MER Article From the Editor (Spring 2001) On February 16, US and British warplanes bombed targets outside the no-fly zones for the first time since December 1998, prompting a brief media frenzy that refocused the world's attention on the low-level US-UK air war waged against Iraq since the 1990-1991 Gulf war. But the media mostly missed the The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article Rogues' Gallery The right-wing American Enterprise Institute (AEI) -- home to Newt Gingrich, Charles Murray and Dinesh D’Souza -- would certainly prefer a Republican presidential candidate who could be distinguished on foreign policy from his Democratic counterpart. But roundtable discussions hosted by the Institu Ian Urbina • 10 min read
MER Article Iranians Debate the 1953 Coup On June 7-8, 2000, the Center for Documents and Diplomatic History of the Iranian Foreign Ministry hosted an international conference in Tehran on the subject of “Iran and the Great Powers, 1950-1953,” with the participation of scholars and archivists from several countries. Malcolm Byrne • 2 min read
MER Article The CIA Looks Back at the 1953 Coup in Iran The 200-page CIA official history of the 1953 coup in Iran, obtained recently by the New York Times, adds considerably to our understanding of the coup. The history, written strictly for the US intelligence community by the late Donald Wilber, a well-known scholar who wrote many books about Iran, chr Mark J. Gasiorowski • 5 min read
MER Article "And They Called It Peace" Ten years ago, on August 2, 1990, US policy in, toward and around Iraq dramatically changed course. From close if sometimes distasteful allies, Baghdad's government and its leader, Saddam Hussein, were transformed overnight into Washington's public enemy number one: "Hitler!" thundered President George Bush. Phyllis Bennis • 11 min read
MER Article From the Editor (Summer 2000) In the spring of 1995, a special issue of Middle East Report offered a damning assessment of US and Allied policy toward Iraq since the Gulf war: Economic sanctions imposed to topple the Iraqi government were punishing the Iraqi people instead. Over five years later, little and much has changed. UNI The Editors • 2 min read
Current Analysis The Situation in Iraq: Democracy Cannot Be Manufactured at Foggy Bottom or the Pentagon Few members of Congress are critical of US policy toward Iraq; fewer still are those willing to go public in their criticism of that policy. Not representative Cynthia McKinney. She is one of four members of congress who decided to send their senior aides on a fact-finding tour to Iraq Laurie King-Irani • 6 min read
MER Article Clipped Wings, Sharp Claws Sarah Graham-Brown, Sanctioning Saddam: The Politics of Intervention in Iraq (London: I. B. Tauris, 1999). Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein (New York: HarperCollins, 1999). Scott Ritter, Endgame: Solving the Iraq Problem Once and For All (New Joost Hiltermann • 7 min read
MER Article Iran and the United States While visiting the desert city of Yazd during my most recent trip to Iran, a young female physician confronted me in the living room of her family home. The intense, chadored Iranian sharply demanded my answers to four questions: Why did the US oppose the Iranian revolution? Why did the US support S James A. Bill • 7 min read
MER Article From the Editor (Summer 1999) Although a decade has passed since President George Bush proclaimed the dawn of a “new world order” characterized by global US military and economic supremacy, it is increasingly obvious that the leaders of the new world order understand less about its dangers and contradictions than do those at its The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Dreamland: The Neoliberalism of Your Desires Neoliberalism is a triumph of the political imagination. Its achievement is double: While narrowing the window of political debate, it promises from this window a prospect without limits. On the one hand, it frames public discussion in the elliptic language of neoclassical economics. The collective Timothy Mitchell • 15 min read
MER Article The Working Class and Peasantry in the Middle East Since the early 1970s the working class and peasantry of the Middle East have been socially reorganized while their political salience has been reconfigured. These processes are associated with a transition from economic nationalism, industrially biased statist development and populist politics towa Joel Beinin • 15 min read
