Juan Cole

James Caron writes in a guest op-ed for IC Some time before dawn on the 5th of this month, there was an explosion in the main building at the ziyarat, or shrine, of ‘Abd-ur-Rahman in Hazar Khwani village, North-west Frontier Province, Pakistan. While explosions have become despairingly common in this general region, with Taliban-inspired networks […]

Website for Iraqi Refugees: ‘Five million Iraqis have been driven from their homes by sectarian terror since Saddam Hussein was overthrown. Security has improved but most still can’t go home. If the world doesn’t help, Iraq may never recover. Out There News has been reporting Iraq since 2002. Many of our friends are now refugees. […]

Prominent British economist and environmentalist Nicholas Stern, has concluded that the average temperature of the earth could go up as much as about 10 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees centigrade) by 2100. He estimates that this rise, to a temperature not see on earth for tens of millions of years, could make much of the planet […]

Even though the Zardari government has arrested hundreds of activists, planning for the march on Islamabad this weekend continued unabated. In what sounds like an ominous threat, Nawaz Sharif said Thursday that his rival, President Asaf Ali Zardar,would not serve out his 5-year term. He did not elaborate on the meaning of this cryptic pronouncement. […]

Iraqi shoe-thrower Muntadhar al-Zaidi was sentenced to 3 years in prison on Thursday, under a statute forbidding assaults on visiting heads of state. The maximum sentence is 15 years, but the judge said he took into account al-Zaidi’s youth and that it was his first offense. Al-Zaydi’s lawyers maintained that the law only forbade assault, […]

The USG Open Source Center translates from Urdu an article on planned al-Qaeda attacks on on US facilities in Pakistan under cover of turmoil provoked by the long march.. Pakistan: Al- Qa’ida Said Plans To Target Long March, US Properties in CountryReport by ANN: “Long March: Al-Qa’ida Has Formed 10 Squads To Attack US Properties: […]

Well, I already used “crisis deepens in Pakistan,” so what should I say about the news that the Pakistan People’s Party government has had hundreds of attorneys and Muslim League (N) party activists arrested , invoking Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code throughout Punjab Province and in its capital, Lahore. This provision, which dates […]

Scott Horton at Harper’s Magazine asked me six questions about my new book, Engaging the Muslim World, which will be in bookstores March 17 (or in some cases earlier), and which is intended as advice for the Obama administration and the general public. Here is an excerpt from one of the exchanges: ‘ [Q] 6. […]

My interpretation of Chas Freeman’s withdrawal from appointment as the chairman of the National Intelligence Council is that it was provoked primarily by Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emanuel. Schumer’s call to White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was probably the decisive event, though we don’t know what Emanuel’s reaction was. That is, the original […]