MER Article Why War? Since August 5, 1990, we have seen the most extensive and rapid US military mobilization since the end of World War II. As of early October, more than 200,000 US troops in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf region are drawing combat pay. President Bush declares this deployment was necessary to defend Ann Lesch, Joe Stork • 18 min read
MER Article Jean-Pierre Thieck Jean-Pierre Thieck -- activist, scholar, journalist and friend of MERIP -- died of AIDS in Paris on July 5, 1990, at the age of 41. A descendant of a grand rabbi of Tunis on his mother’s side, his upbringing in the thick of the Paris communist milieu manifested itself in youthful political activism Joel Beinin, Zachary Lockman • 1 min read
MER Article Letters Revolutionary Flagellation Barbara Harlow’s lavish celebration of the “prison text” The Shamed (MER 164-165) has considerably clouded her aesthetic judgment. “The Shamed presents itself as a novel at once realistic and allegorical, mobilizing social forces against each other,” she tells us, and the (Author not identified) • 4 min read
MER Article Khalil, Republic of Fear Samir al-Khalil, Republic of Fear: Saddam’s Iraq (California Press, 1989). This book, first published a year ago at a time when -- with a few honorable exceptions -- most criticism of Iraq and its president was strangely muted, is a sophisticated and brilliantly savage denunciation of Arab populist Peter Sluglett • 5 min read
MER Article Editor's Bookshelf The 30-year declassification rule for most US and British and some Israeli official documents stimulates predictably timed reassessments of recent historical events. During 1986 and 1987, three conferences on the Suez-Sinai crisis of 1956 -- prompted by Egypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal and culminating in the Israeli-Anglo-French attack Joel Beinin • 4 min read
MER Article Al Miskin During the first seven months of this year, for the first time since the Cold War began, the position of “official enemy” of the United States went unfilled, the Soviets having resigned the role. That deplorable deficiency, which threw the White House and the Pentagon into a panic, has now been reme Al Miskin • 3 min read
MER Article Letter from Jordan “Can you help me get a job in the United States?” “We like Saddam because he is a man of his word: He stood up to the Kuwaiti cheaters and now he is standing up to foreign domination and US intervention in the Arab world.” I heard these two statements repeatedly -- often from the same person -- dur Karen Pfeifer • 3 min read
MER Article Who's Afraid of Bureaustroika? At a dinner party in Damascus, our Lebanese host referred enthusiastically to Soviet perestroika, saying: “We Arabs could reap many benefits from it.” A case at hand was his new restaurant in Moscow. Thanks to the good old days when the Communist Party of the USSR used to ladle out scholarships to m Isam al-Khafaji • 13 min read
MER Article Responsibilities of the US Peace Movement Once again the American peace movement faces the threat of war. In the 1960s and 1970s it was Vietnam, in the 1980s Central America and the nuclear threat, and now it is Arabia. This dangerous moment calls for a major change of direction for peace and anti-intervention forces. Activities underway be David Cortright • 3 min read
MER Article The Pentagon's New Army Sitting comfortably in his living room in Arlington, Virginia, some two years ago, Gen. Edward C. Meyer reflected on the American military and the transformations it has undergone in the last two decades. “This isn’t the American military of World War II, or even Tet,” he said. “This is a totally di Mark Perry • 6 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 Continuity and Change in Soviet Policy The day after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and US Secretary of State James Baker announced what they termed “an unusual step.” They issued a communique “jointly urging the international community to join them and suspend all supplies of arms to Iraq on an in Alain Gresh • 18 min read
