Juan Cole

Bush’s Cedar Revolution Collapses in Yet Another Policy Failure The assassination of Lebanese cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel on Tuesday has thrown that country further into yet more turmoil. The crisis is a further testament to the bankruptcy of George W. Bush’s Middle East policy. Under the dishonest rhetoric of ‘democratization,’ what Bush has really been […]

Car Bomb in Green Zone Parliamentarians Trade Accusations The intrepid Edward Wong of the New York Times reports that a car bomb targetting the Iraqi speaker of parliament, Mahmud Mashhadani [Sunni], was detonated inside the Green Zone on Tuesday. The Green Zone is a 4 square mile area of downtown Baghdad behind concrete walls, with […]

Academics at Risk Please Donate to MESA A report on the Iraqi professors’ panel at the Middle East Studies Association meeting that just wrapped up in Boston. Their stories of everyday life on Baghdad campuses are heartbreaking. There is also a McCarthyite and frankly racist campaign being waged by far rightwing Zionist groups in the […]

Street Battles in Baghdad; 75 Bodies Found; Diplomatic Ties with Syria Bruited Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that on Monday running street battles erupted in several districts of Baghdad between guerrillas and Iraqi police. In Salikh, the Bank district, Sumer, and Tujjar, residents were forced to flee their homes lest they be exposed to kidnapping or […]

The joint letter of the Middle East Studies Association and the American Association of University Professors on the killing of Iraqi academics: ‘November 10, 2006 Honorable Nouri Kamal al-MalikiPrime Minister of the Republic of Iraqc/o The Embassy of Iraq1801 P Street, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20036 USAFax: (202) 462-5066 Dear Prime Minister al-Maliki: We write to you […]

Kissinger Says no Victory Possible; Bombings in Baghdad, Hilla Kill 74; Chaos in Baquba Bush’s visit to Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country, has elicited protests. In 2000, 75 percent of Indonesians thought well of the United States. Now, only 30% do, according to polling. Henry Kissinger now thinks the Iraq War is unwinnable and […]

18 Dead in Baquba Battle; Rice Urges Iraq to be more like Vietnam (???!!) AP says that Secretary of State Condi Rice asserted Saturday that Iraqis only have a future if they stay within a single state. She pointed to Vietnam’s success in reforming its economy and making up with the United States and held […]

Dhari Controversy; security Guards Killed Traveling and I am posting via my Treo so no hyperlinks. 14 Bodies found in Baghdad, 2 near Fallujah. 3 more private security guards attacked Friday in south. 5 kidnapped Thursday unaccounted for — WaPo. [Reuters reports scattered political violence in Iraq on Friday, with 14 bodies found in Baghdad […]

Arrest Warrant for Harith al-Dhari of AMS; Higher Education Abductees Tortured; Militias Capture 14 Western Security Guards Militiamen in southern, largely Shiite Iraq took 14 private security guards captive, employees of the Crescent Security Group. Four of these civilians were thought to be Americans. Four US troops were announced killed on Thursday, three of them […]