Juan Cole

Guest Editorial: Achcar & Shalom, on US Withdrawal “Strategic Redeployment” vs. “Out Now” Gilbert Achcar and Stephen R. Shalom Whatever the limitations of Rep. Murtha’s call to redeploy U.S. troops from Iraq that we have already emphasized (“On John Murtha’s Position,” ZNet, Nov. 21), he went much too far for most Democrats or for the […]

Poll Shows Mixed Results for Bush Highlights of the CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll on Bush and Iraq. It is a very small poll with a whopping plus or minus %5 percent margin of error, but presumably the errors should all run the same way, so it does tell us something. Does Bush have a plan that […]

Cole in Salon and Truthdig In Salon.com today, I ask “Did Bush plan to Bomb al-Jazeera?” And present new evidence that Rumsfeld considered the Arabic satellite station’s reporting to be a form of murder. My article on Rumsfeld’s complicity with Saddam Hussein when he was using chemical weapons is at Truthdig.com, a new site, the […]

Wilkerson: Cheney May be a War Criminal Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff of Colin Powell, told the BBC that Vice President Dick Cheney may be guilty of war crimes for arguing that all restrictions on torturing prisoners should be done away with. The Wilkerson transcript is here. Money grafs: >BBC: But you’re talking about […]

Shiite Militiamen Terrorize Sunni Arabs Khalilzad Agrees to Talk to Sunni Guerrillas Now terrorists are killing Christian (Chaldo-Assyrian) politicians. The New York Times seems to have become convinced of the credibility of Sunni Arab charges that Shiite religious militiamen have infiltrated the new Iraqi army and security forces, and are conducting a campaign of murder […]

Khalilzad to talk to Iranians Monday in Iraq was characterized by the usual mayhem, much of it with a dark sectarian character. Two prominent members of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party and a third politician from the Association of Muslim Scholars (hard line Sunni) were assassinated in Baghdad. South of the capital, two Britons of […]

US Air Power to Replace Infantry in Iraq; Distant President Trapped in Utopianism Veteran journalist Seymour Hersh is reporting in the New Yorker that the Bush administration has decided to draw down ground troops in Iraq. Knowledgeable observers strongly suspect that this step would produce a meltdown and possibly even civil war in Iraq (which […]

Rubaie: US will Withdraw Completely from Some Areas Muqtada offers National Pact Al-Sharq al-Awsat: Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, national security adviser to the Iraqi government, said Saturday that “The American forces will soon turn over complete and total responsibility for security in a number of areas of the country to Iraqi forces.” He said that a joint […]

Al-Qaeda Plot Against Tourist Hotels in Morocco Busted Up 2 Suspects had fought in Iraq Al-Zaman/ AFP: Moroccan security agencies said Saturday that they had foiled a attempt by al-Qaeda to attack buildings belonging to the government as well as hotels frequented by foreign tourists. Two of the plotters had Belgian citizenship but were of […]