Juan Cole

Larry Kaplow of the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that clerical followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani are beginning to threaten direct political action if his fatwa calling for direct elections (one person one vote) of the transitional government is rejected: ‘ “The time has come for us to get our rights,” said Sheik Abdel Mehdi […]

US Soldier Killed in Samarra Guerrillas used a roadside bomb to attack a 4th Infantry Division convoy in Samarra’, killing one US soldier on Monday.

Oxford Research Center Iraq Opinion Poll Helena Cobban summarizes briefly the Oxford Research Center’s recent opinion poll in Iraq. She highlights the finding that what people say is most important in their lives is Family (98%), religion (94) and work (83) Only 29 percent of men and 43 percent of women think politics is important […]

Brookings Institute Conference on Iraq Last April the American Enterprise Institute hosted a triumphal conference to toast victory in the Iraq War, which had been a key project of AEI and other conservatives in the US. On Tuesday, the more liberal Brookings Institute did a different sort of postmortem. Policy wonks who had been to […]

Blanford: A Shiite Challenge See the fine analysis by Nicholas Blanford in the Christian Science Monitor of the showdown between Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani on the one had, and Bremer and the Interim Governing Council on the other. Blanford quotes Ibrahim al-Jaafari (al-Da`wa Party) and Mouwafak al-Rubaie (ex-al-Da’wa Party) as supporting Sistani’s call for popular […]

Warlords annointed by Bremer The WP reports that the US will create a new paramilitary force to fight terrorism in Iraq, and that it will draw for its personnel on the militias of five important political groupings in Iraq: “The five parties that will contribute militiamen are Alawi’s Iraqi National Accord, Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National […]

Accounts differ over Samarra’ The US military account of the events in Samarra’ to VOA is fuller than what we had before. Clearly this was a double bank robbery. The guerrillas are having to rob banks because their old cash hoards of Saddam dinars will become worthless on Jan. 15, after which only the new […]

Bremer and IGC to Defy Sistani Paul Bremer has worked out a deal with the Interim Governing Council to stick with caucus-type elections rather than one-person-one-vote popular elections this coming May, in defiance of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who wants general elections. Sistani will be thrown a bone. The Basic Law crafted by the IGC, […]

Al-Hakim becomes President As AFP notes, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim has just become the president of the Interim Governing Council. Nine members are taking turns rotating into the role for a one-month term, based on alphabetical order. Al-Hakim is the first Shiite ayatollah to rise to such a high office in modern Iraq. He serves at […]