MER Article Editor's Picks (Summer 2008) Ali, Kecia. Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith and Jurisprudence (London: Oneworld, 2006). Al-Jawaheri,Yasmin Husein. Women in Iraq: The Gender Impact of International Sanctions (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2008). An-Na‘im, Abdullahi Ahmed. Islam and the Secular State: (Author not identified) • 2 min read
MER Article The Puzzle of Federalism in Iraq Reidar Visser and Gareth Stansfield, eds., An Iraq of Its Regions: Cornerstones of a Federal Democracy? (London: Hurst and Company, 2007). Eric Davis • 11 min read
MER Article Morocco's Imperfect Remedy for Gender Inequality "And now no one wants to get married,” says Muhammad, describing the reaction among men at his mosque to Morocco’s 2004 reform of personal status law. “Everyone is afraid to.” Camilo Gomez-Rivas • 11 min read
MER Article A Kurdish-American in Mosul Herro Kader Mustafa is a Kurdish-American, originally from Iraq, who has built an impressive portfolio of responsibilities in the course of her career at the State Department and the National Security Council of the United States. She is currently the acting chief of staff for the undersecretary for Herro Kader Mustafa • 5 min read
MER Article Iran and the "Kurdish Question" The breakup of the Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires in Eastern Europe and the Balkans was the result of a series of nationalist agitations that, at the end of the World War I, ushered in new nation-states. In the Middle East, by contrast, the dissolution of Ottoman dominion was the star Kaveh Bayat • 16 min read
MER Article The Politics of Poverty in Turkey's Southeast “There’s not a kid in this neighborhood who hasn’t shined shoes or sold tissues,” says Mehmet, 19, laughing deeply. His is the black humor born of misfortune: Like so many Kurdish youths in Diyarbakır, seat of Turkey’s troubled southeast, Mehmet slowly made his way to the city with his family after Will Day • 7 min read
MER Article Mapping Euro-Kurdistan By leaving Ankara, we became a party; by going into the Middle East, we became an army; when we go out into the world, we shall achieve a state. ―Abdullah Öcalan Bilgin Ayata • 16 min read
MER Article Letter from Iraqi Kurdistan Landing at the shiny new airport in Erbil, seat of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, I could not help but notice that the cleaning crews are not staffed with locals. The cleaners are from Southeast Asia, giving the impression that Iraqi Kurdistan is blessed with full employme Peri Raouf • 4 min read
MER Article To Protect or to Project? Erstwhile kings of the mountains, Iraq’s Kurdish parties have become kingmakers in Baghdad. No federal government can be established without them—and they know it. Joost Hiltermann • 24 min read
MER Article The Growing Danger of a Nuclear Middle East Every country in the Arab world, it seems, wants a nuclear reactor. In May 2008, a consortium of seven nations, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, announced they had agreed on a plan to boost nuclear power generation in the region. The proclamation is onl Carah Ong • 11 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Summer 2008) Like the Palestinians, the Kurds are routinely described as a “question.” The label refers, in one sense, to their status as a people who sought self-determination in the wake of World War I but whose claim is still unsettled. From the standpoint of the states that divided the population of Kurdista The Editors • 4 min read
