Juan Cole

4 GIs Killed; at least 64 Iraqis Killed Massive Bomb Near Mosul Ed Wong of the New York Times reports on increasing American and Iraqi dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, given that he has not reversed the slide into worse and worse security. We historians don’t approve of great man theories of history, and […]

Bush v. Ahmadinejad Egypt’s Jamal Mubarak Rejects “New Middle East” Announces Nuclear Quest The speeches given at the UN by US President George W. Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were mirror images of one another. Bush accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons and of supporting terrorism. Ahmadinejad said that his own country’s nuclear research […]

70 Dead, Bombings in Ramadi, Tal Afar Virtue Party Proposes Provinces as Regions Kofi Annan says that Iraq is sliding into sectarian civil war. He called for urgent action, warning, ” . . . if current patterns of alienation and violence persist much longer, there is a grave danger that the Iraqi state will break […]

Cobban and Cole Check out Helena Cobban’s “Just World News” for an account of our program together on Sunday in Ann Arbor on Iraq, and her comments on Trudy Rubin and Jim Webb on Iraq. As for her critique of my present lack of policy prescriptions for Iraq, I’m just being realistic. It is increasingly […]

Khamenei’s Conspiracy Theory Links Pope to Bush’s Crusade Kayhan reports in Persian on remarks of Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei of Iran on the Pope’s Regensburg lecture. Khamenei expressed profound regret at the Pope’s statements about Islam. He said that the first aspect of these remarks was the accusations that had been made against Islam. The […]

At least 26 Dead in Kirkuk Bombings 32 Bodies Found in Baghdad Early reports said that a massive truck bombing downtown Kirkuk killed 19 and wounded 65. With three other bombings and other acts of violence, altogether 26 were said to have been killed and nearly 100 wounded in the northern oil city on Sunday. […]

Pope: Manuel II’s Views of Muhammad are not My Own Muslim Brotherhood Optimistic about end of Crisis Pope Benedict said on Sunday that the quote he had cited from Byzantine emperor Manuel II, which said that the Prophet Muhammd brought only evil and conversion by the sword, did not reflect his own views. He said, […]

Scholl Guest Editorial: Response to Amis Response to Amis Steven Scholl ‘In his Sept 10 op-ed piece for The Observer, Martin Amis provides what is becoming the stump speech for secularists who are sick of religion and the suffering it generates and who find Islam especially dangerous to civilization. I share some of Amis’s concerns […]

48 Bodies found in Baghdad US Officials Impatient with Maliki Paul Richter of the Los Angeles Times discusses the frustrations of American officials in Baghdad with the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Al-Maliki opposed Israel’s war on Lebanon, and has sought good relations with neighboring Iran, neither move synchronizing with US policy. He has […]