Juan Cole

Guerrillas Kill 18 Sunnis offered only 6 Cabinet Posts The newly elected Iraqi government is planning to offer Iraqi Sunni Arabs only 6 cabinet posts. They had 17 MPs in the last parliament, and also 6 cabinet posts. They have 51 MPs in the new parliament. The Sunni Arabs are going to greet this announcement […]

Taliban Kamikazes Kill 26 A motorscooter suicide bomber in Spin Baldak and a car bomber in Qandahar killed 26 persons and wounded dozens in twin attacks on Monday in Afghanistan. Analysts suggested that the Taliban were learning lessons from the guerrilla movement in Iraq. Despite killing many civilians, the attacks targeted Afghan military officers supporting […]

Cheney will Ask Mubarak for Egyptian Troops for Iraq: al-Zaman Will Cairo counter Tehran? Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney will meet Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday. Al-Zaman (“The Times of Baghdad”) says that its sources in Cairo tell it that Cheney will ask that Egypt be ready to send troops to Iraq if the […]

Only 1% of Dec. 15 Votes Thrown Out by Commission Iraq Results Unchanged by Investigation The rash of helicopter downings, with another Apache shot out of the skies on Monday, may, worrisomely, suggest that guerrillas in Iraq have managed to buy more shoulder-held missiles. Reuters reports the blowing up of some police at Musaib and […]

10 Things Martin Luther King Would have Done about Iraq Every year we honor Martin, and we hear again his stirring speech, “I have a Dream.” But in many ways, that speech is among the least challenging of his charges to us, however hard and unfulfilled it remains. He dreamed other dreams, of the end […]

5,000 Protest in Karachi “That was worse than a crime; it was a mistake.” –Talleyrand on Napoleon’s execution of the Duc D’Enghien Dawn reports that 5000 protesters rallied in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on Sunday to protest the US missile strike that killed 18 Pakistani villagers (including women and children) in a failed […]

Wave of Attacks on Police Iraq the Model: Guerrillas shot or blew up Iraqi policemen and soldiers all over the country on Sunday. At least 17 were killed or wounded if we include police officers’ body guards, in cities and towns from Baquba to Tuz Khurmato. Iraq the Model: The implementation of the new Iraqi […]

Iraq’s Economic Doldrums With reference to my comment on Sunday about Iraq’s economy being a mess, and my link to a Guardian article on the anxieties in the Amec Corp. about whether the repairs done in Iraq will last in the face of guerrilla sabotage. An informed reader wrote: ‘Note that The Guardian paraphrases an […]

Arab League Troops for Iraq? Al-Hakim Rejects Tyranny of the Minority Rumors are flying in Cairo that the US is asking Arab countries to send troops to Iraq to prepare the way for a US withdrawal. This quest is said to underlie the mission of Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney to Egypt and other Arab […]