MER Article Iraq's Seventh Year According to the Iranian media, the seventh year of the war was again to be the “decisive year.” For Iraq it was a year of more “achievements and victories” under the leadership of the “militant leader.” On March 21,1987, the Persian New Year, Saddam Hussein brought thousands of demonstrators to the Isam al-Khafaji • 13 min read
MER Article Italy to the Gulf—and Back Aside from the two superpowers, whose superpower most observers believe to be waning, there is a third, potential superpower haunting Western Europe -- which is Europe itself. If only it could get it together. And what better occasion to get together than to protect “our oil” from the awful ayatolla Diane Johnstone • 5 min read
MER Article Nuclear Summits and the Middle East To what extent can agreements on nuclear disarmament between the superpowers contribute to the reduction of tensions in regional conflicts, particularly in the Middle East? Mohamed Sid-Ahmed • 3 min read
MER Article Reagan's Iran Despite its reputation for having inflexible ideological positions on all foreign policy issues, the Reagan administration actually came to office in January 1981 without a coherent policy for dealing with Iran. At first the new administration was content to let Iran fade from the spotlight of natio Eric Hooglund • 8 min read
MER Article Soviet Perceptions of Iraq From the Soviet point of view, Iraq under the Baath Party has been a troubling enigma, in terms of its place in the Third World generally and its political position in Middle East diplomacy. In the first respect, Iraq during the 1970s did not manage to consolidate itself as one of the USSR’s dependa Roderic Pitty • 19 min read
MER Article Moscow's Crisis Management In January 1986, a major crisis broke out within the leadership of the Yemeni Socialist Party, the ruling party in the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. In two weeks of fighting many thousands of people lost their lives, and afterward between 30,000 and 70,000 fled to neighboring North Yemen. Fred Halliday • 16 min read
MER Article The Middle East and Soviet Military Strategy The Middle East, the Persian Gulf and the eastern Mediterranean are of particular strategic concern to Moscow because of their proximity to the Soviet Union. In addition, the Soviets view the Middle East in the second half of the 20th century as akin to the Balkans at the turn of the century: they c Michael McGwire • 22 min read
MER Article North-South vs. East-West The new US-Soviet agreement banning intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Europe appears to signal a new period of dialogue and cooperation between the two superpowers. It seems that the intense hostilities of the early Reagan era have given way to a more relaxed and constructive relationship b Michael Klare • 11 min read
MER Article The Great Powers and the Middle East The December 1987 Reagan-Gorbachev summit raised once again the issue of linkage between Third World conflicts and East-West relations. Two broad questions are involved. First, how does the nuclear arms race intersect with social and political upheaval in the Third World? The second question involve Fred Halliday • 10 min read
MER Article From the Editors (March/April 1988) The adversarial relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, the two great powers of this era, is key to understanding Washington’s and Moscow’s policies in the Middle East. In the Persian Gulf, for instance, Washington’s secret arms sales to Iran and subsequent naval buildup were bo The Editors • 4 min read
MER Article Bahbah, Israel and Latin America Bishara Bahbah, Israel and Latin America: The Military Connection (New York: St. Martin’s Press with the Institute for Palestine Studies, 1986). Milton Jamail • 1 min read
MER Article Lamb, The Arabs David Lamb, The Arabs: Journeys Beyond the Mirage (New York: Random House, 1987). More accessible than academic or political studies, journalism has long been the vehicle for most popular knowledge of the Middle East. Recently, with the increase in the number of foreign correspondents writing full- Lee OBrien • 1 min read
