Juan Cole

Khamenei: ‘America Sinking into Quagmire” “ Iran’s Supreme Jurisprudent, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a radio address that: ‘The American nation should know that Iraq is America’s quagmire and America is sinking deeper into it by staying longer in Iraq . . . The Americans are so desperate that they are bombing an occupied country…this […]

Norwegian troops in Iraq fear for safety Norwegian troops appear to be surprised to find that they are not actually in a peacekeeping role in Iraq, but rather are in a combat role. They nevertheless don’t get the combat pay their colleagues receive in Afghanistan. The Norwegian press reports: “Military Officers’ Association have received several […]

Marshall: Cheney had Garner Fire Warrick Josh Marshall has excellent analysis of Jay Garner’s BBC interview on the failing of the US in handling post-war Iraq. He confirms what I had suspected, which is that Dick Cheney had State Department Iraq expert Tom Warrick fired from the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance because Cheney […]

More on Why Partitioning Iraq is a Very Bad Idea Jack Straw alluded to the dangers of a break-up of Iraq in a news conference in Baghdad on Wednesday, and said the only way to forestall such scenarios was to transfer sovereignty back to the Iraqi people as quickly as possible. (al-Sharq al-Awsat). Journalist Nir […]

10 US soldiers wounded each day Even the fall in attacks does not obscure the bad news for Ken Dilanian of Knight Ridder. He notes that hostile fire had wounded 2,076 US soldiers as of Nov. 24, including 1,200 hurt after May 1. He says, “Although that number is small compared, say, with Vietnam, it’s […]

Bombs in downtown Baghdad; Two Iraqi Police Wounded Guerrillas fired mortars at US troops in Tikrit early on Tuesday but failed to inflict any casualties. In response, US troops wounded one assailant and knocked out another. Guerrillas injured two Iraqi policemen with a rocket-propelled grenade attack near a Baghdad gasoline station. They also fired rockets […]

SA-14 used in Attack on DHL Plane A videotape of guerrillas’ attack on the DHL plane at Baghdad airport was given to a French reporter for Le Nouvel Observateur. It was seen by AFP, which reports that it clearly shows the use of an SA-14 Gremlin missile launcher, not an old SA-7 as the US […]

Sistani’s Fatwa trumped Bremer Rajiv Chandrasekharan has a wonderful article in the Washington Post on the way Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s fatwa of June 28 stymied US civil administrator Paul Bremer. . This was the substance of my remarks on Nightline on Monday night, as well. Sistani insisted that drafters of a new Iraqi constitution […]

IGC Can’t Let Go Some members of the Interim Governing Council, which was set to be dissolved in June on the election of a new transitional government, are now saying they don’t want the IGC dissolved. They hope for it to stick around as a sort of Senate. Apparently the Shiites, like Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, […]