MER Article The Iraqi Opposition and the Sanctions Debate The sanctions regime imposed on Iraq in August 1990, though always morally troubling, has only recently emerged as the subject of debate among Iraqi oppositionists. Most opposition groups supported sanctions either openly or tacitly until 1994, when this unity began to break down. Because the subject is politically sensitive, the Rend Rahim Francke • 9 min read
MER Article Hidden Death There may be more landmines deployed per person in Kurdish Iraq (population around 3.5 million) than in any other region in the world. A 1993 State Department report estimates that the Iraqi army laid 3 to 5 million mines there during the Iran-Iraq war and in the months leading up to the 1991 Gulf w Joe Stork • 1 min read
MER Article Security Council Conflicts Over Sanctions UN Security Council Resolution 687 establishes terms which would commonly be embodied in a post-war peace treaty: destruction and monitoring of weapons of mass destruction; Iraqi acceptance of Kuwait’s borders and sovereignty; and return of Kuwaiti property and missing persons. It also includes a reference to compliance with “all Sarah J Graham-Brown • 3 min read
MER Article Intervention, Sovereignty and Responsibility Four years after Operation Desert Storm, and the mass uprisings that followed in the southern and northern parts of Iraq against Saddam Hussein’s regime, the country’s economic and social fabric is in tatters. Economic sanctions, following a destructive war and compounded by the Iraqi government’s a Sarah J Graham-Brown • 32 min read
MER Article From the Editors (March/April 1995) A public debate over the US-led economic sanctions policy against Iraq is long overdue. More than four years have passed since the Gulf war ceasefire and Baghdad’s bloody suppression of the popular uprisings that followed. The regime, the ostensible target of the sanctions, appears to be firmly in p The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Kurdish Broadcasting in Iraq In the transition from exile to autonomy, Iraqi Kurdish parties have set up the first Kurdish-controlled television channels in the Middle East. Their broadcasts now reach more than half of the estimated 3 to 4 million people in “Free Kurdistan.” [1] Ann Zimmerman • 4 min read
MER Article The Remains of Anfal The physical remains of the General Security Directorate’s victims are strewn throughout Iraq, buried anonymously in common graves. It is hard for anyone outside the Baath’s inner circle to estimate how many young men went before firing squads after summary trials, or sometimes no trial at all, between Andrew Whitley • 2 min read
MER Article The Kurdish Experience Numbering over 22 million, the Kurds are one of the largest non-state nations in the world. Their homeland, Kurdistan, has been forcibly divided and lies mostly within the present-day borders of Turkey, Iraq and Iran, with smaller parts in Syria, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The greatest number of Kurds Amir Hassanpour • 20 min read
Makiya, Cruelty and Silence Kanan Makiya, Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising and the Arab World (W. W. Norton, 1993). The absence of basic human rights and democratic freedoms in the Arab world for most of the post-colonial era, and the failure of the region’s inhabitants to successfully contest this deficit, has app Mouin Rabbani • 12 min read
Iraq Revisited Amatzia Baram, Culture, History and Ideology in the Formation of Baathist Iraq, 1968-1989 (Macmillan, 1991). Samir al-Khalil, The Monument: Art, Vulgarity and Responsibility in Iraq (Andre Deutsch, 1991). Robert Fernea and Wm. Roger Louis, eds. The Iraqi Revolution of 1958: The Old Social Classes Fred Halliday • 7 min read
How Safe Is the Safe Haven? More than 10 million landmines have been scattered in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1975. Fifty percent of these were made in Italy. During the Iran-Iraq war, vast areas like Haj Omran and Penjwin were mined by both sides. After the Anfal campaign in 1988, Iraqi troops heavily mined the remnants of destroye Ronald Ofteringer, Ralf Backer • 2 min read
A Republic of Statelessness For nearly three years, Iraqi Kurdistan has been in a state of de facto self-rule. At first glance, it appears that the international engagement in Iraq on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 688 (Operation Provide Comfort) provided this opportunity. Ronald Ofteringer, Ralf Backer • 12 min read
