Juan Cole

McCain Checks into Cloud Cuckooland 116 Iraqis Killed in Day of Carnage Senator John McCain has contracted Rumsfeld’s Disease. This malady consists of a combination of bad temper, misuse of language to obfuscate reality, and a Panglossian optimism in the face of stubborn, sanguinary facts on the ground. McCain, for instance, hailed that deployment of […]

Green Zone Takes Rocket Fire New Offer of Jobs to Baathists Guerrillas fired a rocket into the Green Zone on Monday, shaking the US Embassy and Iraqi government offices but causing no casualties. Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, has weighed in with Tehran to release 15 British sailors and Marines captured in what the Iranians […]

Guerrillas Kill 5 US Troops Shiite Reprisals in Haswa Allawi Bid for New Coalition Founders Iran is considering trying the 15 British sailors it captured at the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, in what it claims were Iranian territorial waters. British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned Iran that it should not underestimate the seriousness […]

90 Killed in Wave of Bombings, Violence Two US troops were announced killed on Saturday. AP reporter Kim Gamel details a wave of bombings and mayhem across Iraq on Saturday. The deadliest attack was a suicide truck bombing at a police station in Baghad, which killed 20 and wounded 28, many of them police. Guerrillas […]

Reality-Based Legislation: House Dems Demand end of US War in Iraq in 08 The Democrats in Congress passed a supplemental funding bill for the Iraq War that included a demand that troops be withdrawn by August of 2008. Contrary to what John McCain alleged, the bill does not micromanage the conduct of the war. It […]

Iraqi Vice Premier Badly Wounded in Attack Iranians Take British troops Captive A Salafi Jihadi operative infiltrated the entourage of Iraqi Vice Premier Abdul Salam al-Zawba’i and detonated a belt bomb in his house on Friday, seriously injuring al-Zawba’i and hurting 17 other persons (some reports say it left 6 of his associates dead). Al-Zawba’i […]

4 US GIs Killed House Dems set to Pass ’08 Withdrawal Language Shiite on Shiite Violence in Basra House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears to have put together a winning bill by both authorizing additional funding for US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (something antiwar Democrats oppose) and by specifying a withdrawal date of 2008 (something […]

Truck Bombing of Kurdish HQ in Mosul Kills or Injures 45 A recent report on the readiness of Iraqi troops. says that the Iraqi military won’t be ready to ‘stand up’ any time soon, according to the General Accounting Office. A third of Iraqi troops are on leave at any one time. Many troops on […]

Dems in Congress seek Withdrawal Saudis intrigue against al-Maliki The Democrats are gearing up to try to pass an appropriations measure for Iraq that also specifies that US troops must come home by fall, 2008. A similar effort in the Senate failed when one Democratic Senator defected to the Republican side over the withdrawal issue. […]