Current Analysis Iran’s Nuclear Posture and the Scars of War In waging war on Iraq, one of the points the Bush administration sought to prove was that President Bill Clinton’s policy of dual containment had failed -- that despite a decade of threats, sanctions, military action and UN-led disarmament, Iraq had continued to develop weapons of mass destruction ( Joost Hiltermann • 13 min read
MER Article A Clean Slate in Iraq Iraq has the world’s second largest oil reserves, but before the 2003 war its human development indicators placed it only just ahead of Sudan and Bangladesh. [1] The war and its ongoing aftermath have left Iraq further shattered. At the most basic level, diseases of poverty are again sweeping Colin Rowat, Justin Alexander • 14 min read
MER Article Elusive Justice Saddam Hussein's regime has long been one of the world's worst human rights violators. But the international community largely ignored Iraq's record of human rights abuse -- brutal repression of internal dissent, atrocities during the eight-year war with Iran -- until after Hussein crossed the red l Joost Hiltermann • 9 min read
MER Article Iraq Since 1986: The Strengthening of Saddam In June 1986, we wrote that the situation in which Iraq found itself “underlines the vital need for the establishment of democracy...however broadly this may be defined.” Four years later, this plea has become more urgent; the regime has become even more powerful and repressive and has now extended Marion Farouk-Sluglett • 15 min read
MER Article Gulf War Refugees in Turkey A largely ignored byproduct of the Iranian revolution and the Gulf war has been the large influx of refugees into Turkey. The economic benefits of Turkish neutrality during the Gulf war led Ankara to downplay the problem, but the recent arrival of Kurdish refugees has strained regional ties and clou Ömer Karasapan • 8 min read
MER Article The Islamic Republic at War and Peace Ten years after the Iranian revolution swept the Shah from power, and contrary to innumerable prophecies of its demise, the Islamic Republic endures. Many of the revolution’s original leaders remain in power and many of their goals, although not yet fulfilled, continue to be policy objectives. Eric Hooglund • 23 min read
MER Article From the Editors (November/December 1988) “The wars are winding down. The streets are heating up.” This was how Baltimore radio commentator Sean Connolly led off his “minimalist news” broadcast one day in mid-September. It is hard to find a more succinct way to describe the state of the world, the Middle East included, on the cusp of transi The Editors • 5 min read
MER Article Iraq's Seventh Year According to the Iranian media, the seventh year of the war was again to be the “decisive year.” For Iraq it was a year of more “achievements and victories” under the leadership of the “militant leader.” On March 21,1987, the Persian New Year, Saddam Hussein brought thousands of demonstrators to the Isam al-Khafaji • 13 min read
MER Article Soviet Perceptions of Iraq From the Soviet point of view, Iraq under the Baath Party has been a troubling enigma, in terms of its place in the Third World generally and its political position in Middle East diplomacy. In the first respect, Iraq during the 1970s did not manage to consolidate itself as one of the USSR’s dependa Roderic Pitty • 19 min read
MER Article Nonneman, Iraq, the Gulf States and the War Gerd Nonneman, Iraq, the Gulf States and the War (London: Ithaca Press, 1986). Fred H. Lawson • 1 min read
MER Article When I Found Myself This story first appeared in Arabic in the Paris-based Kull al-‘Arab, September 3, 1986. The men in our unit branded me “the intellectual,” a term that connoted for them more sarcasm than conviction. They pronounced it in mincing tones, and played comically with its derivatives. This ought not, of Dia' Khudair • 14 min read
MER Article The Elusive Quest for Gulf Security Iran’s revolution had a profound impact on the regional balance of forces in the Gulf. Until 1979, the two most powerful and ambitious states in the region, Iran and Iraq, were sufficiently constrained by each other, and by the presence of United States forces and Washington’s friendly relations wit 'Abd al-Hadi Khalaf • 16 min read
