Juan Cole

Banning al-Arabiya The real reason that al-Arabiya satellite television is being banned in Iraq is not that it showed videotapes of Saddam, but that it is a prime source of videotape of damage done to US troops by the guerrillas. Rumsfeld is desperate to stop such footage getting out, and cannot easily move against the […]

Halliburton accused of Gouging According to AFP, three Democratic leaders in Congress are charging Halliburton with gouging US taxpayers by charging $2.65 per gallon to transport gasoline from Kuwait to Iraq. Local Iraqi concerns do it for just under a dollar, and even the Pentagon folks (they of the $100 hammers) do it for for […]

al-Hakim: US Troops a Humiliation: Only a UN Resolution Can Authorize Them AFP reports that the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and member of the Interim Governing Council, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, has insisted that the presence of US troops in Iraq must be authorized by a United Nations resolution […]

Muqtada: The Only Real Solution is Immediate US Withdrawal John Daniszewski of the LA Times has an interview with Muqtada al-Sadr about the new plans for a transitional government. Like French President Jacques Chirac, Muqtada thinks it is too little and too far off. ‘Sadr dismissed the proposed hand-over of power by July 1 as […]

Why Breaking up Iraq is a Very, Very Bad Idea Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council for Foreign Affairs and a former NYT editor and columnist, argues in today’s NYT that the US should reconcile itself to Iraq splitting into three countries. I don’t entirely understand why he is pushing this agenda, and […]

How We Denied Democracy to the Middle East Robert Fisk’s essay, “How we denied democracy to the ME,” coming in response to Bush’s new policy statement, is worth reading. I think it is certainly the case that in the Cold War the US and Britain often did things to destroy democracy in the Middle East […]

Nightline on Iraq 11-24 Those of you in North America who can stay up late may want to watch Nightline tonight. It is on the Coalition Provisional Authority’s about-face and plans for elections in Iraq in May. Because of Monday Night Football, I fear the program won’t get on until 12:30 or 1 am. I’ll […]

Shaping the Iraqi Electorate The election now envisaged by the Americans in Iraq this spring will not be a democratic, one person one vote, affair. The electorate itself will be town notables hand-picked by the US and the US-appointed Interim Governing Council. But how? An independent Shiite member of the Interim Governing Council, Ahmad Shiya` […]

Iraqizing Security Al-Hayat reports that the US is pressuring the Interim Governing Council to speed up the transfer of responsibility for security to the Iraqi Interior Ministry. Hamam Baqir Hamudi of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq says that it will be necessary to appoint officials approved by each of the major parties […]