Barnett Rubin relays a message from a well-connected friend in Washington on the Cheney Administration’s plans to roll out a military confrontation with Iran in September. He writes at the Global Affairs blog: ” My friend had spoken to someone in one of the leading neo-conservative institutions. He summarized what he was told this way: […]
Sistani Aides Held by JAM Muqtada freezes Paramilitary for 6 months
Two senior aides to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani–Abdul Mahdi al-Karbala’i and Ahmad al-Safi– were kidnapped on Tuesday by the Mahdi Army and are still being held as captives, according to the Kuwaiti News Organization. This report seems to confirm that the Mahdi Army attempted to take over the shrine of Imam Husayn in Karbala under […]
Akhavi on Neocolonialism
Khody Akhavi at IPS covers my talk last Friday at the New America Foundation, on my book, Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East. He writes: ‘In Cole’s view, the Bush administration’s rhetoric of “liberating Iraq” from the clutches of a tyrannical leader with a hankering for weapons of mass destruction can’t mask its long-term neo-colonial […]
Shiite Militia Clashes at Karbala Killl 52, Wound 206 Mahdi Army Rampage against SIIC offices in Baghdad
Clashes between rival militias in the Shiite holy city of Karbala left some 52 dead and 206 wounded on Tuesday, according to late reports from Iraqi security officials. About a million Shiite pilgrims had converged on the city to commemorate the birthday of the Twelfth Imam, the 12th in the line of succession from the […]
Bush, Ahmadinejad Trade Barbs Iranian Delegates Arrested, Released by US
First Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran was read to step into the vacuum when the US was forced out of Iraq. He oddly said that Iran’s friends, including Saudi Arabia, would help in this task. The hyper-Sunni Saudi government is actually not very friendly with Shiite Iran at all. Then Bush rattled sabers […]
Cole in Salon: The War on al-Maliki
My Salon column for Wednesday is now available: “The war against Iraq’s prime minister:” Sens. Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin are calling for Nouri al-Maliki’s ouster as a way of attacking Bush’s Iraq policy. But do they understand the consequences?” Excerpt: ‘ In his remarks to the American Legion in Reno, Nev., Bush said that […]
Rubin: Proposal on Narcotics in Afghanistan
Barnett Rubin has just posted another entry in his brilliant series on counter-narcotics in Afghanistan.
Gonzales Gone for Wrong Reasons
The great shame of it all is that Alberto Gonzales was confirmed as Attorney General despite it being widely known that he had played a central role in attempting to authorize the use of torture on prisoners in US custody. He had tossed aside the US Constitution’s own prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment” (such […]
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Terrorism
At the Global Affairs group blog, Farideh Farhi tells us how Tehran is reacting to the Bush adminstration’s threat to declare sections of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a ‘terrorist organization. She argues that through such threats, Bush is merely strengthening the Iranian Right.
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