MER Article CARDRI, Saddam's Iraq Committee Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq, Saddam’s Iraq: Revolution Or Reaction? (London: Zed Books, 1986). This book fills an important gap in the works that have been published on Iraq in the West. Here a number of scholars from Britain and Iraq survey the economic, class an Thabit Abdullah • 2 min read
MER Article Beck, The Qashqa'i of Iran Lois Beck, The Qashqa’i of Iran (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986). The Qashqa’is are a confederation of Turkic-speaking tribes dispersed in the three southwestern Iranian provinces of Fars, Isfahan, and Bushehr. Historically, they have been one of the most important tribal groups in the Bahman Abdollahi • 2 min read
MER Article Ladjevardi, Labor Unions and Autocracy in Iran Habib Ladjevardi, Labor Unions and Autocracy in Iran (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1985). Over the past few years we have witnessed a welcome development in new books on Iran. Instead of general histories, spanning centuries and big events, a number of books attempt to reconstruct small Afsaneh Najmabadi • 4 min read
MER Article Pakistan's Movement Against Islamization Nikki Keddie traveled to Pakistan in 1985 and 1986 to investigate groups that in various ways have worked against President Zia ul Haq’s attempts to “Islamize” Pakistan’s legal system. Many of these activists are from women’s organizations; the Shi‘i community and certain lawyers groups have also mo Eric Hooglund, Joe Stork • 6 min read
MER Article AWACS in the Gulf The Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft that Pakistan wants to get from Washington has played an important part in the US military buildup in the Persian Gulf region. In 1978, the Carter administration sold seven of the planes to the Shah of Iran. One motivation was to reduce the un Joe Stork • 2 min read
MER Article "A Central American Situation in the Gulf" For residents of the tranquil United Arab Emirates, the sight on June 17 was surreal: the emir’s court in Sharja surrounded by battle-ready soldiers in trenches and jeep-mounted guns, with helicopters buzzing overhead, snipers on the roof and sandbags on its marble balconies. It was the first coup i Christian Huxley • 5 min read
MER Article Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Gulf After the Iraqi attack on the USS Stark in mid-May 1987, senior State Department officials scurried around the Gulf to drum up political support. Pakistan received a more significant visit. In late June, Gen. George Crist, commander-in-chief of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) arrived in Islamabad w Ahmed Rashid • 13 min read
MER Article When I Found Myself This story first appeared in Arabic in the Paris-based Kull al-‘Arab, September 3, 1986. The men in our unit branded me “the intellectual,” a term that connoted for them more sarcasm than conviction. They pronounced it in mincing tones, and played comically with its derivatives. This ought not, of Dia' Khudair • 14 min read
MER Article The Elusive Quest for Gulf Security Iran’s revolution had a profound impact on the regional balance of forces in the Gulf. Until 1979, the two most powerful and ambitious states in the region, Iran and Iraq, were sufficiently constrained by each other, and by the presence of United States forces and Washington’s friendly relations wit 'Abd al-Hadi Khalaf • 16 min read
MER Article The USSR and the Gulf War In the seven years since the Iran-Iraq war began, Soviet policy toward the conflict has been quite constant. Moscow regards the war as “senseless” and has repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire and return to the status quo ante, as outlined in the 1975 Algiers Agreement between Iran and Iraq. Fred Halliday • 5 min read
MER Article "Little Satan" Stuck in Arms Export Trap France is finding out that being a “Little Satan” can be more uncomfortable than being a big one. Whatever the outcome, the Gulf war threatens to end in political and economic disaster for France, which has become number two demon in the eyes of the ayatollahs by selling Iraq more arms than it can p Diana Johnstone • 5 min read
MER Article The Reagan Doctrine and the Secret State The Tower Commission has been taken as evidence for very many things. It’s been taken as evidence for President Reagan’s lack of attention to foreign policy; it’s been taken as evidence of a glitch in the chain of command and control in the White House. It can as easily be taken as evidence of the v Christopher Hitchens • 7 min read
