Nonneman, Iraq, the Gulf States and the War
Gerd Nonneman, Iraq, the Gulf States and the War (London: Ithaca Press, 1986).
CARDRI, Saddam’s Iraq
Committee Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq, Saddam’s Iraq: Revolution Or Reaction? (London: Zed Books, 1986).
This book fills an important gap in the works that have been published on Iraq in the West. Here a number of scholars from Britain and Iraq survey the economic, class and ideological bases of the present Iraqi regime and its impact on Iraqi society.
Beck, The Qashqa’i of Iran
Lois Beck, The Qashqa’i of Iran (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986).
The Qashqa’is are a confederation of Turkic-speaking tribes dispersed in the three southwestern Iranian provinces of Fars, Isfahan, and Bushehr. Historically, they have been one of the most important tribal groups in the country. Nevertheless, little is known about them due to the lack of critical research. Lois Beck’s pioneering work successfully familiarizes the reader with the political dynamics of the Qashqa’is.
Ladjevardi, Labor Unions and Autocracy in Iran
Habib Ladjevardi, Labor Unions and Autocracy in Iran (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1985).
Over the past few years we have witnessed a welcome development in new books on Iran. Instead of general histories, spanning centuries and big events, a number of books attempt to reconstruct smaller chunks of history but in much richer detail. Ladjevardi’s work is one valuable instance, as it takes up a much ignored and little documented slice of Iranian history — that of the labor movement. Ladjevardi makes extensive use, for perhaps the first time, of the US National Archives (in addition to other more commonly used sources, such as the British Public Records).
Pakistan’s Movement Against Islamization
Nikki Keddie traveled to Pakistan in 1985 and 1986 to investigate groups that in various ways have worked against President Zia ul Haq’s attempts to “Islamize” Pakistan’s legal system. Many of these activists are from women’s organizations; the Shi‘i community and certain lawyers groups have also mobilized protests. This activity flies in the face of the popular wisdom that Islamist politics is becoming more and more popular everywhere in the Middle East. Keddie’s observations suggest that it may be much less popular in countries which are actually experiencing Islamization. Keddie is professor of history at the University of California-Los Angeles. Eric Hooglund and Joe Stork interviewed her in Washington in December 1986.
AWACS in the Gulf
The Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft that Pakistan wants to get from Washington has played an important part in the US military buildup in the Persian Gulf region. In 1978, the Carter administration sold seven of the planes to the Shah of Iran. One motivation was to reduce the unit cost for the 34 planes ordered by the US Air Force. Iran canceled its order after the revolution, and Washington then pressed NATO to order 18 of them.
“A Central American Situation in the Gulf”
For residents of the tranquil United Arab Emirates, the sight on June 17 was surreal: the emir’s court in Sharja surrounded by battle-ready soldiers in trenches and jeep-mounted guns, with helicopters buzzing overhead, snipers on the roof and sandbags on its marble balconies. It was the first coup in a Gulf Arab state since the oil boom. For four days, Sheikh ‘Abd al-‘Aziz bin Muhammad al-Qasimi held out at the diwan with a few hundred emiri guard mercenaries, claiming he was rightful ruler of Sharja. “I entered with a white dishdasha [man’s robe] and will leave with a red one if I have to,” he is said to have told a visitor.
Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Gulf
After the Iraqi attack on the USS Stark in mid-May 1987, senior State Department officials scurried around the Gulf to drum up political support. Pakistan received a more significant visit. In late June, Gen. George Crist, commander-in-chief of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) arrived in Islamabad with 15 military experts for a five-day visit. It was Crist’s second visit to Pakistan in eight months, and it underlined the growing importance of Pakistan in Washington’s military plans for the Gulf.
When I Found Myself
This story first appeared in Arabic in the Paris-based Kull al-‘Arab, September 3, 1986.
The men in our unit branded me “the intellectual,” a term that connoted for them more sarcasm than conviction. They pronounced it in mincing tones, and played comically with its derivatives. This ought not, of course, be imputed to intrinsic dislike among the well-meaning fighters for intellectuals. Rather, I suppose, to their belief in the futility of making oneself attend to matters other than the tangible tasks of fighting or getting ready for combat. And being, as they said, a bookworm, I had only myself to blame.
The Elusive Quest for Gulf Security
Iran’s revolution had a profound impact on the regional balance of forces in the Gulf. Until 1979, the two most powerful and ambitious states in the region, Iran and Iraq, were sufficiently constrained by each other, and by the presence of United States forces and Washington’s friendly relations with most of the Gulf states, that neither seriously attempted to overturn the status quo.
The USSR and the Gulf War
In the seven years since the Iran-Iraq war began, Soviet policy toward the conflict has been quite constant. Moscow regards the war as “senseless” and has repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire and return to the status quo ante, as outlined in the 1975 Algiers Agreement between Iran and Iraq. Moscow considers the war as dangerous not only because of its destructiveness to both combatant states, but also because, by alarming the Arab states of the Peninsula, it has provided a justification for greater US military deployment in the region. In the longer run, Moscow is concerned about the collapse of either the Tehran or the Baghdad regimes, and the uncertainty that could result in a region so near the Soviet Union’s borders.
“Little Satan” Stuck in Arms Export Trap
France is finding out that being a “Little Satan” can be more uncomfortable than being a big one. Whatever the outcome, the Gulf war threatens to end in political and economic disaster for France, which has become number two demon in the eyes of the ayatollahs by selling Iraq more arms than it can pay for.
The Reagan Doctrine and the Secret State
The Tower Commission has been taken as evidence for very many things. It’s been taken as evidence for President Reagan’s lack of attention to foreign policy; it’s been taken as evidence of a glitch in the chain of command and control in the White House. It can as easily be taken as evidence of the view, held by some people, that this planet Earth is used as a penal colony and lunatic asylum by more advanced civilizations around the solar system. And that view would certainly be as difficult to prove wrong as the one that is offered, which is that it shows a president who is not in control! What the Report shows in bold contours, with ferocious clarity, is the operation in detail of the Reagan Doctrine.
Reagan Reflags the Gulf
As the Iran-Iraq war moves into its eighth year, it threatens to explode into a shooting war between Iran and the United States, a war that could involve the Soviet Union as well. Escalation of the US military presence in the Gulf involves more than the 11 Kuwaiti tankers now flying the stars and stripes. What the Reagan administration wants to do is “reflag” the Gulf itself, using the US Navy’s protective service to draw the Arab states there into open and explicit military alliances with Washington against Tehran and Moscow.
Letters (July/August 1987)
Israeli Arms Merchants
I am writing in response to the article by Bishara Bahbah, “Israel’s Private Arms Network,” in your January-February 1987 issue. First, as Bahbah himself indicates, there is no Israeli private arms network, because arms exports from Israel are controlled by the government, which also owns most of the arms manufacturers. Most of the individuals involved earn their commissions as middlemen, because of personal contacts in some region, or as convenient covers for official involvement. The only individual in the group who may be considered a real arms dealer, on an international scale, is Shlomo Zablodovitz (and not as spelled by Mr. Bahbah).
Al-Ghosaibi, Arabian Essays
Ghazi al-Ghosaibi, Arabian Essays (Boston, MA: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982).
If Dr. al-Ghosaibi was as competent a minister of industry as he is a judicious essayist, then Saudi Arabia may be somewhat more fortunate in its rulers than might otherwise appear. A poet and observer of international affairs, al-Ghosaibi has produced a set of reflections on literature and education, Middle East politics and Arab society, that are elegant and often perceptive.
Chilcote and Johnson, Theories of Development
Ronald H. Chilcote and Dale L. Johnson, eds., Theories of Development, Mode of Production or Dependency? (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1983).
This is volume two of Sage’s series in “Class, State and Development,” and the answer to the question posed in the title of the book is “both.” That is, the editors take the position that the transformation of societies in Asia, Africa and Latin America is the dialectical product of the interaction between the indigenous evolution of classes and state institutions within these societies, on the one hand, and their integration on subordinate terms into the world capitalist economy, on the other hand. The lack of dogmatism is refreshing.
Melman, The Master Terrorist
Yossi Melman, The Master Terrorist: The True Story Behind Abu Nidal (New York: Adama Books, 1986).
Yossi Melman has pieced together “an interim report” that provides, within limits, a substantial sketch of Abu Nidal and his Palestinian fringe group, most widely known as the Abu Nidal group, or the Fatah Revolutionary Council. As the correspondent of the Israeli daily Ha-aretz, Melman covered the trial of Abu Nidal group members whose assassination attempt upon the Israeli ambassador in London served as Israel’s pretext for its 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Melman uses that trial as both the primary source and the framework for The Master Terrorist.
Bernard Lewis’ Anti-Semites
Bernard Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice (New York: W.W. Norton, 1986).
In the 1960s, nearly all university students in Middle East history courses read Bernard Lewis’ The Arabs in History (1950), The Emergence of Modern Turkey (1961) and The Middle East and the West (1964). Our teachers almost universally admired these books for their professional scholarship and clear exposition. Their attention to economic and social issues, while modest by today’s standards, was striking compared to the almost exclusive concern of Lewis’ contemporaries with religious and narrowly political topics.
Sudan’s Republican Brothers
Abdullahi Ahmad an-Na‘im, 39, is a leading member of the Republicans (jumhurriyun), a Sudanese Islamic reform movement started by the late Mahmud Muhammad Taha. The Republicans (also known as Republican Brothers) advocate equality for women and for non-Muslims, which challenges head-on the traditional interpretation of Islamic law, or shari‘a. An-Na‘im compares Taha’s reform within Islam to that of Christianity’s Martin Luther.
