Juan Cole

A wave of violence and bombings throughout Afghanistan left some 50 Afghan civilians and security forces and 5 US troops dead on Saturday, along with at least 50 Taliban dead.. The most deadly attacks took place in the Pashtun areas of Uruzgan and Qandahar in the south, and Kunar in the east. The northern province […]

The US and its European allies have agreed to hold talks with Iran. This step is a major change, since although the UK, France and Germany have been talking with Tehran, the Bush administration practiced aggressive ostrichism (sticking one’s head in the sand and refusing to recognize an enemy, even while making aggressive gestures). Meanwhile, […]

Pakistan has announced the arrest of a major leader of the Swat Taliban, Muslim Khan, and four other local leaders. The arrest is important for the credibility of the Swat operation, which cleared the Taliban from the major city of Mingora and surroundings, and which left dozens of Taliban dead, but which produced few arrests […]

This is the story of two Joe Wilsons, and two Americas. Both challenged a president, the most powerful man in the free world. One is a liar and the other is a courageous truth-teller. One enjoys impunity for his falsehood and epochal rudeness, bespeaking an America ruled with civility and tolerance. The other was subjected […]

A suicide truck bomber detonated his payload in a Kurdish village near Mosul early Thursday morning, killing 19 and wounding 25. The attack followed a pattern in northern Iraq of Sunni Arab guerrilla groups attacking Kurds, apparently in hopes of provoking an Arab-Kurdish civil war. In the aftermath of such a destructive struggle, they appear […]

Here is the ranking by health researchers of 19 industrialized nations by how well their health systems intervene to stop preventable deaths. The US is now dead last at number 19, below not only France and Japan but also Denmark and New Zealand. (Original study here in pdf.) The US has fallen four places in […]

Jonathan Landay of McClatchy reports as an eye-witness on the guerrilla attack in Kunar Province on an Afghan Army expedition to Ganjgal village that killed 4 US marine trainers. AFP says that 10 Afghan army personnel and one policeman were killed and ten others wounded. Landay’s powerful, Hemingwayesque account of the ambush reveals the flinty […]

Jim Krane writes in a guest op-ed for IC The contrast is startling. Dubai is Iran’s window through the US embargo, one of its largest trading partners, and an offshore Mecca for Iranian business. “Dubai is the most important city on earth to the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the exception of Tehran,” says Saeed […]

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that the Islamic Mission Party [Da’wa] headed by Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki is holding public demonstrations against Syria over its alleged role in harboring Baathist terrorists that hit Iraqi government buildings two Wednesdays ago. The demonstration in al-Hillah south of Baghdad on Monday did not strike me as that impressive, […]