Current Analysis Almost Unnoticed When Turkey sent 10,000 soldiers into northern Iraq in late December 2000, the event passed almost unnoticed by the international media. For the majority of ordinary Kurds, Turkish incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan have become routine. As on previous occasions, Turkish special troops crossed the border to hunt fighters of Isam al-Khafaji • 6 min read
Current Analysis Shows of Solidarity Forever Egyptian President Husni Mubarak and his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Asad will convene an Arab summit in Cairo this weekend to formulate a common stance against the harsh Israeli response to the ongoing Palestinian uprising in the Occupied Territories and within Israel. The summit, the first in ove Isam al-Khafaji • 6 min read
MER Article Marion Farouk-Sluglett We were deeply saddened to learn of the death of Marion Farouk-Sluglett on March 1 in Salt Lake City. Marion had been diagnosed with cancer just a year earlier, but up until a few weeks before her death she continued to teach and write. In early December, she traveled to Washington for the MESA meet Isam al-Khafaji, Joe Stork • 2 min read
Beyond the Ultra-Nationalist State The current debate on the compatibility of Arab-Muslim culture with Enlightenment ideals of rationality, democracy and tolerance is curiously devoid of historical reference. In the Arab world, the debates on democracy and progress regained momentum during the late 1970s, when the Islamist movements Isam al-Khafaji • 14 min read
MER Article State Terror and the Degradation of Politics in Iraq The degradation of Iraqi politics and society under the Baathist regime is a story that can now be pieced together from documents that just a few months ago no one would have dreamed having access to. Baghdad’s brutal repression turned the March uprising in Iraq into another tragic episode, Isam al-Khafaji • 20 min read
MER Article Who's Afraid of Bureaustroika? At a dinner party in Damascus, our Lebanese host referred enthusiastically to Soviet perestroika, saying: “We Arabs could reap many benefits from it.” A case at hand was his new restaurant in Moscow. Thanks to the good old days when the Communist Party of the USSR used to ladle out scholarships to m Isam al-Khafaji • 13 min read
MER Article A Split in the Iraqi Communist Party? In the aftermath of the party’s fourth congress in October 1985, a group of 11 members led by an ex-alternate member of the central command of the party were expelled from the party. They had violated the party’s constitution by publicly circulating a memorandum attacking the new policy adopted by t Isam al-Khafaji • 2 min read
MER Article Iraq's Seventh Year According to the Iranian media, the seventh year of the war was again to be the “decisive year.” For Iraq it was a year of more “achievements and victories” under the leadership of the “militant leader.” On March 21,1987, the Persian New Year, Saddam Hussein brought thousands of demonstrators to the Isam al-Khafaji • 13 min read
MER Article State Incubation of Iraqi Capitalism The scene was the presidential palace in Baghdad, July 7, 1983. A campaign to solicit gold and money donations from ordinary citizens to support the Iraqi war effort had just begun. A furious Saddam Hussein was receiving a group of Iraqi contractors to convince them to increase their donations. He s Isam al-Khafaji • 21 min read
