November 09, 2008

Look What's Hiding Behind the SOFA

For the past year the Iraq and US governments (not really, but we'll get to that later) have been working on a bilateral agreement regarding the scope and working details...
Posted by Don Bacon at 11:15 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

July 14, 2008

Arlington Memorial Disgrace

Today's NYTimes editorial, Witnessing the War Dead, From Afar tears rather deeply at me (sh). No, I've never been a fan of this Iraq war and occupation. Alas, I have...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 07:53 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

July 10, 2008

Bush misquotes Jefferson

Stirred by President Bush's actual comments at Monticello on July 4th, Ruhi Ramazani and I (sh) published a comment in today's Richmond Times-Dispatch: Bush's War Betrays the Sage of Monticello's...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 10:47 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

June 02, 2008

Iraq: The big nationalist showdown about to start?

US casualties in Iraq in May declined to 19 fatalities, the lowest monthly level since the invasion was launched 63 months ago. However, the attention of most Iraqis has now...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:32 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

July 07, 2007

Jefferson & the Reign of Witches

Kudos to the Baltimore Sun for its July 4th editorial. Contrary to the keen imagination of another former "Jefferson Fellow" now at Oxford, I (Scott), as far as I know,...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 05:00 PM | Fulltext link (15 comments)

March 28, 2007

Craig Murray: About that "Fake British Map"

I have been extremely displeased by the media reporting regarding the ongoing Iran-Britain "detainee" crisis. The boundaries questons surrounding the Shatt/Arvand River are hardly of recent vintage. They are instead...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 10:15 PM | Fulltext link (37 comments)

March 27, 2007

The Mother of all Sermons

(Note: this is Scott Harrop writing.) Four years ago this past week, 23 March 2003 to be exact, I heard what for me then was the “mother of all sermons.”...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 11:24 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

August 22, 2005

Cole: too little, too late, too militaristic

I was a little late getting round to reading Juan Cole's 10-point plan for reconfiguring the US footrprint in Iraq. His basic idea seems to be to try to replicate...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:58 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

August 17, 2005

Settler provocateurs (and the media)

I am absolutely disgusted by the lead on this new AP story: NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip - Israeli troops dragged sobbing Jewish settlers out of homes, synagogues and even a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:13 PM | Fulltext link (19 comments)

August 12, 2005

Iraqi poll's bad news for Jaafari

[Version edited for clarity here...] An Iraqi NGO called the Tammuz ("July") Foundation for Social Development has just completed an opinion poll of 265 citizens in four neighborhoods of Baghdad....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:56 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

August 07, 2005

Iraq constitution (still yawning)

Steadfast JWN readers will recall that I wrote here a week ago that I judged the current flurry of discussions in Iraq over a new, "permanent" constitution to be quite...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:54 PM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

August 01, 2005

Faiza, Khalid, Raed

There is a lovely meditation on Faiza's blog last night. She was recounting a conversation she had with God recently... we said after the war : OK, this is America...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:04 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

July 31, 2005

Iraqi constitutional big yawn

So here's why right now, as opposed to a few months ago, I'm not getting myself all worked up over Iraq's constitutional discussions: I don't think that at this late...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:46 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

In 'The Nation'

A forum on Iraq that includes views from Juan Cole, Nir Rosen, Shibley Telhami, and me is in the upcoming issue of The Nation. Check it out. (I wrote that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:15 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

July 29, 2005

Anti-Sunni revenge killings in Iraq?

At the bottom of Philip Giraldi's piece in the August 1 American Conservative is this item: There is increasing evidence that the Iraqi police forces, now under Shiite control,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:48 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

July 23, 2005

Khalid is free

As Susan has noted, Khalid Jarrar is now free. Thank God (or whatever other great life-preserving force you look to and believe in.) And now, about those other 9,999 political...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:53 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

July 21, 2005

Column on withdrawing from Iraq

My column calling for a total, speedy, and generous US withdrawal from Iraq is in today's CSM. In it, I write: The interests of both Americans and Iraqis have been...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:46 AM | Fulltext link (31 comments)

July 20, 2005

Trials of trying Saddam, revisited

Ways back in mid-december 2003, right after Saddam Hussein was captured, I wrote here: No doubt about it: the trial of Saddam Hussein has many, many political aspects to it....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:05 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

July 19, 2005

Name that plan!

I've been thinking that, to really "market" the proposal for a US exit from from Iraq that is total, speedy, and generous, it needs some kind of a snappy name....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:32 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

July 18, 2005

A too-weak 'alternative'?

Carl Conetta, co-director of a small Washington-based NGO called the "Project on Defense Alternatives" has come out with a six-point plan for arriving at what he-- somewhat misleadingly-- calls a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:45 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

Buy a kidney, anyone?

Illegal trade in human organs, including visits from organ-harvesting 'medical tourists', emerges in occupied Iraq....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:52 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

July 15, 2005

Iraqi constitution as US drawdown pretext?

Back in the 1990s, the rushed holding of an "election" was, in several recently strife-torn countries, used as a prime exit strategy for those other nations that were eager to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:34 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

July 11, 2005

Drawdown in Iraq: background and present priorities

There's an excellent piece in today's NYT about the intense manpower crunch the US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have come up against, as more and more Reserve and National...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:36 AM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

July 10, 2005

Slouching toward withdrawal

I've been reading the account in today's London Mail on Sunday of the leaked memo in which British Defence Minister John Reid last month set out plans to withdraw some...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:20 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

Former CIA director calls for Iraq withdrawal

I guess I missed this news item when it happened, back on June 7. Speaking at Harvard, former CIA Director John Deutch, challenged the views of both Republicans and Democrats...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:52 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

July 06, 2005

Kurdistan-Kosovo

In the post I wrote yesterday outlining my 9-point exit plan from Iraq, I drew an analogy between the distinctly unsettled and unsettling situation in Kosovo today, six years after...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:24 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

How to exit from Iraq

For some reason, the Bush administration has still not taken the advice I've been giving it for more than two years now, quite simply to get out of Iraq. I...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:04 AM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

June 27, 2005

Iraq open thread #5

A horrible connection here in Martinborough, New Zealand. I'll leave this thread here for you all to discuss Iraq, Bush's Tuesday speech, etc. I have reams of things I've written...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:18 AM | Fulltext link (112 comments)

June 22, 2005

US/Iraq: dimensions of the pullback to come

It is now becoming increasingly clear that the US position in Iraq is, quite literally, unwinnable. (This is the case despite the absence of any defintive statement from the US...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:33 PM | Fulltext link (15 comments)

A soldier's-eye view

Great writing from embedded WaPo journo Ann Scott Tyson. (Formerly of the CSM.) She was with a combat unit in Ramadi. Short excerpt: When the platoon medic sees that insurgents...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:28 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

June 19, 2005

'Our Green Zone correspondent' on troop levels, unwinnability

John Burns, who is the NYT's "our man in the Green Zone" of Baghdad, has an important piece in Sunday's paper that refers clearly to (un-named) US officers there complaining...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:30 PM | Fulltext link (21 comments)

June 12, 2005

Secret revealed

I'm in Boston with Faiza of A Family in Baghdad this weekend. I'd originally been hoping that Susan of Dancewater could be with the two of us someplace, but that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:50 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

June 10, 2005

Looks a lot like apartheid to me

WaPo reporters Anthony Shadid and Steve Fainaru had a great piece in today's paper. Shadid, who speaks Arabic, went along with one of the newly forming "Iraqi" fighting units, and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:44 PM | Fulltext link (38 comments)

June 08, 2005

Good sense on the Iraqi constitution

Somebody else agrees with my view that constitution-writing in Iraq is too weighty a matter to be rushed. Today, the Crisis Group (formerly the International Crisis Group) came out with...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:53 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

June 05, 2005

Trying Saddam?

How many times have we heard announcements from "officials" in Iraq that Saddam Hussein is "about to be put on trial-- any day now"? The latest one came in this...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:19 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

June 04, 2005

Iraqi constitution-writing, contd.

Alert readers will have noted that last night I put the "Democracy Denied in Iraq" counter back up onto the JWN sidebar. I did so for two main reasons: (1)...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:15 AM | Fulltext link (60 comments)

June 03, 2005

Democracy truly denied in Iraq?

Long-time JWN readers probably recall how much I hoped that the January 30th elections could provide a way for a credible, accountable-to-Iraqis administration to emerge inside Iraq, while also allowing...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:15 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

May 31, 2005

Muhsin Abdul-Hamid's day in detention

It is, of course, quite possible that the US command in Iraq is so deeply ignorant and dysfunctional that it would send troops to arrest Muhsin Abdul-Hamid-- the leader of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:16 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

May 24, 2005

Iraq open thread #4

I'm busy teaching through the end of this week. It's intense but good. Carry on your conversations here, friends! I feel very out of touch......
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:05 PM | Fulltext link (54 comments)

May 12, 2005

Iraq open thread #3

Y'all know what to do. (As for me, of course I have lots of "great thoughts" on the topic germinating here. But iron self-discipline is keeping me on task with...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:32 PM | Fulltext link (44 comments)

May 05, 2005

Approaching 1,600

Every Thursday, almost without fail, I join my friends from the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice in holding a one-hour "peace presence" on one of the busy corners in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:09 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

Read Matt and weep

Matt, over at Today in Iraq, put up the most amazing post yesterday, to mark the second anniversary of the "Mission Accomplished" peroration by Our Great Leader. If you can't...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:45 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

May 03, 2005

Life, war, bombs, despair

Read Riverbend's Monday post from her family's neighborhood in Baghdad. I lived through six years of just such horror during the civil war in Lebanon in the 1970s. Including the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:50 AM | Fulltext link (25 comments)

May 01, 2005

The caudillo of Samarra

This article by Peter Maass in today's NYT magazine is really worth reading. It's about some extremely thuggish ex-Baathists in Iraq whom Allawi's Interior Minister, Falah Naqib, put in charge...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:58 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

April 28, 2005

Democracy possibly proceeding in Iraq?

I have decided to take down-- for now!-- the "Democracy Denied in Iraq" counter that has been a feature of the JWN sidebar for more than seven weeks now. On...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:27 AM | Fulltext link (36 comments)

April 27, 2005

Wafiq al-Samarai

Yesterday, I noted here that Iraq's transitional President, Jalal Talabani, has a "security counsellor" called Wafiq al-Samarai. Commenter "Badr" noted that the position should probably be translated as "national security...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:17 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

April 26, 2005

'Iraqi Press Monitor' resumes

Yesterday, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting put out the first edition of its once-daily 'Iraqi Press Monitor' since February 2nd. I'm glad they've cranked it up again. It's...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:45 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

April 24, 2005

Bushies close to losing Iraqi 'second chance'?

It's twelve weeks today since January's significant (if certainly not perfect) multi-party election in Iraq. And still, the party list that won the majority of seats has been prevented-- both...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:16 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

April 23, 2005

The 'fog of investigations'

WaPo article by Josh White today: An Army inspector general's report has cleared senior Army officers of wrongdoing in the abuse of military prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere, government officials...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:20 AM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

April 21, 2005

Iraq open thread #2

I'm in a real rush today. There was an interesting article in toway's WaPo by Ann Scott Tyson (embedded). It gave a clear picture of how the US forces have...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:11 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

April 19, 2005

Iraq: parliamentarian humiliated by US soldiers

This, from AP's Thomas Wagner a couple of hourse ago: in the National Assembly, lawmaker Fattah al-Sheik stood and cried as he described being stopped at a checkpoint on the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:59 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

"We have a pope"

So today, the western media have breathlessly broken into all their news bulletins to say that the cry of "habemus papum" (We have a pope) has gone up from the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:40 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

April 17, 2005

Marla Ruzicka, RIP

Marla Ruzicka was an extremely compassionate and talented person who sought constantly to understand, chart, and publicize the steep human costs of war. Any war. Including in Iraq. At the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:58 PM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

April 14, 2005

Raed and friends, doing God's work

Folks who made a donation to the campaign mounted by the Jarrar family of Baghdad to get urgently needed medical supplies to Iraqis in distress should check out the entries...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:44 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

April 13, 2005

CSM column on Iraq transition

My column in Thursday's CSM on the Iraqi transition is now up on their website. I've also archived it here. Here's the core of what I'm writing: Can the hoped-for...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:39 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

April 12, 2005

US interrogation centers in Iraq till 2009!

Rosa Prince of London Daily Mirror has reported that: THE US Army plans to remain in Iraq until at least 2009, secret documents obtained by the Mirror reveal. Contract tender...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:28 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

April 11, 2005

33% of the constitutional timetable gone

Today, the "Democracy denied in Iraq" counter stands at 71 days. That is exactly one-third of the 213-day period allowed by Paul Bremer's "Transitional Administrative Law" for the National Assembly...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:40 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

Mass detentions and 'democracy', Iraq

AFP reported yesterday that, US and Iraqi forces are holding a record 17,000 men and women -- most without being formally charged -- and those in Iraqi-controlled jails live often...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:41 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

April 10, 2005

Estimating numbers in demos

Estimating the numbers of people who take part in big political gatherings is never an exact science, but it's important to try to get the best "ballpark figure" available. As...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:52 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

April 09, 2005

Moqtada reframes Iraqi politics

With the relative success of the mass rally his people organized in Firdaws Square today, Shiite Muslim firebrand Moqtada Sadr looks set to change the main "frame" within which Iraqi...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:14 PM | Fulltext link (21 comments)

April 07, 2005

Iraq: PM named but no government yet

Jalal Talabani was sworn in as Iraq's President just now, and he then immediately (or, not quite immediately enough) named Ibrahim al-Jaafari as Prime Minister. According to the TAL, this...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:14 PM | Fulltext link (19 comments)

April 06, 2005

Iraq: over one hump

So finally today, 66 days after the January 30 election, the members of the National Assembly elected that day were able to reach agreement on an interim President, veteran PUK...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:14 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

April 05, 2005

Iraq open thread, #1

I'm afraid I have been too busy with other things to write much about Iraq recently. From one point of view, though, the ever-rising number on JWN's "Democracy denied in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:05 AM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

April 04, 2005

Riverbend Rocks!

A combination of physiology and Real Life have taken over Helena's brain and ability to blog today. I was going to post an open thread so y'all could post comments...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:44 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

March 29, 2005

'Democracy' takes battering, Iraq

I don't for one moment enjoy being a Cassandra-like bearer of bad news when it comes to the democratization project in Iraq. I would love to have had my earlier...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:27 PM | Fulltext link (33 comments)

March 26, 2005

Iraq: political stasis and state erosion

The steady passage of time has now eaten up 25.8% of the time allowed in Paul Bremer's dysfunctional "TAL" regime for Iraq's elected leaders and Assembly to come to agreement...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:00 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

March 22, 2005

Sistani's justified impatience

So today, 51 days after the election in Iraq, Ayatollah Sistani is finally reported as expressing his "discontent" over the delay. 51 days is no small matter. According to Paul...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:53 AM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

March 19, 2005

The price of democracy? (Iraq)

This piece of reporting, by Awadh al-Taee and Steve Negus of the Financial Times, is worth reading every word of. It adds another dimension to the "First shoot, then lie"...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:29 AM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

March 15, 2005

Post-election terror in Iraq

My "democracy denied in Iraq" counter now stands at 44 days since the Iraqi elections with no elected government in place there yet. (Yes, I just learned that the elected...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:46 PM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

March 12, 2005

Talking of Riverbend...

Two great new posts from Riverbend this week. This woman's phenomenal! (Where did I read she's having a book come out soon? Oh, here-- it's due out next month...) So,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:40 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

March 05, 2005

Political uncertainty, Iraq

"They shoot hostage-rescuers, don't they?" is not the only news story in Iraq these days. (Though I must admit it's a pretty darn' shocking one.) But check out Zaineb Naji's...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:38 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

March 02, 2005

Democracy denied in Iraq

Check out the new element near the top of the sidebar on the JWN front page. It's about a week since I started getting very curious as to why the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:05 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

February 23, 2005

Parsing Iraq's TAL: why bother?

My dear friend Juan Cole has recently devoted quite some space on his blog to his own and others' parsings of the notorious "Transitional Administrative Law" (TAL) that desert fashion...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:29 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

February 21, 2005

Ashoura attacked again this year...

I just want to note, even if belatedly, the terrible human cost the Iraqi Shiites have been paying over their recent commemoration of Ashoura, in terms of the more than...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:03 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

February 19, 2005

Riverbend's post-election view

Here is a fascinating new post from Riverbend yesterday. (Thanks to commenter Frank for alerting me to this one-- and also, its predecessor from River, which is likewise worth reading.)...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:48 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

February 17, 2005

Faiza on the post-elections

Faiza has a good new English-language post up, containing her reflections on the post-election scene. She is still, like many thousands of Iraqis, hanging around in a neighboring country-- in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:58 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

February 14, 2005

A question about Iraq's vote-count

I was just reading this story from AP, which attributed to the Iraqi Electoral Commission the same final distribution of the 275 seats in the National Assembly that AP had...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:19 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

February 13, 2005

UIA at around 50%

So finally, two whole weeks after Iraqis went to the polls, we have preliminary results of the Jan 30 election. That story, from AP, gave only the (preliminary) totals for...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:57 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

February 02, 2005

Faiza's view of elections

I've been running around so much recently that I hadn't checked Faiza's blog for a while. I should have. Last Friday she posted this, about the elections. She's as wise...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:10 PM | Fulltext link (145 comments)

February 01, 2005

Question time in Iraq...

(1) Why has Iyad Allawi been acting as though he has already won the election? (2) Why did George Bush call Allawi to "congratulate" him on the election? (3) Why...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:00 PM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

January 28, 2005

Ghaith's photo essay for the BBC

The BBC website has a good little photo essay about Iraqis' views of the election. It's been compiled by Raed's friend Ghaith, which gives me a lot of confidence. Alongside...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:06 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

January 26, 2005

"Transitional" elections: Iraq and South Africa

In the early 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the successful staging of democratic elections in various spots around the world became the act of political ritual that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:36 AM | Fulltext link (25 comments)

January 24, 2005

Professional "idealists" meeting reality

I've written a bit here before now (November 2003, January 2004) about the totally unproductive way in which North Carolina's Research Triangle Institute (RTI) approached the task of "building democracy"...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:35 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

January 20, 2005

An announced deadline for a US withdrawal: pro or con?

Once again today, Juan Cole is agonizing over the "pros and cons"-- for, I assume, the Iraqis?-- of the US setting a firm deadline for the withdrawal of their forces...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:05 AM | Fulltext link (69 comments)

January 15, 2005

Al-Hayat reporting on Iraqi elections

I'm just quickly working my way through the top of an article in Sunday's Al-Hayat (Jan. 16th). It's titled, "The fear of a Sunni boycott hangs over the election campaign...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:50 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

January 09, 2005

Sistani speaks to the Sunnis

On Friday, I wrote here that, " I would love to see [Sistani] or someone high up on the UIA list that he helped form making a really dramatic move...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:43 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

December 28, 2004

Fear (and a glimmer of hope) in Iraq?

Monday's attack against the Baghdad headquarters of the (Shiite) Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which killed 13 SCIRI members, was only the latest in a long string...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:54 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

December 21, 2004

Violence in Iraq

Yankeedoodle is now sharing his duties at Today in Iraq with "Matt". Between them, they make a truly stellar team and they've made TII into even more of a must-read...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:42 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

December 11, 2004

Iraq: KDP urging postponement?

In this post Thursday, I noted it seemed surprising that the two big Kurdish parties hadn't yet presented their promised joint list for Iraq's national elections. Today, from IWPR's "Iraqi...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:13 AM | Fulltext link (15 comments)

December 09, 2004

Shi-ite-led list unveiled

At a press conference in Baghdad a couple of hours ago Hussain al-Shahristani, the Iraqi Shi-ite pol (and former nuclear scientist) who was tipped for the "interim PM" post that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:04 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

Jordan; Iraqi exile ballots; Orwell

Tuesday, that well-known "democrat" Jordan's King Abdullah (not!) railed vociferously against Iranian influence in the upcoming Iraqi elections. Yesterday (or so), the Iraqi newspaper Ad-dustour reported that Prime Minister Iyad...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:15 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

November 29, 2004

Catching up with Nir Rosen

I'm a bit behind with my reading. I just want to bookmark this piece by Nir Rosen, written in October I think. He was embedded with an Armored Cavalry Regiment...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:21 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

November 28, 2004

Testimonies from Fallujah

Terrible, searing testimonies now coming out from inside Fallujah. If you can only read one, I suggest this one from a Russian (or, Turko-Russian?) doctor who'd been working in one...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:46 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

November 19, 2004

Trainor on Fallujah, etc.

Retired 3-star Marine General Bernard Trainor is sort of an intellectual's military leader. Well, they like to fawn all over him at Harvard University's prestigious "Kenndy School of Government", where...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:57 AM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

November 18, 2004

Riverbend's family "celebrates" Eid

The Eid al-Fitr, which comes at the end of Ramadan, is a much-loved Muslim family feast. Families gather for long visits. The kids get new outfits. Everyone eats a lot...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:40 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

Fallujah battle continues

Update, Thursday 1400 GMT: In addition to all the following, even the New York Times is reporting that "Senior Marine intelligence officers in Iraq are ... emphasizing that expectations for...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:11 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

November 15, 2004

Shutting down the hospital

US military commanders in Iraq have identified a major new threat-- Iraqi hospitals! That seems the only conclusion to be drawn from this piece of spine-chilling reporting from the NYT's...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:25 AM | Fulltext link (18 comments)

Disproportionate violence

Andrew Mack, former director of Kofi Annan's strategic planning unit, has a very important and carefully argued piece in the Japan Times today. He focuses on the issue of the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:31 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

November 14, 2004

Dahr Jamail reports Iraq

Here are two good pieces of reporting by Dahr Jamail: This is the latest post (Nov 12) on his blog. In it he describes driving round Baghdad with his driver/friend/interpeter...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:52 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

November 13, 2004

"Bush war" in Iraq: denial of water

As part of the Bush/Allawist campaign to subdue Iraq's cities, the US military has been turning off the water to many of them. You can imagine what this means for...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:53 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

November 09, 2004

Fallujah: the new world "order"

I can't add much to what everyone is learning, thinking, and feeling these days about Fallujah. I just note that the current massive incursion of foreign (that is, US) fighters...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:38 AM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

November 07, 2004

"Satan" in Fallujah

I saw this clip on the Beeb last night and have just found the story on their website. It's the one where a US Marines Colonel called Gareth Brandl says:...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:47 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

November 06, 2004

Dahr Jamail returns to Iraq

I'm sitting here in Beirut sifting a zillion things in my mind... One is regret that I haven't mustered the courage to do what I had hoped to do while...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:06 AM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

November 04, 2004

Bush's war against Iraqi cities

We can be pretty sure that a jubilant Prez Bush, his mandate strengthened, will continue the war-to-the-finish against Fallujah. (Read Riverbend's views of this here.) How will the "decisive" phase...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:16 AM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

October 28, 2004

Explosives heist: the real story

AP's Christopher Chester has a really clear "Q&A" presentation of the facts around the looting of the explosives from Al-Qaqaa. He goes thru the following facts: -- that the IAEA...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:24 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

October 26, 2004

Riverbend in October

Veteran Iraqi blog-meistress Riverbend has had three good posts (out of three-- a great record, Riv!) so far in October. Thank God she's back, even if only intermittently. The most...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:03 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

October 24, 2004

Friday sermons from Iraq

Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:22 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

October 22, 2004

Faiza in English: read, weep, donate

Update of Oct. 24th: Regarding the Jarrar family's humanitarian-aid project, you can send donations to Majid in Canada by mail. He writes on his blog that the address is: Attn....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:31 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

October 20, 2004

Shirin (and HC) on Falluja

Well-informed JWN frequent-commenter Shirin responded to my invitation to give us more of her impressions of the history of the insurgency in Fallujah. I thought her comment, which was posted...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:38 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

Sistani, and US Jews

These are two separate, but very important, news items that I picked up from JWN linkees. First this, from Juan Cole yesterday. He reports on an item from AFP/ ash-Sharq...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:22 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

October 16, 2004

US in Iraq: crumbling?

So many indicators of a crumbling of the US-Allawist position in Iraq! (1) The emergence of the news about Wednesday's mini-mutiny by 18 members of a supply US Army supply...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:35 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

October 10, 2004

Truths from Iraq

I am so happy about the news of the ceasefire agreed for Sadr City between the Sadrists, the Iraqi army, and the Americans. May it hold! May it be extended...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:44 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

September 30, 2004

Iraqi political news from IWPR

I am still intrigued by the different windows into Iraq's internal politcs that are provided by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting's near-daily Iraqi Press Monitor. Reading the IPM...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:59 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

September 28, 2004

Great news!

The Simonas and their Iraqi colleagues are free! The Palestinian-Israeli CNN employee is free! Now, let's pray for the wellbeing of everyone else who is unjustly detained, whether by governmental...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:08 PM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

Iraq's four Grand Ayatollahs get it together?

Juan Cole today cites a Hayat news report that Grand Ayatollah Ishaq Fayyad has expressed some concern about talk of postponing the Iraqi elections beyond next January. Fayyad reportedly said...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:52 AM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

September 23, 2004

Sistani and the prospect for Iraqi elections

Ever since I read this piece by Dexter Filkins in today's NYT, I've been casting around for more information about Sistani's current positions. It led with this: Grand Ayatollah Ali...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:15 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

Good sense from Jessica Mathews

Jessica Mathews, the head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has a generally excellent op-ed in today's WaPo. It's titled "Match Iraq Policy to Reality". This op-ed, allied to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:57 AM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

September 22, 2004

Best Juan Cole post ever

It's here. If you haven't read it yet, go straight there....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:52 AM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

September 21, 2004

Dehumanization alerts, Iraq

One way that people prepare themselves--and any onlookers--for their own use of violence against other people is by calling the intended victims by names designed to dehumanize and marginalize them,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:08 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

September 19, 2004

What happened in Tall Afar

The WaPo's Steve Fainaru, embedded with some US military in northern Iraq, has a telling story deep in today's paper that recreates some of the details of the battle in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:12 PM | Fulltext link (15 comments)

September 14, 2004

Iraq on fire

The Bushites, who dominate every single rung on the ladder of violence-escalation in Iraq, have recently been systematically choosing escalation over de-escalation... And escalation is what they have got. Only...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:43 AM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

September 08, 2004

Political progress: the missing element in Iraq

Okay, one more time, I want to restate my views on what's really needed in Iraq. These views are based on my 30 years as a Middle East analyst, my...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:25 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

The CSM column on Iraqi elections

My Sept. 9 column in the CSM on the need for a US de-escalation in Iraq and more focus on the election process there is now up on their website:...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:24 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

September 07, 2004

The first 1,000

It is a somber moment. It happened today: according to AP, 999 US service members have now died in Iraq, along with three civilian employees of the military. Total: 1,002...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:43 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

September 03, 2004

A week of politics in Iraq

It must have been a fascinating week for politics in Iraq... Wish I were there! I guess everyone's still dealing with the fallout from Sistani's dramatic return last week, and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:40 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

August 30, 2004

More greats from Faiza

Faiza Jarrar, the wise and talented author of A family in Baghdad, had another great English-language post up yesterday. It looked like she wrote it last Friday--which was SUCH a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:41 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

Interview with Iyad Moussawi, translated

On a Comments board here last week, one commenter referred to an interview Sayyid Iyad Moussawi (or, in French, Ayad Moussawi) gave to Le Monde's Baghdad correspondent, last Thursday (8/26)....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:02 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

August 29, 2004

Outbreak of politics in Iraq?

The major media are usually drawn to war and violence like a moth to light. Bang-bang-bang!!! That will get you on the front page! Anyway, war is just so much...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:21 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

August 27, 2004

Salam/Pax is back!

Hey, folks, Salam/Pax has been blogging from Baghdad since August 9! This is great news for all of us who relied on his wry, Baghdad-based view of world in the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:41 AM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

August 26, 2004

Transition time in Najaf and all Iraq?

The latest reports from Najaf show a point in Iraq's history that seems to be a real turning-point. The Greek word for that is "crisis". It seems the situation still...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:19 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

August 25, 2004

Can Sistani save the situation?

This is the best news I could imagine from Iraq. It's a Reuters report from Michael Georgy in Najaf, saying that Ayatollah Sistani had already reached Basra from Kuwait in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:00 AM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

August 19, 2004

US tanks rampaging in Najaf

Tragic folly. Tragic folly. Why do the US tanks prowling round Najaf look so like the Israeli tanks prowling round Ramallah? Why do US tanks in Sadr City look like...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:27 AM | Fulltext link (37 comments)

August 18, 2004

Najaf: US command chain broken

Yesterday evening I started to tease apart some of the political stuff that's been happening in Iraq, over the now-linked issues of Moqtada's stand-off in Najaf and the National Conference...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:39 AM | Fulltext link (28 comments)

August 17, 2004

Politics in Iraq

The delegation from Baghdad did not get to meet Moqtada Sadr Tuesday. (I wonder if that had anything to do with the possibility that the delegates flew into Najaf on...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:39 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

Iraq: notes on (journalistic) sources

I want to go back briefly to the judgment Juan Cole made Monday when he compared the coverage of the NatConf in that day's NYT and WaPo. Unlike me, he...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:31 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

Faiza's view: read it!

Friends, Faiza of A Family in Baghdad has a wonderful post up today, describing events in her life between August 11 and August 14--in English. (She's had it up in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:14 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

August 16, 2004

More re "Iraqi" forces and Najaf

The inimitable Yankeedoodle today cites a great little bit of Knight-Ridder reporting from Iraq about the scale of desertions from the Iraqi front-line forces who were asked to join the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:23 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

August 15, 2004

Eyes on Najaf

There are many hotspots of confrontation in Iraq these days--let's say, in practically every major city. But easily the most politically potent, right now, is the one in Najaf. In...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:24 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

August 14, 2004

US/Allawi have overplayed their hand

** Newsflash!** While I was writing the following, the first reports came in of the breakdown of the Sadr-Allawi peace talks. That doesn't alter much of the following, and I've...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:17 AM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

August 12, 2004

Najaf: turning point for whom?

One week into the present Battle of Najaf it seems clearer than ever that Allawi and his US backers are determined to win this battle in a way that imposes...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:45 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

August 11, 2004

Good reporting from Iraq

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting (to which recently started linking on the sidebar here) has a great-looking quartet of new stories up today from their reportorial trainees there:...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:15 PM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

August 09, 2004

On the Chalabi indictments

Well, first, it really couldn't have happened to a nice pair of guys! How are the mighty fallen, eh? From schmoozing with Laura Bush at the State of the Union...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:37 PM | Fulltext link (15 comments)

Ghaith, from Najaf

Juan Cole's had a couple of link recently to pieces from Iraq in the Guardian by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. Somehow, I believe that's Salam/Pax's friend 'G', but I may be wrong....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:26 PM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

July 30, 2004

Getting 'traction' in Iraq

On a number of occasions, including in this July 2003 JWN post, I've reflected on the "slippery" nature of the Iraq question. Nowadays, the problem of the lack of traction...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:51 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

July 26, 2004

Allawi's blond beasts

I don't think I'm an anti-white racist... But am I the only person who's a bit perplexed by all the repeated pictures of Iyad Allawi, the 'prime minister' of the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:54 AM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

July 25, 2004

Riverbend on women in Iraq

Last August, there burst into the blogosphere a shining new light by the name of Riverbend. In her very first post, August 17, 2003, she told us: A little bit...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:57 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

July 20, 2004

Ground-level reports from inside Iraq

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting has put some very good pieces up in the past couple of days. In its Iraq collection, it has this story from an...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:31 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

July 07, 2004

Those charming Chalabis (contd.)

Douglas McCollam has a pretty well-researched piece in the latest Columbia Journalism Review titled "How Chalabi played the press". His focus is, not surprisingly, on the run-up to the war,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:21 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

June 22, 2004

Israelis in Iraq

I have been shocked--"shocked!"-- to read in Sy Hersh's latest piece in the New Yorker that Israelis, including Mossad operatives, have been all over Iraqi Kurdistan in the past 18...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:22 PM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

June 15, 2004

Real politics inside Iraq? ~Part 2

Just a few more indicators to add to what I wrote about here Sunday... Juan Cole posted today news from Az-Zaman that: Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has decided to send...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:42 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

June 13, 2004

Real politics starting inside Iraq?

It is possible, just possible, that the coming weeks will see the emergence of real internal politics inside Iraq. That is, the kind of politics marked by realistic discussion...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:40 AM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

June 07, 2004

This just in!

Using its wellknown and amazingly strong capacity for effective diplomacy, the Bush administration has been able to announce that after long, very complex negotiations with "Iraq" it has been able...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:02 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

June 02, 2004

Kurds doing okay

Am I the only person remarking on this-- but aren't the Kurds doing pretty well in the current government-forming process? They have two of the top five jobs. In addition,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:58 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

Transitional justice and Iraq

I've just been reading a really intriguing report about the attitudes of Iraqis towards reconciliation and 'justice' that has been published by a body called the International Center for Transitional...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:38 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

May 31, 2004

Après nous, le deluge?

It strikes me that things are getting bad very rapidly for the U.S. in the Gulf. We have political mayhem in Baghdad, with the IGC quasi-puppets flexing their political muscles,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:11 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

May 28, 2004

Back to the era of coups in Iraq?

Time was, back in the 1960s, that Baghdad was plagued by successive coups d'etat. Was that another one we saw there today, with Baghdad fashion maven Paul Bremer and his...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:00 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

May 23, 2004

Helping the torture victims heal

How many people have been victim to the practice of torture inside the United States' global gulag, and what do they need in order to heal? Answer to that first...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:51 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

May 19, 2004

Redemption, anyone?

Thank God for the checks-and-balances system of government here in the US. The US Congress may have been totally supine for far too long in 2001-2003 in the face of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:46 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

May 09, 2004

Not in Kansas any more

Well, I'm not in Kansas any more! (I've just been waiting till I could write that. It's not that I don't like Kansas-- actually, my two-day visit there has been...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:12 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

May 08, 2004

From Kansas, contd.

So I'm still at this conference on Iraq at the University of Kansas. I want to put down a few more notes about what's been going on here. I'll start...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:35 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

April 24, 2004

No US de-escalation yet

Okay, it seems that the evaluation I wrote last Monday of the situation in Fallujah and other parts of Iraq was overly optimistic-- based on an overly generous estimation of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:23 AM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

April 19, 2004

Climbing down in Iraq?

I'm just praying that the ceasefire reportedly agreed on for Fallujah sticks, and that it's the harbinger of a serious US commitment to de-escalation and diplomacy in Iraq. I think...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:19 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

April 15, 2004

Virginia contractor; contractors revisited

One of the many things I love about Yankeedoodle's blog is the state-by-state listing he gives of U.S. fatalities. On today's post he has this link to a story about...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:51 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Two women from Baghdad

Read Riverbend's latest. Read Faiza. Faiza, you need to scroll down thru the Arabic if you want to find the English translations. 'Specially, read these two blogs if you've never...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:18 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

April 14, 2004

Bremer's two original sins

On the 'Comments' board to my Monday night post about which US government deserves JWN's Golden Dunce's Cap for culpable misdoing, astute commenter Shirin made a fairly good case that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:10 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

April 12, 2004

Rafsanjani's victory stomp

... Okay, well maybe it's not quite that. But the old fox certainly sounded pretty darn' pleased with himself and the general situation in the sermon he gave in Teheran...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:24 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

Contest for the dunce's cap

After thinking more about the topic of this post, from yesterday, I've been trying to think which individual in the Bush administration has been most culpably detrimental to the common...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:22 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

April 11, 2004

History lesson, anyone?

Maybe you were not among the longtime JWN readers who read this lesson from history when I posted it here in March 2003? Anyway, here below, on much the same...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:44 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

How they made 'the perfect storm'

"It has been the perfect storm." This was just one of many fine quotes in this extremely long retrospective of the past 12 days' events in today's WaPo, bylined to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:19 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

April 10, 2004

Urgently needed: Big shift in U.S. policies in Iraq

I'm guessing the U.S. military leadership has finally understood the scope of the problems their people face in Iraq, and the stunning depth of the failure of Paul (Jerry) Bremer,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:55 AM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

April 09, 2004

US occupation of Iraq: the last act?

The director of the main hospital in Fallujah is reporting that 450 Iraqis have been killed there during this week's fighting, and more than 1,000 wounded. If this is anywhere...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:14 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

National unity, anyone?

I'm just wondering where all those people are who've been earnestly worrying that Iraq will collapse into sectarian civil war if the US forces should leave? (I wrote a little...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:30 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

April 07, 2004

Chickens--home--roost (Part 2)

After three days of fighting in Fallujah, AP reports that a Marine Lt.-Col. from the nearby military camp estimated that the Marines "now control 25 percent of Fallujah". That, after...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:23 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

April 06, 2004

W's Iraq debacle unfolds

Swish, swish, swish... Can you hear it? That, friends, is the sound of our president's chickens coming home to roost in Iraq. I know I've said before that I get...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:10 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

April 01, 2004

Iraq: an administrator's-eye view

I realize that there are many massive political developments underway in Iraq. I don't have time right now to say anything new or interesting about them. But I just wanted...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:54 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

March 26, 2004

Elections, legitimacy, and the 'international community'

I've been mainly immersed in matters Mozambican this week. (When I wasn't doing other bits of work on Palestine or Rwanda.... Tenth anniversary of Rwandan genocide coming up April 7th....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:20 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

March 09, 2004

Iraq's Transitional Law: Sistani does okay

Okay, I still think that Iraq's Transitional Administrative Law is "illegal... pointless and diversionary... and divisive." Sadly, events already seem to be bearing me out on that last judgment. (See...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:33 PM | Fulltext link (15 comments)

March 06, 2004

Salam/Pax survived

Salam/Pax, the cosmos's most famous Iraqi blogger, survived the Karbala bombing, and also has written beautifully (though oh too briefly) about the whole experience of having been there for Ashoura....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:03 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

March 05, 2004

Why I was not sitting on the edge of my chair...

"Hot" news out of Baghdad today about the failure of the Iraqi Governing Council to sign what, it turns out, was to have been called the Transitional Administrative Law... Poignant...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:42 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

March 02, 2004

Kerbala, Kazimiya, memories of Lebanon

I am just saddened beyond words by today's bombings in Kerbala and Kazimiya (Baghdad). There is something particularly sickening about people launching such horrific attacks at times of particular religious/community...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:16 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

February 28, 2004

Bremer's constitutional follies

The 24-member group of (mostly) blunderers who were appointed by the occupying forces to be the "Iraqi Governing Council" have been engaging in just-about-impossible contortions and ructions in their attempt...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:37 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

February 24, 2004

Cole on Sistani and Mudarrisi

Okay, I know I just criticized Juan Cole for his reading (or, non-reading) of the Brahimi report. But his blog is, in general, just the most amazing resource for everyone...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:19 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Brahimi report: a realistic way forward

Y'all know that I admire Juan Cole a lot. However, I wish he had read the Brahimi Report on Iraq some before he made the sweeping judgment that, "This way...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:41 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

February 23, 2004

Pentagon's Iraqi SOFA collapses

Can you hear it? Clunk, clunk, clunk. That's the sound of the Bushies' latest hastily-cobbled-together "plan" for post-Saddam Iraq falling apart, one major portion at a time. The latest part...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:04 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

February 14, 2004

Chalabi's "intel" to be examined

Ah, it couldn't happen to a "nicer" bunch of snake-oil salesmen! I read with delight a report I found via Yankeedoodle of Today in Iraq, that Ahmed Chalabi and his...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:03 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

February 10, 2004

Juan Cole's reply to Bush

Okay, I know that because I'm traveling, I'm hopelessly behind the curve of the US news cycle. But I just read Juan Cole's elegantly argued response to Bush's really lame...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:13 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

January 31, 2004

Kay and Kelly, connecting the dots?

On Thursday, Juan Cole had a really interesting post that highlighted an aspect of the David Kelly affair in the U.K. that I had earlier been too dainty to write...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:30 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

January 27, 2004

Sachedina on Sistani, etc.

I was so intrigued by Juan Cole's (highly indirect) reference to the possibility of Grand Ayatollah Sistani having adopted Gandhianism that I immediately blogged about it. Then I picked up...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:02 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

"Mahatma" Sistani, and more from Cole

Two great pieces on Juan Cole today. The first quotes an un-named "European peace worker in Iraq" as having said: "Ive heard that Sistani has promoted among his followers the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:46 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

January 26, 2004

Controlling the timetable

Here's a question. Various news reports recently have spelled out that Bremer and the Bushies are now prepared to change just about any aspect of the infamous "Rube Goldberg" scheme...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:02 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

McNamara speaks, finally, on Iraq

Robert McNamara, the man who as US Defense Secretary in the 1960s was the architect of the US escalation in Vietnam, has until now been reticent in criticizing George DUH-bya's...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:14 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

January 24, 2004

Sistani, Annan, the letter

Edward Wong of the NYT has a generally pretty thin piece in Sunday's paper, from Najaf, detailing how he failed to catch the ear of anyone particularly close to Grand...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:28 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

Sistani, Clausewitz, the world

Sorry I haven't been writing for a while... No, I was not at Davos (*chuckle*)... I was locked in a very intense drafting process in Washngton DC, with a couple...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:55 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

January 20, 2004

Iraqis making history

Friends, mark your calendars. Iraq's people are these days, finally, becoming the subjects of their own history. It now seems clear that in the process they will strike fateful blows...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:51 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

January 17, 2004

Transition from occupation to independence and democracy: a UN role?

Okay, let's say that Country X is running a military occupation over the entirety of Country Y. (You can read my lengthy thoughts on military occupations in general if you...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:45 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

January 14, 2004

Federalism and Iraq's Kurds

Daniel O'Huiginn of Cambridge, UK has posted an interesting piece of analysis about the whole issue of federalism in Iraq, and how it is viewed in particular by the Iraqi...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:55 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

Women in Iraq

Huge kudos to Juan Cole for this blog post today that covers Tuesday's very important demonstrations in Iraq Tuesday protesting the IGC's summary imposition of religious laws over all areas...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:42 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Democratization as instant coffee, part deux

"Navy wife", commenting on Yankeedoodle's Today in Iraq blog, recommended this story from today's Boston Globe. In it, reporter Anne Barnard writes about how Vassil Yanco, an Iraqi-born American and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:29 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

January 13, 2004

DoD suits scrabbling yet again to find a workable plan

Steven Weisman writes in today's NYT that un-named "administration officials" say the Bush administration now plans to revise the plan for a handover to self-rule in Iraq that was agreed...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:59 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

January 11, 2004

How NOT to win in Iraq

The NYT magazine has a longish piece by Peter Maass today that demonstrates extremely convincingly why the US is NOT destined to win the counter-insurgency/pacification campaign in Iraq. (You'll have...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:08 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

January 08, 2004

Fears of Balkanization in Iraq

Riverbend, the talented Iraqi author of the "Baghdad Burning" blog, has a very important new post up today in which she outlines her fears--and those of all the folks...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:04 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

January 06, 2004

Iraq's Arab Sunnis reaching out to Kurds, Turkmen?

Alan Sipress has an important piece in today's WaPo about Sunni leaders in Iraq organizing a pan-Sunni coordinating/advisory council (shura council). If the Shura Council becomes a fixture in its...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:29 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

January 04, 2004

Iraq's anti-democratic SOFA

Wright and Chandrasekaran, writing in today's WaPo, have a piece that outlines Colin's Powell's plans for the six-month transition to (the appearance of) Iraqi self-rule. The plans include an inappropriately...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:52 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

January 02, 2004

Powell plans Saigon-style embassy for Baghdad

The WaPo has spent just about all the past week milking the interview that Colin Powell gave them a few days ago for dribs and drabs of new information. (I...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:45 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

December 29, 2003

The draft that dares not speak its name

They don't want to call it a draft but it sure ain't your father's "all-volunteer military" any more... The WaPo ran a big front-page piece today about the various stop-loss...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:48 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

December 17, 2003

The trials of trying Saddam

There's a possibility that by October-November 2004 the capture of Saddam Hussein, which today looks like such a valuable political 'prize' for the Bushies, may look like a difficult political...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:08 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

December 14, 2003

Sistani calling for UN role

Two great pieces by Juan Cole that pick up on Arab press reports that Ayatollah Sistani is saying that the US-dominated doesn't have the legitimacy to make the determination that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:21 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

Saddam captured

I was flying west with the night for the past 24 hours, arrived in Incheon Int'l airport, Seoul, S. Korea at 6 a.m. their time to discover that while we...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:17 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

December 09, 2003

Sy Hersh: Big US escalation ahead

Go straight here. This is a Sy Hersh piece in the latest New Yorker in which the very well-informed Hersh tells us that the escalatory, made-in-Israel tactics that we've seen...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:22 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

The Iraq poll: information as property?

It has come to my attention that at least some bona fide researchers who sent an email to Oxford Research International to request the "press packet" of materials that I...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:27 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

December 07, 2003

Like, this approach has "worked" for Israel??

From a piece by Dexter Filkins in today's NYT: As the guerrilla war against Iraqi insurgents intensifies, American soldiers have begun wrapping entire villages in barbed wire. In selective cases,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:49 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

December 06, 2003

US Army readiness down, effectiveness claimed (from WaPo)

Today's WaPo has a significant story from Defense Correspondent Vernon Loeb, in which he quotes an anonymous "senior army official" as telling him, Four Army divisions -- 40 percent of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:03 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

December 03, 2003

Do Iraqis want the US/UK forces to stay?

I want to recapitulate that part of the findings of the Oxford Research International poll that I cited yesterday, here and here, that concerned the attitudes of Iraqis toward the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:54 PM | Fulltext link (15 comments)

December 02, 2003

Oxford survey on Iraqi opinion, contd.

I just finished writing the last post, which highlighted the recent survey of Iraqi opinion carried out by Oxford Research International, when the good folks there at ORI emailed me...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:16 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

Iraq's Battle of the Ayatollahs

Ayatollah Sistani says he wants the commission that decides on his country's new constitution to be elected. Ayatollah Bremer says he wants the commission that decides on Sistani's country's new...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:46 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

November 30, 2003

Sistani speaks

Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has finally given his official response to the extremely undemocratic, born-in-Washington plan for a political 'transition' in Iraq that was announced November 15. The word...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:46 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

November 25, 2003

Gelb's outrageous plan for Iraq

Les Gelb, the former President of New York's almost terminally inbred (and very powerful) "Council on Foreign Relations", has an op-ed piece in the NYT today arguing that the US...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:17 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

November 24, 2003

Keystone Cops build Iraqi "democracy"

Great piece in the WaPo today aptly titled "Hope and Confusion Mark Iraq's Democracy lessons". It's by Ariana Eunjung Cha--another great Post discovery, along with A. Shadid. Cha went to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:51 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

November 15, 2003

Iraq: the best sense yet

This was my first attempt to post this text, which is from a speech given November 4 by my old friend Ghassan Salameh. But I only had a highly imperfect...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:25 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

November 13, 2003

Iraq-"iffy"-cation-- yet more

I got some nice reactions to the CSM column that came out today. Of course, Iraq-iffy-cation has become quite the big topic, all of a sudden. It's very hard to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:07 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

November 12, 2003

CSM column on Iraqification

You can now find my CSM column dated for Thursday November 13. It's here. In it, I argue: Vietnamization, like Iraqification, was accompanied by a lot of rhetoric about "democratization....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:52 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

November 11, 2003

"Iraqification"-- of Washington DC?

I'm just in the middle of writing a CSM column about the dilemmas of "Iraqification" of the administration in Iraq. And suddenly I thought well heck, what if what's really...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:01 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

November 06, 2003

Questions about those Iraq-US contacts

ABC News broke the story Wed. night, then the NYT had it in more detail today: that the Bushies turned down what looked like a last-ditch, groveling offer from Saddam...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:02 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

November 04, 2003

Iraqification, anyone?

Fareed Zakaria had an op-ed in today's WaPo titled "Iraqification: Losing Strategy". He's right in some respects. As when he argues, " This new impulse has less to do with...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:40 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

October 31, 2003

Geneva Conventions and CPA asset-stripping

You have to love Britain's world-class leaders in the field of financial media. First, a couple of weeks ago, came the Economist's cover with the big title: "Wielders of Mass...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:28 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

October 18, 2003

Soros in 'Fortune', and on Iraq

Thanks to Margaret Powell who sent me a link to this great article in the current issue of Fortune, which described how financial whiz George Soros has decided that intense...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:44 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

October 04, 2003

What Condi told Chalocchio

According to the L.A. Times Condi met Chaolocchio in NYC in late Sept., and then again in DC September 30: "She was instructed to tell him to behave. She stressed...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:01 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

October 03, 2003

War Profiteering Hall of Infamy

"One well-stocked 7-11 could knock out 30 Iraqi stores; a WalMart could take over the country," exults one of the partners in New Bridge Strategies in a good round-up article...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:12 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

October 01, 2003

Chal-occhio cuts his strings

As if it isn't bad enough for the poor Bush administration that US soldiers keep getting killed in Iraq, that Colin Powell can't persuade the balky furrners to agree to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:43 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

September 24, 2003

Lieutenant Nick's view of Chalabi in Baghdad

A lieutenant in the US occupation force in Iraq left a very interesting comment on the Warblogging.com blog yesterday, giving his view of how Chalabi is regarded by Iraqis and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:51 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

September 16, 2003

Powell's quote of the decade

I generally like to give Colin Powell the benefit of the doubt. But this quote, from him, from today's Washington Post, is a classic of governmental gobbledygook: there was no...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:29 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

September 09, 2003

A columnist's job is never done

I just finished writing my CSM column for this Thursday's paper (9/11). As soon as I get to the published version, as usual I'll put up a link to it....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:10 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

August 20, 2003

Tragedies, tragedies

I was stunned by yesterday's bombing of the UN HQ in Baghdad. Why the UN? Why Sergio Vieira de Mello, and so many other members of his team? I was...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:31 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

July 31, 2003

Iraqi human rights-- the road not taken

Tuesday night, I drove over the foggy Blue Ridge Mountains to Harrisonburg, VA, where the Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Quakers is holding its 332d annual session. I came over...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:32 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

July 29, 2003

US "success" in Iraq-- for or against?

I have a lot of respect for Juan Cole's wisdom on matters Iraqi and Shi-ite. That's why I have a permanent link to his Informed Comment blog on the sidebar...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:28 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

July 12, 2003

More on Chalabi, Feith, Perle

So at last, administration insiders are starting to talk openly about how it was Douglas Feith and Richard Perle's insistence on installing pro-Israeli con-man Ahmed Chalabi in power in Baghdad...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:20 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

July 10, 2003

CSM column on US policy in Iraq

So, my CSM column on US policy in Iraq came out today. The lead graf is: The US intervention in Iraq, which was earlier sold to the US public as...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:26 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

July 05, 2003

Thin mattress stories--from Palestine and Iraq

Two stories about thin mattresses today. First, from Iraq. Thanks to Juan Cole for linking to Trudy Rubin's recent piece from Najaf in the Philadelphia Inquirer, in which she recounts...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:52 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

July 03, 2003

Iraq-- a very slippery baby

I wonder what they teach 'em in the various "schools of life" where Bombs-Away Don, Wolfie, and rest of the Authors of the Misadventure in Iraq came up? I'll tell...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:39 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

July 01, 2003

Grand Ayatollah Sistani joins the fray

Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, long considered strongly committed to a "quietist" rejection of political engagement, has now taken a serious step toward endorsing opposition to US diktats in Iraq....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:16 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

June 28, 2003

How Saddam could have been confronted on human rights

So here's W's main line of defense now: "Oh, who really cares about Saddam's WMDs one way or the other, but the main thing is, we did good to get...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:02 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

June 20, 2003

Iraq war: who are the forgers?

The Christian Science Monitor-- a paper that I've worked with since 1976 -- has a really important piece today, in which it apologises for having last month run a piece...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:51 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

June 10, 2003

Iraqi scenarios

I went to a pre-lunch presentation on Iraq today given by our dear friend Adeed Dawisha. It was really good to see him. When he was last in Charlottesville, back...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:08 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

June 02, 2003

CHALABI DOUBLY DISCREDITED:

CHALABI DOUBLY DISCREDITED: Ahmad Chalabi, the sleazemeister of Jordan's Petra Bank scandal, has now been completely discredited on two key claims he made when he successfully "sold" himself and his...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:52 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

May 21, 2003

TWO MORE THINGS ABOUT SHI-ITE ORGANIZING:

TWO MORE THINGS ABOUT SHI-ITE ORGANIZING: In yesterday's post-- right below here, I waxed fairly admiring of the political smarts that Hizbullah has shown over the year, in Lebanon, and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:14 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

May 20, 2003

SHI-ITE ORGANIZING

SHI-ITE ORGANIZING: Ways, ways back in 1985, I published a book about Lebanon. (It won an award from Choice magazine, actually.) The "new" phenom in Lebanon then-- new, I mean,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:47 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

April 12, 2003

THOUGHTS ON THE FALL OF BAGHDAD:

THOUGHTS ON THE FALL OF BAGHDAD: The war is not yet finished. Securing the peace has still even to begin. I think we can attribute the tragic mayhem we presently...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:35 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

April 10, 2003

INSIDE SOUTHERN IRAQ

INSIDE SOUTHERN IRAQ: Ghanim Alnajjar is a Kuwaiti professor, long-time human-rights activist, and indeed the UN Secretary-General's Special representative for Human Rights in Somalia and Somaliland. He is also an...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:43 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

April 02, 2003

PLANNING FOR THE 'AFTERMATH':

PLANNING FOR THE 'AFTERMATH': The military outcome of this war is, at this point in time, completely unpredictable. The currently "best possible" scenario for the US-UK troops could be mean...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:35 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

March 30, 2003

"PRECISION" GUIDED MISSILES? HOW'S THAT?

"PRECISION" GUIDED MISSILES? HOW'S THAT? Every time there's a war, the Pentagon assures that, "our missiles have gotten a LOT smarter since the last time." And so now, once again,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:35 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

March 19, 2003

SO IT'S STARTED: The 17-year-old

SO IT'S STARTED: The 17-year-old just broke the news to me about the bombing having started. I clicked onto CNN.com. "Mommy?" she said, hanging round my door in her bath-robe....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:08 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

March 18, 2003

A QUAKER SALUTE TO SOLDIERS

A QUAKER SALUTE TO SOLDIERS IN NASIRIYAH: My friend Rick McCutcheon is a Canadian Quaker. In 2000-2001, he and his wife Tamara Fleming served as joint field representatives to Iraq...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:25 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

February 17, 2003

Iraq Democrats Disappointed

Back last summer, I got into a heartfelt exchange with a friend of mine who's an Iraqi democrat. His name is Siyamend Othman. He's a wise and good person, an...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:48 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

February 16, 2003

New York Demonstration

I was one of the lucky ones yesterday, at the anti-war demonstration in NYC. That is, New York's finest (the cops) actually graciously allowed my daughter, her fiance, and me...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:10 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

February 14, 2003

FROM NEW YORK, Valentine's Day

I've had a busy couple of days of work here, talking to some really interesting folks about my 'Violence and its Legacies' project, and starting to make plans for the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:16 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

February 10, 2003

Dangers of Occupation: Taking a lesson from post-war Japan

BOSTON REVIEW: The paper copy of the latest (Feb/March) issue of BR dropped into my mailbox today. Hey, there's still something special about hard copy-- like the way you can...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:30 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

February 09, 2003

Blogging in Baghdad

Yesterday, I wrote about how amazing it is to get news from all round the world via the internet. (I won't mention that the i-net was first brought to the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:33 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

February 08, 2003

Burden of Proof

I guess it's Sunday in Japan already... Sun quite high in the sky already over that magnificent semicircle of hills that surrounds Hiroshima... So Ramesh Thakur, a wise Indian scholar...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:55 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

U.S. encourages other nations to act on 'self-defense' claim

I've been thinking more about whether the pitch Powell was trying to make Feb. 5 at the U.N. was aimed more at a domestic or an international audience. Yesterday evening...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:33 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

February 07, 2003

Like Peres, Like Powell?

Colin Powell's big oral presentation Feb 5 was aimed mostly at other governments-- right? Well, put it this way, not wholly right. In fact, a large part of the speech...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:11 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

February 06, 2003

Powell's Poor U.N. Presentation

I listened to Colin Powell's presentation at the U.N. yesterday, read the text carefully. I was sad for so many reasons. Let me count the ways: (1) Sad to see...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:13 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)