I argued that the Bush administration, and the Coalition officials more recently, didn't understand Iraqi society. They thought it was a blank slate, that they could use Iraqis as guinea pigs. — Juan Cole Copy Share Image
Take the decision in early March to arrest Muqtada al-Sadr. It was made apparently without knowledge or understanding of the nature of his movement… — Juan Cole Copy Share Image
Public interest in most of the Middle East was slight at that time; the Arab-Israeli conflict was all that people were interested in and… — Juan Cole Copy Share Image
I don't accept the argument of people like David Horowitz that the government should impose some sort of predetermined political balance on academic research. — Juan Cole Copy Share Image
Did you know that they introduced the 15 percent flat tax on individual and corporate income in Iraq? Something that some politicians very much… — Juan Cole Copy Share Image
I also argued before the war that the administration was underestimating Arab nationalism and Iraqi nationalism, that it was not going to be as… — Juan Cole Copy Share Image
If you put your politicians up for sale, as the US does (alone in this among industrialized democracies), then someone will buy them--and it… — Juan Cole Copy Share Image
To the extent that the (ISIS's) advance is a series of urban revolts against the government of PM Nouri al-Maliki, the US would end… — Juan Cole Copy Share Image
I think that there's been an unfortunate tendency for right wing think tanks to dominate these discussions. They often produce very shoddy studies and… — Juan Cole Copy Share Image
I think it's really unfortunate that academics have been sidelined in most important policy debates. — Juan Cole Copy Share Image
But September 11 marked a big change in the sense that the public was suddenly interested, and as a professor at a public university… — Juan Cole Copy Share Image
