Juan Cole

More on Niger-gate Part One of an article in La Repubblica about the Niger uranium forgeries has been translated and made available. Part two has been made available here. And this is Part 3. Laura Rozen has been on this story for a couple of years now, and her remarks are important. Scroll down. The […]

The Amazing Shrinking Donkey Arianna Huffington nails it: the Democratic leadership is continuing to make a big mistake on the Iraq issue by refusing to provide the alternative voice that the American public truly wants. Ironically, Republicans like Chuck Hagel are taking the more courageous stance. If 2008 came and it were Hilary with her […]

A Shining Beacon on a Hill Iraq and Israel/Palestine The Neoconservatives promised us that an American-dominated Iraq would become a model for the rest of the Middle East. Iraq has been turned, by the mismanagement of Bush and the Neoconservatives at the Department of Defense, into a hellhole of suicide bombings and subterranean campaigns of […]

Iraq requires more sacrifice: Bush Constitution Enacted, According to Electoral High Commission It takes an Aussie newspaper to put the headline so bluntly. As the milestone of 2,000 US military deaths in Iraq since the beginning of the war passed on Tuesday, ” Iraq requires more sacrifice: Bush.” Now Bush is menacing us with Usamah […]

Ship of State Springs a Leak James Ridgeway of the Village Voice recalls the ghost of corrupt vice presidents past in the light of the NYT’s revelations Tuesday that Richard Bruce Cheney was the one who revealed the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson to his chief of staff, Irving Lewis Libby. Libby […]

37 Dead as Palestine Hotel is Attacked A set of 3 powerful bombings in Baghdad, along with other attacks and violence, left 37 dead and dozens wounded on Monday. Among the dead in Baghdad, al-Zaman says, was the director of the biggest of the American security companies in Iraq, which is responsible for safeguarding the […]

Rupert Murdoch and Judith Miller The extraordinary exchanges between New York Times editor Bill Keller and reporter Judith Miller over her role in the Plame scandal and reporting on non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have suggested to me a wider context of the entire matter. The wider context is that Rupert Murdoch, and […]

Wave of Assassinations, Bombings Oil Exports Halted Here’s the headline of The Times of Baghdad [al-Zaman] for Monday, October 24, 2005: Wave of Assassinations in Tikrit, Baqubah, Ramadi, and Mahawil; Oil Exports Halted from Basra & Ceyhan; Kidnapping of Director of Resources at Southern Petroleum Co.; A Sudanese Detonates a Car Bomb Near an American […]

Syria and the Fundamentalist Crescent? Some kind readers have requested that I say something about the report of UN-appointed German diplomat Detlev Mehlis concerning the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon. Mehlis is a careful and determined investigator and his findings, which fingered persons in the direct circle of Syrian dictator […]