Juan Cole

Shiite Religious Parties dominate 10 of 18 Provinces Talabani calls for Government of National Unity The Los Angeles Times reports that the secular Iraqiya list of Iyad Allawi so far seems only to have 8% of the seats in the new parliament, though that tally may increase slightly when the 230,000 or so votes of […]

Fundamentalist Shiites Will Dominate New Parliament Secularists Lose Badly Bush Poll Numbers on Iraq Fall The American public is not in a mood to be swayed by mere speeches or yet more “milestones” like the election in Iraq. All the recent brouhaha has not improved Bush’s poll numbers. As always, it is best to click […]

Arato Guest Editorial on the Election Election, Government Formation and the Question of Historic Compromise in Iraq Andrew Arato “In the midst of the great noise of December 15, 2005 the electoral outcome is rather predictable, within a small range. Not so government formation where even small differences in electoral results could make a huge […]

Demonstrations over Fuel Price Increases in Iraq Al-Zaman: Now that the elections are safely over, the government of Ibrahim Jaafari has tripled the price of gasoline and made substantial increases in the price of gas and heating oil, in contravention of its campaign promises. Hundreds of demonstrators came out in Kut and Karbala to protest […]

The Bushist Police State and Interlibrary Loan “Alice: While you talk, he’s gone!More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?Roper: I’d […]

Parties Jockey for Power in Wake of Elections; Dulaimi willing to Ally with Shiites Since Bush is going to say Sunday that the Sunni Arab participation in the elections suggests a near end of major guerrilla violence, let me just repeat what I said Thursday: the history of guerrilla insurgencies is replete with groups that […]

Bush Spying on Americans Wire tapping the telephones of American citizens without a court order is illegal. They impeached Clinton for a minor dalliance in which he didn’t even get to third base. But taking the Constitution and pushing it through the shredder, why that is just fine and dandy. He really does believe that […]

Religious Shiite Coalition Sweeping South; Allawi’s Showing Weak [If you’re in the giving mood this season, The History News Network” is a worthy cause.] Al-Zaman [Ar.]/ AFP: 10-11 million of Iraq’s 15 million potential voters came out on Thursday, according to al-Zaman. Of Iraqis abroad, 320,000 voted (a relatively small proportion of those eligible). The […]

The One that Got Away CNN is reporting that Iraqi authorities had arrested Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist, in Ramadi, but mistakenly released him. Nic Roberts reported that Zarqawi had put on weight, grown a beard, removed a tattoo, and was using a Kurdish passport, making him unrecognizable to Iraqi security forces. What I […]