Juan Cole

Guerrilla Violence Leaves 9 Iraqis, 4 GIs Dead Shiites Targeted during Festival CBS says that Sunni-Shiite violence in Iraq is increasing, as is Sunni frustration with Shiite death squads. Bombings and other violence in Iraq killed 9 Iraqis on Tuesday. The head of the Fallujah city council was shot dead, as was a clerical follower […]

5,000 Sadrists Demonstrate Against Denmark in Kut Sadr Pledges Solidarity with Syria against ‘Israel, UK, US’ AP reports that the young Shiite nationalist leader Muqtada al-Sadr has been behind many of the street protests held in Iraq during the past week against the Danish caricatures of Muhammad. It says that a big crowd of 5,000 […]

More on the Hypocrisy of the West and Cartoongate The Danish newspaper that published the caricatures of Muhammad refused to carry cartoons lampooning Jesus of Nazareth, The Guardian revealed on Monday. ‘ In April 2003, Danish illustrator Christoffer Zieler submitted a series of unsolicited cartoons dealing with the resurrection of Christ to Jyllands-Posten. Zieler received […]

Caricatures Roil Muslim World Beirut Embassy Torched Iraq Demonstrations, Threats against Danish Troops Before I launch into this report, I want to underline that few places in the Muslim world have seen violence over the caricatures, so far mainly Damascus and Beirut (which are unexpected in this regard.) Protests in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, […]

Fact File on Reaction to Danish Caricatures It is being alleged in some quarters that the controversy over the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad is somehow artificial or whipped up months later by the Saudis. This is not true. The controversy began in Denmark itself among the 180,000 Danish Muslims. It was taken up […]

Nearly 2 Dozen Dead in Attacks US, UK to Seek Long-Term Bases Bush is asking for yet another commitment of $120 billion for Iraq (and a little of it is for Afghanistan). He does this twice a year, off the regular Federal budget, which has swollen to $2.7 trillion under Bush, hundreds of billions of […]

Muslim Protests Against Anti-Muhammad Caricatures Several readers have asked what I think about the protests among Muslims against the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published by a Danish newspaper. Of course people are upset when their sacred figures are attacked! But the hurt is magnified many times when the party doing the injuring is first-world, […]

George “Gen. Jack Ripper” Bush Another leaked British memo (“everywhere you dig you find a body”) reveals that Bush and Blair sat around on January 31, 2003, thinking up crazy schemes to provoke a war with Saddam since they didn’t have any real casus belli. What is worse, the memo confirms that our genius president […]

Shiite control of Interior a Red Line Al-Zaman reports [Ar.] that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq is still determined to try to obtain for his faction of the Shiite religious coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, the prime ministership. His candidate is Adil Abdul Mahdi, who is running against […]