MER Article The Strategic Logic of the Iraq Blunder To hear American politicians and the commercial news media tell it, the greatest military power in world history hastily launched an ill-conceived invasion because of intelligence failures and wishful fantasies of sweets and flowers. It is as if, to paraphrase a sentiment heard in White House hallwa Chris Toensing, Sheila Carapico • 17 min read
Current Analysis Bush's Flawed Flypaper Theory Forget for a moment how shamelessly President George W. Bush tried to manipulate Americans’ emotions by invoking September 11 six times during his recent prime-time sales pitch for staying the course in Iraq. There is no need to recall the reports finding no connection between that day’s terrorist a Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis US Stays with Egyptian Dictator “America will stand with the allies of freedom to support democratic movements in the Middle East and beyond, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.” With these soaring words in the 2005 State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush swore to overturn the long-standing US polic Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis Mahmoud Abbas’ Mission Improbable Renewed, if somewhat less euphoric talk of a historic opportunity for Middle East peace accompanied Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas both heading to and returning from his May 26, 2005 summit with President George W. Bush at the White House. Yet the opportunity, of which much has been written since Mouin Rabbani, Chris Toensing • 10 min read
MER Article Iraqi Elections Just once, one wishes, events in post-invasion Iraq could transpire without instantly being spun as helping or hurting President George W. Bush. There was no such luck after images of Iraqis cheerfully -- even joyously -- voting in the January 30, 2005 elections for a provisional national assembly z Chris Toensing • 3 min read
MER Article Hisham Sharabi MERIP mourns the passing in mid-January 2005 of Hisham Sharabi, a formidable thinker and extraordinary teacher who, along with Edward Said and Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, led a generation of activist Palestinian intellectuals who lived and worked in the United States. Sharabi died of cancer at the age of 78 Chris Toensing • 1 min read
Current Analysis Dictatorship Remains OK for our Allies President George W. Bush likes to associate his administration’s goals with the will of the Almighty. Witness the stirring coda of the 2005 State of the Union address: “The road of Providence is uneven and unpredictable yet we know where it leads: It leads to freedom.” As in many previous speeches, Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis Another "Historic Day" Looms in Iraq Yet another "historic day" will dawn in war-weary Iraq on January 30. As interim prime minister Iyad Allawi told Iraqi television viewers, "For almost the first time since the creation of Iraq, Iraqis will participate in choosing their representatives in complete freedom." Not to be outdone, Preside Chris Toensing • 10 min read
MER Article Neo-Conservatives, Hardline Clerics and the Bomb Even as the US military launched a long-rumored offensive in the Iraqi city of Falluja in early November 2004, the subject of anxious speculation in Washington was not Iraq, but Iran. President George W. Bush’s victory at the polls on November 2 returned to office the executive who located Iran upon Chris Toensing, Kaveh Ehsani • 14 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Fall 2004) It is not hard to understand why the judiciously written and copiously footnoted report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States debuted to widespread acclaim in July 2004. Coming as it did amid the febrile US presidential campaign season, the report rode the quadrennial wave of Deborah J. Gerner, Chris Toensing, The Editors • 10 min read
Current Analysis Military Families Feel Betrayed by Administration For everyone except George W. Bush and his entourage, the recent siege of Falluja and the standoff with the militia of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gave occasion to rethink the conventional wisdom about the US-led occupation of Iraq. Chris Toensing • 4 min read
Current Analysis Lost in Our Own Little World Two days after a lethal car bomb exploded outside the Mount Lebanon Hotel in downtown Baghdad last month, I sat down for tea with an Iraqi poet near the capital’s famous open-air book market. In between jokes delivered with a mock Egyptian accent, he laid out his theory of the hotel bombing: the US Chris Toensing • 4 min read
