The Israeli Text and Context of the Geneva Accord
Iran’s Upcoming Parliamentary Elections Up for Grabs
Violence and the Illusion of Reform in Saudi Arabia
Palestinian Cabinet’s Success Lies with Israel
For the second time in seven months, Palestinians have a new government. On November 12, the Palestinian Legislative Council approved Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmad Qureia’s cabinet. While the US and Israel have stressed that progress on the US-backed road map initiative depends on the new Palestinian leadership, the question remains whether Qureia will fare any better than his predecessor, Mahmoud Abbas.
Shirin Ebadi’s Nobel Peace Prize Highlights Tension in Iran
Strings and the Global Gulliver
Uncertainty and Disquiet Mark Intifada’s Third Anniversary
Hard Time in the Heartland
On April 16, 2003, George W. Bush visited the shop floor at the Boeing plant in St. Louis, Missouri. His 90-minute appearance drew several hundred men and women who help make the military's $48 million F-18 Hornet fighters, 36 of which were deployed during the Iraq war. The purpose of Bush's visit was twofold: to offer thanks to the blue-collar workers equipping US soldiers for their foreign adventures and to provide reassurance in an atmosphere of climbing unemployment.
Never Too Soon to Say Goodbye to Hi
Despite its deepening troubles in Iraq, the Bush administration maintains an audaciously upbeat outward mien. From George W. Bush’s macho landing on an aircraft carrier in May to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s victory lap around the Mesopotamian battlefields in September, the song Washington sings to the world strikes a chord of triumph. No matter that most people outside US borders, and some within, hear the sound of desperation in the American anthem of the studied positive attitude. If they do not want to bask alongside the US in the afterglow of hasty battle, they must not be listening very well.
Egypt’s Summer of Discontent
As the long, hot Egyptian summer of 2003 wore on into autumn, gloom-and-doom scenarios filled opposition papers and daily conversations, warning of a terrible quiet before the storm. Elites and the masses are slowly being pushed together by palpable disaffection at rapidly deteriorating economic conditions, fueled by the government’s January devaluation of the Egyptian pound, and the stagnation in the nation’s political life, symbolized by raging speculation that Husni Mubarak is grooming his son Gamal to succeed him as president.
Editor’s Picks (Fall 2003)
Barzilai, Gad. Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2003).
Cortright, David, et al. Toward a Strategy for Success in Iraq (Goshen, IN: Fourth Freedom Forum, August 2003).
Dallal, Marwan. October 2000: Law and Politics Before the Or Commission Inquiry (Shafa 'Amr, Israel: Adalah, 2003).
Ellis, Marc. Israel and Palestine: Out of the Ashes (London: Pluto Press, 2003).
Seeking a “Social Contract” for Saudi Arabia
Fragile Glasnost on the Tigris
Sitting in Baghdad’s packed Café Shahbandar on a Friday afternoon in June of 2003, I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere of open discussion and genuine freedom.
A Clean Slate in Iraq
Monumental Disrespect
Somewhere in east Baghdad there is a brick wall bearing the names of the Iraqi soldiers who died in the Iraq-Iran war, launched by the regime of Saddam Hussein in September 1980. There is no reliable tally of the casualties to date, but the number of dead is estimated to be between 500,000 and 800,000. The wall surrounds, and is part of, the Martyr’s Monument, completed in 1982, six years before the war itself would come to an end. The names were engraved on the wall later, after the 1991 Gulf war.
“Iraq Is Not a Lost Battle”
Isam al-Khafaji, a contributing editor of Middle East Report, is an Iraqi social scientist. As a young faculty member and a left-wing intellectual, he was forced to leave Iraq in 1978 during campaigns of forced Baathification in higher education and repression of the left. Between that year and the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, al-Khafaji entered Iraq several times clandestinely, but never his native Baghdad. He taught at the University of Amsterdam.
Multiplier Effect
Despite continual White House assurances in 2002 and early 2003 that “war is a last resort,” the key advocates of invasion in Washington gave a good deal of forethought to the US-led war with Iraq. The Iraq hawks had been considering the military option for years. the option became feasible after the September 11 attacks created a climate in which regime change in Iraq gained wider political appeal.
Afghan Women and Girls Still Held Hostage
When asked what she desired most for Afghanistan’s future, “Nadia,” a Kabul university student, didn’t hesitate. “First, we wish the girls who live in the provinces would have schools — not just grades one through five at most. Second, we wish that they would collect all the guns from the gunmen, so girls can go out and go to school. Third, we wish they would talk with families — girls are interested but some families won’t let them go out. Yes, people are afraid of what would happen from the gunmen if they allowed their girls to go to school. Of course they are afraid of men with guns or other groups,” she said.
Peace in Sudan
When negotiations in July 2002 at Machakos, Kenya between the Islamist government of Sudan and rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) produced a "framework agreement" of shared ideas on the future of the country, Assistant Secretary of State Walter Kansteiner touted the possibility of a comprehensive peace deal that would finally end Africa's longest-running civil war. "There is good cause for optimism," Kansteiner declared four months later, when the next round of talks yielded a temporary ceasefire.
From the Editor (Fall 2003)
August 2003 was a cruel month. Parties still unknown detonated a car bomb outside the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, killing 17 Iraqis. Two weeks later, an unclaimed truck bomb devastated the UN headquarters in the Iraqi capital, killing 23 people, including UN Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello. On the same day, a Hamas suicide bomber destroyed a bus in Jerusalem, leaving 23 Israelis dead. Israel picked up the pace of the assassinations it had been carrying out throughout the summer, and the always sputtering US-sponsored “peace process” stalled, perhaps for good.
