Juan Cole

Scholl Guest Editorial: Response to Amis Response to Amis Steven Scholl ‘In his Sept 10 op-ed piece for The Observer, Martin Amis provides what is becoming the stump speech for secularists who are sick of religion and the suffering it generates and who find Islam especially dangerous to civilization. I share some of Amis’s concerns […]

48 Bodies found in Baghdad US Officials Impatient with Maliki Paul Richter of the Los Angeles Times discusses the frustrations of American officials in Baghdad with the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Al-Maliki opposed Israel’s war on Lebanon, and has sought good relations with neighboring Iran, neither move synchronizing with US policy. He has […]

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 […]