For immediate release

November 18, 2002

Middle East Report 225
Winter 2002

IN THE SHADOW OF WAR

As UN weapons inspectors prepare to enter Iraq for the first time since 1998, leaked military plans bespeak George W. Bush's determination to topple Saddam Hussein's regime by force. The winter 2002 issue of Middle East Report, "In the Shadow of War," collects dispatches from a region preparing for this grim eventuality.

Even after months of intense media and policy debate, Iraqi scholar Faleh A. Jabar writes, more questions than answers surround Iraq's future should a US-led war proceed. How exactly will the regime be "changed"? What will replace Hussein's brutal rule? How will the country's historically oppressed Kurds and Shia secure their rights in the Iraq of tomorrow? Veteran journalist Chris Kutschera receives explosive answers -- including the possibility of a Kurdish drive on Baghdad -- when he puts these questions to Kurdish commanders.

Examining the Security Council negotiations leading up to the November 8 resolution, Marc Lynch, professor of political science at Williams College, details the distrust of the US lurking just beneath the surface of the deceiving "consensus" on reinvigorated inspections. The arduous talks chiefly aimed to forestall a first test for the Bush doctrine of the preemptive strike, but may have failed to do so.

Nowhere outside of Iraq does the prospect of regional war loom more ominously than in Israel and Palestine, over two years into the second intifada. Palestinians conduct rancorous internal debates over how best to resist the Israeli occupation, reports Lori Allen from the West Bank. Sociologist Lisa Hajjar analyzes one novel endeavor: the effort of arrested Palestinian militant leader Marwan Barghouti to turn the tables on his Israeli prosecutors and put the occupation on trial. The stakes are increasingly high. Talk of "transfer" -- or the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes -- is far from being the exclusive preserve of the Israeli right, as Robert Blecher reveals in his survey of the current Israeli cultural landscape.

Also featured: Nancy Gallagher suggests some different lessons from the Algerian war of independence for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Pascale Ghazaleh investigates the plight of displaced Sudanese in Cairo; and more. Subscribe to Middle East Report or order individual copies online at www.merip.org.

For further information, contact Chris Toensing at ctoensing@merip.org.

Middle East Report is published by the Middle East Research and InformationProject (MERIP), a progressive, independent non-profit based in Washington, DC. Since 1971 MERIP has provided critical analysis of the Middle East, focusing on political economy, popular struggles and the implications of US and international policy for the region.

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