ISCI is the New SCIRI

Just to clarify the nomenclature for anyone who's confused, ISCI (i.e., the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq) is the new SCIRI (i.e., the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq) they rebranded themselves a little while ago as non-revolutionary, presumably because they're basically running the show in Iraq.

Comments

It was the bit that sounded Iranian that was really embarrassing for their neocon friends.

Posted by P O'Neill | March 27, 2008 2:45 PM

It was the bit that sounded Iranian that was really embarrassing for their neocon friends.

It was also bad PR internally. Iraqis are already very suspicious of ISCI's ties to Iran.

That is why they changed it. At the same time that they changed their name, they announced that they were switching primary allegiance from Khamenei to Sistani.

It was a PR move, but geared more to an Iraqi than American/neocon audience.

Posted by Eric Martin | March 27, 2008 3:09 PM

For a brief period, it was also SIIC- the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council. I guess it sounded a little too much like "sick." Good thing our crack spin doctors were on the case.

Posted by fostert | March 27, 2008 3:10 PM

Yeah, I missed the time when they switched from SIIC to ISCI.

Now I get them confused with the SCSI computer protocol...

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 27, 2008 3:40 PM

Was that the "Judean Peoples' Front"? or "the Peoples Front of Judea."???

The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front.

Posted by laborlibert | March 27, 2008 3:48 PM

Now I get them confused with the SCSI computer protocol...

Especially since the country used to be governed by Universal Supreme Baathists, or USBs for short. Clearly Iraq is moving in the wrong direction.

Posted by James Gary | March 27, 2008 4:00 PM

Yeah, I missed the time when they switched from SIIC to ISCI.

See, I think this had more to do with the way English speakers were translating it than ISCI actually changing their name again.

Early on, many translations just jumbled the order of words, and Arabic speakers were complaining repeatedly. Finally, we gringos caught on.

Posted by Eric Martin | March 27, 2008 5:25 PM

This reminds me of when GTE became Verizon and Bell Labs became Lucent.

They should have gone the whole nine yards and changed their name to Qualastrex or something catchy like that.

Posted by Jim D | March 27, 2008 6:48 PM

Missed the memo, thanks.

Posted by Stan | March 27, 2008 7:06 PM

Next up - the Mahdi Army changes its name to Firewire...

Or maybe Vista...

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 27, 2008 11:45 PM