Iraq

By William R. Polk America appears once again to be on the brink of a war. This time the war is likely to be in Syria and/or in Iraq. If we jump into one or both of these wars, they will join, by my count since our independence, about 200 significant military operations (not all […]

Bush

“If you take down the central gov’t…you could… see… pieces of Iraq fly off”- Dick Cheney 1994

contributors

Dick Cheney on why the US shouldn’t invade Iraq (1994): “Because if we had gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn’t have been anybody else with us. It would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were […]

Featured

Enter the Ayatollah: Sistani calls on Iraqis to enlist in Fight against “Terrorists”

Juan Cole

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, spiritual leader of most Iraqi Shiites, intervened forcefully in Iraqi politics on Thursday and Friday, giving his support to the national army and urging Iraqi men to volunteer to enlist and to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). He termed the hyper-Sunni group, which has taken over the […]

Barack Obama

The Second Iran-Iraq War and the American Switch

Juan Cole

Iran has decided to intervene directly in Iraq and has already sent fighters to the front, according to the Wall Street Journal, based on Iranian sources. It is alleged that Iranian special forces have helped the Iraqi army push back in Tikrit, the birth place of Saddam Hussein that was overrun earlier this week by […]

Featured

Iraq: Looming War of Shiite, Kurdish, Extremist-Sunni Militias

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] is apparently keeping control of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city of 2 million, and advanced to take Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, where they held a huge Sunni prayer session. It has been pointed out by a number of commentators that ISIS (also […]

Afghanistan

US Military Fail: Long Asian Land Wars a Route to Disaster since 1963

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt via Tomdispatch.com The United States has been at war — major boots-on-the-ground conflicts and minor interventions, firefights, air strikes, drone assassination campaigns, occupations, special ops raids, proxy conflicts, and covert actions — nearly nonstop since the Vietnam War began. That’s more than half a century of experience with war, American-style, and yet […]

Democracy

The Fall of Mosul and the False Promises of Modern History

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The fall of Mosul to the radical, extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a set of historical indictments. Mosul is Iraq’s second largest city, population roughly 2 million (think Houston) until today, when much of the population was fleeing. While this would-be al-Qaeda affiliate took part of Falluja and […]

Iraq

Iraq: 450,000 have fled al-Anbar as Gov’t Deploys Militias against al-Qaeda

contributors

Euronews reports: “Security slips further in Iraq as car bombs hit Baghdad” Ahmad Hadi gives the background at Niqash.org Members of an extremist Shiite Muslim militia have been recruited to fight Sunni Muslim rebels and militias in Iraq’s Anbar province. But for some Baghdad-based fighters the battle is taking place too close to home: They’re […]

Arab Spring

Egypt, Syria, Libya . . . . What is the Appeal of Phoney Elections in the Middle East?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The world has been treated to a whole series of “elections” in the Middle East recently. Iraq had parliamentary elections, Libya’s parliament voted for a new prime minister, and Egypt and Syria had presidential elections. This summer, Turkey will have elections. It would be nice if all these elections signaled a turn […]