Reuters reports that the governor of Muthanna province, Mohammed Ali al-Hassani, was assassinated on Monday by a roadside bomb. This killing was the second in recent days of a provincial governor from the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC). In both Muthanna and Qadisiya, the site of the other assassination, the Badr Corps paramilitary of SIIC […]
Rubin on Herat
See Barnett Rubin’s latest blog entry at the Global Affairs blog, “Return from Herat: Wherein one Pessoptimist Meets Another.”
Cole in Salon: The Poisonous Legacy of Karl Rove
My Salon column is out: The poisonous rhetorical legacy of Karl Rove Even Fox’s Chris Wallace wants to know why Bush’s newly departed advisor had to paint Democrats as traitors. Excerpt: ‘ [Chris] Wallace followed up by asking Rove to justify the notorious June 22, 2005, speech he gave before the New York Conservative Party, […]
Mortar Shells Kill 10 in downtown Baghdad US Mil organizes Sunni Neighborhood Watch
The NYT reports that the US military is setting up neighborhood militias in Sunni Arab areas, called “Guardians,” to patrol and curb Salafi Jihadi gangs. Two questions come to mind. Why is it that those hundreds of thousands of Iraqi police cannot do this job (it is after all their job)? And, will the Sunni […]
Eagan Guest Op-Ed A Vietnam Vet Recognizes Iraq Frustrations
In response to the NYT op-ed by specialists and sergeants on Sunday, Jerry Eagan writes with his own experiences: Dr. Cole. In July, 1967, while back home in Indiana on “convalescent leave” from an Army hospital, I wrote a similar, albeit, shorter letter to my hometown newspaper. As these men are, I was a “grunt,” […]
Al-Hashimi’s Party will not Rejoin Government For Now; NYT Op-Ed from Soldiers on the Ground
As Bill Maher has quipped, we have had a balanced set of commentaries on the Iraq War on television news. We have heard from the generals and the retired generals. Today at the NYT we hear from some specialists and sergeants. In a thoughtful, analytically precise, and informed essay, they lament the pie in the […]
Ammar al-Hakim
The USG Open Source Center translates a recent speech of Ammar al-Hakim, who is functioning as acting leader of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council while his father is undergoing treatment for cancer. Via BBC World Monitoring “July 22, 2007 Sunday Iraq’s Ammar al-Hakim addresses Martyr Day rally 21 July, 2007 [Speech by Ammar Abd-al-Aziz al-Hakim, […]
Maliki Seeks Sunni Support in Tikrit 4 Party Coalition slammed as Elitist Expatriates
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the purpose of PM Nuri al-Maliki’s visit to Tikrit (Saddam Hussein’s old home base) was to convince some tribal notables there to accept ministerial positions in his government. The main Sunni Arab party, the Iraqi Accord Front, is boycotting al-Maliki’s government, and he is therefore desperate to find some Sunnis […]
4-Party Coalition for al-Maliki; Basra Deteriorating; 9 Dead in Baghdad Bombing
Four parties have formed a coalition in parliament to support Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. They are the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the Islamic Call (Da`wa) Party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The parties are led respectively by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, Nuri al-Maliki, Massoud Barzani, and Jalal Talabani. The coalition failed […]
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