MER Article Economic Impact of the Crisis in Egypt Egypt was facing a severe foreign exchange shortage when the Gulf crisis broke out. Its debt arrears were piling up and it was finding it more and more difficult to obtain new loans. The Gulf crisis threatens to make this situation even worse. Here’s how: Remittances sent home by some 1 million Egy Marsha Pripstein Posusney • 3 min read
MER Article Mubarak's Gamble Egyptians pride themselves on their historic endurance and their ability to survive under almost all conditions. But even before the Gulf crisis erupted in August, there had been a great sense of worry and uncertainty regarding the future. The juncture of a new century with a new millennium is notic Ahmed Abdalla • 10 min read
MER Article The Gulf Crisis and the New World Order The Gulf crisis cannot be regarded as a purely local or regional issue, or a crisis whose worldwide significance is derived only from the importance of Arab oil. More fundamentally, it has become the main testing ground for the rapprochement between East and West as applied to North-South relations. Mohamed Sid-Ahmed • 4 min read
MER Article Kuwaiti Rights Are the Issue Are the United States and the Arab world “on the edge of war,” as the editors of Middle East Report put it in their September-October 1990 editorial? I think not. Rather, Iraq, a criminal state, has extended the violence that rules inside its own borders into Kuwait. This act by itself and before th Samir al-Khalil • 6 min read
MER Article The Mythology of a Conquerer The Gulf crisis? The threats of Saddam Hussein? The Western and other hostages? Two worldviews clash over these questions -- two public opinions, each engaging masses of people, ardently take opposite sides, each with good arguments. How is it possible for “Westerners” (in the broadest sense) not t Maxime Rodinson • 4 min read
MER Article Arms Limitations Must Include All Parties As the United States stands on the brink of its first full-scale war with an Arab country, it is incumbent on all of us to share our expertise and our experience with the broader public. The consequences of a major war in this region have not been fully thought out -- by the public, by the politicia Rashid Khalidi • 4 min read
MER Article A Military Solution Will Destroy Kuwait Ahmad al-Khatib has been active for many years in the Kuwaiti opposition movement and was a member of Kuwait’s parliament until its dissolution in 1986. Al-Khatib attended the assembly of Kuwaitis in Jidda, called by the ruling Al Sabah, in October 1990. Fred Halliday spoke with him in London upon h Fred Halliday • 5 min read
MER Article A New Balance of Forces Samih Farsoun, a contributing editor of this magazine and professor of sociology at American University, recently visited the Middle East. He spoke with Joe Stork in early November 1990. What is your assessment of the impact of this crisis on the balance of forces in the region? Joe Stork • 9 min read
MER Article Why War? Since August 5, 1990, we have seen the most extensive and rapid US military mobilization since the end of World War II. As of early October, more than 200,000 US troops in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf region are drawing combat pay. President Bush declares this deployment was necessary to defend Ann Lesch, Joe Stork • 18 min read
MER Article Jean-Pierre Thieck Jean-Pierre Thieck -- activist, scholar, journalist and friend of MERIP -- died of AIDS in Paris on July 5, 1990, at the age of 41. A descendant of a grand rabbi of Tunis on his mother’s side, his upbringing in the thick of the Paris communist milieu manifested itself in youthful political activism Joel Beinin, Zachary Lockman • 1 min read
MER Article Letters Revolutionary Flagellation Barbara Harlow’s lavish celebration of the “prison text” The Shamed (MER 164-165) has considerably clouded her aesthetic judgment. “The Shamed presents itself as a novel at once realistic and allegorical, mobilizing social forces against each other,” she tells us, and the (Author not identified) • 4 min read
MER Article Khalil, Republic of Fear Samir al-Khalil, Republic of Fear: Saddam’s Iraq (California Press, 1989). This book, first published a year ago at a time when -- with a few honorable exceptions -- most criticism of Iraq and its president was strangely muted, is a sophisticated and brilliantly savage denunciation of Arab populist Peter Sluglett • 5 min read
