Juan Cole

Jack Ryan Withdraws from Race Illinois Senate candidate Jack Ryan withdrew from the race on Friday. It had become increasingly clear to him that the allegations he pressured his then wife, actress Jeri Ryan, to attend sex clubs in the 1990s, would dominate the campaign if he tried to remain in it. Former senator from […]

Jaafari: Iraqis Must be in Control Emergency Laws a Possibility Interim Vice President of Iraq, Ibrahim Jaafari, said Friday that emergency laws might be implemented if the security situation demanded it. Jaafari is a leader of the extremely powerful but under-reported al-Dawa Party, a covert Shiite organization organized by cells. AP’s Tarek El-Tablawy is to […]

107 Killed, Including 3 US Soldiers: 321 Hurt in 6 Iraqi Cities Edmund Sanders of the LA Times and AP report that within a six-hour period, guerrillas launched bombings, ambushes and small arms fire in six cities in the Sunni heartland. Three US soldiers were killed, along with 104 others, and 321 were wounded. Those […]

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 […]