Juan Cole

Al-Yawir on the Chalabi Affair The LBC Arab satellite channel ran an extended interview Sunday afternoon EST with interim Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawir. The interviewer asked him at one point if Ahmad Chalabi would be arrested. He adopted a stern visage and said “Why would Chalabi be arrested?” The interviewer recalled for him that interim […]

Al-Hakim: No to Civil War, Yes to Timetable for US Withdrawal Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the United Iraqi Alliance list, says that Shiites refuse to be tricked into a civil war by the attacks of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Al-Hakim alleges that Sunni Arabs are taking part in great numbers in the electoral process and […]

Chalabi to be arrested The political season in Iraq is turning extremely nasty. Not only were over 20 persons killed and dozens injured in bombings of a Shiite mosque and a Shiite wedding by guerrillas, but charges and counter-charges among politicians have now resulted in the prospective arrest of long-time Iraqi expatriate politican Ahmad Chalabi. […]

Montazeri Warns Iraqis Against Clerical Rule Ayatollah Husain Ali Montazeri of Qom warned [Persian link] the Iraqi political class on Friday against allowing clerics to dominate the executive in their new government. He spoke through his son to the Persian service of the BBC. He said that clerics were just not trained to or capable […]

A Pictorial Commentary on the first Line in Bush’s Inaugural Speech The full transcript is here. Pictures are clickable. ” . . . on this day prescribed by law and marked by ceremony, we celebrate the durable wisdom of our Constitution and recall the deep commitments that unite our country.” Let us consider the durable […]

Nine British Troops Wounded in Abuse-Related Blast Guerrillas targeted British troops at the Shaibah base near Basra with a suicide bombing, wounding nine, along with a number of civilians. It appears that the attack was prompted by the circulation of images showing British troops torturing Iraqi detainees. The images emerged in connection with the trial […]

Rice Doublespeak at Senate The transcript of the Rice/Boxer exchange is worth reading in full. Rice’s performance is breathtakingly bad, and Boxer has all the quotes and facts at her fingertips. The issue is that Condoleeza Rice engaged in demagoguery before the Iraq war. She invoked the image of a mushroom cloud over the United […]

Consensus Growing in Iraq for a Withdrawal Timetable Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leading figure in the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA the largely Shiite party that is likely to form the next Iraqi government), gave a press conference on Wednesday that I saw on LBC satellite television. Al-Hakim said that Iraqis did not want to continue […]

4 Bombs Shake Baghdad Wednesday Morning Condi Assures Senate Everything was Handled Properly and Everything will be All Right Guerrillas unleashed a terror campaign of bombings on the Iraqi capital Wednesday morning, as at least four big explosions shook several sites. Affected were the area near the Australian embassy, a police station, and the Green […]