MER Article This Is Not Vietnam In 1926 the French surrealist, Rene Magritte, painted an unmistakable pipe and labeled it, in careful schoolboy script: “This is not a pipe.” In 1991 George Bush began a war in the Persian Gulf which, he insisted, was not Vietnam. Iraq, he pointed out, is a desert; Vietnam was a jungle. Moreover, Ir Marilyn Young • 10 min read
MER Article The Intellectuals and the War Edward Said is Parr Professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, a member of the Palestine National Council and a contributing editor of this magazine. Along with Noam Chomsky, he is one of the foremost opposition public intellectuals in the United States, a role he plays in the Arab Barbara Harlow • 15 min read
MER Article Eyewitness: Iraq Joost Hiltermann, an editor of this magazine, traveled through Iraq from March 23 to April 10, 1991, as Middle East field coordinator of the Boston-based organization Physicians for Human Rights. The delegation, whose mission was to study the impact of the Gulf war and civil conflict on the health o Joost Hiltermann • 4 min read
MER Article The Other Face of War The human toll of the Persian Gulf war -- as many as 100,000 deaths, 5 million displaced persons and over $200 billion in property damage -- ranks this conflict as the single most devastating event in the Middle East since World War I. Eric Hooglund • 24 min read
MER Article From the Editors (July/August 1991) The US military deployment to Saudi Arabia was on a scale not seen since the height of the Vietnam war. The “victory” parade in Washington on June 8 was the largest celebratory military exhibition, we are told, since World War II. The parade, like the war, was designed in part to obliterate the hist The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Letters WHAT ABOUT WOMEN? I have your November-December 1990 issue and your special packet, “Crisis in the Gulf.” They are both excellent but they do not have much on one very important area of concern: women. In particular, I would like to see an article on the women of Iraq. In Sisterhood Is Global, Rob (Author not identified) • 3 min read
MER Article Zubaida, Islam, the People and the State Sami Zubaida, Islam, the People and the State: Essays on Political Ideas and Movements in the Middle East (Routledge, 1989). Modem Western literature on political Islam in the Middle East today generally falls into two categories: US-style think tank writing and intellectual proselytism. Think tan Chibli Mallat • 2 min read
MER Article Class Acts in the Middle East Berch Berberoglu, ed., Power and Stability in the Middle East (Zed, 1989). Alan Richards and John Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East: State, Class and Economic Development (Westview, 1990). Karen Pfeifer • 8 min read
MER Article Editor's Bookshelf Feminist analysis has added an important dimension to the peace movement’s understanding of the issues in the Gulf war. Several commentators have noted the gendered character of the metaphors and symbols that the Bush administration has employed in representing the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait and the US response, and Joel Beinin • 4 min read
MER Article Document: Report of the UN Mission to Assess Humanitarian Needs in Iraq Conditions in Iraq in the aftermath of the US military assault have been difficult to ascertain. The most authoritative report to date is that of the UN mission led by Undersecretary-General Martti Ahtisaari, which spent March 10-17 in Iraq. The mission, which included representatives of the UN Chil (Author not identified) • 10 min read
MER Article Al Miskin George Bush’s war against Iraq came and went more quickly than most people expected, but its consequences will be with us for years to come. This is true first and foremost for the tens of thousands of Iraqi families who lost loved ones, or saw their homes and livelihoods destroyed, but it is also t Al Miskin • 2 min read
MER Article The Gulf War and India From the beginning, the Gulf crisis aroused a level of interest and concern in India unusual for an international issue not directly involving this country. Much of our oil comes from the Gulf region, and “Gulf money” in the form of remittances from Indians working in Iraq and the Gulf states has be Sumit Sarkar • 3 min read
