Juan Cole

The Revenge of Baghdad Bob “The Revenge of Baghdad Bob” is my current piece in Salon.com about the bizarrely unrealistic assessments of the Iraq War by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. First para.: “The sheer dishonesty of the Bush administration whenever it speaks about the situation in Iraq was on display again during Bush’s […]

Talabani and al-Hakim Call for Role for Shiite, Kurdish Paramilitaries 4 US Soldiers Killed Guerrillas killed 4 US servicemen on Wednesday in separate incidents. Other guerrilla operations around Iraq took the lives of at least 9 Iraqis, including two government officials. Guerrillas kidnapped 20 Iraqi soldiers near the Syrian border. Al-Zaman: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani […]

33 Dead in Tuesday Attacks, over 70 Wounded At least 33 persons died in guerrilla attacks or from friendly fire on Tuesday. The Australian Broadcasting Co. reports, ‘ Nine people were killed in the northern city of Mosul, including four peshmerga militiamen reportedly shot dead by police after they were mistaken for insurgents and three […]

Kirkuk Police Defy their Dismissal by Interior Ministry More Car Bombs Wreak Havoc The Associated Press reports, ‘ Four car bombings within seven minutes killed six people, including at least three Iraqi soldiers, in northern Iraq, an army commander said. The first attack struck Hawija, about 65 kilometres south of Kirkuk, before three others exploded […]

Quran Splashed with Urine at Guantanamo The Pentagon released this news late Friday in order to defeat the US news cycle, which closes down for the American weekend. I deliberately kept it for Monday morning. The Pentagon now admits that it found evidence in its files of the Quran being “mishandled” at Guantanamo. (Muslims would […]

Sunni Arab Issue Continues to Bedevil Iraq Ed Wong of the New York Times reports: ‘ Attacks continued across central and northern Iraq on Sunday. One man was killed in Buhruz, northeast of Baghdad, when gunmen drove up to a car carrying a police officer and opened fire, an Interior Ministry official said. The officer, […]

Hizbullah Wins Big in South Lebanon Hizbullah and Amal, along with some representatives of Saad al-Hariri’s “Future” movement swept the elections in South Lebanon. Lebanon also uses a “list” system, which I have decided is extremely anti-democratic. Hizbullah [Hezbollah] and Amal represent about 40% of the Lebanese population, i.e. the Shiites, but they only get […]

Bombings, Shootings in Balad, Tikrit, Samarra, Mahmudiyah Sunni Clerics Condemn Marginalization of their Community, Protest US Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports a suicide attack on an Iraqi military checkpoint in Balad Saturday, which killed three Iraqi soldiers and wounded a third. Guerrillas shot dead an Iraqi policemen from the rapid response team on a bridge in Samarra […]

The Zarqawi MythJordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (actually Ahmad al-Khalayleh of Zarqa) has been elevated by the Bush administration to an almost mythic position as the fomenter of much of the violence in Iraq. It isn’t true. Most of the violence in Iraq is being undertaken by Baathists or Iraqi nationalists trying to drive the […]