MER Article Beinin and Lockman, Workers on the Nile Joel Beinin and Zachary Lockman, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882-1954 (Princeton, 1987). Robert Vitalis • 9 min read
MER Article Editor's Bookshelf Egypt has been central to providing an Arab cover for the US-led military expedition to the Persian Gulf, in addition to Saudi Arabia. As of December 1990, Egypt’s 15-20,000 troops constituted the third largest force confronting Iraq, after the United States and Saudi Arabia itself. Joint military e Joel Beinin • 4 min read
MER Article Al Miskin The first “instant book” on the Gulf crisis has already reached stores across the United States. In his October 22 column in The Nation, Alexander Cockburn related how Judith Miller of the New York Times sought unsuccessfully to induce Samir al-Khalil, the pseudonymous author of Republic of Fear, to Al Miskin • 4 min read
MER Article Human Rights Briefing Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait has highlighted both the brutality of the regime in Baghdad and the double standards of the US and its allies. Western countries that armed and equipped Baghdad as the Baath terrorized Iraq’s population through murder, torture and mass killings of civilians now profess shock Ömer Karasapan • 4 min read
MER Article Washington Watch House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Lee Hamilton (D-IN) offered the first criticism by a Washington insider of the Bush administration’s handling of the Gulf crisis when, on September 18, 1990, he blamed Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian Affairs John Kelly for not sending Fred Halliday • 4 min read
MER Article Satanic Verses in Detroit Ayatollah Khomeini’s death sentence of February 14, 1989 continues to affect the lives of people far removed from its original target -- author Salman Rushdie. More than a year later, in Dearborn, Michigan, local sympathizers of the ayatollah within the Arab American community disrupted a talk on Ru Nabeel Abraham • 5 min read
MER Article Iraq's Military Power: The German Connection Even before the current confrontation in the Gulf, Iraq was an extremely militarized country, preoccupied with internal and external “security threats. ” When I traveled to Iraq in early 1990, I was struck by the extent of militarization in parts of the country. The whole of Iraqi Kurdistan was cove Jochen Hippler • 14 min read
MER Article The US in the Persian Gulf The scale of the US military deployment in the Persian Gulf -- half of all US combat forces worldwide -- is something of a shock, even to the Pentagon. “Nobody ever thought they’d be free to commit all those forces,” one military official said. Martha Wenger, Joe Stork • 8 min read
MER Article Economic Impact of the Crisis in Egypt Egypt was facing a severe foreign exchange shortage when the Gulf crisis broke out. Its debt arrears were piling up and it was finding it more and more difficult to obtain new loans. The Gulf crisis threatens to make this situation even worse. Here’s how: Remittances sent home by some 1 million Egy Marsha Pripstein Posusney • 3 min read
MER Article Mubarak's Gamble Egyptians pride themselves on their historic endurance and their ability to survive under almost all conditions. But even before the Gulf crisis erupted in August, there had been a great sense of worry and uncertainty regarding the future. The juncture of a new century with a new millennium is notic Ahmed Abdalla • 10 min read
MER Article The Gulf Crisis and the New World Order The Gulf crisis cannot be regarded as a purely local or regional issue, or a crisis whose worldwide significance is derived only from the importance of Arab oil. More fundamentally, it has become the main testing ground for the rapprochement between East and West as applied to North-South relations. Mohamed Sid-Ahmed • 4 min read
MER Article Kuwaiti Rights Are the Issue Are the United States and the Arab world “on the edge of war,” as the editors of Middle East Report put it in their September-October 1990 editorial? I think not. Rather, Iraq, a criminal state, has extended the violence that rules inside its own borders into Kuwait. This act by itself and before th Samir al-Khalil • 6 min read
