MER Article The Cold Peace March 26, 1985, will mark the sixth anniversary of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, brokered and signed in Washington, the culmination of the “Camp David process.” What have been the consequences of this pact, and where is the peace it was supposed to usher into the region? Joel Beinin • 21 min read
Peck, The Reagan Adminstration and the Palestine Question Juliana S. Peck, The Reagan Administration and the Palestine Question: The First Thousand Days (Washington, DC: Institute of Palestine Studies, 1984). (Author not identified) • 1 min read
The Reagan Administration in the Middle East Under the Reagan administration, the United States has waged “the second Cold War” with particular forcefulness in the Middle East. Washington has moved combat forces into the region repeatedly since 1981: to engage first Libyan warplanes over the Gulf of Sidra, then Lebanese militias and Syrian for Fred H. Lawson • 23 min read
Getting to the War On Time Fifty thousand troops move across the desert in 100 degree-plus temperatures. F-18 jet fighters scream through the air and strafe the rock and sand below. Tanks maneuver over rough terrain to pound enemy positions. A buzzer goes off in a soldier’s helmet: The computer-guided laser network at the Arm Martha Wenger • 23 min read
Militarism, Monetarism and Markets The policies of the Reagan administration strive to recapture the nearly unlimited US power of the 20 years following World War II. Through the late 1960s and 1970s, US global dominance steadily declined in all but the military realm. This decline occurred during a period of intense global economic James Cypher • 37 min read
Intervention and the Nuclear Firebreak in the Middle East The “deadly connection” -- the link between interventionism, conventional warfare and nuclear war -- has now become a major issue for the peace movement. This, in turn, has compelled those working on nuclear disarmament questions to begin to deal with the Middle East and US policy there. The reason Michael Klare • 13 min read
From the Editors (November/December 1984) Ronald Reagan’s resounding reelection victory on November 6 represents a daunting challenge to progressive forces in this country, a challenge that would have been awesome enough even if the Democrats had managed to win. Indicative of the dangers that lie ahead was the administration’s fabricated “l The Editors • 2 min read
Commanding the Center Although President Jimmy Carter pledged in January 1980 to “use any means necessary, including military force” to ensure “the free movement of Middle Eastern oil” and created the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) for intervention in the Third World, the American military presence in the Middle East was s Daniel Volman • 5 min read
US Ready to Intervene in Gulf War The current phase of the war between Iran and Iraq has prompted a level of US military intervention in the Gulf region that is new and unprecedented in both qualitative and quantitative terms, and holds the risk of a more direct combat role on Iraq’s behalf. Since early 1983, the stalemate in the wa Martha Wenger, Joe Stork • 12 min read
MER Article From the Editors (May 1984) One of the great achievements of the capitalist class in the United States has been its ability to enlist the enthusiastic support of the trade union leadership in this country for a foreign policy of intervention and counterrevolution, a policy clearly against the interests of the organized working The Editors • 4 min read
MER Article Brzezinski, Power and Principle Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983). In the title of his account of four years as Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski offers two concepts that, in his view, should guide US foreign policy. As with so much in this tart apologia, his Fred Halliday • 2 min read
MER Article From the Editors (January/February 1984) It has become quite the rage in Washington lately to declaim “state terrorism” as the new scourge of humanity. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post recently featured extensive inquiries into the attacks against US and Israeli targets in Lebanon, and US and Kuwaiti targets in the Gulf. Bef The Editors • 3 min read
