Iraq

Jeffrey Rudolph writes in a guest editorial for Informed Comment Can You Pass the Terrorism Quiz? Misconceptions about terrorism, regularly promoted by the mainstream media, have facilitated harmful US government actions—two wars, domestic legislation that curtailed civil liberties, excessive national security spending. That basic, factual information about terrorism is so rarely reported thus serves to […]

Iraq

Jiyad: The Da`wa Party Dilemma and Gridlock in Iraq

Juan Cole

Sajad Jiyad writes in a guest editorial for Informed Comment: The dilemma for Hizb al-Da’wa: A commentary on the issue of leadership in Iraq A friend recently said to me that the Iraqi mentality is to only respect the leader and to be outside the spotlight is to be outside full stop. This, according to […]

Iraq

US Military Mission in Iraq ends not with a Bang but a Whimper

Juan Cole

President Obama reaffirmed on Monday that the US would have all combat troops out of Iraq by the end of August. He said that the final 50,000 would all be out of Iraq within 18 months, in accordance with the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) negotiated by the Iraq parliament with the Bush administration in […]

Afghanistan

War is Theft: Pentagon cannot account for $8.6 Billion of Iraq’s Reconstruction Funds

Juan Cole

The Pentagon cannot account for the over $8 bn. given out to cronies in the first years of the Iraq occupation, money which came from Iraq’s oil proceeds to begin with. The reason is that in the chaotic days after the fall of the Baath government and the collapse of the old economy, Paul Bremer […]

Iraq

40 Killed in Bombings of Shiite Pilgrims in Iraq;
Constitutional Crisis Unfolds

Juan Cole

Despite Republican senator John McCain’s conviction that “We’ve already won that one,” i.e. the Iraq War, actually you couldn’t say either that the war is over or that things are going well politically in that country. It lacks a new government, the political wrangling is interminable, the apparatus of state is paralyzed, and big bombings […]

Iraq

US Ally Maliki & Octavia Nasr Both Praised Fadlallah

Juan Cole

So help me understand this. Nuri al-Maliki, still the Iraqi prime minister for the moment, expressed his appreciation for the accomplishments of the late Grand Ayatollah Hussein Fadlallah: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki paid tribute for late Fadlallah, who provided the “Islamic library” with “tens of books in jurisprudence, interpretation and Islamic culture.” “He devoted […]

Iraq

50 Dead in Baghdad Attacks on Shiites;
Netanyahu Warns of Eastern Front

Juan Cole

A series of bloody attacks killed some 50 persons across Baghdad in the midst of a massive Shiite pilgrimage to the shrine of Imam Musa Kazem A suicide bombing that targeted the pilgrims passing through the Sunni Arab district of Adhamiya on their way to Kazimiya killed 32 and wounded over 90. Sunni guerrillas launched […]

Iraq

Odierno: Kurdish-Arab Fighting may Require UN Force in post-American Iraq

Juan Cole

Despite the optimism obvious in the speeches of Vice President Biden on Iraq, the outbreak of fighting between the Iraqi army and Kurdish forces in the town of Qara Tappa in Diyala province on Sunday and Monday is a reminder of how divided Iraq remains on the eve of the US withdrawal of combat troops. […]

Iraq

On Fourth of July, Let Iraq Go

Juan Cole

The Fourth of July celebrates the Declaration of Independence of the American colonies of Great Britain, on the grounds that they deserved representative government and popular sovereignty– something denied to them by the British crown. Iraq was occupied by American troops in 2003 after an illegal invasion, and it is still so occupied. The viceroy […]