Juan Cole

End/ (Not Continued)

Tomgram: Michael Schwartz, Will Iraq's Oil Ever Flow? | TomDispatch Sociologist Michael Schwartz, a sharp Iraq-watcher and author of a provocative book on the Iraq War, surveys the travails of Iraq’s oil industry since the 2003 Bush-Cheney invasion and points to the continued difficulties of the Iraq petroleum industry. My own guess is that eventually […]

Iraqi politics and the conduct of the March 7 elections has been thrown into turmoil by the reversal on Wednesday by a judicial appeals panel of the exclusion of over 500 candidates for parliament out of several thousand. The decision of the appeals panel evoked outrage among the Shiite religious parties, including the State of […]

The fragile Pakistani government of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and President Asaf Ali Zardari was deeply embarrassed Wednesday when a massive bombing killed 3 US soldiers on the ground in that country. The Pakistani public has been increasingly upset about US military and para-military (Blackwater/ Xe) actions in their country. On Tuesday, several US […]

I am going to speculate a little today, but I am hoping it is informed speculation. I think an end-game drama is playing out in Iraq between the United States and Iran, and possibly among factions of Americans in Iraq, over the likely leader of the next Iraqi government. I am going to argue that […]

Could Thomas Jefferson's DNA Trail Reveal Middle-Eastern Origins? Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the Jefferson clan in the British Isles may have descended from a Phoenician merchant family that set up a trading post up there. Maybe the Lebanese (many of whom trace their ancestry to the Phoenicians) will get more interested in Jefferson’s […]

AFP Arabic reports that a female suicide bomber detonated her payload in a tent in northeast Baghdad (Bub al-Sham) among pilgrims walking to the Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing 56 and wounding 144 according to late reports. The pilgrimage commemorates the 40th day after the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Husayn, the grandson […]

US drones killed 123 civilians, three al-Qaeda men in January The Pakistani newspaper, The News alleges that: “Afghanistan-based US predators carried out a record number of 12 deadly missile strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan in January 2010, of which 10 went wrong and failed to hit their targets, killing 123 innocent Pakistanis. The […]

Reuters reports that President Hamid Karzai is calling upon the Taliban and other insurgent groups to drop their demand that foreign forces leave the country before agreeing to attend a Loya Jirga or national tribal council in six weeks to seek reconciliation with the Karzai government. Karzai says he will go to Riyadh to seek […]