Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Blue Jinn Cole In Salon On Iraqi

Juan Cole 08/17/2006

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email
0 Shares

The Blue Jinn:
Cole in Salon on Iraqi Speaker

My article in Salon.com on the controversy surrounding the Speaker or President of the Iraqi parliament, Dr. Mahmoud Mashhadani. By the way, a jinn or djinn is a genie as in genie in a bottle. I don’t actually think they are blue in the Thousand and One Nights, and suspect Mashhadani has been watching Disney movies, where they are blue and have Robin Williams’s manic attention deficit disorder.

Excerpt:

‘ When George Bush met the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, he liked him. During his June trip to Baghdad, Bush sang the praises of Dr. Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, who had been elected speaker in late April. “I was impressed by him,” said Bush during a press conference. “He’s a fellow that had been put in prison by Saddam and, interestingly enough, put in prison by us. And he made a decision to participate in the government … It was interesting to see a person that could have been really bitter talk about the skills he’s going to need to bring people together to run the parliament.”

But when the Iraqi parliament reconvenes next month, the first item on the agenda will be firing Mashhadani. He has put his foot in his mouth too many times. Considering what he’s been saying about the United States since his moment with the president, the end of his tenure should come as a relief to the Bush administration. “Who destroyed Iraq? Who plundered Iraq?” exploded Mashhadani in a recent interview. “It is none other than the blue jinn whose name is the American Occupation.” Mashhadani’s imminent removal, however, is an ominous sign for the future of inclusive electoral politics in Iraq. . .

Read the whole thing.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....