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.
Editor’s Picks (Summer 2003)
Adonis. An Introduction to Arab Poetics (London: Saqi Books, 2003).
Ali, Kamran Asdar. Planning the Family in Egypt: New Bodies, New Selves (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2002).
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Report on Hate Crimes and Discrimination Against Arab Americans: The Post-September 11 Backlash (Washington, DC, 2003).
Aruri, Naseer. Dishonest Broker: The US Role in Israel and Palestine (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2003).
Baghdad Diaries, Then and Now
Rosemary O’Brien, ed. Gertrude Bell: The Arabian Diaries, 1913-1914 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000).
Nuha al-Radi, Baghdad Diaries (London: Saqi Books, 1998).
Paul Rich, ed. Arab War Lords and Iraqi Star Gazers: Gertrude Bell’s The Arab of Mesopotamia (Lincoln, NE: Authors Choice Press, 2001).
Voices from Turkey’s Southeast
High Stakes for Iran
Of Graves and Grievances
I. Graves
The US Military
Iraq and Persian Gulf
Iraq Reconstruction Tracker
World Oil Markets and the Invasion of Iraq
The Worldly Roots of Religiosity in Post-Saddam Iraq
Western Saharan Deadlock
Basic Needs vs. Swimming Pools
Severe drought conditions, only recently ameliorated by heavy winter rains, and the current hostilities have exacerbated the fundamental inequality in division of the scarce water resources of Israel-Palestine between Israelis and Palestinians. Water is becoming a weapon of war aimed at quelling Palestinian support for resistance to occupation.
From the Editor (Summer 2003)
Two months after the welcome demise of Saddam Hussein’s regime, it has become customary to say that the US won the war and is losing the peace in Iraq. This formulation, coined to describe US neglect of Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban, gives the Bush administration too much credit. There were never any serious plans to “win the peace” in Iraq, as is obvious from the chaotic aftermath of the large-scale combat.
Editor’s Picks (Spring 2003)
Ahmad, Aisha and Roger Boase. Pashtun Tales: From the Pakistan-Afghan Frontier (London: Saqi Books, 2003).
Alem, Raja. Fatma: A Novel of Arabia (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002).
Alnasrawi, Abbas. Iraq’s Burdens: Oil, Sanctions and Underdevelopment (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002).
Baroud, Ramzy. Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion (Seattle: Cune Press, 2003).
Bishara, Marwan. Palestine/Israel: Peace or Apartheid (London: Zed Books, 2002).
