MER Article Document: One World, No Rivals Excerpts from the Pentagon’s February 18, 1992 draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for Fiscal Years 1994-1999. DEFENSE STRATEGY OBJECTIVES Our first objective is to prevent the reemergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on t (Author not identified) • 2 min read
MER Article How Bush Backed Iraq An ongoing House Banking Committee’s investigation into US policy toward Iraq, led by chair Henry Gonzalez (D-TX), sheds new light on the role of George Bush in pressing for strong US support of the Baath regime in Iraq. Documents released by the committee reveal that at critical moments Bush interv Jack Colhoun • 7 min read
MER Article Letters to the Editor CALLING ARAB FEMINISTS I am gathering materials for an anthology of writings by Arab feminists. If you are Arab-American, Arab-Canadian or of Arab/Middle Eastern origin and now living in the US or Canada, please consider contributing to this book. It will be published by Kitchen Table: Women of Col (Author not identified) • 2 min read
MER Article Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control David Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force, 1919-1939 (Manchester, 1990). In the recent war with Iraq, US air superiority was crucial in minimizing the US (and other allied) casualties, preparing the ground for a swift advance by land forces. The Middle East, and particularly Vinay Lal • 3 min read
MER Article Amirahmadi, Revolution and Economic Transition Hooshang Amirahmadi, Revolution and Economic Transition: The Iranian Experience (SUNY, 1990). Misagh Parsa • 3 min read
MER Article Beinin, Was the Red Flag Flying There? Joel Beinin, Was the Red Flag Flying There? Marxist Politics and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Egypt and Israel, 1948-1965 (California, 1990). Alain Gresh • 7 min read
MER Article Egyptian Women and the Politics of Protest In recent years to veiling of Muslim women has become a common image associated with radical Islamist politics. Yet in Accommodating Protest: Working Women, the New Veiling and Change in Cairo (Columbia, 1990) Arlene Macleod demonstrates that lower middle-class women in Cairo who wear the hijab (new Joel Beinin • 4 min read
MER Article OPEC Since the Gulf War Since August 1990, OPEC has been living in a dream world. For the last year and a half, 6 million barrels per day (bpd) of production capacity have been off the market: Iraqi output has been embargoed, Kuwait’s oil facilities were destroyed and the largest non-OPEC producer, the former Fareed Mohamedi • 7 min read
MER Article New Enemies for a New World Order There is considerable evidence that the Bush administration saw the Persian Gulf war of 1990-1991 as, among other things, the conflict that could define a new politico-military strategy for the 1990s. The war with Iraq would be the emblematic contest for the post-Cold War period, what the Korean War Joe Stork • 18 min read
MER Article The False Promise of Operation Provide Comfort The US-led response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait has had many immediate repercussions on the international humanitarian network set up at the dawn of an earlier “new order” -- the close of World War II. It also has more than a few similarities to the protection scheme set up then to assist and prote Bill Frelick • 12 min read
MER Article State Terror and the Degradation of Politics in Iraq The degradation of Iraqi politics and society under the Baathist regime is a story that can now be pieced together from documents that just a few months ago no one would have dreamed having access to. Baghdad’s brutal repression turned the March uprising in Iraq into another tragic episode, Isam al-Khafaji • 20 min read
MER Article Why the Uprisings Failed In March 1991, following Iraq’s defeat in the Gulf war, the Kurds of northern Iraq and Arabs of the south rose up against the Baath regime. For two brief weeks, the uprisings were phenomenally successful. Government administration in the towns was overthrown and local army garrisons were left in dis Faleh A. Jabar • 33 min read
