Juan Cole

Syria, Turkey agree on Kurds Syria’s Bashar al-Asad, in Ankara for talks with the Turkish government, has come out strongly against Kurdish autonomy from Iraq or the break-up of the country. Syria, Turkey and Iran all have Kurdish populations, and the three have been drawn together by the prospect of semi-autonomy for Iraq’s Kurds. Bashar […]

New Opinion Poll Results in Iraq: 48% View US Positively The results of an opinion poll done in 5 of Iraq’s provinces (Baghdad, Basra, Diwaniyah, al-Hillah, Kirkuk), with 1300 respondents late fall, 2003, have been announced by a Baghdad social research institute and reported in az-Zaman newspaper. Some results: 80% of Iraqis believe that bringing […]

4 US Soldiers wounded Guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb as a US military convoy passed west of Baghdad, wounding three US soldiers on Monday. Other guerrillas ambushed a US soldier northwest of Baghdad, wounding him. Outside the troubled city of Kirkuk, guerrillas blew up a roadside bomb, killing an Iraqi and wounding three others. . […]

Clark Prescient on NATO Democratic Presidential candidate Wesley Clark has been urging that NATO be given larger responsibilities in Iraq. AP reported that ‘Clark said he would try to rapidly establish an Iraqi government, and start funneling U.S. troops though an international agency, run by NATO, not the United Nations. Clark said If U.S. troops […]

IGC Complains about Announcement that Coalition Troops will Stay The British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has now said that UK troops are likely to be in Iraq until at least 2007. Interim Governing Council member Mahmoud Osman, in a telephone interview with Cairo radio, complained that this announcement contravened the November 15 accord between the […]

Baathists being Rehabilitated (to offset Shiites?) AFP (via az-Zaman) is reporting that Paul Bremer issued an order three weeks ago allowing Baath Party members to regain their posts and reenter civil society if they agreed to turn over their weapons. About 60 senior ex-Baath officers surrendered their weapons near Mosul at the Tel Afar base […]

Kirkuk Issue Made Complex by Turkmen, Kurdish Ethnic Nationalism The Turkmen representative on the Interim Governing Council, Songul Chapouk, called Monday for her hometown of Kirkuk to be demilitarized and for weapons to be collected from all the militias. In an interview with Agence France Presse (via az-Zaman), she said that Kirkuk is “a special […]

Resistance to US Military Presence Continues Unabated in Iraq A reader asked me about my claim that the pace of attacks on US troops hasn’t slowed since Saddam’s capture. The phrase is the title of a recent report by Tom Lasseter of Knight-Ridder. He reveals that top US generals in Iraq do not think Saddam […]

US Soldier Shot, wounded in Tikrit On Sunday, a guerrilla in Tikrit managed to shoot and wound a US soldier while he was on foot patrol. He is in stable condition. Alaskan journalist Dahr Jamail has a column today from Baghdad questioning the accuracy and fullness of US military reports of casualties. He says that […]