MER Article This Is Not Vietnam In 1926 the French surrealist, Rene Magritte, painted an unmistakable pipe and labeled it, in careful schoolboy script: “This is not a pipe.” In 1991 George Bush began a war in the Persian Gulf which, he insisted, was not Vietnam. Iraq, he pointed out, is a desert; Vietnam was a jungle. Moreover, Ir Marilyn Young • 10 min read
MER Article The Intellectuals and the War Edward Said is Parr Professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, a member of the Palestine National Council and a contributing editor of this magazine. Along with Noam Chomsky, he is one of the foremost opposition public intellectuals in the United States, a role he plays in the Arab Barbara Harlow • 15 min read
MER Article Eyewitness: Iraq Joost Hiltermann, an editor of this magazine, traveled through Iraq from March 23 to April 10, 1991, as Middle East field coordinator of the Boston-based organization Physicians for Human Rights. The delegation, whose mission was to study the impact of the Gulf war and civil conflict on the health o Joost Hiltermann • 4 min read
MER Article The Other Face of War The human toll of the Persian Gulf war -- as many as 100,000 deaths, 5 million displaced persons and over $200 billion in property damage -- ranks this conflict as the single most devastating event in the Middle East since World War I. Eric Hooglund • 24 min read
MER Article From the Editors (July/August 1991) The US military deployment to Saudi Arabia was on a scale not seen since the height of the Vietnam war. The “victory” parade in Washington on June 8 was the largest celebratory military exhibition, we are told, since World War II. The parade, like the war, was designed in part to obliterate the hist The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Document: Report of the UN Mission to Assess Humanitarian Needs in Iraq Conditions in Iraq in the aftermath of the US military assault have been difficult to ascertain. The most authoritative report to date is that of the UN mission led by Undersecretary-General Martti Ahtisaari, which spent March 10-17 in Iraq. The mission, which included representatives of the UN Chil (Author not identified) • 10 min read
MER Article The Gulf War and India From the beginning, the Gulf crisis aroused a level of interest and concern in India unusual for an international issue not directly involving this country. Much of our oil comes from the Gulf region, and “Gulf money” in the form of remittances from Indians working in Iraq and the Gulf states has be Sumit Sarkar • 3 min read
MER Article Yemen: Unification and the Gulf War On May 22, 1990, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (the PDRY, or South Yemen) and the Yemen Arab Republic (the YAR, or North Yemen) joined to become the Republic of Yemen. “A Tale of Two Families” reflects the malaise in North Yemen on the eve of unification; the situation in the south, sinc Sheila Carapico • 4 min read
MER Article Arab Economics After the Gulf War On February 6, 1991, Secretary of State James Baker admitted before the House of Foreign Affairs Committee that economic factors, particularly widespread Arab resentment that oil wealth was not more equitably distributed, had played a role in the dynamics leading to the Gulf war and would remain one Yahya Sadowski • 15 min read
MER Article Report from Baghdad Saddam Hussein’s presence is ubiquitous in Baghdad, where he is shown to be all things to all people. Throughout the city there are portraits of him dressed as Bedouin, Kurd, soldier and civilian. In some places he is wearing a white Bahama suit; in others he is in brown Paul Lalor • 7 min read
MER Article "Eventually There Can Only Be an Arab Solution" Amb. ‘Abdallah al-Ashtal is Yemen’s representative to the United Nations. He served as ambassador for the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen from 1971 until May 1990, when he became the representative of the newly unified Republic of Yemen. In March and December 1990, he chaired the UN Security C James Paul • 7 min read
MER Article The Use and Abuse of the UN in the Gulf Crisis Is the United Nations at “a new threshold” in its history as a result of the Security Council actions in the Gulf crisis? This needs careful assessment. There has long been a tendency to veer from indifference to short-term exploitation of the UN and then, if this does not turn out well for the Unit Erskine Childers • 7 min read
