Juan Cole

A Taliban suicide bomber killed the deputy director of Afghanistan intelligence along with 21 other people in the eastern Laghman province. This sort of successful strike at a high government official suggests an inside job, with foreknowledge of the official’s itinerary. It makes you wonder how many figures in the government of Hamid Karzai are […]

Nayereh Tohidi writes in a guest op-ed for IC: Iranian Women figured prominently in the 10th presidential elections of June 2009, in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner by a wide margin. In large pre-election rallies and intense campaigns and during the post-election upheaval women played a visible and active role. Several internal conflicts […]

Bill Maher interviews Bill Moyerson Afghanistan: Maher interviews Moyers on health care: End/ (Not Continued)

One of the major headlines out of Iraq today is the release of non-insurgent casualty figures for August, which are 456, as Agence France Presse reports. This was the highest monthly toll since July of 2008. I commend AFP on how it reported this story. Unlike a lot of other pieces, this one does not […]

Michael Penn writes in a guest op-ed for IC: The thumping victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in the Japanese general elections is going to have a strong influence on the future of Japan’s relations with the Islamic world. The DPJ has pledged to make the US-Japan alliance an “equal partnership,” by which […]

I have some basic questions about the “take, clear and hold” strategy that seems to be recommended in Afghanistan by Gen. Stan McChrystal, and which is modeled on the alleged lessons of Iraq. The Sunni Arabs of Iraq, who produced most of the insurgency against the US presence and the rise of a new Shiite […]

There is an old saying in military affairs, that everyone wants to do strategy and tactics, but real men do logistics. That is, moving persons and materiel around and managing supplies seems tedious, but they are crucial to success. The Obama administration has substituted the Logistics of War for the War on Terror. It is […]

Things to worry about on a lazy August Sunday: Abdullah Abdullah, the leading rival to incumbent Hamid Karzai in the Afghanistan presidential elections, told a gathering of hundreds of his campaign workers from the southern provinces that he would not accept an outright victory by Karzai as legitimate. With 35% of the votes counted, Karzai […]

The BBC is reporting that Obama’s special envoy to AfPak, Richard Holbrooke, has had a shouting match with President Hamid Karzai over the desirability of a second round in the presidential election. At the moment, with 17% of ballots counted, Karzai is ahead of his nearest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, by 45% to 35%. That tally […]