Juan Cole

Kerry Slams Bush on Iraq On winning 5 of 7 primaries on Tuesday, John Kerry immediately came out swinging at Bush over Iraq, Dean-style (without the growl): ‘“They obviously misused information and misled the American people,” said Kerry in an interview on MSNBC television. “The administration itself promised us they would build an international coalition, […]

United Nations will Decide on Election Mechanism for Iraq AP reported of Bush’s meeting with Kofi Annan Tuesday that, Kofi said, “The Iraqi Governing Council … indicated that they would accept the conclusions of the U.N. team, so we do have a chance to help break the impasse which exists at the moment and move […]

German Aid for Iraqi Higher Education Every indication is that as soon as they get their independence, the Iraqi politicians will immediately invite France, Germany and Russia into Iraq as investors and advisers, so as to offset American dominance. At that point it is difficult to see what the US could do about it, since […]

Supreme Council Denounces Terrorism In his sermon in Najaf for the Eid al-Adha, Sadr al-Din al-Qubanji of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) said that terrorism must be exterminated from Iraq, referring to the massive bombings in Irbil. “With regard to security in Iraq, we must battle and eliminate terrorism in order […]

Inquiry Must cover Cheney, Feith The Bush Administration will probably attempt to dump all the blame for the WMD fiasco on the CIA. As many are saying, this move is highly ironic. Every evidence is that Doug Feith and his Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon made an end run around the CIA and […]

Patel on Grand Ayatollah Kadhim al-Haeri as a possible Sistani Successor David Patel, in Basra, brings up the question of who would succeed Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who is 73 (some say 75) if he died. He suggests that one not underestimate the chances of Kadhim al-Haeri, a long-time ayatollah and political activist associated with […]

Brown Translation, Commentary on Draft of Iraqi Fundamental Law Professor Nathan Brown of George Washington University, among the foremost US experts in Middle Eastern law, has kindly translated and commented on the draft of the Iraqi Fundamental Law published in the newspaper al-Qabas on Saturday. His commentary is informed and well worth reading. Our thanks […]

Were the Irbil Bombings Revenge for the Capture of Hasan Ghul of al-Qaeda? The London daily al-Hayat raised the question today of whether Sunday’s twin bombings of Kurdish party headquarters in Irbil (in which the death toll has risen to 67) were in revenge for the Kurdish role in capturing “Hasan Ghul,” said to be […]

Reply to Yglesias on Palestine Matthew Yglesias, a philosopher who runs a very interesting web site, cited my piece on 2/2/04 about Muqtada al-Sadr’s objecting vehemently (and, characteristically, vulgarly) to Iraq selling electricity to Israel. Matt then quoted my last sentence “Most Shiite clerics view Israel negatively because of its treatment of the Palestinians, fellow […]