Juan Cole - June 21, 2005

Beirut Bombing Kills Communist Opposition Leader

The victory in Sunday's polling of the anti-Syrian faction in Lebanese politics has not led to social peace. The coalition of Saad Hariri won in the north in part by having Sunni clerics mount their pulpits in mosques and play on sectarian feelings to defeat Maronite General Michele Aoun's supporters and other pro-Syrian figures. Ironically, the Syrians originally gerrymandered the north in 2000 so as to give an advantage to the Sunnis over the Christians. In this election, Hariri's Sunni supporters were anti-Syrian and many of the Christian candidates were pro-Syrian.

Condi Can't Count

Condi Rice seems extremely confused about military affairs and the nature of guerrilla wars:

Interviewed on CNN during her visit to the Middle East, Dr Rice was asked about the recent claim by the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, that the insurgency in Iraq was "in its last throes". She did not comment directly on the claim but said Americans needed to understand Iraq does not need an army of hundreds of thousands, "because it isn't facing an enemy like that. What they face is an insurgency and they need to be able to run counter-insurgency operations. Once they can do that, we can begin to start a withdrawal process."

7 Dead in Attacks on Monday

Al-Zaman, the 'Times of Baghdad,' refers to "a sudden and unprecedented deterioration of the security situation in Baghdad" on Monday. The biggest single attack, however, took place in the northern Kurdish city of Irbil.