By Juan Cole According to a spokesman for his Da’wa Party (Islamic Call or Islamic Mission), Iraq’s prime minister-designate Haydar al-Abadi is preparing a platform on the basis of which he will see to form a new government; one of the planks is a joint Iraqi- international military push against the so-called Islamic State in […]
Arab Youth and the Changing Middle East (HuffPo Cole Interview)
By Juan Cole Huffington Post Live Highlight: Juan Cole, “The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East” Related book: The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East
Iraq: Al-Abadi garners Iranian, US, Saudi Support: But can He Unite Iraq?
By Juan Cole Middle Eastern regional powers joined the US in welcoming the appointment of Haydar al-Abadi as Iraq’s next Prime Minister, creating a dorm full of strange bedfellows. The chairman of Iran’s national security council, Ali Shamkhani, congratulated al-Abadi and said that Iran approved of the legal process whereby President Fuad Masoum appointed the […]
The Long Knives Come out in Baghdad
By Juan Cole The coup-like atmosphere created by Nouri al-Maliki’s stationing of his troops at the Green Zone, checkpoints and bridges in Baghdad on late Sunday backfired on him with Iraq’s parliamentarians. Nearly half of the members of his Islamic Da`wa Party (Islamic Call or Mission Party) in parliament defected from him. Most of the […]
Iraq: Is al-Maliki Preparing to Make a Coup?
Nouri al-Maliki, who is seeking a third term as prime minister of Iraq in the teeth of widespread opposition, abruptly began acting like a strongman on Sunday night. He went on television to denounce President Fuad Masoum for not having appointed a prime minister yet, even though Sunday was the constitutional deadline for him to […]
The Cruel Jest of American “Humanitarian Aid” to Iraq
By Juan Cole The United States of America has no claim on the language of “humanitarian aid” to Iraq after what it did to that country. It is rather as though Washington should send Meals Ready to Eat to the good people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One is happy that the US has dropped food […]
Why is Obama bombing Iraq, Really?
By Juan Cole Al-Zaman reports that a US drone hit mortar emplacements and F-18s struck artillery arrays and armored vehicles deployed by the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) in Kuwair east of Mosul on the way to the Kurdistan capital of Irbil, and near a major dam, some ares of which are controlled by the IS […]
Obama & Airstrikes to Protect Iraqi Kurds: 1991 Deja Vu all Over Again
By Juan Cole During the Gulf War in early 1991, then-president George H. W. Bush called on Iraqis to rise up against Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party. In the Kurdish north and in the Shiite South, hundreds of thousands heeded his call. But after the short war was over in March, Bush appears to […]
Is Zionism/ Jewish Nationalism a Political Cult? The Salaita Firing
By Juan Cole Liberal politics in the broad sense, in the tradition of Locke, Voltaire, Madison, Jefferson and John Stuart Mill, is rooted in a conviction that vigorous debate clarifies issues and makes for better public policy over time. This principle is often misunderstood by political partisans, who confuse analytical disagreement with simply being contrarian […]
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