Juan Cole

Citizenship Requested for Sistani Kurdish-Shiite-Sunni Negotiations Al-Zaman The provincial council of Najaf, now dominated by the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, requested that the first act of the Iraqi parliament once it is seated on March 16 be to grant Iraqi citizenship to Grand Ayatollah Alis Sistani. Sistani’s family immigrated to Iraq from […]

Halliburton Over Charges US Halliburton appears to have charged the US government $27 million to deliver $84,000 worth of fuel to Iraq. Everywhere you dig there are bodies. The NYT says that Halliburton over-charged the US government $108 million.

Dueling Demonstrations in Lebanon In the duel of the demonstrations in Lebanon, the political opposition (a coalition of Christians, Druze and some Sunni Arabs), brought out hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in downtown Beirut on Monday, the one-month anniversary of the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafiq al-Hariri. Ash-Sharq al-Awsat says there had been a […]

Shiite-Kurdish Deal Collapses Al-Hayat: The Shiite/Kurdish negotiations to form a government before parliament is seated on March 16 have fallen apart, apparently because the Kurds reneged on the deal they had worked out with the United Iraqi Alliance. Al-Zaman reports that a high Kurdish official said that the process has never been closer to gridlock […]

Mosul Bombing Leaves Legacy of Sectarian Bitterness Al-Hayat: On the security front, 16 Iraqis were killed on Sunday, along with 3 US troops, in separate attacks to the north and south of Baghdad. The Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ahmad al-Hasani al-Baghdadi, head of the Fatwa Office of Baghdad, accused US ambassador John Negroponte of being involved […]

Lebanon Counter-Demonstration One thing the Bush Administration hadn’t counted upon when it pushed for withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon was that the vacuum might well be filled by the paramilitary of the Hizbullah Party, especially in the Biqaa Valley. The opposition in Lebanon has set demonstrations for Monday in honor of the one-month anniversary […]

Plan for Southern Confederation Advances Al-Hayat: Twenty-five political, social and religious personalities met to create the “Project for the Southern Confederation,” that would unite Basra, Amara and Nasiriyya provinces in accordance with the loose federalism prescribed by the Temporary Administrative Law. Baqir Yasin of Basra was named the secretary-general of the Confederation. The scheme will […]

Democracy Now on Ann Arbor/ Ypsilanti Radio This page suggests ways to campaign for Democracy Now to be heard in our area. I suggest that we work with WUOM and WEMU to see if it isn’t possible to add it to the schedule of one or the other. It is apparently a huge help in […]

On Ending Military Occupations in the Middle East Some Iraqis find it ironic that President Bush called for a withdrawal of foreign troops from Lebanon before the elections, but that elections were held in Iraq under conditions of foreign military occupation. Some quotes from the Knight Ridder story: “He must have forgotten that his army […]