MER Article In Between, Fragmented and Disoriented It is argued that the celebrated Arab protest movements have changed the path of visual arts in the region. Headlines predict that art inspired by the uprisings will be freer and more critical. Artists have partaken in the displays of mass dissent, demonstrating in the streets and protesting further Nada Shabout • 15 min read
Current Analysis Patti Smith Remembers Operation Iraqi Freedom On September 8, 2011, just a few days before the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the intrepid rocker Patti Smith performed at Webster Hall in New York City. Ted Swedenburg • 1 min read
Current Analysis Anthony Shadid, 1968-2012 We at MERIP are shocked and deeply saddened by the loss of Anthony Shadid, an extraordinary reporter, wondrously talented writer, judicious analyst of Middle East affairs, warm, generous person and good friend. In between sojourns in the Middle East, Anthony served on our editorial committee from 2 Chris Toensing • 6 min read
Current Analysis A Year After Tahrir In the mid-1990s, the Iraqi intellectual Isam al-Khafaji published a brace of articles lamenting the decay of “Arab thought in a dismal age.” Al-Khafaji glumly surveyed the Arab cultural scene, which, though bubbling with vitality at the edges, was dominated by the stolid priesthood of the “ultra-nationalist state.” In country Chris Toensing • 7 min read
Current Analysis Of "Instructors" and Interests in Iraq The Obama administration repeatedly declares that it is “on track” to withdraw all US military forces from Iraq by the end of 2011, in keeping with candidate Barack Obama’s signature promise to “end the war in Iraq.” But, even as the White House avows this intention, policymakers in Washington repea Reidar Visser • 9 min read
Current Analysis Washington's Physics Problem in Iraq The Joint Chiefs of Staff, says its chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, has a “physics problem.” According to a 2008 accord between the United States and Iraq, the US military is to be evacuated from Mesopotamia -- down to the last tank mechanic and dishwasher -- by the close of the calendar year. Lately, Chris Toensing • 2 min read
MER Article Rosen, Aftermath Nir Rosen, Aftermath (Nation Books, 2010). In addition to numberless tales of human misery, the post-September 11 US wars in the greater Middle East have produced a veritable library of war reporter’s books. Most of them are formulaic and eminently forgettable, but a few are valuable chronicles tha Chris Toensing • 6 min read
MER Article Visser, A Responsible End? Reidar Visser, A Responsible End? The United States and the Iraqi Transition, 2005-2010 (Just World Books, 2010). There are few keener students of contemporary Iraqi affairs than Reidar Visser. Since the spring of 2006, when he released a lengthy paper on the politics of Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Viss Chris Toensing • 4 min read
MER Article Enloe, Nimo's War, Emma's War Cynthia Enloe, Nimo’s War, Emma’s War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010). War is usually presented as all about hard power and weaponry. In school, students are taught about generals, battlefields, advances in armaments and innovations in milita Lauren Geiser • 4 min read
Current Analysis Rebranding the Iraq War The war in Iraq is over. Or so the government and most media outlets will claim on September 1, by which time thousands of US troops will have departed the land of two rivers for other assignments. With this phase of the drawdown, says President Barack Obama, "America's combat mission will end." The Chris Toensing • 2 min read
MER Article Making Big Money on Iraq Kuwait has its diwaniyyas, Yemen its qat chews. But for languorous trade in rumor, gossip and flashes of political insight, there is no substitute for chain-smoking and eating Iraqi masgouf. At one of several Iraqi establishments in Sharjah, a down-market cousin of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates Pete Moore • 18 min read
Current Analysis A Precarious Peace in Northern Iraq On a stifling August afternoon in 2008, just as Iraq was recovering from the worst of its sectarian civil war, the Arab and Kurdish parties allied with the United States came to the edge of an ethnic bloodbath whose consequences for Iraq and the region would have been every bit as frightening. The t Quil Lawrence • 16 min read
