Juan Cole

Shiite Religious Coalition Dominates Parliamentary Voting With 3.3 million votes counted from about 10 mostly southern provinces, the United Iraqi Alliance of mainly Shiite religious parties is so far garnering an astounding 66% of the seats in parliament (That percentage will fall as the northern, Sunni Arab and Kurdish vote comes in, but it may […]

Jonah Goldberg Embarrasses Himself Once Again Jonah Goldberg attacked yours truly in a column recently. I think it is time to be frank about some things. Jonah Goldberg knows absolutely nothing about Iraq. I wonder if he has even ever read a single book on Iraq, much less written one. He knows no Arabic. He […]

2 US soldiers Killed, 5 wounded 19 Iraqis killed; Mosque Bombed CNN reports that guerrillas used a roadside bomb to kill two US soldiers and wound five others near Baiji outside Tikrit on Friday afternoon. Guerrillas kidnapped an Italian journalist in Baghdad. These incidents are so common that it is worth underlining that the US […]

Guerrillas Kill 29, Incl. 3 Marines Sistani List Looks set to Win Big Late in the Iraqi election season, interim Prime Minister Allawi and his supporters clearly attempted to build a buzz that his list would do better than expected and that he still had a shot at remaining prime minister. I personally thought this […]

Guest Editorial: Arato on Constitutional Participation in Iraq Constitutional Participation in Iraq by Andrew Arato The election of January 30, 2005 was Sistani’s victory. It is indisputable that it was he above all who pushed through this election for a constitution making assembly in the face of American resistance and UN paternalism. But as Carl […]

Marine General’s Idea of Fun Marine Lt. General James Mattis said Thursday ‘ “Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. You know, it’s a hell of a hoot. … It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right upfront with you, I like brawling.” He added, “You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who […]

Karl Rove’s Memo to Bush on the Middle East Note to the humorless: Satire Warning M E M O From: Karl Rove To: W. Re: State of the Union and the Middle East Problem: The big steps toward open parliamentary elections in the Arab world have happened in Morocco, Jordan, Yemen and Bahrain. We didn’t […]

Guerrillas Kill 11 as Mosul & Ninevah Demonstrate Security problems are reemerging as traffic gets back to normal. Al-Zaman says that Tuesday and Wednesday 11 persons were killed in Baghdad, including 8 policemen and army troops. Iraqi officials admitted Wednesday that the election held on Sunday was flawed. Wire services also report an assassination attempt […]

The Bombing I don’t always agree with Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist in Iraq. I don’t think the US used chemical weapons at Fallujah, and I don’t think people were coerced to vote via their food ration cards. But Dahr’s report on the US bombing campaign on civilian neighborhoods in Iraqi cities, which the US […]