Juan Cole

Bombing Pakistan back to the Stone Age A controversy has broken out over US threats against Pakistan in the wake of September 11, 2001. Pakistani opposition politicians are taking advantage of it to attack Gen. Musharraf for having folded in the face of US threats. In fact, Musharraf met with all the major political figures […]

70 Killed, including 3 GIs; Return of Republic of Fear Reuters reports 77 killed in Iraq’s civil war on Thursday. That total includes 38 bodies found in the streets of Baghdad. Also included are 3 GIs k.i.a. Al-Hayat reports that in Najaf on Weds.-Thurs. night, 4 members of the Sadr Movement loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr […]

Democracy Now Look for me on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now Show on Monday, however and whenever you get it.

Over 6,000 Killed in July-August; 75% Sunnis Support Insurgency; 50 Killed on Weds. including 2 GIs Two US soldiers were announced killed on Wednesday, as the US military admitted that attacks against US personnel have risen during the past month. Typically about 70 percent of the roadside bombings in Iraq are aimed at US troops. […]

Chavez and the Devil: Bush’s Use of ‘Evil’ Comes Home to Roost ‘Railing and praising were his usual themes,And both, to show his judgment, in extremes;So over-violent, or over-civil,That every man with him was god or devil’ – John Dryden Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez referred to US President George W. Bush as “the devil” in […]

4 GIs Killed; at least 64 Iraqis Killed Massive Bomb Near Mosul Ed Wong of the New York Times reports on increasing American and Iraqi dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, given that he has not reversed the slide into worse and worse security. We historians don’t approve of great man theories of history, and […]

Bush v. Ahmadinejad Egypt’s Jamal Mubarak Rejects “New Middle East” Announces Nuclear Quest The speeches given at the UN by US President George W. Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were mirror images of one another. Bush accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons and of supporting terrorism. Ahmadinejad said that his own country’s nuclear research […]

70 Dead, Bombings in Ramadi, Tal Afar Virtue Party Proposes Provinces as Regions Kofi Annan says that Iraq is sliding into sectarian civil war. He called for urgent action, warning, ” . . . if current patterns of alienation and violence persist much longer, there is a grave danger that the Iraqi state will break […]

Cobban and Cole Check out Helena Cobban’s “Just World News” for an account of our program together on Sunday in Ann Arbor on Iraq, and her comments on Trudy Rubin and Jim Webb on Iraq. As for her critique of my present lack of policy prescriptions for Iraq, I’m just being realistic. It is increasingly […]