Juan Cole

14 Marines Killed Islam a Main Source in Constitution Guerrillas in Western Iraq killed 14 Marines with a huge roadside bomb on Wednesday. The guerrillas are deploying more powerful explosives in their roadside bombs, and are also “shaping” them to pierce armored vehicles. These tactics suggest that they are succeeding in getting hold of more […]

Straw Admits Coalition Troops a Problem Seven Marines Killed in Western Iraq At Least 41 Others Killed Tuesday First the Polish Prime Minister didn’t have the talking points from Karl Rove. Now the UK Foreign Minister, Jack Straw, has had an attack of frankness: ‘ First there is Iraq. “Things are not good there at […]

Fisking the “War on Terror” Once upon a time, a dangerous radical gained control of the US Republican Party. Reagan increased the budget for support of the radical Muslim Mujahidin conducting terrorism against the Afghanistan government to half a billion dollars a year. One fifth of the money, which the CIA mostly turned over to […]

20 Bodies Found Another 5 US Troops Killed 68 Attacks on US and Coalition Forces Per Day The bodies of twenty men were found in black bags in southwest Baghdad on Monday. They had beards and may have been Sunni Muslim militants. [Knight Ridder is now identifying them as Shiites.] There has been a behind […]

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, Moderate Muslim? Guest Editorialby Mark LeVineProf. Dept of History UC Irvine, author, Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil (Oneworld Publications, 2005) ‘ Just over two years ago I organized a forum of leading younger Muslim activists at the Central University in Budapest. Among those […]

Parliamentary Debate on Election System Collapses 5 US Troops Killed over Weekend The Sunday news cycle took a roller coaster ride with regard to whether the constitution drafting committee of the Iraqi parliament will be finished by August 15. It must request a postponement by today if it is going to seek one. First, committee […]

UK Police Seek links among Bombers Reading between the lines of this FT article, I conclude that UK police have not given up on the possibility that both the July 7 and the July 21 bombing cells were run by higher-ups and were linked. The link would not have come at the level of the […]

Frist Stance Setback to American Taliban Senator Frist’s flip flop on the stem cell issue may or may not help his rumored presidential bid in 2008, but it is a potentially historic shift in Republican policy. The contemporary Republican Party is a coalition of 1) the corporate wealthy; 2) Southern whites (former Democrats) who are […]

Constitution Unfinished as Deadline Looms 17 Dead in Violence Saturday Sunni Arab members of the constitution drafting committee are still rejecting language that would make Iraq a “federal” republic. In practice, this language would formally acknowledge Kurdistan and perhaps Shiite federations of provinces in the south as having a good deal of autonomy and a […]