Juan Cole

Debate Begins on Constitutional Provisions in Iraq Alissa Rubin of the Los Angeles Times has a fine piece today discussing debates in Iraq over the Fundamental Law that will govern the country until a constitution is crafted. She points out that several members of the Interim Governing Council reject the idea of a 3-man rotating […]

MI6 to be Called before Parliament on Weapons Estimates The London Times reports that “Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, will appear before the Intelligence and Security Committee, headed by Ms Ann Taylor, the former Labour Cabinet minister, to give further evidence on why he believed that the intelligence on Saddam’s weapons was reliable […]

The Islamic Party: Neither US nor IGC Suited to Organizing General Elections Az-Zaman reports that the Iraqi Islamic Party (the Iraqi branch of the Sunni fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood) has expressed support for the Nov. 15 agreement between the US and the Interim Governing Council, saying that elections based on provincial councils would produce a government […]

Demonstrations in Halbaniya Hundreds demonstrated peacefully in the Sunni Arab town of Halbaniya on Friday against US tactics, and against the curfew imposed on the city by the US authorities. (-Ash-Sharq al-Awsat).

Who is Hasan Ghul? The Kurdish peshmergas apprehended an Egyptian member of al-Qaeda trying to sneak into Iraq recently, and the US hailed the capture as significant. Ghul was said to have been working directly under Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, one of the planners of September 11. But the London-based moderate Saudi newspaper al-Hayat raised the […]

Is Kerry’s Inconsistency on Iraq a Liability? Mother Jones,, rather unaccountably relying on Max Boot, raises the question of whether Kerry’s changing Iraq position will hurt him in the campaign. Kerry voted for the congressional authorization of the war, but then voted against Bush’s request for $87 billion more after the war ($20 bn. for […]

Bahr al-Ulum: Federalism can work with 18 Provinces In a recent interview in al-Siyasah, a Kuwaiti newspaper, Muhammad Bahr al-Ulum implicitly opposed the Iraqi Kurds’ demands for a consolidated Kurdish state: “(Bilal) Do you think federalism is good for Iraq?” “(Bahr-al-Ulum) First of all we do not accept the division of Iraq or any situation […]

Hilfiker on Army Strong-Arm Tactics in Sunni Heartland Dr. David Hilfiker of the Christian Peacemaker Team has written an important account, presented by Tom Engelhardt, of the tactics employed by Col. Nate Sassaman in dealing with Sunni Arab Iraqis. Sassaman is alleged to have said several things about Iraqi Muslims that verge on racism, and […]

John LeCarre on Iraq Intelligence Failure From Laura Miller’s recent interview in Salon.com with the famed spy novelist David Cornwell and former British foreign service officer: “I think it’s perfectly true that after the Cold War ended and the secret war against terror and the business of spying on terror got going, as always the […]