Juan Cole

My interview at Rooz Online on Iran is now up. The trial of 100 leading protesters against the announced outcome of the June 12 presidential elections commenced on Saturday, complete with pitiful coerced recantations. Amazingly, former president Mohammad Khatami’s web site openly denounced the trial as just that, a show trial. Khatami’s problem was always […]

The NYT on Friday published a memo from Col. Timothy R. Reese, Chief, Baghdad Operations Command Advisory Team, MND-B, Baghdad, Iraq, in which he argued for a more or less immediate departure of US troops from Iraq. AP notes that most US officers in Iraq do not agree with Reese. Some believe he is being […]

Posted to an email list. I made some minor spelling corrections. This is going to be a slightly disjointed email, I’m sorry in advanced. It’s already well passed midnight here and we just finished returning from the streets protesting. But I wanted to make sure to get this out tonight. Today marked the 40th day […]

The political opposition in Iran held commemorations in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Ahvaz and Rasht for the deaths of protesters at the hands of security forces on June 20, especially for Neda Agha-Soltan, a young woman whose last moments on videotape became a heartbreaking sensation throughout the world. In Shiite Islam, mourning sessions are conducted for […]

AFP says that fighting went on for a second day on Wednesday inside the Camp Ashraf compound of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (People’s Holy Warriors or MEK) between Iraqi security forces and camp residents. The Iraqi government is reportedly saying that the camp had been secured by late Wednesday. The some 3000 Iranians in the camp […]

Iraqi security forces from the Ministry of the Interior raided Camp Ashraf, the stronghold of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) terrorist cult in eastern Iraq, on Tuesday, killing at least four MEK members, wounding 21, and arresting 28. The terrorist group has been attempting to destabilize Iran through bombings and assassinations for decades and was given […]

My essay, “Armageddon at the Top of the World: Not!: A Century of Frenzy over the North-West Frontier,” has just been posted at Tomdispatch.com. Excerpt: ‘ Despite being among the poorest people in the world, the inhabitants of the craggy northwest of what is now Pakistan have managed to throw a series of frights into […]

William R. Polk writes in a guest editorial for IC: Probably like most of you, I am engaged in a daily attempt to make up my mind about President Obama. I was an early supporter. And as a former Washington “player,” I am aware how difficult is his position. I began to worry when he […]

On Sunday, the Change List in the Kurdistan Regional Government elections made the startling claim that it had won in Sulaimaniya, a long time stronghold of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan of aging Iraqi president Jalal Talabani. Noshirvan Mustafa, the leader of Change, broke with the PUK two years ago, alleging corruption and abuse of […]