Juan Cole

Susan Sarandon and Death Threats Susan Sarandon’s description of how alone and obviously afraid she felt as she received death threats and faced massive hostility from the public over her opposition in 2003 to the war is touching. ‘ In an interview to be shown on the Jonathan Dimbleby programme today, Sarandon recalled how she […]

IAEA Finds no Proof of Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program In its April 28 report, the International Atomic Energy Agency mentioned the UNSC mandate to Iran of last February: ‘ • re-establish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment related and reprocessing activities,including research and development, to be verified by the Agency; • reconsider the construction […]

Iraq VP Warns Bush against Iran Attack Ramadi Fighting Leads to Evacuation of One District Adil Abdul Mahdi, whom the Americans wanted for the prime minister of Iraq, warned Washington Friday not to attack Iran. “We will not allow anyone to attack anyone,” He said. (Since Iraqi politicians can’t keep bombs from going off all […]

Iraq and the Oil Crunch? Update: See Alan Richards’s reply at end Jim Krane of the Associate Press quotes analysts who seem to blame the high price of petroleum in part on the shambles in Iraq. Iraq could be exporting nearly 3 million barrels a day (bbd) if the guerrilla war was not resulting in […]

Petition to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations My readers who teach or have taught in post-secondary education continue kindly to be invited to sign the petition against stigmatizing our colleagues John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard as “anti-Semites” merely for writing a critical appraisal of […]

Kaplan in Slate on Global Americana Many, many thanks to Fred Kaplan for his write-up in Slate of the Global Americana Institute project to translate American political thought and history into Arabic. Also Props to Michael Berube for having my back on the giant slug that’s pursuing me. Salt is a good idea.

30 Dead in Baqubah Battles Shiites Seek to Keep Interior A battle between 100 guerrillas and Iraqi army forces in Baqubah (northeast of Baghdad) on Thursday left 30 persons dead, with casualties on both sides. Local Iraqi forces spoke of a guerrilla force as big as 500! It is unusual for guerrillas to field such […]

Petition to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (I’ve set up a new petition site at https://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/875967959 because the first one was overwhelmed with trolls.) The troll attack will have confused a lot of potential signers. Please circulate the URL of this posting, i.e. https://www.juancole.com/2006/04/petition-to-conference-of-presidents.html to academic friends and urge them to […]

31 Killed in Guerrilla Violence Kurdish Situation Angers Turkey AP reports Iraq violence Tues-Weds. There were major car bombings in Baghdad, and some 15 bodies showed up dead there and in Karbala. There were also deaths near Baqubah and in Kirkuk. AP counted 31 dead altogether. Al-Zaman also reports a bombing in Fallujah. The sister […]