Juan Cole

Testimony before Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, April 20, 2004 This brief addresses three areas. First, what mistakes have been made in the Coalition administration of Iraq, and why? Second, what is the current situation? Third, what steps can be taken to ensure the emergence of a stable and democratic Iraq? Mistakes The biggest US … Continue reading “US Mistakes in Iraq”

AP reported that the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) issued a demand early on Saturday that the US cease its military action against Fallujah and stop employing “collective punishment.” Not only has what many Iraqis call “the puppet council” taken a stand against Bush administration tactics in Iraq, but individual members are peeling off. Shiite … Continue reading “US-Appointed Iraqi Government Close to Collapse?”

The always tense relationship between the Sadrist movement among Iraqi Shiites and the US and its Coalition partners has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Perhaps a third of Iraqi Shiites are sympathetic to the radical, Khomeini-like ideology of Sadrism, and some analysts with long experience in Iraq put it at 50%. Earlier Muqtada … Continue reading “Phase II of the Anti-Occupation Revolt Begins”

Al-Hayat reports that the Interim Governing Council (IGC) is rejecting any role for the United Nations in overseeing Iraqi elections save that of “help and consultation). Iraqi National Congress spokesman Intifadh Qanbar said that the UN delegation was told by the IGC that elections would have to be a purely Iraqi affair, that Iraqis would … Continue reading “Iraqi Council Bars UN from Overseeing Elections”

Dick Clarke’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission turned into a political ping pong match, with John Lehman, former secretary of the navy, insisting that Clarke has a “real credibility problem.” I read Clarke’s book while traveling the past couple of days, and found it anything but a liberal tract. Clarke comes across as a principled … Continue reading “Clarke Smeared by Neocon Slime Machine”

David R. Sands makes excellent points about the connection between Ariel Sharon’s murder of Shaikh Ahmed Yassin on Monday and the security of Americans in Iraq and elsewhere. (I use the word “murder” to refer to extra-judicial killing outside the framework of conventional war between states). Sands points out that Iraqis in the north and … Continue reading “Israel’s Killing of Yassin Endangers Americans in Iraq and Elsewhere”

This silly question is being asked by billionnaire Rupert Murdoch’s and Conrad Black’s media outlets all over the world in blazing headlines. For some strange reason, the billionnaires aren’t happy that the Socialist Workers’ Party won the elections in Spain, and are trying to portray the outcome as cowardice on the part of the Spanish … Continue reading “Did al-Qaeda Win the Spanish Elections?”

The Baghdad/London daily az-Zaman reports that there were widespread demonstrations on Tuesday by women against the order decreeing abolition of Iraq’s uniform civil codes in favor of religious law, which they say “repeals women’s rights” in Iraq. This story appears to have been completely missed so far by the Western news media, which is a … Continue reading “Mass Demonstrations by Women, Others, Against Sudden Islamization of Iraqi Law”

Because the southern Iraqi city of Basra (1.3 million) is under British military occupation rather than American, it is little covered in the US press (does anybody else think this is odd?) There have been several British and Arab reports about the situation there recently. They indicate that although security has improved, property values are … Continue reading “Christians the Target in Southern Iraq”

Seeing a captive, disheveled Saddam on television this morning released a cascade of memories for me. I remembered the innocent Jews brutally hung in downtown Baghdad when the Baath came to power in 1968; the fencing with the Shah and the Kurds in the early 1970s; the vicious repression of the Shiites of East Baghdad, … Continue reading “Saddam Was Already Irrelevant”