Juan Cole

Assassination by Poisoning a Chancy Matter The confirmation that Ukraine presidential candidate Victor Yushchenko has been the victim of a poisoning by dioxyn shows that he was the victim of an assassination attempt. Former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, speaking on Wolf Blitzer’s Sunday show, suggested that the likely suspects included Ukrainian intelligence or […]

Manipulation of the Blogging World on Iraq? [Addendum 12/27/2004: This posting contains errors and is superceded by this later statement. Joseph Mailander of the Martini Republic weblog has an extremely important posting on Sunday about the dangers of “blog trolling.” To “troll” in the world of the internet is to lurk on a discussion board […]

Press Roundup for Sunday Guerrillas in al-Anbar province killed a US serviceman on Saturday. Anthony Shadid reports that Abdullah al-Janabi, fundamentalist Sunni leader of the Muslim mini-theocracy in pre-assault Fallujah, claims that the US military action has attracted hundreds of new fighters to the anti-American struggle in the Sunni Arab heartland. Shadid reports fighting in […]

70 Parties Register to Contest the Elections Al-Hayat reports that the Iraqi Islamic Party has registered a full party list of 275 candidates. The party, led by Muhsin Abdul Hamid, has long pushed for vigorous Sunni participation in the elections. Abdul Hamid is convinced that Sunni Arabs are a majority in Iraq (they are 20% […]

AIPAC Spying Case Heats up Richard Sales, veteran UPI terrorism correspondent, reveals the explosive information that ‘ In 2001, the FBI discovered new, “massive” Israeli spying operations in the East Coast, including New York and New Jersey, said one former senior U.S. government official. ‘ It was the uncovering of these spy rings that led […]

Press Roundup Reuters reports on a growing Iraq fuel crisis that could lead to civil turmoil and harm the prospects for elections. How ironic, if lack of fuel should roil Iraq of all places. According to the Guardian, a former CIA agent is suing the agency because he said he was pressured to conform to […]

Muqtada: Elections will Divide Iraqis Sistani Rep: Beware of Voter Fraud Ash-Sharq al-Awsat: Shaikh Abd al-Mahdi al-Karbala’i, representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Karbala, said in his Friday sermon, “We affirm the necessity of holding elections on time, since they are a guarantee of unconstrained sovereignty, and so as to elect a leadership that […]

Al-Dhari Explains Sunni Arab Boycott Hareth al-Dhari spoke out Thursday about the reasons for which his Association of Muslim Scholars urges a boycott of the Iraqi elections planned for January 30. According to opinion polls, al-Dhari is among the most popular Sunni Arab politicians in the country, and his AMS has emerged as certainly the […]

Shiite List Announced for January Elections Sameer Yacoub of AP gives an overview of the unified Shiite list announced Thursday, The United Iraqi Alliance. It groups a large number of Shiite and other parties, including the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Abdul Aziz al-Hakim); the Badr Organization (former Badr Corps); The Dawa Party […]