Juan Cole

President Barack Obama met Wednesday afternoon for 3 hours with his advisers on the Afghanistan war, including VP Joe Biden and, by teleconference, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. He is said not to have made any decisions as yet about a new strategy or increased troop levels, both asked for by Gen. McChrystal. Some of those voiced […]

I was on the KCRW in Los Angeles’s “To the Point” on Wednesday discussing the Iranian nuclear program and the prospects of an Israeli attack on Iran. It was not a calm discussion. I don’t come on until 2/3s the way through: US and Iran, Face-to-Face for the First Time in 30 Years (12:07PM) A […]

Daniel Graeber covers the debate about Iraq on university campuses and finds that attention has largely turned elsewhere. And, indeed, even Gen. Ray Odierno, who had earlier opposed a quick drawdown in Iraq, is now suggesting that he may accelerate the US troop exodus. End/ (Not Continued)

A suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into a NATO convoy in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday morning. There are reportedly casualties but early reports did not specify them. Roadside bombs set by anti-government guerrillas in Afghanistan killed 36 civilians in a 24-hour period ending Tuesday, with a single bombing of a bus near Qandahar accounting for […]

Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, reaffirmed Monday that a date would soon be set for the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect the planned nuclear enrichment facility near Qom about which the Iranian government informed the IAEA on Monday a week ago. If Iran really does permit full, ongoing IAEA […]

Haggai Ram writes in a guest editorial for IC: Before, during and after the recent UN General Assembly meeting, the Israeli government, much like Sisyphus, who was condemned to repeat forever a meaningless task, once again stepped up its campaign against Iran’s nuclear program. The immediate objective is patently clear: to push the United Nations […]

There is no good evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. It has offered to allow regular International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of the newly announced facility near Qom, which would effectively prevent it from being used for weapons production. There is a secret nuclear facility in the Middle East, however, producing plutonium and […]

On Sunday morning, a Taliban suicide bombing attack struck at the entourage of Ismail Khan, the Afghan Minister of Energy and Water, in Herat, according to the Afghan Voice Agency writing in Persian. Ismail Khan is from the western, Dari Persian-speaking city of Herat, and was its governor before being inducted into the central government’s […]

American and Western discussions of what to do about Iran almost completely ignore Iraq. But no economic sanctions can effectively be placed on Iran without Iraqi support. A gasoline embargo would fail completely if Iraqis smuggled gasoline to Iran (which they certainly would, both for economic and religious reasons). Jalal Talabani, the president of Iraq, […]