Juan Cole

Video of my conversation with Steve Clemons about my new book, Engaging the Muslim World, is up at the Washington Note website. Clemons is a canny observer of US foreign policy and knows the capital’s movers and shakers, so it was a special pleasure to think together with him about where US relations with the […]

The USG Open Source Center translates an editorial on Baluchistan from the Urdu newspaper “Jang.” There is now talk that the Obama administration will extend its Predator drone strikes into the Pakistani province of Baluchistan. On Saturday, “Jung” published among the more informed and sensible pieces on Baluchistan I have seen. The Baluch are only […]

The Shiite government of Iraq arrests Adil Mashhadani, an Awakening Council or Sons of Iraq leader who had turned against the radical Salafi fundamentalists and took a salary from the US to fight them. Then a major gunfight breaks out between the government and armed Sunnis in the Fadil district of Baghdad. The Nuri al-Maliki […]

NATO and Afghan troops raided a bomb-making cell of insurgents in the southern Pushtun province of Helmand, killing 19 guerrillas, it was announced on Saturday. Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai praised President Obama’s plan for Afghanistan on Saturday, and was especially happy about two elements– going after militants hiding out in neighboring Pakistan, and reaching out […]

The USG Open Source Center translates an Afghan editorial criticizing elements of President Obama’s new plan for Afghanistan. It displays the gravest doubts that he will find any moderate Taliban with whom to negotiate, but also rejects the idea of an influx of further Western troops. It also decries the tendency of Western politicians to […]

In Pakistan, Taliban detonated a bomb in a mosque at Jamrud in the Khyber agency near the Afghanistan border on Friday, killing 50 and wounding 100. The mosque is frequented by paramilitary troops who man a nearby government checkpoint, and who were probably the target of the blast. There is a sense in which Taliban […]

I was on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC television news show on Friday evening, commenting on the Pakistan bit of President Obama’s plan. She referred to it as a drone war. I said I didn’t think we were at war with Pakistan so much as with some Pushtun tribes on either side of the Hindu Kush. And […]

The USG Open Source Center translates Pakistani editorials in the Urdu press that condemn US Predator drone strikes on targets inside Pakistan. In a recent poll, Muslim publics, including that in Pakistan, overwhelmingly rejected US military presence in Muslim countries. A year ago, an opinion poll of Pakistanis found that “most Pakistanis do not believe […]

Part I of President Barack Obama’s major policy speech on Afghanistan, Pakistan and al-Qaeda on Friday, 3/27: And Part II: Full text of prepared remarks available here. A Guardian Television report suggests that 75% of the 80,000 Afghan army troops are regular marijuana users. Many are alleged to be village juvenile delinquents who were kicked […]