Juan Cole

For some odd reason, my July 1 posting of Sistani’s fatwa is not being archived by the new blogger software, so I am attempting to repost it here so it can be linked to. Tuesday, July 01, 2003 *Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has entered Iraqi politics in an unexpectedly big way. He has denounced US […]

*Here is what Tuesday’s events in Iraq looked like to Kuwait’s Arab Times: “Six more American soldiers were wounded in Iraq on Tuesday and a fatal blast at a mosque fuelled Muslim anger toward US forces, all within hours of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisting Iraq was no new Vietnam. Three soldiers were hurt near […]

*Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has entered Iraqi politics in an unexpectedly big way. He has denounced US administrator Paul Bremer’s plan to appoint a large constitutional committee to write a new Iraqi constitution. He insists that Bremer has no such authority, and that delegates to an Iraqi constitutional convention must be elected by the Iraqi […]

*The US Army has launched Operation Sidewinder, storming 20 towns in the Sunni Arab center of Iraq and making dozens of arrests, in a quest to stop sabotage and attacks on US troops. The problem with this sort of operation is that it assumes that resistance to occupation is a zero sum game. There is […]

*The civil administration of Iraq under Paul Bremer plans to create a ministry of religious affairs that would promote dialogue among Iraq’s religious leaders, according to az-Zaman. It would also attempt to ensure that any legislation passed does not withdraw from them their religious rights. *Large fires burned at three Baghdad sites on Saturday, at […]

*Jews who buy land in Iraq should be killed, according to a fatwa or legal ruling issued by Sayyid Kadhim al-Haeri ( -Reuters). Al-Haeri is still in Qom, Iran, but he is said to be contemplating a return home to Najaf, in Iraq. He has been adopted as the elder statesman of the al-Sadr Movement, […]

*Someone sent me a link to a fascinating piece on battle fatigue among US soldiers by journalist Bob Graham that appeared back last June 19 in the Evening Standard. I thought I’d share it here. It is very chilling, does not bode well for US peace keeping efforts in Iraq.

*Muqtada al-Sadr, 30, the leader of the popular Sadr Movement in Iraqi Shiism, gave an interview today to al-Hayat’s Hazim al-Amin in Najaf. He said that in the religious establishment of Najaf, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Sayyid Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim, Shaykh Bashir al-Najafi, and Shaykh Muhammad al-Fayyad all supported one another and recognized that each […]

*Reporters on the ground in Majar al-Kabir, southern Iraq, have begun to piece together what may have happened there Tuesday when 6 British troops were killed and several more wounded in two distinct attacks. The story as I see it goes this way: Paul Bremer set a deadline of June 16 for Iraqi militiamen to […]