Juan Cole

Talabani Fears Baath Military Pentagon: No Military Progress in Iraq in Past Year Jalal Talabani told al-Hayat that he feared that the concerns among the Shiite religious parties about Sunni Arab cabinet ministers being completely free of any Baath association would cause the baby to be thrown out with the bath water. It is this […]

“Bush is a Liar”: 50% of Americans Gallup has found that half of Americans believe that President George W. Bush actively lied to them about Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction in the year leading up to the Iraq War. I am sure that Bush & Co. exercised poor judgment, jumped to conclusions, exaggerated […]

Postcript on Blogging Matthew Haughey says his posting about being tired of seeing the phrase “mainstream media” used by bloggers was “tongue-in-cheek” and that we should “unclench.” I should say that I think Matthew’s work at metafilter and his postings are thought provoking and progressive and I am grateful for them, and I meant nothing […]

History of Baghdad: Abu Muslim and al-Mansur It is actually quite odd that despite the United States being in military occupation of Baghdad, there doesn’t seem to be much interest among Americans in . . . Baghdad. I thought it might be nice to have some entries on its history and glories from time to […]

Unbreaking News Just saw al-Jazeerah’s evening news and now they are reporting that there has been a last-minute glitch in Jaafari’s presentation of his cabinet to the presidency council. The presidency council is President Jalal Talabani (Kurd), VP Adil Abdul Mahdi (Shiite) and VP Ghazi al-Yawir (Sunni Arab). Al-Yawir is apparently dissatisfied with the final […]

Breaking News: Jaafari presents Cabinet to Talabani The Scotsman reports that prospective Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has presented his cabinet to President Jalal Talabani. Jaafari, a religious Shiite from the Dawa Party, gave 17 cabinet posts to Shiites, including the sensitive one of Interior (which includes domestic intelligence). Sunni Arabs will get the Ministry of […]

Negotiations on Government Al-Zaman/ AFP /DPA says that the new Iraqi military exchanged fire with the Syrians Monday at the Iraqi-Syrian border. The outgoing Iraqi government had accused Syria of allowing guerrillas to infiltrate Iraq from its territory. Syria denied the allegations. A huge fire broke out in the field of the giant Bay Hasan […]

Mainstream Media and Bloggers Matthew Haughey says he won’t read our blogs if we use the term “mainstream media” (a.k.a. MSM). A news flash for Matt: We don’t care. We don’t care if you read our web logs. The difference, Matt, is that we are independent actors, not part of a small set of multi-billion […]

Badr Corps Will Accept Ex-Baathists BBC Monitoring translates comments of Hadi al-Amiri in ash-Sharq al-Awsat for April 24: April 25, 2005 HEADLINE: HEAD OF IRAQI SHI’I GROUP OFFERS UNITY TO EX-BA’THISTS “The following is the text of the interview with Al-Amiri, conducted in Baghdad by Al-Sharq al-Awsat correspondent Huda Jasim, published by London-based newspaper Al-Sharq […]