Juan Cole

Saddam’s Execution and the Revival of the Baath Party in Iraq Saddam’s half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and the head of his revolutionary court were hanged early on Monday. An Iraqi government spokesman came out and said that Barzan’s head came off during the hanging. I don’t think most Sunni Arabs will accept that this was an […]

Misreading the Enemy My op-ed at the Mercury News, “Misreading the Enemy,” argues that “As long as the Sunni Arabs of Iraq are so deeply unhappy, they will simply generate more guerrillas over time. Bush is depending on military tactics to win a war that can only be won by negotiation.”

Mahdi Army Lowers Profile Sunni Guerrillas now Mainly fight Shiites McClatchy reports that Mahdi Army militiamen in Baghdad have adopted a low profile as they await the arrival of extra US troops, storing their weapons and taking down their checkpoints. The weapons, says one informant, are still nearby. Ghaith Abdul Ahad of the Guardian sheds […]

If the Shoe were on the other Foot Europeans who use a credit card to buy an airplane ticket to the United States open themselves to further scrutiny by US authorities. Even special food preferences indicated to the airline would be communicated to US law enforcement (i.e. if you order a kosher, vegetarian or halal […]

Attempts at Marginalizing Carter Intensify Fourteen members of the Carter Center have resigned in protest over former president Jimmy Carter’s book,”Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” AP hints that they were mostly themselves Jewish Americans. The Jerusalem Post says all were. This is only 7% of his board, which has 200 members. The lobby is drawing wagons […]

Maliki Said to Have Pledged Mahdi Crackdown Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that its sources in the Iraqi government are saying that there are some secret paragraphs to the agreement between the Bush administration and the al-Maliki government in Iraq to act against militia leaders. The article suggests that the model of the US raid on […]

Cole in Salon: Did the US just Provoke Iran? My article, “Did the US Just Provoke Iran,” about the Irbil attack and other US-Iranian tensions over Iraq, is just out in Salon.com.

Terror Attack on US Embassy in Athens Terrorists fired a rocket from across the street into the US embassy in Athens on Friday morning. The rocket exploded in the bathroom on the third floor but did not cause casualties. Greek leftist groups have targeted the US embassy and its personnel in the past, and passions […]

US Forces Storm Iranian Consulate in Irbil The US military stormed the Iranian consulate in the northern Iraq Kurdistan city of Irbil on Thursday. Irbil is the fief of Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani. The Kurdistan Regional Government, which he leads, is semi-autonomous and maintains a regional army, the Peshmerga, of 60,000 men. Kurdistan authorities say […]