MER Article Editor's Picks (Fall 2012) Bush, Ray and Habib Ayeb, eds. Marginality and Exclusion in Egypt (London: Zed Books, 2012). Castner, Brian. The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows (New York: Doubleday, 2012). Coll, Steve. Private Empire: Exxon Mobil and American Power (New York: Penguin, 2012). Collins, John. G The Editors • 1 min read
MER Article Brownlee, Democracy Prevention Jason Brownlee, Democracy Prevention: The Politics of the US-Egyptian Alliance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Chris Toensing • 4 min read
MER Article Big Empire, Little Minds Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan (Knopf, 2012). Christian Parenti • 9 min read
MER Article Lessons from Egypt's Tax Collectors In December 2007, employees from the Real Estate Tax Authority in Egypt staged the largest occupation of a downtown Cairo area prior to the uprising that unseated Husni Mubarak. Angry about their working conditions, 8,000 tax collectors slept in front of the Ministers’ Council building on Husayn Hig Jean Lachapelle • 10 min read
MER Article The Emergence of a New Labor Movement in Jordan Although Jordan may appear little affected by the Arab uprisings, as early as January 2011 Jordanians were in the streets for the same reasons Tunisians and Egyptians were: protesting against economic conditions and privatization of state resources, demanding the resignation of the prime minister an Fida Adely • 11 min read
MER Article A Tale of Two Secessions in the Sahara The March 2001 destruction of the Buddhas of Bamyan, Afghanistan, introduced a new loanword into the Euro-American political vocabulary. The Taliban’s new explosion into world consciousness catalyzed, until September of that year, more hand wringing than substantive investigation of their social ori George R. Trumbull • 9 min read
MER Article Embracing Crisis in the Gulf All claims to the contrary, the Persian Gulf monarchies have been deeply affected by the Arab revolutionary ferment of 2011-2012. Bahrain may be the only country to experience its own sustained upheaval, but the impact has also been felt elsewhere. Demands for a more participatory politics are on th Toby Jones • 9 min read
MER Article Culture, a Weapon System on the Wane The concept of “culture” took on new life in US military strategy in 2006. At the time of the US invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, cultural knowledge and training played no role in US military calculations; it was simply not part of the vocabulary of war. Culture became an official ROCHELLE DAVIS • 10 min read
MER Article Fighting Over Drones After drones became the American weapon of choice in Pakistan sometime toward the end of the 2000s, a number of US counterinsurgency experts expressed their discomfort with the killer robots in various military-related forums. For these writers, the non-human nature of drones, their blunt force and Laleh Khalili • 9 min read
MER Article Anatomy of the US Targeted Killing Policy As President Barack Obama geared up for the 2012 campaign, he and his administration were eager to capitalize on their most bipartisan “victory” -- the targeted killing of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011. With the one-year anniversary of bin Laden’s death approaching, top officials took to podiums to Lisa Hajjar • 25 min read
MER Article Escaping Eritrea Said Ibrahim, 21, orphaned and blind, was making a living as a singer in Adi Quala bars when a member of Eritrea’s national security force claimed one of his songs had “political” content and detained him at the Adi Abieto prison. After a month Said was released, but he was stripped of his monthly d Dan Connell • 22 min read
MER Article From the Editor (Fall 2012) “In the last decade,” wrote Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the November 2011 Foreign Policy, “our foreign policy has transitioned from dealing with the post-Cold War peace dividend to demanding commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. As those wars wind down, we will need to accelerate efforts to The Editors • 5 min read
