Juan Cole

Another Constitution Cliffhanger Muqtada urges Followers to Register to Vote Al-Zaman: Informed observers close to the negotiations on the constitution are saying that it is likely parliament will be asked for another one-week extension because some issues are still unresolved. Al-Jazeera says that Adil Abdul Mahdi, the first vice president and a member of the […]

Whither Foreign Investment in Iraq under Islamic Law? Doug Ireland covers how the US media covered the story that the Bush administration acquiesced in enshrining Islamic canon law in the Iraqi constitution. What is amazing to me is that no one has brought up the issue of commercial law. Islamic law has three parts: 1) […]

More on Iran and Iraq Or, Part 13 of the Rumsfeld Follies Anna Badkhen of the San Francisco Chronicle, who has reported from southern Iraq, examines the claims by US officials that Iran is sending bombs to Iraq to be used in the Sunni guerrilla insurgency. The claim, by Rumsfeld and others, is so ridiculous […]

Sufis condemn Killing of Innocents Al-Zaman: The Legal Rulings Office of the Central Council for Sufi Orders issued a fatwa or legal ruling on Sunday that forbids the killing of unarmed innocents from among the children of the Iraqi people. The fatwa or legal ruling clarified, “The gunmen’s shedding of the blood of the people, […]

The Prospect of Islamic Law in Iraq A secular Muslim reader writes on the reactionary implications of implementing Islamic canon law in Iraq: ‘ Unfortunately Sharia as we know it is implemented to punish the down trodden and the powerless, whose hands are cut off or who are pelted with stones or lashed in public […]

Sunni Exit Plan? Robert Collier of the San Francisco Chronicle has a very important article today on Sunni Iraqi’s own exit plan for the US, which is much more nuanced than one might have imagined. Excerpts: ‘ “It’s impossible for them or us to fix an exact schedule” for troop withdrawal, said Isam al-Rawi, a […]

Islamic Law Primary in Iraqi Constitution Thousands demonstrate against Federalism Kurdish Masses demand right to Secede Guerrillas ambushed a group of special police in Baghdad on Saturday, killing two of them. There was also a bombing of police in Fallujah. Altogether, al-Sharq al-Awsat says, some 11 Iraqi police and civilians were killed by guerrilla action […]

Village Voice on Feith US foreign policy supports the withdrawal of Israeli colonizers from the Palestinian Gaza Strip. But the outgoing number 3 man at the Pentagon, the son of a founder of the proto-fascist Likud Party, has his own foreign policy and fanatically favors the aggressive expansion of Israel and further expropriation of Palestinian […]

Visser on Shiite Separatism in Iraq Reidar Visser’s “Shi‘i Separatism in Iraq: Internet Reverie or Real Constitutional Challenge?” [pdf] is now available online. It is a very serious piece of research and lays out the details of an important but little-examined political movement in the south.