Juan Cole

It was worse. Back in the bad old days of Bush’s corrupt gang, we on the left were pilloried for suggesting that the administration was manipulating terrorism-related news in order to win the 2004 elections. But when Tom Ridge says it . . . In fact, I argued in summer, 2004, that when Ridge did […]

Violence that left some 50 dead, and a relatively low turnout in some provinces marred Afghanistan’s presidential election on Thursday. McClatchy reports that the largest election monitoring organization refused to sign off on the polls’ legitimacy until more information had come in. Some 95% of polling stations were said to have opened. But the southwestern […]

The US military announced on Wednesday that 6 US troops had been killed in Afghanistan. As Afghans go to the polls in what is being widely decried as a flawed presidential election, a new Washington Post- ABC News opinion poll shows that American support for the Afghanistan War is collapsing. For the first time in […]

Speculation has been flying around in the news media and on the internet about who was behind Wednesday’s gory bombings in Baghdad. Let me lay out the various theories behing put forward, and then I’ll come back and give my view. If my conclusion is correct, it also helps answer the question of whether a […]

A series of coordinated truck bombings targeted Iraqi government ministries and other facilities on Wednesday morning, killing nearly 100 persons and wounding some 500. Poorly equipped and staffed emergency rooms in the capital were overwhelmed. One of the massive explosions targeted the Foreign Ministry building, killing nearly 60 persons and breaking windows in the nearby […]

On Wednesday morning, on the eve of Afghanistan’s elections, gunmen in the Seraji district of Kabul invaded the Pashtani Bank while laying down small arms fire and setting off explosions, a little over a mile from the presidential palace. Afghan security forces responded, and the clashes continued through Wednesday morning, with the attacks firing indiscriminately […]

Today’s story about Iraq is a story of conflict between Gen. Ray Odierno and the Iraqi parliament. Elements in the cabinet and the parliament put pressure on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki not only to put the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the US to a referendum on Jan. 15, but also to allow Iraqis […]

President Barack Obama gave a major speech on the Afghanistan War to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix, Arizona, on Monday. Ironically, the American Taliban was milling around outside the hall with guns as Obama spoke. Others have pointed out that Bush’s handlers would never have allowed any such thing. Hell, they unconstitutionally designated […]

Incumbent Afghan president Hamid Karzai is clearly feeling the breath of his main rival in the presidential contest on the back of his neck. He haughtily declined to debate his leading rivals earlier this summer. But on Sunday, he went on television to debate two of them. A third leading rival, Abdullah Abdullah, refused to […]