Juan Cole

History and Genetics in Madagascar Genetics and history have joined forces to explain the origins of the people of Madagascar (the world’s fourth largest island, off the coast of East Africa). Early Muslim chronicles speak of the peopling of Madagascar from the islands to its far east, i.e., Indonesia. Geneticists have found that about half […]

Cole on Knowing his Own History; and Isaiah Berlin I don’t usually bother to reply at any length to my Neocon critics. Mostly this is because they are simply insincere, and say what they say maliciously and in knowledge of its falsehood. In some instances they have quite unethically subjected their opponents to harassment of […]

Can they Handle it? Hawi as Communist A reader writes: ‘ I noted with some relish the subtleties of perception. You and Al-Jazeera identify Georges Hawi [up front] as a communist. CNN and others identify him as an anti-Syrian politician. They [later] add “former secretary-general” leaving his present membership in the party up in the […]

Beirut Bombing Kills Communist Opposition Leader The victory in Sunday’s polling of the anti-Syrian faction in Lebanese politics has not led to social peace. The coalition of Saad Hariri won in the north in part by having Sunni clerics mount their pulpits in mosques and play on sectarian feelings to defeat Maronite General Michele Aoun’s […]

Condi Can’t Count Condi Rice seems extremely confused about military affairs and the nature of guerrilla wars: Interviewed on CNN during her visit to the Middle East, Dr Rice was asked about the recent claim by the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, that the insurgency in Iraq was “in its last throes”. She did not comment directly […]

37 Dead in Attacks on Monday Al-Zaman, the ‘Times of Baghdad,’ refers to “a sudden and unprecedented deterioration of the security situation in Baghdad” on Monday. The biggest single attack, however, took place in the northern Kurdish city of Irbil. Louise Roug of the Los Angeles Times reports that suicide attackers killed 36 [the Scotsman […]

Helman on UN Option Ambassador Gerald B. Helman writes: “. . . On replacing the US with the UN in Iraq[:] It seems clear that US public opinion is ready for a real exit strategy. But I suspect that the Administration has not yet given up its hope of turning Iraq into a long-term strategic […]

The United Nations Strategy as a Resolution of the Iraq Crisis The United States has failed militarily in Iraq, and the situation there is deteriorating rapidly. A protracted guerrilla war is increasingly becoming an unconventional civil war. The US can mount operations against infiltrators on the Syrian border, but cannot permanently close off those borders. […]

45 Dead, Dozens Wounded in Guerrilla Attacks Restaurant Bombing Mocks Operation Lightning The Associated Press reports that a guerrilla wearing a bomb belt walked into a restaurant near the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad that was popular with Iraqi police and soldiers, and detonated his payload, killing 23 and wounding 45. Patrick Quinn writes, ‘ […]