MER Article Making War Difficult: Cooperative Security in the Middle East John Steinbruner is director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Joe Stork and Yahya Sadowski spoke with him in March 1992. Could you describe the concept of cooperative security? How is it different from collective security? They are not mutually exclusive, b Joe Stork, Yahya Sadowski • 9 min read
MER Article Reversing the Middle East Nuclear Race “The Middle East has entered the nuclear age,” said Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens in October 1991, as he surveyed the region’s strategic environment in the aftermath of the Gulf war and just days before the opening session in Madrid of the Arab-Israeli peace talks. [1] Arens may merely have b Yezid Sayigh • 17 min read
MER Article Scuds versus Butter Contrary to the common wisdom in Washington, most Arabs are poor, rational and interested in arms control. Declining oil prices, rising population, economic mismanagement and foreign policy adventurism have wreaked havoc with the economies of the Middle East, while local arms races have steadily raised the price of providing for Yahya Sadowski • 34 min read
MER Article From the Editors In the pages that follow, our authors envision a set of compelling scenarios that could halt and reverse the ratchet wheel of militarization in the Middle East. Yahya Sadowski sees in the worsening material circumstances of most states of the region an unusual opportunity for arms control, as governments seek The Editors • 2 min read
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
