Juan Cole

Shopping in Iraq An informed observer writes: ” The thrust of the Farnaz Fassihi email, now, if not before, in the mainstream, and Dexter Filkins’ addendum in the NY Times today, was apparent before, but not in confirmed and undeniable detail. Among other things, those two reports render the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz complaints about the press beyond […]

Bombs in Taba, Multan, Baghdad Signal Failure of War on Terror Three major bombs went off between the Nile and the Indus rivers on Thursday. Do they have anything in common, and what do they tell us about the world that Bush has made? In Baghdad, guerrillas fired Katyusha rockets into the Sheraton Hotel, frequented […]

Conditions in Iraq Zaid al-Ali, an Iraqi attorney who has practiced in New York and Paris, returned to his native land recently and wrote about what he saw. Excerpts: ” [HOSPITALS]: As we walked through the hospital, I spoke with some of the staff and soon realised that all the things that I had read […]

At Least 19 Killed in Violence, over 2 Dozen Wounded Reuters reports that guerrillas detonated a car bomb at Anah near the Syrian border, targeting recruits to the national guard. They killed some 16 persons and wounded 24. The geographical breadth of the guerrillas was demonstrated when they also planted a road bomb in the […]

WMD Myth Meant to Deter Iran First, the CIA comes out and says it can’t find any convincing evidence that Saddam Hussein harbored Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi’s presence at certain points in Iraq has long been argued as a proof of his links to terrorism and al-Qaeda (even though Zarqawi’s Monotheism and Jihad is a […]

Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bremer: Deserting a Sinking Ship How to understand the sudden outbreak of candor among Bush administration officials (or former officials) about Iraq in the past couple of days? In the vice presidential debate on Tuesday evening, Dick Cheney said, “I have not suggested there’s a connection between iraq and 9/11.” Well, maybe […]

Kerry on Iraq: Guest Editorial by Joseph White Professor Joseph White, Director of the Center for Policy Studies at Case Western Reserve University, has kindly agreed to share the following guest editorial here. Iraq Then and Now or: Why invading Iraq was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, but, once […]

Sistani’s Threat: January Elections are a Must Al-Zaman/DPA: The office of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has issued a demand that free and clean elections be held in every area of Iraq in January. He said that all necessary preparations must be taken to allow them to proceed in security. He warned that the supreme religious […]

41 Dead, over 100 Wounded 2 US soldiers Killed Sunday Al-Jazeerah is reporting heavy fighting in the Shiite slums of East Baghdad between US forces and the Mahdi Army of young Shiite clergy Muqtada al-Sadr on Tuesday morning. This follows on US military operations in the ghetto Monday, into Monday evening, as AC-130 howitzers struck […]