Juan Cole

Iraq Allawi Threatened; Attacks at Ramadi Sadr Refuses to Attend National Congress Guerrillas targeted police stations all around Iraq on Wednesday and early Thursday, killing and wounding tens of Iraqis. Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi threatened to assassinate caretaker Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi, calling him an “American agent.” Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced […]

Religion and Ethics 7 of 9 and the Paris Orgy Science fiction is in the real-world news big time these days. The actress Jeri Ryan, former wife (1990-1998) of currently embattled Republican senate candidate Jack Ryan of Illinois, played the Borg babe 7 of 9 in Star Trek Voyager. For the uninitiated, the plot of […]

2 US Troops Killed; Airstrike on Fallujah; Korean Hostage Killed The Associated Press reports that guerrillas attacked a US military convoy near Balad north of Baghdad, killing two US troops and wounding another. After the body of a Korean hostage was found, the US air force launched yet another air attack, allegedly on a safe […]

British Sailors Held by Iran The Scotsman reports “Foreign Office fury” at Iran’s capture of 8 British sailors when they strayed over to the Iranian side of the Shatt al-Arab. The Shatt is a mile-wide body of water created by the union of the Tigris and Euphrates, which then flows into the Persian Gulf. The […]

US Has Lost War for Hearts and Minds in Iraq Guy Dinmore and Alex Barker of the Financial Times report that some military analysts believe that the US has lost the wider war for hearts and minds in Iraq, and that the complex Sunni Muslim insurgency is defeating efforts by the relatively small US military […]

Neocons can’t Spell A reader asked me to comment on the controversy over whether an Iraqi intelligence agent was detailed to al-Qaeda in Kuala Lumpur to be the guy that picked people up at the airport. It was covered by the Washington Post after the allegation was made by 9/11 Commission member John Lehman, former […]

6 US Servicemen Reported Dead in Iraq, 11 Iraqis Monday’s toll (still incomplete but more complete than any one article I saw in any one language): Guerrillas sent a videotape to Associated Press with views of four US Marines lying dead in a walled compound in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. The bodies appear to have […]

Iraq War not Worth it: 52% of Americans A new Washington Post/ABC poll shows that a majority of Americans now feels that the Iraq War was not worth it. It cost too many US lives, according to 70% of them, and 51% thought that it had not made Americans any safer. Not only has President […]

Najaf Calming; Police to be Trained in Urban Warfare Al-Hayat reports that previous disputes between Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and junior cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have now been completely resolved. One last step has been the appointment of a new prayer leader at the mosque connected to the shrine of Ali, who would be neither a […]