Juan Cole

The straw poll conducted by the Sadr Movement, led by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, produced the following results: Ibrahim Jaafari, (National Reform Trend): 24%Jaafar al-Sadr (State of Law), 23%Qusay al-Suhail (Sadr Movement) 17%Nuri al-Maliki (State of Law/ Da’wa): 10%Iyad Allawi (Iraqi National Movement): 9%Baha’ al-A’raji (Sadr Movement): 5%Ahmad Chalabi (Iraqi National Alliance): 3%Adil Abdul Mahdi […]

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Numbers to Die For | TomDispatch: “* Believe it or not, the Defense Logistics Agency shipped 1.1 million hamburger patties to Afghanistan in the month of March 2010 (nearly doubling the March 2009 figure). Almost any number you might care to consider related to the Afghan War is similarly on the rise. By […]

Here is the reason it is so important that President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has begun behaving so erratically. It is because the path President Obama chose in Afghanistan requires a strong, upright, and relatively efficient local partner. Moreover, the US needs to gain hearts and minds, but a series of costly errors of judgment […]

Wikileaks on Monday released a 17 minute video of a US helicopter gunship attack on a group of Iraqi men in New Baghdad in 2007. The pilots mistakenly identified the camera of a Reuters photographer who was with the men as a rocket propelled grenade launcher, and the US attack killed two civilian Reuters news […]

Although in the US the big news out of Pakistan on Monday, understandably, was a Taliban attack on the american consulate in Peshawar that killed 5 persons, including two Pakistani policemen guarding the consulate, in Pakistan itself the subsequent bombing of a political rally that left around 45 persons dead and 100 others wounded was […]

The LAT says that at least 41 persons were killed and 237 were wounded by three suicide bomb attacks targeting the Iranian and German embassies and the Egyptian consulate. Most of those killed or injured were civilians who happened to be in those areas. The bombings likely are aimed at hurting the chances of Prime […]

The headlines out of Iraq Sunday are mainly owing to the consequences of the US troop withdrawal from that country. Update Three suicide bombs rocked the capital Sunday morning, in different districts, but each appearing to target foreign embassies, killing dozens. The Iranian and German embassies were among the targets. The Times of London correspondent […]

The Pakistani government on Friday tabled a proposed 18th amendment to the constitution, which if enacted will be an enormous advance toward democratization in the country. I was watching Bill Maher last week and Christopher Hitchens remarked on the Iraqi elections that they “didn’t used to happen” under Saddam Hussein. Likewise, free elections did not […]

As part of his press for increased sanctions on Iran over its civilian nuclear enrichment program, President Barack Obama called Chinese President Hu Jintao on Thursday. The US has few bargaining chips to induce China to play ball on Iran, which supplies 8% of China’s imported petroleum. (For the importance of Iran to the Chinese […]