Juan Cole

Four pieces of news from what Washington now calls AfPak raised questions about the stability of Central and South Asia on Thursday and Friday morning. Given the energy resources in Central Asia and the emergence of India as a regional superpower, the destabilization of this region and continued American military involvement with it has momentous […]

Mortars were fired in Baghdad, killing 7, and three bombs went off in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing 4 and wounding 48. The bombings were near to holy Shiite shrines, which is extremely dangerous. The bombing of the golden dome at Samarra in February of 2006 set off a vicious Sunni-Shiite civil war […]

McClatchy reports that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met a rebuff in Moscow on Tuesday from Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the issue of further United Nations sanctions on Iran. Lavrov said of Iran, “We are convinced that threats, sanctions, or threats to use pressure are counterproductive in the present situation.” This language closely echoes […]

Scientific American summarizes two new studies giving evidence that the earth’s climate is highly sensitive to the amount of carbon dioxide in it. One is a a Science article by Aradhna K. Tripati, Christopher D. Roberts, and Robert A. Eagle. David Biello writes: ‘ “Modern-day levels of carbon dioxide were last reached about 15 million […]

A suicide bomber targeted a Pakistani military convoy in the town of Alpuri in Shangala district northeast of Peshawar on Monday, killing 41 persons and wounding 60. The bombing may have come as revenge by the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban Movement) for the killing of their leader, Baitullah Mahsud. Aljazeera English has video on […]

The USG Open Source Center Translates the Taliban reaction to President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize. Afghan Taleban ‘strongly’ condemn Obama peace prize – agencyAfghan Islamic PressFriday, October 9, 2009 Document Type: OSC Translated Text Afghan Taleban “strongly” condemn Obama peace prize – agencyText of report by private Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agencyKabul, 9 […]

Liz Sly reports from Baghdad on the three bombings that shook Ramadi, capital of al-Anbar Province, to its core on Sunday and left at least 26 dead and a hundred wounded. The first two bombings occurred outside the Governor’s mansion where delegates from the Shiite-dominated government of PM Nuri al-Maliki were meeting with Sunni tribal […]

A hostage standoff at Pakistani military HQ in Rawalpindi ended violently on Sunday morning when Pakistani troops stormed the compound where the militants had holed up with 25 hostages. Three of the hostages were killed in the course of the assault, along with two army troops and four militants. Earlier the militants, some dressed in […]

I was listening to National Public Radio on the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama, and they brought on some nonentity from one of Rupert Murdoch’s faux “magazines,” who delivered himself of the remark that when he heard the news, he broke out laughing. He laughed at Obama. He is being […]