Juan Cole

The Justice and Accountability Commission (formerly the Debaathification Commission), headed by Ahmad Chalabi, is moving to disqualify 6 elected candidates in the March 7 election for their ties to the banned Baath Party of Saddam Hussein. Three of those to be banned are from the Iraqiya list of Iyad Allawi, which would reduce his seat […]

FBI raids on the Hutaree Christian militia brought to light this formerly little-known group based in Adrian, Michigan. Unlike the generally secular white supremacist organizations, Hutaree are explicitly Christians. Many seem to be millenarians, expecting the end of time to come soon. Like the so-called Patriot Movement, they are gun nuts. They are said to […]

Christopher Anzalone writes in a guest editorial for Informed Comment entitled, “The Islamic State of Iraq’s Positions on Iraqi National Elections: The Continuing Decline of a Self-styled Jihadi State:” On February 12, the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) released an audio message from its shadowy amir (leader), Abu ‘Umar al-Baghdadi, lambasting the country’s then […]

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic on the emergence of the Sadr Movement as the largest Shiite party within the Shiite fundamentalist coalition, the Iraqi National Alliance. The Free Independent (al-Ahrar) party that represented the Sadrists won 38 seats out of the 70 that the INA garnered, making the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the Islamic Virtue […]

Patrick Martin of the Toronto Globe and Mail gets the diction right when he says that Iyad Allawi’s list won a thin plurality. The official results of the March 7 Iraqi parliamentary elections have been announced by the Independent High Electoral Commission. Of 325 seats, 91 went to the National Iraqi List (“Iraqiya”) of former […]

The far rightwing government of Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu may have a choice between expanding settlements in the West Bank or achieving a global consensus on the need to sanction and coerce Iran into giving up its nuclear enrichment program. Netanyahu is so dedicated to the settler project that he cannot see the ways in […]

The London pan-Arab daily al-Hayat [Life] reports in Arabic that that the Shiite State of Law coalition and the Shiite Iraqi National Alliance say they are prepared to make an alliance before they enter the new parliament. This move reduces the chance that current prime minister Nuri al-Maliki will get a second term. The State […]

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sets the tone for Israeli policy– one that is earning him few friends in the West. Three embarrassments broke for him on Tuesday. First, yet another housing expansion in East Jerusalem was announced while he was meeting President Obama. Then, the cover story of Israeli troops accused of firing live […]

A propos this morning’s posting, a good visual representation of all the empires coming and going in the Mideast: [This map follows the biblical narrative, showing a united kingdom of Israel in the tenth century BC, which, as I said Tuesday morning, has been shown to be mythical by archeology; it is very odd that […]