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
MER Article Reagan Reflags the Gulf As the Iran-Iraq war moves into its eighth year, it threatens to explode into a shooting war between Iran and the United States, a war that could involve the Soviet Union as well. Escalation of the US military presence in the Gulf involves more than the 11 Kuwaiti tankers now flying the stars and st Joe Stork • 8 min read
MER Article Letters (July/August 1987) Israeli Arms Merchants I am writing in response to the article by Bishara Bahbah, “Israel’s Private Arms Network,” in your January-February 1987 issue. First, as Bahbah himself indicates, there is no Israeli private arms network, because arms exports from Israel are controlled by the government, wh (Author not identified) • 2 min read
MER Article Al-Ghosaibi, Arabian Essays Ghazi al-Ghosaibi, Arabian Essays (Boston, MA: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982). If Dr. al-Ghosaibi was as competent a minister of industry as he is a judicious essayist, then Saudi Arabia may be somewhat more fortunate in its rulers than might otherwise appear. A poet and observer of international Fred Halliday • 1 min read
MER Article Chilcote and Johnson, Theories of Development Ronald H. Chilcote and Dale L. Johnson, eds., Theories of Development, Mode of Production or Dependency? (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1983). This is volume two of Sage’s series in “Class, State and Development,” and the answer to the question posed in the title of the book is “both.” That Karen Pfeifer • 1 min read
MER Article Melman, The Master Terrorist Yossi Melman, The Master Terrorist: The True Story Behind Abu Nidal (New York: Adama Books, 1986). Yossi Melman has pieced together “an interim report” that provides, within limits, a substantial sketch of Abu Nidal and his Palestinian fringe group, most widely known as the Abu Nidal group, or t Roger Gaess • 2 min read
MER Article Bernard Lewis' Anti-Semites Bernard Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice (New York: W.W. Norton, 1986). In the 1960s, nearly all university students in Middle East history courses read Bernard Lewis’ The Arabs in History (1950), The Emergence of Modern Turkey (1961) and The Middle East an Joel Beinin • 10 min read
MER Article Sudan's Republican Brothers Abdullahi Ahmad an-Na‘im, 39, is a leading member of the Republicans (jumhurriyun), a Sudanese Islamic reform movement started by the late Mahmud Muhammad Taha. The Republicans (also known as Republican Brothers) advocate equality for women and for non-Muslims, which challenges head-on the tradition Judith Pierce • 8 min read
MER Article PNC Strengthens Palestinian Hand The most striking impression to a casual observer at the Club des Pins Conference Center in Algiers where the Palestine National Council met over April 20-25 was the emotional intensity of the greetings and reunions between long-lost friends among the 2000 or more Palestinians in the corridors outsi Rashid Khalidi • 5 min read
MER Article Interview with Mohamed Sid-Ahmed Mohamed Sid-Ahmed is a Contributing Editor of this magazine and Managing Editor of Al-Ahali, the weekly of Egypt’s left opposition party, Tagammu‘. Joe Stork spoke with him in Washington in early May. You recently attended the Palestine National Council meeting in Algiers. What were your impress Joe Stork • 6 min read
MER Article The Ear of Authority A confidential report compiled in October 1966 by the Criminal Investigation office of the Egyptian army accused Ahmad Hasan, former member of parliament and former government-appointed head of his village, of 11 “criminal and terrorist” offenses. Timothy Mitchell • 13 min read
