MER Article From the Editor (Fall 2011) In October 1970, a small group of anti-war activists gathered at a cabin in the deep woods of New Hampshire. Some were recently returned from Peace Corps billets in the Middle East. Others had worked in “peace church” offices in the region. The attendees were all young or youngish; they also had in The Editors • 2 min read
Current Analysis Syria's Torment There are two political-intellectual prisms through which the recurrent conflagrations of the modern Middle East are conventionally seen. One casts the region’s stubborn ills as internally caused -- by the outsize role of religion in public life, the persistence of primordial identities like sect an The Editors • 9 min read
MER Article Editor's Picks (Summer 2011) Abdulhadi, Rabab, Evelyn Alsultany and Nadine Naber, eds. Arab and Arab American Feminisms: Gender, Violence and Belonging (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2011). Allen, Roger and Shawkat M. Toorawa, eds. Islam: A Short Guide to the Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2011). Amb The Editors • 1 min read
MER Article From the Editor (Summer 2011) A Beltway bromide that will not die is, “No one ever went broke betting against peace in the Middle East.” Of dull wit and unclaimed provenance, the saying nonetheless makes the rounds every time the White House reiterates its commitment to resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The Editors • 9 min read
Current Analysis The Fateful Choice When 19 al-Qaeda hijackers attacked New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, the United States faced a strategic dilemma that was unique in magnitude, but not in kind. Terrorists had killed numerous civilians before, in the US and elsewhere, with and without state sponsorship. Al-Qaeda was not The Editors • 10 min read
MER Article Editor's Picks (Spring 2011) Cairoli, M. Laetitia. Girls of the Factory: A Year with the Garment Workers of Morocco (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2011). Dabashi, Hamid. Shi‘ism: A Religion of Protest (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2011). Dahlgren, Susanne. Contesting Realities: The Public Sphere and Morality The Editors • 1 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Spring 2011) Revolution is a weighty word, one as freighted with past disappointments as with hopes for the future. In the Arab world, where the first spontaneous popular revolutions of the twenty-first century have begun, cabals of colonels long expropriated the term to glorify their coups d’état. It is an acc The Editors • 6 min read
Current Analysis Of Principle and Peril Reasonable, principled people can disagree about whether, in an ideal world, Western military intervention in Libya’s internal war would be a moral imperative. With Saddam Hussein dead and gone, there is arguably no more capricious and overbearing dictator in the Arab world than Col. Muammar al-Qadd The Editors • 10 min read
Current Analysis Red-White-and-Black Valentine There are moments in world affairs that call for the suspension of disbelief. At these junctures, caution ought to be suppressed and cynicism forgotten to let joy and wonderment resound. Across the globe, everyone, at least everyone with a heart, knows that the Egyptian revolution of 2011 is such a The Editors • 8 min read
Current Analysis Dead-Enders on the Potomac Every US administration has its mouthpiece in Washington’s think tank world, its courtier that will slavishly praise its every utterance. For the blessedly bygone Bush administration, that echo chamber was the American Enterprise Institute and the neo-conservative broadsheets in its orbit. For the O The Editors • 7 min read
MER Article Editor's Picks (Winter 2010) Allin, Dana H. and Steven Simon. The Sixth Crisis: Iran, Israel, America and the Rumors of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Alterman, Jon and Michael Dziuban. Clear Gold: Water as a Strategic Resource in the Middle East (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 20 The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Winter 2010) Is it happenstance or harmonic convergence that the first reports on the Wikileaks cache of State Department cables hit the newsstands alongside stories about the fresh political salience of “American exceptionalism”? Something about the content of the diplomatic missives and, more to the point, the The Editors • 13 min read
