John "Juan" Ricardo I. Cole (born October 1952 in Albuquerque, NM) is a professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History in the History Department at the University of Michigan. Since 2002, he has written a popular weblog, "Informed Comment."^[1] As an expert and commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, he has appeared in print and on television, and testified before the U.S. Senate.

Background, education, appointments and awards

Cole's father did two tours with the U.S. military in France (a total of seven years) and one 18-month stay at Kagnew Station in Asmara, Eritrea (then Ethiopia). Cole reports that he first became interested in Islam in Eritrea, which has a population roughly half Christian and half Muslim. After completing an undergraduate degree at Northwestern University (see below), Cole pursued Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at the American University in Cairo and the University of California Los Angeles, and ultimately joined the faculty at the University of Michigan (see below). Cole married the former Shahin Malik in Lahore in 1982. The couple have one son, Arman, born in 1987^[2] Cole became a member of the Bahá'í Faith in 1972 as an undergraduate at Northwestern, and the Bahá'í religion later became a focus of his academic career. Cole officially separated himself from the religion in 1996 after disputes with Bahá'í leadership concerning the Bahá'í system of administration.

Cole has personal and professional experience in the Middle East and South Asia having lived for six years in the Arab world, and another two and a half in South Asia. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Beirut, Lebanon in the late 1970s and lived in Cairo, Egypt. He has continued to visit the region in the past 15 years, as stated in his blog, in order to keep in touch with the "pulse of opinion and changing local views." He was awarded Fulbright-Hays fellowships to India (1982) and to Egypt (1985-1986). From 1999 until 2004, Juan Cole was the editor of The International Journal of Middle East Studies. He has served in professional offices for the American Institute of Iranian Studies. ^[2] He was elected president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America in November 2004. ^[3]

• 1975 B.A. History and Literature of Religions, Northwestern University
• 1978 M.A. Arabic Studies/History, American University in Cairo
• 1984 Ph.D. Islamic Studies, University of California Los Angeles
• 1984-1990 Assistant Professor of History, University of Michigan
• 1990-1995 Associate Professor of History, University of Michigan
• 1992-1995 Director, Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, University of Michigan
• 1995- Professor of History, University of Michigan

Academic interests

Cole's work has focused on the social and cultural history of modern Egypt, Shi'ite Islam in modern Iran and Iraq, the Baha'i Faith, and religion in South Asia. Since 9/11 he has written more about current affairs. In addition to academic work, he enjoys translating and has rendered into English books by Kahlil Gibran and Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl, as well as working on Urdu fiction.

Cole's initial work was on the 19th century, but he has formally published in refereed academic proceedings on the Taliban, on 9/11, the Ayatollahs of Iraq and their involvement in democracy (the Ayatollah Sistani approach of minimal interference as distinguished to the Jurisprudence of the Guardians[3] of Ayatollah Khomeini), on the historiography of the Muslim Brotherhood, on the Salafi leader Rashid Rida and on many other twentieth century and twenty-first century subjects. His book Sacred Space and Holy War contains material on the modern history of the Arab Shiites and on the Islamic Republic of Iran. He has also published material on the treatment of religious minorities by the Islamic Republic in the last thirty or so years.

Cole speaks Arabic (Modern Standard as well as Lebanese and Egyptian dialects), Persian, and Urdu, and is familiar with Turkish. ^[2]

Extra-academic interests

Informed Comment blog

Since 2002, Cole has published the blog Informed Comment, covering "History, Middle East, South Asia, Religious Studies, and the War on Terror". Blog entries include comments on widely-reported articles in Western media, summaries of important articles from Arabic and Israeli news sources, and letters and discussions with both critics and supporters.

The blog has won various awards; as of April 2006 the most prominent is the 2005 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism from Hunter College. ^[4] It has also received two 2004 Koufax Awards: the "Best Expert Blog" and the "Best Blog Post". ^[5] As of October 21, 2006, Informed Comment was ranked as the 99th most popular blog on the Internet by Technorati^[6]. Cole is one of the most respected foreign policy commentators from the left, and is a strong critic of the Bush administration. ^[7]

Commentator on Middle Eastern affairs

Public interest in Cole's blog lead to attention from other media sources. From 2002 onwards, Cole has been an active commentator in the UK and US media on topics related to the Middle East. His focus has primarily been Iraq, Iran and Israel. He has published op-eds on the Mideast at the Washington Post, Le Monde Diplomatique, The Guardian, the San Jose Mercury News, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Review, The Nation, the Daily Star, Tikkun magazine as well as at Salon.com, where he is a frequent contributor ^[8]. He has appeared on the PBS Lehrer News Hour, Nightline, ABC Evening News, the Today Show, Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, Al Jazeera and CNN Headline News. ^[9]

Other activities

In 2004, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations requested Cole's testimony at hearings to better understand the situation in Iraq.^[10]

Cole is president and treasurer of the Global Americana Institute, a group of academics specializing in the Middle East who are working to translate the seminal works of American democracy into various Middle Eastern languages. The group's web site states that the "project will begin with a selected set of passages and essays by Thomas Jefferson on constitutional and governmental issues such as freedom of religion, the separation of powers, inalienable rights, the sovereignty of the people, and so forth."^[11]

Cole is an avid science fiction fan and has a strong personal interest in human rights issues. ^[12]

Views

Afghanistan

In 2001, Cole criticized journalist Robert Fisk in a letter to the London Independent for charging the U.S. with "war crimes" in Afghanistan. Cole argued that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan would likely prevent a large scale famine: "If Mr Fisk is so upset about the death of a few hundred murderous thugs who went back on their word to surrender and viciously fell upon their captors, how would he have felt about five million corpses in the great Taliban famine? If this mass-scale starvation is avoided, it will be because of the brave US pilots whom Mr Fisk slanders as criminals."^[13]

Iraq

Although initially supportive of military intervention to overthrow the Hussein regime, ^[14] Cole is highly critical of the George W. Bush administration's policy in Iraq, in particular the decision to disband the Iraqi Army and the treatment of prisoners in Iraq. ^[15] He disputes the administration's optimistic tone about Iraq's future and questions the administration's motives.

Cole was skeptical of the Bush administration's rationale for the war stating; "There's not a scintilla of any evidence of any Iraqi involvement with al-Qaida or with Sept. 11,". He called the Ba'ath Party "...the deadliest enemy to religious fundamentalism you can find," noting that Saddam Hussain had "...persecuted and killed both Sunni and Shiite fundamentalists in great number."^[16] He also saw the issue of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as "...a smokescreen for the real ambition, which is to begin reshaping the political culture of the Middle East in ways that might favor the US and forestall increasing moves to radicalism, as in Al Qaeda." ^[17]

Early after the war began, Cole warned of the dangers of the growing Sunni insurgency in Iraq ^[18] and after Coalition forces killed Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, he commented that his death had not "...lessened Iraq's violent nightmare, or calmed tensions in the Middle East" and that "...Zarqawi's demise has stirred up trouble throughout the region, as controversies on how to respond to it have erupted among secularists and fundamentalists, Sunnis and Shiites." ^[19]

Israel

Cole is a strong critic of Israel's foreign and military policy and its treatment of Palestinians. He criticizes the nature of America's support for Israel, the activities of the Israel lobby and claims that some senior US officials such as Doug Feith have dual loyalties to America and the Israeli Likud Party. ^{[20] [21]}

He supports universities divesting their investments in Israeli companies, but opposes boycotts of Israeli academics because he believes that the academic community in Israel is mostly opposed to the policies of the Likud party.^[22][23]

He has also called Hizbollah attacks on Israel "war crimes", and stated that "[Israel has] every right to defend itself against Nasrallah and his mad bombers" while voicing disapproval for the "wholesale indiscriminate destruction and slaughter in which the Israelis have been engaged against the Lebanese in general." [4]

Controversies and criticism

"Dual loyalties"

Cole's claims that certain US government officials hold dual loyalties to Israeli interests has been attacked as an "anti-semitic conspiracy theory" and an example of new antisemitism.^{[24] [25]} Efraim Karsh, professor and Head of Mediterranean Studies at King's College London, cites Cole's criticisms of neoconservatism and AIPAC and argues that "Cole may express offense at the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but their obsession with the supposed international influence of "world Zionism" resonates powerfully in his own writings." ^[26] Cole has argued that allegations of antisemitism can sometimes be an attempt to stifle legitimate criticism of Israeli policy. ^[27] In specific response to Karsh, Cole wrote that Karsh was trying "to insinuate that my criticisms of the Neconservative clique in the Bush administration are somehow like believing in the forged 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion.' ... No serious person who knows me or my work would credit his outrageous insinuations for a moment" ^[28].

Yale appointment

In 2006 Cole was nominated to teach at Yale University and was approved by both Yale's sociology and history departments. However, the senior appointments committee overruled the departments, and Cole was not appointed.

According to "several Yale faculty members," the decision to overrule Cole's approval was "highly unusual." ^[29] However, Yale officials stated that the rejection was not unusual, and Deputy Provost Charles Long stated that "every year, least one and often more fail at one of these levels, and that happened in this case." ^[30] The history department vote was 13 yes, 7 no, and 3 abstain. ^[31] Professors interviewed by the Yale Daily News said "the faculty appeared sharply divided." ^[32]

Yale Historian Paula Hyman commented that the deep divisions in the appointment committee were the primary reasons that Cole was rejected: "There was also concern, aside from the process, about the nature of his blog and what it would be like to have a very divisive colleague." ^[33] Yale political science professor Steven B. Smith commented, "It would be very comforting for Cole's supporters to think that this got steamrolled because of his controversial blog opinions. The blog opened people's eyes as to what was going on. He was a kind of stealth candidate. I didn't know anybody that knew about this coming in; he was just kind of smuggled. And I think the blog opened people's eyes as to who this guy was, and what his views were.... It allowed us to see something about the quality of his mind." ^[34] Another Yale historian, John Merriman, said of Cole's rejection: "In this case, academic integrity clearly has been trumped by politics." ^[35]

In an interview on Democracy Now!, Cole noted that he had never applied for the Yale job: "Some people at Yale asked if they could look at me for a senior appointment. I said, 'Look all you want.' So that's up to them. Senior professors are like baseball players. You’re being looked at by other teams all the time. If it doesn't result in an offer, then nobody takes it seriously." He described the so-called "scandal" surrounding his nomination as "a tempest in a teapot" that had been exaggerated by "neo-con journalists": "Who knows what their hiring process is like, what things they were looking for?" ^[36]

Cole and the Bahá'í Faith

Cole joined the Bahá'í Faith as an undergraduate in 1972, and the religion later became an important focus of his academic work. In the 1990s, he became a regular participant on "Talisman," an academic email list devoted to intellectual discussion of Bahá'í topics. On the list, Cole advocated some structural changes to some Bahá'í procedures — including allowing women to be elected to the Universal House of Justice and instituting term limits on some elected positions — all addressing perceived abuses of authority. ^[37] Cole's ideas were felt by some to overlook scriptually-defined Bahá'í methods and channels for the voicing of grievances or disagreements to lead to the resolution of conflict while preserving the unity of the community. ^[38] The Bahá'í administrative system, defined in Bahá'í scripture, is seen by the community as sacred and divinely revealed. ^[39] After exchanges involving himself, various contributors to Talisman, and representatives of the Bahá'í administration, Cole resigned his membership in the organization. He later announced that he had recovered his private faith, but remains unaffiliated with the central Bahá'í institutions. ^[40] Since his resignation, Cole has continued to publish academic articles and book chapters on the Bahá'í religion. In addition, Cole has created H-Bahai, a Web site making available a wealth of difficult to obtain primary sources on the Bahá'í Faith. ^[41]

Wager with Jonah Goldberg

On February 5th, 2005 Jonah Goldberg of the conservative National Review criticized Cole and wagered him $1,000 "that Iraq won't have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it." [5]

Selected bibliography

Texts

• Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shi`ite Islam (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002) ISBN 1-86064-736-7
• Modernity and the Millennium:The Genesis of the Baha'i Faith in the Nineteenth-Century Middle East. New York:Columbia University Press. May, 1998) ISBN 0-231-11081-2
• Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East: Social and Cultural Origins of Egypt's `Urabi Movement. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Paperback edn., Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1999)
• Comparing Muslim Societies. [Edited.] (Comparative Studies in Society and History series.) Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press, 1992. Review
• Roots of North Indian Shi`ism in Iran and Iraq: Religion and State in Awadh, 1722-1859. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988; New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991)
• Shi`ism and Social Protest. [Edited, with Nikki Keddie]. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986)
• From Iran East and West: Studies in Babi and Baha'i History, vol. 2 [Edited, with Moojan Momen, and contributor.] "Baha'u'llah and the Naqshbandi Sufis in Iraq, 1854-1856." Los Angeles:Kalimat Press, 1984)
• The Imagined Embrace: Gender, Identity and Iranian Ethnicity in Jahangiri Paintings. In Michel Mazzaoui, ed. Safavid Iran and her Neighbors (Salt Lake City: Utah University Press, 2003), pp. 49-62.
• Historiography of the Muslim Brotherhood, essay in Middle East Historiographies: Narrating the Twentieth Century by Israel Gershoni et al [6], 2006

Journal Issues

• Rashid Rida on tne the Baha'i Fairth: A Utilitarian Theory of the Spread of Religions,[7]. Arab Studies Quarterly 5, 3 (Summer 1983): 276-291

• Nationalism and the Colonial Legacy in the Middle East and Central Asia. Co-edited with Deniz Kandiyoti. Special Issue of The International Journal of Middle East Studies Vol. 34, no. 2 (May 2002), pp. 187-424.

• The United States and Shi‘ite Religious Factions in Post-Ba‘thist Iraq [8] MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL VOLUME 57, NO. 4, AUTUMN 2003

• The Taliban, Women, and the Hegelian Private Sphere [9] Social Research- An International Quarterly of the Social Sciences: Islam Private and Public Spheres, Volume 70 No. 2 (Fall 2003)

• The Iraqi Shiites: On the history of America’s would-be allies,[10] Boston Review, Fall, 2003.

• A Shia Crescent: What Fallout for the United States [11] J.I. Cole et al Symposium Middle East Policy Council Journal Volume XII, Winter 2005, Number 4

• The Reelection of Bush and the Fate of Iraq, Constellations, Volume 12, no. 2 (June 2005): 164-172.

• A ‘Shiite Crescent’? The Regional Impact of the Iraq War.” Current History. (January 2006): 20-26.

Translations

• Religion in Iran: From Zoroaster to Baha'u'llah by Alessandro Bausani. [Editor of this English translation of Persia Religiosa, Milan, 1958, and contributor of afterwords and bibliographical updates]. New York: Bibliotheca Persica Press, 2000.
• Broken Wings: A Novel by Kahlil Gibran. [Translation of the Arabic novel, al-Ajnihah al-Mutakassirah.] Ashland, Or.: White Cloud Press, 1998)
• The Vision [ar-Ru'ya] of Kahlil Gibran [prose poems translated from the Arabic]. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1998. [ Hardcover Edn.: Ashland, Or.: White Cloud Press, 1994)
• Spirit Brides [`Ara'is al-muruj] of Kahlil Gibran [short stories translated from the Arabic]. Santa Cruz: White Cloud Press, 1993.
• Letters and Essays 1886-1913 [Rasa'il va Raqa'im] of Mirza Abu'l-Fadl Gulpaygani [tr. from Arabic and Persian]. Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1985.
• Miracles and Metaphors [Ad-Durar al-bahiyyah] of Mirza Abu'l-Fadl Gulpaygani [tr. from the Arabic and annotated]. Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1982)

See Juan R. I. Cole Publications for complete list of publications.

Notes and references

External links

• Juan R. I. Cole Home Page at the University of Michigan
• Informed Comment - Juan Cole's weblog
• [Iraq] Three-State Solution? The Nation review, March 29, 2004