MER Article

Quetta's Sectarian Violence and the Global Hazara Awakening

On a cold February day in London, over 40 Hazara men, women and children sat wrapped in blankets at the foot of the King George V monument opposite the Houses of Parliament. They were protesting the bombing of a vegetable market on February 16 in Quetta, Pakistan, that killed at least 91 of their br

Zuzanna Olszewska • 16 min read

MER Article

Refugees, Ransoms and Revolt

Filmon, a 28-year-old computer engineer, fled Eritrea in March 2012 to escape political repression. Several weeks later, he was kidnapped from Sudan’s Shagara refugee camp, taken with a truckload of others to a Bedouin outpost in the Sinai, not far from Egypt’s border with Israel, and ordered to cal

Dan Connell • 13 min read

MER Article

The Challenges for Women Working at Iraqi Universities

Ten years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, Iraqi women suffer from pervasive hardships -- the overall lack of security, gender-based violence, the feminization of poverty and poor access to basic services. Women working at universities face all these challenges, as well as others particular to hig

Nadje Al-Ali • 4 min read

MER Article

A Makeover

Two clouds kissed silently in the Baghdad sky. I watched them flee westward, perhaps out of shyness, leaving me alone on the bench beneath the French palm tree (so called because it stood in the courtyard in front of the French department) to wait for Areej. I looked for something

Nada Shabout • 13 min read

MER Article

Permanent Transients

“We do not know our destiny. The Jordanian government might ask us to leave at any moment,” said Hana, a widow in her fifties. “There is no rest for a guest.”

Isis Nusair • 20 min read

MER Article

Rewiring a State

The Coalition Provisional Authority, the US-British body that briefly ruled in Baghdad from May 2003 to June 2004, had grand ambitions for Iraq. The idea was to transform the country completely from what was basically a command economy (notwithstanding liberalization measures in the 1990s) into an o

Nida Alahmad • 15 min read

MER Article

Aspiration and Reality in Iraq's Post-Sanctions Economy

From 1990 to 2003, Iraq languished under comprehensive UN sanctions that prohibited foreign trade. When sanctions were finally lifted, many economists and pundits, as well as Iraqis themselves, hoped for a rapidly expanding economy, brisk reconstruction and a return to prosperity. They have been sor

Bassam Yousif • 11 min read

MER Article

Iraq: What Remains

American soldiers are gone from Iraq, along with much of Washington’s influence. The Obama administration, which came to office opposed to the entire enterprise but then tried, and failed, to extend the troop presence, professes still to play a leading part in what goes on. In reality, it looks more

Joost Hiltermann • 13 min read

MER Article

From the Editors (Spring 2013)

“The Iraq war is largely about oil,” wrote Alan Greenspan in his memoir The Age of Turbulence (2007). “I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows.” It may indeed be self-evident that the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, as the former Federal Reserve chairm

(Author not identified) • 9 min read

MER Article

Letters

How to Talk About Terrorism

Joel Beinin • 4 min read

MER Article

Primer: The War

Iraq is a country of 15.5 million people living in an area somewhat larger than the state of California. Most of its land is a plain descending from mountains in the north to desert in the southwest. The area near the Gulf is marshy. This plain includes the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, between which

(Author not identified) • 8 min read

MER Article

Iran and the Gulf War

September marks the seventh anniversary of the war between Iran and Iraq. It now ranks as the longest inter-state military conflict in the Middle East in this century. It has also been the most costly in terms of human lives lost, property destroyed and numbers of people uprooted from their homes. A

• 19 min read