Juan Cole

DaVinci Code as Parable of American Modernity Despite the scowls and titters of the critics, the DaVinci Code did $77 million at the box office in the US, better than Tom Cruise pulled in MI3. And the world-wide gross is already $224 million. What in the world accounts for the popularity of this complicated and […]

50 Dead Maliki Vows to End Militias, Graft The civil war in Iraq killed 50 persons on Sunday, according to al-Zaman. Reuters managed to detail the circumstances of 35 of them, including bombings in Baghdad. Al-Sharq al-Awsat says [Ar.] that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called militias “an abnormal phenomenon” and vowed to end it. He […]

Wikipedia Article Hijacked I fear I have never had the time to get up to full speed with regard to the Wiki world or the procedures of Wikipedia. But I am told by a kind reader that a small group of ideologues has taken over the Wikipedia article on me in a way that is […]

CanWest and the Lobby A kind reader alerted me to this item about the present owners of the National Post that tried to float the black psy-ops operation charging Iran with requiring religious minorities to wear “badges”. This item is from before they owned the National Post, but there is no reason to think their […]

Libyan Blogger on US Relations with Tripoli A Libyan-American blogger on the US establishment of diplomatic relations with the Qaddafi regime.

Haaretz on Israeli Settlers: How Mean Can you Be? Israeli settlers in the West Bank have shot Palestinians, stolen their land, stolen their water, chased them out of their homes, put their own orchards off limits, and generally been about as mean as you could be short of an actual concerted war. They have also […]

Maliki Elected Prime Minister 56 Dead in Civil War Violence From al-Hayat [Life]: Nuri al-Maliki won a vote of confidence in the Iraqi parliament on Saturday. He thus became the first full-term Shiite prime minister from an elected parliament since Muhammad Fadil al-Jamali in 1953-1954. Meanwhile, the civil war took the lives of many Iraqis […]

Doostdar on Iranian Dress Code Alireza Doostdar writes: ‘Thank you for debunking the lies about Iran requiring religious minorities to be “color-coded.” I just wanted to make a small comment about the actual national dress law being debated in parliament, which is supposed to regulate fashion. True, the law is in large part motivated by […]

Another Fraud on Iran: No Legislation on Dress of Religious Minorities Maurice Motamed, the representative of the Iranian Jewish community in Iran’s parliament, has strongly denied the rumors started by Canada’s National Post that the Iranian legislature has passed a law requiring members of religious communities to wear identifying badges. The report was also denied […]