MER Article "No Forum for the Lebanese People" Forty years of history and the issues appear to be remarkably the same: national identity, the confessional system, electoral reform, the viability of the state, economic reconstruction and ideological realignment. What is Lebanon? Does it exist? Can it survive? The questions are not new. More than irene gendzier • 9 min read
MER Article Containment, Counterrevolution and Credibility Gabriel Kolko, Confronting the Third World: United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1980 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988). Gabriel Kolko has been a master guide of modern US history for countless students seeking to go beyond official versions and conformist interpretations. From The Triumph of Conserva irene gendzier • 7 min read
MER Article Israel, the Contras and the North Trial Oliver North’s trial this spring surprised everyone: It actually produced some new information. But some of its most important revelations -- those touching on Israel’s role in Central America -- received little or no attention in the press. Jonathan Marshall • 8 min read
MER Article Talking Up Turkey No one can say that the Turkish government does not know the importance of public relations. In Europe, where Turkey’s candidacy for membership in the Economic Community is hampered by the government’s poor human rights record, Ankara has hired the top-ranked British advertising firm of Saatchi and Joe Stork • 3 min read
MER Article Turkey and US Strategy in the Age of Glasnost On May 20, 1989, a top-of-the-line Soviet MiG-29 fighter evaded pursuing Soviet interceptors and landed at Trabzon airport in northern Turkey. An apparent intelligence bonanza had literally landed in NATO’s lap. Though a regular exhibit at Western air shows and sold to India, Iraq, Yugoslavia and ot Ömer Karasapan • 22 min read
MER Article Berkeley's Sister-City Initiative Sister cities has become one of Berkeley’s most popular means of expressing support for particular communities and opposition to US foreign policy. Berkeley has six sister cities, including Leon in Nicaragua, San Antonio de los Ranchos in El Salvador and the South African Black township of Oukassie. Marianne Torres • 3 min read
MER Article Proposition W The Bay Area’s “progressive” reputation was somewhat tarnished November 8 when voters in San Francisco and Berkeley overwhelmingly rejected pro-Palestinian initiatives on their respective ballots. San Francisco’s Proposition W, which called for the US to recognize a Palestinian state “side by side” Jeffrey Blankfort • 7 min read
MER Article Cambridge Voters Challenge US Policy Voters achieved an historic victory in Cambridge and a section of Somerville, Massachusetts, on November 8, 1988. By a margin of 53 to 47 percent they endorsed Question 5, a non-binding public policy question that called on elected officials to work towards a just settlement of the Palestinian-Israe Matthew S. Gordon • 4 min read
MER Article Pakistan After Zia Just a few weeks before he died in the plane crash with Zia ul-Haq, even General Akhtar Abd ul-Rahman Khan was anxious over the possibility of a shift in US policy under a new administration. General Khan had engineered and administered the secret war in Afghanistan, first as director of the Inter-S Eqbal Ahmad, Nasim Zehra • 5 min read
