The attack on Professor Juan Cole reflects badly on this blog. Juan really merits a sincere apology. For the last 5 years he has kept tabs on and reported the depredation of the American foreign policy in Iraq and the ME in general.
Perhaps to say ‘This sort of thing is why the Iraq public wants any Status of Forces Agreement’ would have been more accurately stated as ‘..the Iraq government..’ rather than ‘the Iraq people’. But such a slip hardly warrants the accusation of his being an ‘imperialist CIA stooge,’ if I may conflate a little. There is surely unseemly haste here to condemn. There is undue haste to condemn someone who has worked so hard for so long to present the facts of this disgrace.

Posted by: Sona | Jun 26 2008 17:51 utc | 4

I don’t think it’s necessary to attribute pecuniary motives (e.g. future job in gov’t) for Cole: like many U.S. “liberals,” his expressed opinion always seemed to reflect a preference for foreign interventions provided that they are done “right” for “right reasons,” whatever that might mean. While I don’t doubt he has had dealings with CIA or other government agencies in the past, I doubt it amounts to much–regional experts often do consulting work for gov’t agencies anyways.
It could very well be that he sincerely believes in the American liberal mantra: foreigners would like us to stay around, only if we “behave.”

Posted by: kao-hsien-chih | Jun 26 2008 18:27 utc | 6

Sacred cows make great holy sirloin….and not much else, except in the original Indian context, where they do produce cooking fuel and fertilizer. Oh yes…and you can use the urine to set the dye in cloth. In any context, they are more useful than Cole’s article.

Posted by: Diogenes | Jun 26 2008 23:15 utc | 8

Sona, you seem to regard my previous post as “an attack”. I don’t agree: I consider it an evaluation of sorts.
You may, more precisely, suppose that I have only hostile, negative judgments of the CIA, but that’s also not the case. As I see it, all people need governments, and all governments need spies: the better the spy, the better the government–in principle.
But spies, however valuable their work, are expected to serve the power paying them (just as lobbyists are expected to do); and in playing their role as spies, they are expected to conceal their contractual bond from the world at large.
Again, I have no trouble with this fact (I’m a fan of Valerie Plame).
But when a spy, whose role and whose interests are unknown to me, poses as a neutral observer professing the facts of the case, then my knowing what I shouldn’t know about that “observer” helps me assess the bias of his work; it enables me to evaluate his work more realistically than I could otherwise do.
Juan Cole has always pulled for an American presence in Iraq–but in principle, as a scholarly observer, and not as an interested party (a government servant). And since I’m against the American presence, in principle, knowing where Cole comes from can only help me evaluate his arguments supporting of a position contrary to my own.
Cole serves an interested cause, not a disinterested view of the facts. And if I didn’t know where he comes from, I’d be hard put not to take his arguments at face value. Which is not to say that his arguments aren’t interesting, or that they don’t command respect. Indeed they are, and indeed they do.

Posted by: alabama | Jun 27 2008 1:23 utc | 10

Don’t ask Badger what he thinks of Cole!

Posted by: Pitirre | Jun 27 2008 2:05 utc | 12

Thanks for the link, anna missed!

Posted by: alabama | Jun 27 2008 3:33 utc | 14

I do think you are (nearly) all too hard on Juan Cole. Nobody’s perfect. He’s had a distinguished career in Shi’a studies, taught in Beirut, knows well Arabic and Persian. The big minus with Cole is that he has never visited Iraq, and for that reason some obvious things he just doesn’t see.
It is also obvious that he’s quite egotistical, as many of the comments on his blog seem to be in praise of him.
But all that means is that he is human, and like any blogger, you have to take what he says with a large pinch of salt. It is obvious that writes at high speed late at night, not too carefully. He is well-informed (as against DiD’s opinion); at least as well as anybody. And certainly better than the US government (that is not difficult).
I have a theory, by the way, that people in government, in spite of all the satellite gear, and their other expensive supposed sources, are not in fact better informed than us. They merely pretend it, in order to justify their positions. The position over intelligence about Iran is quite a good example.
When I was in Iraq, under Saddam, it was 100% clear that I knew as much about the situation as the British Embassy (I am Brit). They used to tell me the most utter crap, because they sat in their embassy only talking to Saddam’s regime, while I was out in the field, seeing things happen.
I don’t believe Alabama’s #2 that Cole is CIA, though I don’t entirely exclude it. The reason he is like he is is because he comes from a military family.

Posted by: Alex | Jun 27 2008 8:57 utc | 16

re #17 DiD. There’s no doubt that Cole has changed his views over time. What he may have thought in 2004, is not necessarily what he thinks now. His present views seem to me to be in line with the correct approach: that is, that the only solution for Iraq is for the US to get out, fully, and leave the Iraqis to find their own way forward. Anything else is just prolonging the agony (until the total withdrawal solution is finally chosen).
Yes, he was in favour of the invasion initially, but then even I was open about it, as I’d seen the unpleasantnesses of Saddam’s regime.

Posted by: Alex | Jun 27 2008 13:47 utc | 18

it was my understanding from a post made by the ‘angry arab’ – that cole spoke bneither arabic or farsi – i was completely perplexed – given his ‘authoritativeness’ – it is not a secondary question in this case – & i’d be happy if copeland you have a link that shows that i am in error on this -& if i am -then i apologise

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2008 15:03 utc | 20

b real
thanks – i’m still quite young but it seems my brain is a little addled

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2008 15:12 utc | 22

I doubt his judgment on politics. At core he seems to be an imperialist of the do-gooder kind. His interpretation of events is often in line with the ‘official’ U.S. one
I find it difficult to believe that a Baha’i can be really an imperialist. But then one can always accommodate contradictory ideas in one’s head.
More important, as I said above, I do think his opinion has moved over the period of the US occupation of Iraq. How could it not? It was a not unreasonable position to take in 2003, that overturning Saddam had positive aspects. Many Iraqis thought so. Saddam’s was a really awful regime, thuggish and brutal, and I am a personal witness to that. Even if the invasion was illegal.
What those people, including me, did not expect was how much worse the US occupation would be. Starting with the sack of Baghdad and the archaeological museum. Everybody who knows anything about Iraq, and was mildly accepting of the invasion, even if illegal, as a means of getting rid of Saddam, has swung through 180 degrees since 2003 to complete opposition to the occupation. That includes Cole, and the many Iraqis who were initially favourable. The only question has been whether the occupation troops are not better than the brutalities of Maliki’s forces; that is a temporary issue. And it does not touch Cole, as he has not been in the country.
With regard to the other commentators you mention. Badger is a nice guy, he’s learned Arabic, and he’s good on the detail, but he is a newcomer, without great knowledge. Visser is like Cole in being a professional Middle Eastern historian. I am a great admirer of Visser. Doctorate and book on Basra in the 1920s. However, he too has never been in Iraq.
The differences between Cole and Visser are 1) that Visser is a tenured researcher of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, or whatever is the correct title, and thus free to say whatever he wants. Cole is a professor in the capitalistic system of US universities, and is to a degree constrained by what the financiers of his university think. 2) Cole did his initial research on the relatively irrelevant subject of the Shi’a in Najaf and Kerbala in the 19th century. Visser did his on Basra under the British in the 1920s, when the
same questions came up as are repeated today. I am a great believer in the idea that the subject that you undertake for your doctoral dissertation is the foundation of your later ideas. In the case of Cole and Visser, that is certainly true. It is why Visser’s interpretations of Iraqi nationalism have value, and Cole doesn’t see it.
Nevertheless, here we are into academic interpretations. You may like the one, and not the other. But both are worth reading.
I should add that there are many academics who are worse than these two, who take money for what they say. That’s why I say, take Cole for what he says. He may be right, he may be wrong. What he says is a valuable service, and I wouldn’t agree with a campaign against him.

Posted by: Alex | Jun 27 2008 21:17 utc | 24

Alex, I think I can see where we disagree.
You sincerely regret this war in the light of the occupation, and how bad it turned out to be. I detested this war long before it started–ten or eleven years before it started (my take on the first Gulf War was ambivalent).
I believe the position you took in 2003 was entirely unreasonable on ethical grounds; I believed so then, and said so at the time. I’m saying it again here and now. We can review those grounds if you like–or just agree to disagree (I’m trying to correct a tendency to scold).
Notice, by the way, that I’m not calling you unethical. I’m not even calling your position unethical–only calling it “unreasonable” on ethical grounds. So it goes without saying that my own view here may also be “unreasonable” on ethical grounds (and these points may be open to argument).

Posted by: alabama | Jun 28 2008 0:11 utc | 26

“What those people, including me, did not expect was how much worse the US occupation would be.”
I would say that anyone who truly believed this is quite naive. Some Americans will try to do things for foreigners for altruistic reasons – but a large number of Americans are prone to violence and are dumb and racist…. not a good combo.
And the system itself is empire and conquest….. and has always been.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 28 2008 8:13 utc | 28

Cole. Way back when, I was wary not of his religious affiliation (Bahai) per se, as an atheist I tend to be rigorously non judgmental in that area, but of the serious and ponderous and slightly presumptive tone – not my style. His bahai blog was well know before Iraq etc.
Bahai is a very ‘respectable’ religion, it is (afaik) the only one that has a permanent ‘voice’ at the UN. (see link.) Of course Bahai detractors point out the ‘oneworldgov’ implicit aim..anyway..
The Iraq war gave him wings …
old blog cole
bahai at the UN
Iran president on Bahai, speaking at the UN youtube
I’m not condemning or defending, see Maxcrat above, but saying that I never entertained the idea that Cole was CIA or anything sinister, covert, or even complicated.
He is simply an ambitious, efficient, once minor, academic, with a very universalist (bahai roots – i know his history with them is complicated, strongly anti-Iran in any case..), western, ideology.

Posted by: Tangerine | Jun 28 2008 16:21 utc | 30

Alex,
I think that most readers here disagree with you on a couple of fronts. Kuwait seems to have been a bit more complex than just a naked land grab. There is the issue of cross drilling with Kuwaitis stealing Iraqi oil, there is the issue of it being a traditional part of Iraq or Mesopotamia, and finally there is something to be said of the supposed green light given by April Gillespie.

Saddam’s intention to invade Kuwait was known to the US ambassador April Gillespie who in fact gave a clear approval by recognising that Iraq’s dispute with Kuwait is an internal matter between the two nation. Many ordinary Americans do not know that Kuwait was part of the southern province of Iraq (Walayah of Basra) for centuries. Iraq has far greater right to claim Kuwait than the US has over the Hispanic territories that it annexed. It was the British colonial designs that created such fault lines in order to keep the Islamic world divided and weak, its gravitas naturally increased after the discovery of oil. The Kuwaiti movement for unification with Iraq in 1950s were ruthlessly hunted down by the Kuwaiti regime with the help of the British.

link
my belief is that Saddam had stopped being sufficiently obedient and would not accept US bases on his soil. The US was under pressure to leave Saudi Arabia and needed/wanted a major presence nearby. A casus belli was needed and quickly found or created if you will. That is how the coalition of the willing was created and the counter invasion was carried out.
I simply cannot imagine why anyone would think the US would act without self-interest in first driving Iraq out of Kuwait and then in invading Iraq proper. As for the lack of resolve on the part of the Iraqi soldiers to fight the invasion force that too seems to be more of a strategic retreat rather than cowardice or welcoming the invader. The fairly successful resistance movement that is still going on and started immediately after the invasion leads me to believe that there was considerable pre-planning.
I suppose it boils down to ones belief that war is sometimes necessary. In this case I remain firmly convinced that it was a war of choice on the part of the US and was done purely for financial gain by the ptb in the US and the UK.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 28 2008 23:22 utc | 32

ditto DoS and ‘giap. and while i am definitely one of the posters Alex calls out who doesn’t have detailed knowledge of the iraqi situation, i am familiar with the predicament of dwindling resources and exploding populations that underlies this geopolitical theatre where mass murder is an accepted side effect of imperial domination as the west circles its wagons ’round China.
Alex: since i am ignorant of iraqi sentiment towards the US before the invasion, i was wondering if you could explain further how you arrived at your conclusion that iraqis had “no interest in the United States at all” considering how the US backed off supporting the uprising during Gulf War I, opting instead for a slow, choking strategy of sanctions that only served to starve the undeserving masses, before waging a second military assault that for all intents and purposes appears permanent.

Posted by: Lizard | Jun 29 2008 3:57 utc | 34

The only caveat I would offer here, is that the “cafe causitry ” class does not criticise the Israeli government, and most pundits laboring in US academia, officialdom, and media bonnets slink away from the very idea of pointing out Likud and related brutalities against the Palestinians. Give Cole his due. It’s not fair I think to paint him as a lightweight.

Posted by: Copeland | Jun 29 2008 4:24 utc | 36

Wait! Alex, are you April Glaspie? That would explain some things…lol

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 29 2008 10:33 utc | 38

copeland
you know i respect your post
so respectfully i feel cole is a casuist – & i do not use him as a reference in much the same way that i do not find bill maher either funny or intelligent – in the manner of a bruce or a carlin. they are supoosed to be allies but i see them as part of the problem
maybe i have the luxury of reading french & italian commentary they leave cole’s prejudice clear

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 29 2008 14:59 utc | 40

alex The recapture of Kuwait was an entirely legal operation, intended to undo an illegal invasion by Saddam. It is indeed a basic principle of international relations that small countries have to have their independence guaranteed by greater powers.
this is hogwash. their independence was created for the sake of the british initially to secure their dominance in the region! very little has been examined about the a certain aspect of the truth regarding saddam’s invasion of kuwait.
don’t forget the debt issue @ the jeddah conference

Iraqi invasion of Kuwait came one day after the Kuwait-Iraq talks held in Jedda, Saudi Arabia collapsed as Kuwait refused to yield to Iraq’s demand to demarcate disputed border and write off about $ 14 billion dollars loan Kuwait gave to Iraq during its war with Iran. Kuwait, having felt threatened by the impact of Iranian Islamic revolution on its Shiite population, had provided Iraq with extensive loans during the war with Iran. Kuwait’s Shuaiba port was used to transport military hardware and other supplies for Iraq. With the end of the war, however, the Kuwaiti government demanded full repayment from Iraq, whereas Iraq expected Kuwait to write off its debt as a reward for its providing protection from Iran.

set up

one need only look at the Bush administration’s public pronouncements in the weeks before the Iraqi invasion to verify that Glaspie’s words to Hussein were in line with offical administration policy:
“We do not have any defense treaties with Kuwait, and there are no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait.” – U.S. State Department Spokesperson Margaret Tutweiler, July 1990
“Historically, the U.S. has taken no position on the border disputes in the area, nor on matters pertaining to internal OPEC deliberations. We have no defense treaty relationship with any gulf country. That is clear . . . we have not historically taken a position on border disputes.” — Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly before a House foreign affairs subcommittee on July 31, 1990

back to the first link..

Even the mainstream press has been forced to acknowledge how U.S. statements of neutrality were so frequent and non-interventionist in character that they led Saddam to believe he had a green light to invade Kuwait. The Washington Post reported: “Since the invasion, highly classified U.S. intelligence assessments have determined that Saddam took U.S. statements of neutrality… as a green light from the Bush administration for an invasion. One senior Iraqi military official… has told the [CIA] agency that Saddam seemed to be sincerely surprised by the subsequent bellicose reaction.” (Cited by Waas, Murray, ‘Who Lost Kuwait? How the Bush Administration Bungled its Way to War in the Gulf’, Village Voice, 22 January 1991).
Hence it will not be too much to say that the Unite States, in fact, emitted signals that encouraged Saddam Hussein to believe Washington would not dispatch armed forces to rescue Kuwait in the event Iraq invaded its neighbor.
What was worse, it also encouraged the Kuwaitis. In a word, according to Jean Edward Smith, author of George Bush’s War, the administration spoke with the proverbial forked tongue. “By saying it would not defend Kuwait, it encouraged Saddam to invade; by stressing its continued support for ‘its longstanding friends in the area [of the Persian Gulf],’ the Kuwaitis were given no incentive to compromise.” By offering encouragement in both Iraq and Kuwait, Smith has concluded, “the United States bears substantial responsibility for what happened,” i.e., for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the resultant Gulf War.

what is so unreasonable about expecting other countries to invest in a war they have a vested interest in? what kind of assurances had kuwait received from the US prior to the jeddah conference that kept them from negotiation? what is so weird about saddam expecting these countries to wipe out his debt for the war? i mean the US hardly paid anything for the 91 war. lots of countries paid for it. what is so different about the iran/iraq war? isn’t it normal if you support a war, to pay for it. so in this sense i can understand saddam expecting some fluidity wrt his/iraqs debt position @ jedda. why even have a meeting otherwise? but if kuwait already knew they had US support, and went to the meeting knowing they were going to give iraq the thumbs down, weren’t they just antagonizing him? why agree to a meeting? why was the US involving itself in the iraq/kuwait border issue to begin with? or kuwaits debt?
john rendon..The Man Who Sold the War

What the Kuwaitis wanted was help in selling a war of liberation to the American government — and the American public. Rendon proposed a massive “perception management” campaign designed to convince the world of the need to join forces to rescue Kuwait. The Kuwaiti government in exile agreed to pay Rendon $100,000 a month for his assistance.
To coordinate the operation, Rendon opened an office in London. Once the Gulf War began, he remained extremely busy trying to prevent the American press from reporting on the dark side of the Kuwaiti government, an autocratic oil-tocracy ruled by a family of wealthy sheiks. When newspapers began reporting that many Kuwaitis were actually living it up in nightclubs in Cairo as Americans were dying in the Kuwaiti sand, the Rendon Group quickly counterattacked. Almost instantly, a wave of articles began appearing telling the story of grateful Kuwaitis mailing 20,000 personally signed valentines to American troops on the front lines, all arranged by Rendon.

meanwhile, according to gallespie, she didn’t even know she was meeting w/saddam til she was in transport to the meeting (source)
the whole thing stinks, the last thing we need is more official spin. history will not be written by the current empire.
ps, i read the end of the threads!

Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 29 2008 17:59 utc | 42

long time no see annie, all is well?

Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 29 2008 18:07 utc | 44

order your poison annie… 🙂

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 29 2008 23:29 utc | 46

peoria?
😉

Posted by: annie | Jun 30 2008 3:19 utc | 48

copeland
you do not have to defer to me, not in the least – i can understand why people find a mr cole respectable in the same way that i can also understand how others can see dailykos for example as a forum of the left – when it is anything but
i acknowledge however that we live in an environment of hysteria & this hysteria has its roots in the cold stroage think tanks of the right particularly but also of the so-called left
it is an environment of hysteria in world – particularly in iraq – where the major facts – are completely obliterated by discourse, deceit & a deliberate campaign by both conservatives & liberals. the west & parts of the arab world – who do not tell us of the absence of basic services, of the intense & ongoing bombardements, of the intense assasination programmes that have their source – the united states
we live in a world where the juggernaut of imperialist ‘jurisprudence’ is stealing the wealth of the people of iraq in partnership with puppets who have never lived in iraq
it is wholly scandalous
but then i live in a world where it has taken 70 years for a realistic appraisal of the russians heroic & dominat role in the defeat of fascism – in the two books – ‘absolute war’ & ‘stalin’s war’ – which we find out in the end were really the contemporaneous anlaysis of the situation – but the rest was propaganda
then, that propoganda was in its infancy & was not total – now it is toal & cover the enitre waterfront including ‘liberal’ commentators

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 30 2008 18:20 utc | 50