MER Article Marr, The Modern History of Iraq Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985). Phebe Marr’s The Modern History of Iraq spans the period from the inception of the modern nation-state in 1920 to 1984. Marr has consulted, among others, the authoritative works in Arabic of the Iraqi chronicler ‘Abd al Abdul-Salaam Yousif • 2 min read
MER Article State and Capitalism in Iraq Isam al-Khafaji’s article is the most interesting essay on Iraq that I have read in a long time. It sheds much light on the actual workings of Saddam Hussein’s regime. From the vantage point of 1985, it appears clear that the pattern of spending of state revenues, particularly from the middle 1970s Hanna Batatu • 6 min read
MER Article State Incubation of Iraqi Capitalism The scene was the presidential palace in Baghdad, July 7, 1983. A campaign to solicit gold and money donations from ordinary citizens to support the Iraqi war effort had just begun. A furious Saddam Hussein was receiving a group of Iraqi contractors to convince them to increase their donations. He s Isam al-Khafaji • 21 min read
MER Article Helms, Iraq: Eastern Flank of the Arab World Christine Moss Helms, Iraq: Eastern Flank of the Arab World (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1984). Muhammad Ja'far • 2 min read
MER Article Major Kurdish Organizations in Iraq Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Martin Van Bruinessen • 11 min read
Gabbay, Communism and Agrarian Reform in Iraq Rony Gabbay, Communism and Agrarian Reform in Iraq (London: Croom Helm, 1978). Modern Iraqi history suffers from a lack of monographs and case studies on subjects such as rural affairs. Rony Gabbay’s research helps to fill this vacuum, at least in the area of social and political developments in th Tom Nieuwenhuis • 2 min read
Nieuwenhuis, Politics and Society in Early Modern Iraq Tom Nieuwenhuis, Politics and Society in Early Modern Iraq: Mamluk Pashas, Tribal Shaykhs and Local Rule Between 1802 and 1831 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1981). This is a reasoned and illuminating analysis, by a young Dutch scholar, of Iraq in the three closing decades of the Mamluk e Hanna Batatu • 3 min read
Al-Khafaji, al-Dawla wal-Tatawwur al-Rasmali fil-Iraq Isam al-Khafaji, al-Dawla wal-Tatawwur al-Ra’smali fil-‘Iraq, 1968-1979 (Cairo, 1984). Isam al-Khafaji is a distinguished Iraqi economist who studied at Baghdad University under Muhammad Salman Hasan in the early 1970s. After leaving Iraq in 1978, he studied for a year in Paris before settling in B Marion Farouk-Sluglett • 5 min read
Not Quite Armageddon Ostensibly, the war between Iraq and Iran is about boundaries, about freeing the Shatt al-‘Arab from Persian occupation, about restoring the two Tumb islands and Abu Musa in the Gulf to the Arab nation, and -- admittedly always a more distant prospect -- liberating Khuzistan (“Arabistan”) from the a Marion Farouk-Sluglett, Peter Sluglett, Joe Stork • 29 min read
Chronicle of the Gulf War The war between Iran and Iraq is approaching its fourth anniversary. In its duration, large numbers of casualties and physical damage, this war already ranks as one of the most serious armed conflicts since World War II. Several Iranian cities and numerous towns have been destroyed, and the city of (Author not identified) • 33 min read
MER Article Iraq Buys Cluster Bombs from Chile On Wednesday, March 14, at 4 pm, an Iraqi Airways Boeing 747 jumbo jet took off from Santiago’s Comodoro Arturo Merino Benitez Airport reportedly loaded with “thousands” of 500-pound cluster bombs. The Iraqis apparently bought the bombs from the Chilean firm Industrias Cardoen SA. Cardoen had been d Tim Frasca • 2 min read
MER Article The Significance of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was born at Najaf in 1930 into an Arab family known for its learning through the Shi‘i world. His fundamental points of departure, and the chief clues to his entire work, are the traditional Muslim propositions that God is the source of all power, the only legislator, and the Hanna Batatu • 2 min read
