Juan Cole

You know how the Republicans in the Senate refused to spend $30 billion to bring the US auto industry back from the brink? It turns out that they were prefectly happy to waste $50 billion in taxpayer money on reconstruction boondoggles in Iraq on explicity partisan grounds. A veteran Republican lobbyist, says the NYT, explicitly […]

Iraqi government spokesman Ali Dabbagh, who is visiting Washington, DC, said Friday that “We do understand that the Iraqi military is not going to get built out in the three years. We do need many more years. It might be 10 years.” Critics took him to be saying that the US military might be needed […]

A massive suicide bombing at a restaurant just north of Kirkuk killed 55 persons and wounded 120 on Thursday. The restaurant was the site of parleys between Arab tribal shaikhs and officials of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan seeking a political solution to the disposition of the oil city of Kirkuk, which is claimed by […]

It is official. According to a bipartisan Senate report, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush bear responsibility for the torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo and the tossing aside of the Geneva Conventions, which are part of US law. It mystifies me as to why […]

My column is out at Salon.com: “Does Obama understand his biggest foreign-policy challenge? The president-elect wants to work with the Pakistani government to “stamp out” terror. It’s not nearly that simple.” excerpt: ‘ To some extent, then, Pakistan’s powerful national-security apparatus has been divided against itself for much of the past decade. The contradictory agendas […]

McClatchy has gained access to a confidential United Nations document on the Lashkar-e Tayiba, the Pakistan-based terrorist group suspected of being behind the attack on Mumbai. McClatchy writes: ‘ A U.N. document obtained by McClatchy said that LeT has sent operatives to attack U.S. troops in Iraq, established a branch in Saudi Arabia and been […]

The Iranian government has just closed down the popular Hamsarchat.net internet dating service, accusing it of “promoting prostitution.” The site advertised itself as a way to find a spouse. Actually, the Iranian government has closed down internet dating services on other occasions in the past. In 2003, security forces arrested 68 young Iranians for actually […]

President-elect Barack Obama told the Chicago Tribune, “I think we’ve got a unique opportunity to reboot America’s image around the world and also in the Muslim world in particular.” He pledged an “unrelenting” wish to “create a relationship of mutual respect and partnership in countries and with peoples of good will who want their citizens […]

The Pentagon’s acting Inspector General says that despite the foreseeable need for armored vehicles in Iraq that could withstand roadside bombs, and despite the increasingly obvious need for such vehicles as the guerrilla war unfolded, the Pentagon was slow to deploy such vehicles. The article does not mention the infamous exchange between Secretary of Defense […]