Juan Cole

Zogby: 9% of Sunnis Will Vote Stong Majority of Iraqis Wants US Out Borzou Daragahi of AP reports an Iraqi poll that shows that the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance coalition will do best in Sunday’s election, but won’t get a majority. The Iraqiya list of interim PM Iyad Allawi comes in second. The united Kurdish […]

15 Iraqis Killed in Attacks Focusing on Polling Places Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports that guerrillas killed 15 Iraqis on Thursday and blew up six polling sites, continuing their campaign to prevent successfull elections on Sunday. One such attack involved a clash with the new Iraqi army, and when the smoke cleared 11 Iraqis and one US […]

Feith Resigns Under Pressure of Investigations Douglas Feith, the number three man at the Pentagon who went there from the pro-Likud Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Project for a New American Century, will leave the Pentagon as of this summer. Feith’s office is the subject of an FBI investigation as well […]

37 US Troops Dead, Other Americans Wounded Large numbers of Iraqis Killed, Wounded by Car Bombs at Polling Stations, Party HQs AP reports the worst news the US has had in Iraq ever: A U.S. helicopter crashed in a desert sandstorm in the early morning darkness yesterday, killing the 30 Marines and one Navy sailor […]

The Speech Bush Should have Given This is the speech that I wish President Bush had given in fall, 2002, as he was trying to convince Congress to give him the authority to go to war against Iraq. My fellow Americans: I want us to go to war against Iraq. But I want us to […]

Advice for Candidates: ‘Do not Reveal your Identity . . . Stay Home as Much as Possible ‘ Jack Fairweather reports for the Telegraph from Baghdad on a meeting held by the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) that instructs candidates on how to survive the elections. He writes: “The instructions are simple […]

Sistani “Blesses” United Iraqi Alliance Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s web site [Arabic Link] has posted an article from the newspaper al-Ra’i al-`Amm which reports Sistani’s oral answers to questions its reporter submitted to him. The piece says that although Sistani “blesses” the United Iraqi Alliance (the list grouping most of the major Shiite religious parties), […]

Israeli-Arab News Cycle I found this Haaretz article too complicated too follow. So the Israeli Army has a psy-ops unit that used to be very active but has been less so recently, and is now being revived. This psy-ops unit plants articles in the Arab press about groups like Lebanon’s Hizbullah, painting them as vicious […]

Bombs, Zarqawi, and Sistani’s Constitution On Monday morning, guerrillas set off another car bomb near the headquarters in Baghdad of the Iraqi National Accord, the party headed by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Allawi was not in the offices. Early reports say at least ten people were injured. Reuters also notes that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi […]