Juan Cole

The Pope’s non-Apology The Pope stopped short of an apology on Saturday. He did say he was sorry that Muslims took offense to his quotation of a medieval authority who alleged that the Prophet Muhammad had brought only evil. Morocco withdrew its ambassador to the Vatican as a result of the speech. The Iraqi government, […]

Pope’s Trip to Turkey in Doubt Protests Grow Turkish officials are becoming skittish about Pope Benedict XVI’s planned November trip to Turkey, an almost entirely Muslim country where feelings have been hurt by the pope’s quotation of a medieval Byzantine emperor to the effect that the Prophet Muhammad brought nothing but evil. Protests grew on […]

50 Bodies Found Baghdad Ditch called Impractical Brain injuries are the signature debility of wounded Iraq War vets. Reuters reports civil war violence in Iraq on Friday. A third soldier is missing and presumed dead in a late-Thursday suicide bombing that had killed 2 and was said to wound 25. It now turns out that […]

Clemons on Bolton Steve Clemons at the Washington Note predicted two days ago that the Bolton nomination was dead, given Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee’s opposition. The Washington Post has come around to the same conclusion. Bolton is a slippery character who has made all kinds of scurrilous and unsupported charges over the years. He once […]

5 US Troops Killed, 25 Injured A suicide bomber in Baghdad killed 2 US troops and wounded 25, 3 of them seriously. 16 were hospitalized but not in serious condition. 5 US troops have been killed since Wednesday. AP adds: “Also in Baghdad, one soldier died from wounds early Thursday after his unit came under […]

Pope Gets it Wrong on Islam Pope Benedict’s speech at Regensburg University, which mentioned Islam and jihad, has provoked a firestorm of controversy. The address is more complex and subtle than the press on it represents. But let me just signal that what is most troubling of all is that the Pope gets several things […]

Khamenei calls for US to Depart Iraq US Troop Levels Rise to 147,000 US troop levels in Iraq have jumped to 147,000. You have to wonder whether this big runup of troop commitments is related to an attempt to calm the country in the run-up to midterm elections in the US. 2 more US soldiers […]

Maliki in Tehran for Oil Deal 60 Bodies found; 24 Dead in Bombings A bombing Wednesday morning killed 3, and 60 bodies were found in various parts of Baghdad the previous 24 hours. Courtesy of Mehr. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad had something of a lovefest at their press conference […]

Bush and Rockefeller Two controversies are swirling. One regards President Bush’s address to the nation on the anniversary of September 11, which Democrats say was too nakedly political for that solemn occasion. The other concerns remarks by Jay Rockefeller that seemed to say it would have been better to leave Saddam in power. With regard […]