Juan Cole

I made two claims about the transcript published by El Pais of Bush’s conversations with Spanish leader Jose Maria Aznar on 22 February, 2003, at Crawford, Texas. The first is that the transcript shows that Bush intended to disregard a negative outcome in his quest for a UN Security Council resolution authorizing a war against […]

Sectarian Numbers Guest comment by Joshua Birk In his September report to Congress, General Petraeus claimed “the number of ethno-sectarian deaths was down by over 55%.” His assessment stands in sharp contrast with the Government Accountability Office report from earlier in the month, which concluded that “It is unclear whether sectarian violence in Iraq has […]

El Pais published a transcript of the conversation between George W. Bush, Jose Maria Aznar of Spain, and Condoleeza Rice held at Crawford before the Iraq War. Bush is typically bullheaded, impatient, conspiratorial, bullying, arrogant, ill-informed and way over-optimistic. The transcript shows the true colors of the man– a sort of thuggish, ignorant Mafia don– […]

McClatchy reports that a wave of bombings shook Iraq on Wednesday. In double bombing in the Baghdad market of Baya` left 32 dead and nearly that many wounded. From Sinjar in the north to Basra in the south, the country seemed consumed in a paroxysm of violence. Reuters reports that on Wednesday, ‘ BAGHDAD – […]

Sunni Arab guerrillas blew up an internal pipeline bringing petroleum from Baiji to the refinery at Doura in Baghdad. It is the second such act of sabotage in the past week. A frightening spread of cholera and cholera-like symptoms up and down Iraq is now being reported, with cases in Basra in the deep south […]

Iran has closed its border with Iraqi Kurdistan. This move appears to come in part in reaction to the US kidnapping of an Iranian commercial agent, on the grounds that he is a covert operative, from Sulaimaniya (a city in Iraqi Kurdistan). In addition, Kurdish guerrillas of the PEJAK organization have been taking refuge in […]