MER Article The Mythology of a Conquerer The Gulf crisis? The threats of Saddam Hussein? The Western and other hostages? Two worldviews clash over these questions -- two public opinions, each engaging masses of people, ardently take opposite sides, each with good arguments. How is it possible for “Westerners” (in the broadest sense) not t Maxime Rodinson • 4 min read
MER Article Arms Limitations Must Include All Parties As the United States stands on the brink of its first full-scale war with an Arab country, it is incumbent on all of us to share our expertise and our experience with the broader public. The consequences of a major war in this region have not been fully thought out -- by the public, by the politicia Rashid Khalidi • 4 min read
MER Article A Military Solution Will Destroy Kuwait Ahmad al-Khatib has been active for many years in the Kuwaiti opposition movement and was a member of Kuwait’s parliament until its dissolution in 1986. Al-Khatib attended the assembly of Kuwaitis in Jidda, called by the ruling Al Sabah, in October 1990. Fred Halliday spoke with him in London upon h Fred Halliday • 5 min read
MER Article A New Balance of Forces Samih Farsoun, a contributing editor of this magazine and professor of sociology at American University, recently visited the Middle East. He spoke with Joe Stork in early November 1990. What is your assessment of the impact of this crisis on the balance of forces in the region? Joe Stork • 9 min read
MER Article Why War? Since August 5, 1990, we have seen the most extensive and rapid US military mobilization since the end of World War II. As of early October, more than 200,000 US troops in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf region are drawing combat pay. President Bush declares this deployment was necessary to defend Ann Lesch, Joe Stork • 18 min read
MER Article Jean-Pierre Thieck Jean-Pierre Thieck -- activist, scholar, journalist and friend of MERIP -- died of AIDS in Paris on July 5, 1990, at the age of 41. A descendant of a grand rabbi of Tunis on his mother’s side, his upbringing in the thick of the Paris communist milieu manifested itself in youthful political activism Joel Beinin, Zachary Lockman • 1 min read
MER Article Letters Revolutionary Flagellation Barbara Harlow’s lavish celebration of the “prison text” The Shamed (MER 164-165) has considerably clouded her aesthetic judgment. “The Shamed presents itself as a novel at once realistic and allegorical, mobilizing social forces against each other,” she tells us, and the (Author not identified) • 4 min read
MER Article Khalil, Republic of Fear Samir al-Khalil, Republic of Fear: Saddam’s Iraq (California Press, 1989). This book, first published a year ago at a time when -- with a few honorable exceptions -- most criticism of Iraq and its president was strangely muted, is a sophisticated and brilliantly savage denunciation of Arab populist Peter Sluglett • 5 min read
MER Article Editor's Bookshelf The 30-year declassification rule for most US and British and some Israeli official documents stimulates predictably timed reassessments of recent historical events. During 1986 and 1987, three conferences on the Suez-Sinai crisis of 1956 -- prompted by Egypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal and culminating in the Israeli-Anglo-French attack Joel Beinin • 4 min read
MER Article Al Miskin During the first seven months of this year, for the first time since the Cold War began, the position of “official enemy” of the United States went unfilled, the Soviets having resigned the role. That deplorable deficiency, which threw the White House and the Pentagon into a panic, has now been reme Al Miskin • 3 min read
MER Article Letter from Jordan “Can you help me get a job in the United States?” “We like Saddam because he is a man of his word: He stood up to the Kuwaiti cheaters and now he is standing up to foreign domination and US intervention in the Arab world.” I heard these two statements repeatedly -- often from the same person -- dur Karen Pfeifer • 3 min read
MER Article Who's Afraid of Bureaustroika? At a dinner party in Damascus, our Lebanese host referred enthusiastically to Soviet perestroika, saying: “We Arabs could reap many benefits from it.” A case at hand was his new restaurant in Moscow. Thanks to the good old days when the Communist Party of the USSR used to ladle out scholarships to m Isam al-Khafaji • 13 min read
