorism, President Donald Trump…

Was/Is there an Islamic Enlightenment? (de Bellaigue)

William Eichler interviews Christopher de Bellaigue | Informed Comment | - - Eichler: 1. In the conclusion to The Islamic Enlightenment you describe modern jihadists as “miracle-grow Muslims” who have been “incubated…

Syria’s forgotten pluralism and why it matters today

By Andrea Williams | (The Conversation) | - - The Syrian Civil War has been raging for six years. It has killed nearly half a million people and left over 12 million,…

Why We Need Political Islam

By Shlomo Ben-Ami | (Project Syndicate) | - - MADRID – US President Donald Trump has put on the back burner an executive order that would designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a…

Why Designating Muslim Brotherhood ‘Terrorists’ will harm Democracy at home and Abroad

Human Rights Watch | - - (Washington, DC) – A US government designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, which the Trump administration is reportedly considering, would threaten the…

Why Trump & his Cabinet’s Jihad against “Political Islam” will Fail

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - Several members of Donald Trump's new team, including National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and proposed Secretary of Defense Mike Mattis have expressed themselves…

Shadow Wars: The Secret Struggle for the Middle East

By Christopher M. Davidson | (Informed Comment) | - - Swept along on a tidal wave of euphoria, by spring 2011 many had cautiously begun to believe that the wave of Arab…

The myth and history of Sunni-Shia divide

By Amir Ahmadi Arian | ( OpenDemocracy ) | - - Sunnis and Shias have lived together in peace for centuries, and up to the new millennium have barely had a history…

The Millenarian Dimensions of the Attempted Coup in Turkey and implications for Muslim Modernism & Traditionalism

By Mohammed Nuruzzaman | (Informed Comment) | - - The failed July 15 coup in Turkey has generated a whole range of debates on who was really behind the coup, Turkey’s future…

Nearly 500 more US Troops sent to Iraq for Mosul Attack in advance of Election Day

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - Stars and Stripes is reporting that the number of US troops in Iraq has risen from 4,000 to 4,460 in preparation for the…

Will Iraq’s next Government be . . . Iran-backed Shiite Militias?

By Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org) | - - The [so-called] Islamic State [IS] group has caused a realignment of Iraq’s political map. Next year’s provincial elections will signal who will…

Defeating ISIL in Iraq will Take Sunni-Shiite Reconciliation, not Just Tanks

By Neil Thompson | (Informed Comment) | - - As Iraqi, Kurdish and Syrian forces squeeze its territory in the Arab world and Turkey hunts down the group’s support networks and sympathisers…

Is Religion really Driving Middle East Violence?

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - Pew Research has released a report saying that "As a whole, the region continued to have the highest levels of religious hostilities in…

Abuses of Fallujah Sunnis Raise Question: Does Iraq Gov’t Control of Shiite Militias

Human Rights Watch | - - (Beirut) – The announced investigation into allegations of abuse of civilians around Fallujah by Iraqi government forces is a test for the government’s ability to hold…

Baghdad gov’t paralysis allows ISIL to blow up nearly 100 Children, Women & Men

Baghdad gov’t paralysis made capital vulnerable to massive ISIL bombings

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | - - Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) launched a series of suicide car and truck bombs in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing nearly 100 and wounding nearly 200…