Juan Cole

Sistani urges Support for Constitution And for Iran Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called Thursday for Iraqis to vote “yes” on the new Iraqi constitution in the referendum on October 15, according to Reuters. (The announcement does not yet appear at sistani.org). For him, the key paragraph is 2A, which insists that no law can be […]

Schwartz: US out Now The violence continued to percolate along on Thursday in Iraq, with up to 12 persons dead in guerrilla actions. Michael Schwartz argues that the US military cannot play any positive role in preventing an all-out Iraqi civil war and should therefore get out of Iraq. I just cannot understand this sort […]

Cole on Evolve TV Steve Garfield has up a trailer for “The Issue”, an interview program at the web-based Evolve TV, on which I am Mark Moulitsas’s guest on September 25. “Reality-based broadcasting” strikes me as a promising slogan.

Cole Web Interview I A web video interview with me on Iraq by Diogenes (“Mark In Sanfrancisco”) will be aired Friday. This is the preview.

US Bombs Dhulu’iyyah Basra declares Noncooperation US warplanes bombed the small Sunni Arab city of Dhulu’iyyah (Thuluiya) on Wednesday. The bombing is unlikely to be an effective counter-insurgency measure. In fact, it appears to be a simple sort of tribal revenge, where the US military is punishing the city for the killing in the general […]

Huffington on Bolton and Plame Someone in the Bush White House blew the cover of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, to punish her husband, Joe Wilson. Wilson had gone to Niger to investigate the phony story pushed by Dick Cheney that Iraq had bought yellowcake uranium from that country. (The charge was in fact meaningless […]

9 Americans Dead Sadr’s Popularity Grows versus British in Basra Guerrillas have used bombings to kill nine Americans since Monday. Four US GIs were killed at Ramadi on Tuesday. The bombings come in the wake of a major US/ Iraqi government operation against Sunnis in Tal Afar, amidst US threats to de-urbanize Ramadi and other […]

British Storm Basra Jail with Tanks Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times gives the only account of alarming events in Basra I have yet seen that makes sense. The Guardian seems to me to have left out some key information. Anyway, here’s my timeline for what happened. September 5: The BBC reports that “Fusilier […]

Muqtada Al-Sadr’s Response to Basra Events – Achcar Translation Gilbert Achcar writes: “The office of Muqtada al-Sadr published tonight (Sept 19) the following press release that I have translated from Arabic FYI. It is — of course, one might say — in full contradiction with the official version of the British Ministry of Defence.” Statement […]