Juan Cole

Fadilah Calls for Defeat of Constitution Ayatollah Muhammad Ya`qubi, the leader in Najaf of the Fadilah (Virtue) Party–which has a big political and social base in the southern port city of Basra–has called on his followers to reject the new constitution because it does not go far enough toward consecrating Islamic law as the law […]

Abdul Amir Younes Hussein Not Charged 5 Months Later Arianna Huffington explores the case of CBS cameraman Abdul Amir Younes Hussein, who was detained by the US military after a car bombing in Mosul over 5 months ago. The US military maintains that he had a connection to the guerrilla movement. That may or may […]

Achcar Replies Gilbert Achcar replies to my posting of 9/23 on the undesirability of an immediate and complete withdrawal of US forces from Iraq: ‘ Let me begin this second open letter to you by thanking you, first of all, for welcoming my previous one on your blog in a most democratic and friendly spirit. […]

Iraq – A Conversation with Juan Cole My video interview on Iraq with Markinsanfran is up at Daily Kos. I also talk about the Middle East Forum campaign against rational analysis of the Middle East.

Sistani urges Support for Constitution And for Iran Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called Thursday for Iraqis to vote “yes” on the new Iraqi constitution in the referendum on October 15, according to Reuters. (The announcement does not yet appear at sistani.org). For him, the key paragraph is 2A, which insists that no law can be […]

Schwartz: US out Now The violence continued to percolate along on Thursday in Iraq, with up to 12 persons dead in guerrilla actions. Michael Schwartz argues that the US military cannot play any positive role in preventing an all-out Iraqi civil war and should therefore get out of Iraq. I just cannot understand this sort […]

Cole on Evolve TV Steve Garfield has up a trailer for “The Issue”, an interview program at the web-based Evolve TV, on which I am Mark Moulitsas’s guest on September 25. “Reality-based broadcasting” strikes me as a promising slogan.

Cole Web Interview I A web video interview with me on Iraq by Diogenes (“Mark In Sanfrancisco”) will be aired Friday. This is the preview.

US Bombs Dhulu’iyyah Basra declares Noncooperation US warplanes bombed the small Sunni Arab city of Dhulu’iyyah (Thuluiya) on Wednesday. The bombing is unlikely to be an effective counter-insurgency measure. In fact, it appears to be a simple sort of tribal revenge, where the US military is punishing the city for the killing in the general […]