Juan Cole

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Iraqi parliament again on Thursday failed to pass an electoral law to govern the holding of the planned January 16 parliamentary elections. The Kurdish delegates refused to come into the parliament building, thereby denying the session a quorum. The Turkmen and Arab delegates had demanded that Kirkuk be treated […]

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Iraqi parliament again on Thursday failed to pass an electoral law to govern the holding of the planned January 16 parliamentary elections. The Kurdish delegates refused to come into the parliament building, thereby denying the session a quorum. The Turkmen and Arab delegates had demanded that Kirkuk be treated […]

The story of the gigantic car bombing of the area between Meena and Kochi bazaars in Peshawar, which killed at least 105 persons, is especially heartbreaking. Muslim extremists in Darra Adam Khel appear to have planned and carried out the attack, done by remote-controlled car bomb. They had threatened the markets with retribution if they […]

Scott Corey writes a guest op-ed for IC: The Afghanistan debate is mired in the very shortcomings that have kept us from doing well there up to now. We need a qualitative shift of policy, but we dither about metrics and troop levels. We ask ourselves if we should “get out” as if there is […]

Afghanistan continues to generate bad news at an alarming rate. Gunmen stormed a UN guest house in Kabul, deploying small arms fire and killing 3 UN staff members along with 4 other persons. A Taliban spokesman said his group was behind the attack and that it was aimed at disrupting the Nov. 7 presidential runoff […]

Scott Bittle & Jean Johnson, Authors of Who Turned Out the Lights: Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis, write in a guest op-ed for IC: Imagine if the Senate hearings about a climate change bill had been held a year ago. Think of the context: $4 per gallon gas and oil over $130 per […]

My Salon column , “Obama’s foreign policy report card,” is available online. Excerpt: ‘ When Obama came into office in January, 142,000 U.S. troops were in Iraq, conducting regular patrols of the major cities. His Republican rivals were dead set against U.S. withdrawal on a strict timetable. He faced something close to an insurrection from […]

The death toll of Sunday’s twin bombings in Baghdad has risen to 155, and tragically it turns out that two dozen children were among the victims. I still disagree with those who have been alleging that the bombing puts the upcoming parliamentary election in question, or raises questions about whether the Iraqi troops can keep […]

Al-Hayat reporting in Arabic surveyed the reactions of Iraqi politicians to the massive bombings on Sunday. As with Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, they blamed remnants of the former, Baath, regime and “al-Qaeda” (Sunni fundamentalist militants). I was struck by how they for the most part responded technocratically, by pledging a review and an improvement of […]