Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Fred Halliday

Fred Halliday (1946-2010) was a long-time contributing editor of this magazine and a professor at the London School of Economics.

MER Article

North Yemen Today

The streets of Sanaa, the North Yemeni capital, appear to condense some of the most divergent elements of Third World economic change and political upheaval. Perhaps nowhere else in the Middle East, or indeed elsewhere in the Third World, do the antinomies of combined and uneven development come so

Fred Halliday • 18 min read

MER Article

Letter From Madrid

Many European countries claim a special relationship with the Arab world. The English see themselves as having some unique affinity for Arabs, because of their colonial role in developing Egypt and the Anglo-Bedouin fraternizations of Arabia. The French vaunt their cultural impact upon the Maghreb,

Fred Halliday • 7 min read

MER Article

Labor Migration in the Arab World

The Arab world comprises 18 states and was inhabited, in 1980, by more than 150 million people. [1] Two factors vital to economic development—population and oil—are, however, distributed in an extremely uneven manner among these states. The abstract possibility of mutually beneficial cooperation bet

Fred Halliday • 20 min read

MER Article

Brzezinski, Power and Principle

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983). In the title of his account of four years as Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski offers two concepts that, in his view, should guide US foreign policy. As with so much in this tart apologia, his

Fred Halliday • 2 min read

MER Article

Marxism, the Third World and the Middle East

It has become common in the West to question the relevance of Marxism to advanced capitalism, and to suggest that, as a theory, it is in “crisis” and requires substantial revision. Paradoxically, more orthodox versions of Marxist theory and politics seem to retain an appeal in the Third World. Since

Maxine Molyneux, Fred Halliday • 12 min read

MER Article

Le Carre, The Little Drummer Girl

John Le Carre, The Little Drummer Girl (Random House, 1983). Le Carre has forsaken the world of the Circus and its post-imperial wiles to explore the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, particularly that between the underground agencies of the two sides. The central character is a young E

Fred Halliday • 2 min read

MER Article

Imperialism and the Middle East

Bill Warren, Imperialism: Pioneer of Capitalism (London: Verso, 1980).

Fred Halliday • 17 min read

MER Article

Manoucheir Kalantari

It is with the deepest sadness that I have learned of the death of Manoucheir Kalantari, a dear friend and valiant comrade with whom I worked closely for several years. He was an Iranian socialist who worked for many years as a leader of the opposition in Britain and Western Europe to the Shah’s reg

Fred Halliday • 3 min read

MER Article

Year IV of the Islamic Republic

The fourth year of the Iranian revolution at first sight contained less surprises and reverses of political trend than the three which preceded it. The leading personalities of the regime remained constant, without major divisions or assassinations. Khomeini himself, although apparently physically w

Fred Halliday • 17 min read

MER Article

Current Soviet Policy and the Middle East

This report summarizes impressions of Soviet foreign policy gained during a study visit to the USSR in July 1982. During this visit, under the auspices of the Oriental Institute of the Academy of Sciences, I was able to meet a wide range of experts working in the institute, as well as journalists an

Fred Halliday • 14 min read

MER Article

Mengistu and the Standing Committee

By the end of 1979, Mengistu Haile-Mariam, “the Chairman,” was being projected through the official media in a strong authoritarian light. He derived from his earlier years an exceptional acquaintance with the regional diversity of Ethiopia. Born in an Oromo area between 1940 and 1942, of mixed Amha

Fred Halliday • 2 min read

MER Article

Ethiopia's Revolution from Above

With hindsight it is possible to see in the course of the Ethiopian revolution a process of radicalization and post-revolutionary consolidation through which the Provisional Military Administration Committee (PMAC, or the Derg) established a stable new order on the ruins of the old. The direction of

Maxine Molyneux, Fred Halliday • 32 min read