Juan Cole

Is the US Still Tinkering with the Iraqi Constitution? A closer observer of the Iraq scene writes in outrage: Filed at 9:43 a.m. ET BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — The U.S. ambassador suggested Tuesday there may be further changes to the draft constitution to win Sunni Arab approval, saying he believed a final edited draft had […]

Sunnis Charge Interior Ministry in Killings 2000 Sunnis Protest More Corpses Found Al-Zaman/ AFP: The Iraqi Islamic Party accused elements in the Iraqi ministry of the interior on Monday of having kidnapped 36 citizens from Hurriyah Township in Baghdad and then throwing them in the Tigris after they were bound and shot in the head. […]

Arab World Concerned about Iraqi Constitution Arab leaders on Monday expressed consternation that the Iraqi constitution does not identify Iraq as part of the Arab world. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa echoed these concerns but also said that the present constitution is a “recipe for chaos.” The diction in the constitution is that Iraq is […]

Schenkman: If Bush had been President in 1861 After Ft. Sumter: “There is much that we can be grateful for. No lives were lost during the attack. And as our vice president has indicated already, this attack indicates that the rebellion against federal authority is in its final throes.” [click the link for more at […]

Constitution born by Caesarian Section So they had the ceremony, and the drafting committee (minus Sunni Arab members) presented the final draft of the permanent Iraqi constitution to parliament on Sunday. But parliament did not vote on it. The Sunni Arabs did not attend. Parliament has abdicated its responsibilities toward the constitution and put it […]

Some Sunnis I just heard Bush’s audio on CNN concerning the situation in Iraq. I don’t know if all the news programs had the same bad feed, but the poor quality of the transmission made Bush sound like Darth Vader, with a faint electronic echo. Sounding like a science fiction villain did not help the […]

Gilliard Shoots Down the Iraq/ Malaya Trope Steve Gilliard drives a silver stake through the persistent hope of some that Iraq’s “insurgency” can be defeated as the communists were defeated by the British in colonial Malaya (Malaysia). This comparison always neglects to note that the British had been the colonial power in Malaya since the […]

Arato Guest Editorial Andrew Arato writes: ‘ [Il]Legality and [Il]Legitmacy in Iraqi Constitution Making The constitution being submitted to the Iraqi people for ratification is a product of illegality. It was in my view legal to amend the Transitional Administrative Law to change the date of “writing” a final text from August 15 to August […]

Sullivan and Tantalus in Baghdad Reuters Correspondent Luke Baker draws the curtain back on the horrific circumstances in Iraq. Reporters are clearly demoralized, and Western reporters are depending more and more on local staff, who are losing family members and friends to the bombings and shootings. One reporter recently in Baghdad told me that the […]