By Juan Cole With the alleged fall to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria of Qa’im on Saturday, and of Talafar a few days ago, the border between Iraq and Syria has now been effectively erased. A new country exists, stretching from the outskirts of Baghdad all the way to Aleppo. In history, it […]
Iraq: Ayatollah Sistani hints that Parliament should dump al-Maliki as Muqtada mobilizes “Peace Brigades”
The chorus for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq to step down grew louder on Friday, as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf had his representative in Karbala read a Friday prayers sermon in which he called for Parliament to meet and choose a prime minister who can lead a government of national unity. Shaikh […]
Obama Prepares for Drone War in Iraq
By Juan Cole President Barack Obama announced on Thursday that he will send 300 Green Beret Army special operations soldiers to Iraq. They will be detailed to Iraqi National Army Headquarters and brigade HQs and their primary task will apparently be intelligence-gathering and helping with the Iraqi National Army response to the advances of the […]
As US Pressures Maliki to Resign, will Iraqi Gov’t Collapse?
By Juan Cole A consensus is forming in Washington that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki must resign, as part of accountability for his failures with his Sunni Arab citizens. Because Washington is so good about demanding accountability. While this analysis is correct, and I have said myself that Iraq would be better off with a different […]
Cons of Going to War against Iraq (Cole, Jan. 2003)
By Juan Cole From a talk I gave at the University of Michigan in late 2002, publised at the beginning of 2003. It is often alleged by hawks that no one saw these things coming. Some of us did. Costs of War The regional costs of a US war on Iraq are potentially great: The […]
Who are Iraq’s Sunni Arabs and What did we Do to them?
By Juan Cole The two great branches of Islam coexist in Iraq across linguistic and ethnic groups. There are Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs, Sunni Kurds and (a tiny minority of) Shiite Kurds. Arabs are a linguistic group, speaking a Semitic language. Kurds speak and Indo-European language related to English. Sunnism and Shiism as we […]
Mass Sunni Uprising in Iraq: Sectarian Blowback of 2003 U.S. Invasion (Cole on Democracy Now!)
I appeared on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! to discuss the situation in Iraq Transcript: AARON MATÉ: President Obama has announced plans to deploy about 275 U.S. military forces back to Iraq. In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama wrote, quote, “This force is deploying for the purpose of protecting U.S. citizens and property, if necessary, […]
Don’t Trust the Bombers on Iraq: “Shock and Awe” Never Works
By Juan Cole In March of 2003, we were treated to an intensive bombardment of Iraq, which the Bush White House propagandists termed “Shock and Awe.” As usual, the US Air Force practically promised us that if only they could throw down all their fancy munitions on the target country from the air, why, you […]
7 Myths about the Radical Sunni Advance in Iraq
By Juan Cole Already in the past week and a half, many assertions are becoming commonplace in the inside-the-Beltway echo chamber about Iraq’s current crisis that are poorly grounded in knowledge of the country. Here are some sudden truisms that should be rethought. 1. “The Sunni radicals of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria […]
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