Juan Cole

MESA/ISIS Letter on Behalf of Ramin Jahanbegloo For more on this case see this article and Eurasia.net. May 8, 2006 Ayatollah Ali KhameneiSupreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iranc/o H.E. Javad ZarifAmbassador Extraordinary and PlenipotentiaryPermanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United NationsFax: 212-867-7086 Your Excellency: We write to you on […]

Ahmadinejad as W.’s Penpal Ebadi warns of another Iraq Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote a letter to W., in which he insisted on Iran’s right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to conduct scientific research on uranium enrichment. The NPT does in fact allow such research, but it is Bush administration policy to abrogate that right and […]

13 Dead, 33 Wounded; GI killed Bali Bombers Sought Revenge for Iraq An armed group raided a prison at Tikrit north of the capital and killed an inmate. (Presumably to keep him from saying what he knew about the other guerrillas.) There were more bombings in Baghdad, with that and other violence leaving a 13 […]

Close: ‘Don’t Send US Soldiers into Iran to Spy’ The question of US intelligence on Iran is now coming to the fore. Veteran CIA Middle East analyst Ray Close reacts to rumors that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld may send Special Operations forces into Iran on intelligence missions. (One clarification: in popular parlance we speak […]

Proposal: A Covenant with America Here are my suggestions for a new covenant with America that could be adopted by politicians running for Congress this fall. 1. The American people do not want their courageous intelligence personnel endangered by politics at a time when international terrorism remains a real threat. If elected we will strengthen […]

Black Sunday Yields 81 Dead in Iraqi Bloodbaths Interior Admits Death Squads The Washington Post reports that four bombs in Iraqi cities killed altogether some 30 persons on Sunday, and left dozens wounded. In addition, in what al-Hayat calls “the war of corpses,” 51 bodies were found in the streets, handcuffed and executed, victims of […]

Mearsheimer and Walt Reply Mearsheimer and Walt reply to criticisms of their paper, “The Israel Lobby and American Foreign Policy.” We’re still accepting signatures of post-secondary teachers on our petition defending Mearsheimer and Walt of ridiculous charges that they are anti-Semites, i.e. racists. Not an academic? Tell your academic friends!

Apologizing for Ahmadinejad “Assume that the Iranians are within measurable distance of nuclear status. Appearances sometimes to the contrary, they are not mad—or not clinically insane in the way that Saddam Hussein was and Kim Jong-il is. The recent fuss about the obliteration of Israel is largely bullshit: Ayatollah Khomeini’s call for this has been […]

Basra Explodes in Shiite Rage Unidentified guerrillas shot down a British Lynx helicopter in Basra on Saturday, killing 5 UK servicemen. The helicopter fell on a house. A large, angry crowd of Shiites gathered to jeer, throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at British troops who arrived at the scene to recover the bodies. The British […]