Juan Cole

Platform of the Al-Hakims The leader of the United Iraqi Alliance, which is likely to have a majority of seats in parliament when the smoke clears, is Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. He is the successor and younger brother of Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim (assassinated August 29, 2003). This is the program announced by the latter on his […]

Distribution of Seats in Iraqi Parliament Al-Hayat [Arabic link] has printed the number of seats won by all the small parties in the Iraqi elections. The total number of seats is 275. What it shows is that the religious Shiites easily have a majority if they pull in a few small parties. I count 6 […]

Shiites, Kurds, win Big Bush Loses Election in Iraq Some key election results are now being reported for Iraq. The statistics available point to about 8.5 million voters out of an eligible 14 million. The electoral commission said that the turnout was 58 percent. The Sunni Arabs (20 percent of the population and the former […]

SCIRI Sweeps Provincial Elections in South There is a rumor going around that interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has formed a parliamentary coaltion with the Kurds in a bid to create a government, which requires a 2/3s majority in parliament. If the United Iraqi Alliance gets more than about 36 percent of the seats, however, […]

31 Killed Friday, 17 early Saturday On Saturday, guerrillas set off a car bomb in the mixed Sunni-Shiite city of Musayyib. The bomb killed 17 and wounded 16, including 3 policemen. The explosion at the Shiite mosque was at Balad Ruz, northeast of Baghdad. The bomb was in a vegetable truck. In East Baghdad, guerrillas […]

Over 50 Dead in Iraq Carnage as Rumsfeld Visits Anthony Shadid of the Washington Post reports carnage in Iraq on Thursday. A huge car bomb ripped through Liberation Square in Baghdad, killing four. A US convoy had just passed through. Guerrillas at Salman Pak attacked a police station, killing between 6 and 14 Iraqi policemen […]

Post-Election Violence and Maneuvering AP reports that ‘ An American soldier was killed Wednesday and another wounded in an ambush north of the capital, the U.S. military said . . . Gunmen ambushed a convoy of Kurdish party officials in Baghdad, killing one and wounding four. And in the southern city of Basra, gunmen killed […]

Some 30 Killed in Iraq Violence [Updated early Weds. Morning] A guerrilla strapped on a bomb belt and blew up a police recruiting station in west Baghdad Tuesday, killing at least 21 persons [a late report in al-Hayat put the death toll at 30]. In a separate incident, 3 policemen were killed in a firefight […]

Playing with Human Lives Goldberg’s descent into pathetic lack of humanity has been a pitiful thing to watch. I am so sorry to bother readers here with this one last posting on the whole Goldberg fiasco. And, note, that when pressed he was unable to name any books actually about modern Iraqi history that he […]