Month
Category

Archives: October 2007

Letters to the Editor

In my absence, my readers are making what seem to me especially substantial, informed and incisive comments, and several of those posted today seemed to me worthy of being put on the…

Breaking News: Turkish Gunships fire into Iraq

Indian NDTV is reporting Tuesday morning that Turkish Cobra helicopter gunships have fired into Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) positions inside northern Iraq. The action comes after following on an engagement in the…

Turkish, Iranian Presidents Condemn Kurds

AFP reports that Prime Minister Rejep Tayyib Erdogan of Turkey said Saturday, of the Kurdish Workers Party guerrillas holed up in Iraq, "We will launch an operation when it will be necessary,…

Iraqi Sunni, Shiite Preachers Denounce al-Qaeda

The USG Open Source Center reports on Iraqi sermons on Friday.Round-up of Iraqi Friday Sermons 26 OctIraq -- OSC SummarySaturday, October 27, 2007 Al-Iraqiyah . . . "Shaykh Jalal-al-Din al-Saghir, [Shiite] imam…

Basra and a Mahdi Army Resurgence?

AP reports that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is concerned about a wave of assassinations and killings in the southern port city of Basra:' A spokesman for Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top…

US Sanctions on Iran

The Bush administration announced wideranging new sanctions on Iran on Thursday, which target three Iranian banks, nine companies associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, and several individuals, as well as the…

Morning News on Napoleon’s Egypt

From the Morning News Book section:'Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East by Juan ColeBook Digest: As the bibliography of the disaster known as the Bush administration grows, a useful early distinction will…

The Sadism of the Israeli Occupation

The Guardian reports on a building scandal in Israel over the extreme brutality of its occupation of the Palestinians in the West Bank. Excerpt:' According to Yishai Karin: 'At one point or…

Dictating Islam to Muslims

At the Napoleon's Egypt blog, Jaubert's important letter critical of Napoleon Bonaparte's use of the naval forces. It also contains the crucial passage, "You will laugh outright, perhaps you witlings of Paris,…

Gen. Abizaid: Iraq about Petroleum

Gen. John Abizaid at Stanford U.:' While [panelists] discussed green technology, the subject of America’s operations in Iraq was also a hotly debated topic. Abizaid, who was formerly the Commander of the…

Sneaky FCC Must be Stopped

Alexandra Russell writes:This morning, the New York Times revealed that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is rushing through a plan to rewrite media ownership rules, letting the biggest media companies control even more…

Karachi and Waziristan

Barnett Rubin points in our Global Affairs group blog to the impact of the failures in Afghanistan, of the tribal turmoil in Waziristan, on the Karachi bombing at the center of Pakistani…

Putin & Ahmadinejad Pledge Cooperation

Farideh Farhi weighs in on the significance of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Iran, and the frustrations his olive branch to Tehran produced in Bush (who went a little crazy, talking…

Cole in Salon: "The Iran Hawks"

My column in Salon.com, "The War Hawks," is now online. Excerpt:' Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton think a tough line on Tehran will sell politically. They could be right.Future historians may conclude…

Oil Peak or Peak Oil?

The tensions between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan contributed to jitteriness in the oil markets that drove the prices to as high as $88.20 at one point on Tuesday before falling back to…

Iran and Afghanistan

At the Global Affairs blog, Farideh Farhi weighs in on Iranian human rights activist Emadeddin Baghi. She suggests that "it also suggests a shift of approach by Ahmadinejad’s paranoid government from the…

Iraq Sermons this Week

The USG Open Source Center rounds up this week's sermons at major mosques, mostly Shiite, in Iraq. The comments focus on the peace agreement between Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr, whose…

Turkish Press reaction to Armenian Resolution

The USG Open Source Center translates and summarizes Turkish press reaction to the US congressional resolution concerning the Armenian genocide.'Turkey: Roundup of Press Reactions to House Resolution on Armenian GenocideHighlights of reports…

Who Lost Turkey?

Turkey has been the strongest ally that the United States has had in the Middle East since the end of WW II. The Marshall Plan started with Northern tier states like Turkey…

Father Dease President Of University Of

Father Dease, the president of the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, has reversed himself and invited Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak at UST. Dease had been misled by a smear campaign…

KPFK: Threats to Academic Freedom

A podcast from KPFK on the threats to academic freedom emanating from the Israel lobby, including comments from Laurie Brand (chair of the Committee on Academic Freedom at the Middle East Studies…

British Troop Drawdown from Basra

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged on Monday to pull 3,000 British troops out of Basra by March of 2008, leaving only 2500, with those to be withdrawn by the end of…

Ahmadinejad Calls for Saudi Cooperation

The USG Open Source Center has done a report on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's calls for Iran and Saudi Arabia to cooperate in filling the regional power vacuum. The Saudis do not…

The Arab Dilemma in Hollywood

Ashraf Khalil at the LAT discusses the dilemma for actors of Arab extraction in Hollywood that they have to play terrorists or they just don't find work. Some Arab American actors only…

Iran’s Armed Forces

The USG Open Source Center translates an Iranian newspaper article on the combat capabilities of Iranian military forces.'Article Examines Combat Capabilities of Iranian Military ForcesArticle by Ali Ghafuri: "A Glance at the…

Brown: 1,000 British troops to be Withdrawn

British PM Gordon Brown, in Baghdad and Basra for consultations with PM Nuri al-Maliki, with British commanders, and with his US allies, announced that he would withdraw another 1,000 British troops from…