Juan Cole

Chalabi Survives Assassination Attempt Sadr Aide Assassinated Ahmad Chalabi’s convoy came under fire as he was returning to Baghdad from Najaf. Two of his bodyguards were injured, but he escaped harm. He was in Najaf consulting with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani before returning to the first meeting of the National Council, in the capital. Chalabi […]

Spy Scandal’s Roots are Deep Jim Lobe argues that the FBI investigation that caught up Pentagon Iran expert Lawrence Franklin is much wider than initially thought, and focuses on the unauthorized transfer to Israel of highly sophisticated military software and designs. Since many Israeli arms merchants connected to the government in Tel Aviv sell to […]

Charles Smith on Bush and Sharon Guest Editorial By Charles Smith: “Bait and Switch: Ariel Sharon, the Bush Administration, and the West Bank” Much attention has focused recently on Ariel Sharon’s travails in Israel where a majority of his Likud Party oppose his intent to withdraw all Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip as part […]

US Warplanes Hit Samarra Kirkuk Official Assassinated Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that US war planes bombed two civilian vehicles in Samarra on Tuesday, killing two women and a child in the process. The US military in Fallujah fired tanks on guerrillas that attacked them. A high official of Turkmen extraction in the department of education in […]

Harold Rhode and Bernard Lewis The classic expose of Pentagon operator Harold Rhode was written by Bob Dreyfuss and Jason Vest last January, and aptly entitled “The Lie Factory.” It has long been known that Rhode has a close relationship with former School of Oriental and African Studies and Princeton historian Bernard Lewis. I received […]

Franklin Met with Naor Gilon The Israeli foreign ministry has confirmed that Lawrence Franklin, the Pentagon’s top Iran desk officer, met repeatedly in Washington with “Naor Gilon, head of the political department at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and a specialist on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.” Gilon appears already to have been under surveillance by […]

Republican Convention “We did not seek this War” The Republican National Convention in New York was All 9/11 All the Time. As one would expect, Senator John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani gave strong speeches (though Rudi came off as petty toward John Kerry in a way no one but Al Sharpton […]

Muqtada Plans Political Party AP reports that the young Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr has called on his followers to cease fighting American and Coaltion troops and Iraqi police. He plans, his aides say, to have the Sadr movement contest the forthcoming elections to parliament. Al-Hayat argues that Muqtada’s decision was a compromise between hawks and […]

Brown’s “Public Diplomacy Press Review A really useful compendium of news items related to public diplomacy and Middle East policy is sent out by email by John Brown, a former Foreign Service officer, in conjunction with the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy. It deals with “issues pertaining to foreign public opinion, anti-Americanism, […]