MER Article Daghara Dispatch In 1996, five years after the Gulf war, my anthropologist husband Robert Fernea and I returned to Daghara, a predominantly Shi'i Muslim provincial town on a tributary of the Euphrates in south central Iraq. We had lived there for two years before the Iraqi revolution of 1958 against British colonial Elizabeth Warnock Fernea • 4 min read
MER Article Sanctioning Iraq After Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 triggered the imposition of international economic sanctions, it was widely believed that the Gulf crisis would be rapidly resolved. The scale of Iraq's military defeat in the 1991 Gulf war suggested that the government would accept ceasefire terms, Sarah J Graham-Brown • 13 min read
MER Article "And They Called It Peace" Ten years ago, on August 2, 1990, US policy in, toward and around Iraq dramatically changed course. From close if sometimes distasteful allies, Baghdad's government and its leader, Saddam Hussein, were transformed overnight into Washington's public enemy number one: "Hitler!" thundered President George Bush. Phyllis Bennis • 11 min read
MER Article Stifling Democracy Within Palestinian Unions In well-furbished offices overlooking downtown Nablus, Shahir Sa'd, General Secretary of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) sells his vision of the post-Oslo labor movement. "With the return of the Palestinian Authority (PA) we could concentrate on workers' issues, rather tha Nina Sovich • 6 min read
MER Article From the Editor (Summer 2000) In the spring of 1995, a special issue of Middle East Report offered a damning assessment of US and Allied policy toward Iraq since the Gulf war: Economic sanctions imposed to topple the Iraqi government were punishing the Iraqi people instead. Over five years later, little and much has changed. UNI The Editors • 2 min read
