Juan Cole

More news about my new book, Engaging the Muslim World, which is in bookstores starting today. (Barnes and Noble in particular has it on the front table as you enter the store). Novelist and historian Ron Jacobs reviews Engaging the Muslim World positively. Salon.com is running an excerpt from my book, on Hizbullah, Iran and […]

The immediate crisis in Pakistan was averted Monday morning when Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced that he was going to reinstate Iftikhar Chaudhry as chief justice of the supreme court. Chaudhry had been dismissed by dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf in 2007 in a particularly lawless way. Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Nawaz Sharif had […]

Bob Dreyfuss has a postmortem on the scuttling by the Israel lobbies of the Chas Freeman appointment to the chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council. Dreyfuss shows that well-known figures in the Israel lobbies openly led the charge against Freeman, crowed at how they had succeeded, and then simultaneously denied their own existence. He argues […]

Updated for Monday: Here are some media advisories for my book tour this week in New York City. Note that media is always a last-minute business and preemptions do occur, but this is what is scheduled: Monday, March 16 Break Room Live, Air America, 3:10 pm Tues. March 17 Democracy Now with Amy Goodman, 8 […]

I keep seeing those ads on television about victims of mesothelioma, caused by exposure to asbestos, did some googling about the issue. Lo and behold, it has an Iraq and Middle Eastern dimension (as well as implications for US Iraq vets.) As if we didn’t have enough to worry about some websites on the subject […]

Wire services reporting that Nawaz Sharif defied House arrest and went to a huge rally in Lahore. Thousands of demonstrators broke through a police blockade to demonstrate in front of the Punjab high court. Violent clashes, rock throwing and tear gassing ensued. Elements of a Punjabi vs Sindhi ethnic conflict emerging. Nawaz is now at […]

In the midst of Pakistan’s ongoing political crisis, the government of President Asaf Ali Zardari sent out highly mixed signals on Saturday and Sunday. His government looked like it might be backing off its more hard line measures. The government of President Zardari pledged to appeal to the courts to lift bans on political activity […]

The Pakistani government arrested another 200 protesters on Friday, mostly in Punjab province. The Long March demonstrators, in the meantime, reached the outskirts of Lahore. The arrests continued in the teeth of firm opposition from the Obama administration, which urged the Pakistani government to allow peaceful protests to proceed. Dawn (Karachi) reports that Washington is […]

James Caron writes in a guest op-ed for IC Some time before dawn on the 5th of this month, there was an explosion in the main building at the ziyarat, or shrine, of ‘Abd-ur-Rahman in Hazar Khwani village, North-west Frontier Province, Pakistan. While explosions have become despairingly common in this general region, with Taliban-inspired networks […]