MER Article "A Central American Situation in the Gulf" For residents of the tranquil United Arab Emirates, the sight on June 17 was surreal: the emir’s court in Sharja surrounded by battle-ready soldiers in trenches and jeep-mounted guns, with helicopters buzzing overhead, snipers on the roof and sandbags on its marble balconies. It was the first coup i Christian Huxley • 5 min read
MER Article Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Gulf After the Iraqi attack on the USS Stark in mid-May 1987, senior State Department officials scurried around the Gulf to drum up political support. Pakistan received a more significant visit. In late June, Gen. George Crist, commander-in-chief of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) arrived in Islamabad w Ahmed Rashid • 13 min read
MER Article When I Found Myself This story first appeared in Arabic in the Paris-based Kull al-‘Arab, September 3, 1986. The men in our unit branded me “the intellectual,” a term that connoted for them more sarcasm than conviction. They pronounced it in mincing tones, and played comically with its derivatives. This ought not, of Dia' Khudair • 14 min read
MER Article The Elusive Quest for Gulf Security Iran’s revolution had a profound impact on the regional balance of forces in the Gulf. Until 1979, the two most powerful and ambitious states in the region, Iran and Iraq, were sufficiently constrained by each other, and by the presence of United States forces and Washington’s friendly relations wit 'Abd al-Hadi Khalaf • 16 min read
MER Article The USSR and the Gulf War In the seven years since the Iran-Iraq war began, Soviet policy toward the conflict has been quite constant. Moscow regards the war as “senseless” and has repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire and return to the status quo ante, as outlined in the 1975 Algiers Agreement between Iran and Iraq. Fred Halliday • 5 min read
MER Article "Little Satan" Stuck in Arms Export Trap France is finding out that being a “Little Satan” can be more uncomfortable than being a big one. Whatever the outcome, the Gulf war threatens to end in political and economic disaster for France, which has become number two demon in the eyes of the ayatollahs by selling Iraq more arms than it can p Diana Johnstone • 5 min read
MER Article The Reagan Doctrine and the Secret State The Tower Commission has been taken as evidence for very many things. It’s been taken as evidence for President Reagan’s lack of attention to foreign policy; it’s been taken as evidence of a glitch in the chain of command and control in the White House. It can as easily be taken as evidence of the v Christopher Hitchens • 7 min read
MER Article Reagan Reflags the Gulf As the Iran-Iraq war moves into its eighth year, it threatens to explode into a shooting war between Iran and the United States, a war that could involve the Soviet Union as well. Escalation of the US military presence in the Gulf involves more than the 11 Kuwaiti tankers now flying the stars and st Joe Stork • 8 min read
MER Article Letters (July/August 1987) Israeli Arms Merchants I am writing in response to the article by Bishara Bahbah, “Israel’s Private Arms Network,” in your January-February 1987 issue. First, as Bahbah himself indicates, there is no Israeli private arms network, because arms exports from Israel are controlled by the government, wh (Author not identified) • 2 min read
MER Article Al-Ghosaibi, Arabian Essays Ghazi al-Ghosaibi, Arabian Essays (Boston, MA: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982). If Dr. al-Ghosaibi was as competent a minister of industry as he is a judicious essayist, then Saudi Arabia may be somewhat more fortunate in its rulers than might otherwise appear. A poet and observer of international Fred Halliday • 1 min read
MER Article Chilcote and Johnson, Theories of Development Ronald H. Chilcote and Dale L. Johnson, eds., Theories of Development, Mode of Production or Dependency? (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1983). This is volume two of Sage’s series in “Class, State and Development,” and the answer to the question posed in the title of the book is “both.” That Karen Pfeifer • 1 min read
MER Article Melman, The Master Terrorist Yossi Melman, The Master Terrorist: The True Story Behind Abu Nidal (New York: Adama Books, 1986). Yossi Melman has pieced together “an interim report” that provides, within limits, a substantial sketch of Abu Nidal and his Palestinian fringe group, most widely known as the Abu Nidal group, or t Roger Gaess • 2 min read
