Juan Cole

5000 Sadrists March in Baghdad The Financial Times reported that the demonstrations in Baghdad on Tuesday were smaller than the approximately 100,000 who came out on Monday, and that they were also poorer. That is; they seem to have been mainly followers of Muqtada al Sadr. They not only marched in favor of free and […]

The Independent reports that 100,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Baghdad on Monday, as part of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani s bid to put pressure on Kofi Annan and the United Nations to certify that free and fair elections can be held: This situation reminds me more and more of Algeria; where mass protests […]

British Say Open Elections Feasible The Financial Times is reporting that British authorities in Basra now believe that there are no procedural obstacles to holding open elections in Basra of the sort that Grand Ayatollah Sistani has called for: Whether this is true or not, it is hard to see the British announcement as anything […]

Gone Fishin’ Just a warning to regular readers that for personal reasons I may find it difficult to post regularly the week of Jan. 19-25. It is possible I am exaggerating the difficulties, so do check in. But it is also possible the site will be less active this week. It will certainly be back […]

US and UN: Caught between Shiites and Sunnis Two parallel reports from Baghdad, one from Alissa Rubin of the LA Times and one from Hamza Hendawi of AP, point to the increasing difficulties the US is having in satisfying the Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shiites in Iraq. Rubin [reg. req.] emphasizes the dissatisfaction of the […]

Bomb Blast Rocks Shrine City of Karbala; 13 Injured AFP is reporting that guerrillas left a bomb in a package in the center of the Shiite holy city of Karbala, near the shrine of Abbas, the brother of Imam Husayn. They detonated it around 10 pm Sunday night, injuring 13. The largely Sunni Baath remnants […]

23 Killed (2 Americans), 130 Injured (including 6 Americans) in Baghdad Car Bombing AFP has raised the casualty count to as many as 23-25 killed and 130 wounded in the Baghdad car bombing of the US headquarters there. “The huge explosion turned the busy central Baghdad street outside into a battlefield inferno but the headquarters […]

Benny Morris on the Arabs There is an interesting discussion going on over at H-Mideast-Politics about a recent interview given by Israeli “New Historian” Benny Morris, who is increasingly a neoconservative. See especially the comment of Alan Fisher, professor of Middle East History at Michigan State University.

Whistle-Blower on US Dirty Tricks at UN to be Tried in UK The Guardian reports that Britain’s Katherine Gunn may face two years in prison for whistleblowing on American dirty tricks at the United Nations. She made public a memo that reveals US intentions to spy on the UN delegations of the six “swing vote” […]