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Issue 343 - 09 August 1988

WHY WON'T IT END?

Subscriber

Just under three weeks ago Iran suddenly announced that it would accept the UN sponsored ceasefire at which it has balked since the Security Council passed resolution 598 in July last year. The fighting that has followed this dramatic turnabout has been some of the worst of the eight-year long war. What will it take to bring the conflict to an end?

Issue 350 - 14 November 1988

MILITARISED PEACE

Subscriber

The Gulf war may have ended, but the region is fast becoming one of the most militarised in the world. This process is unlikely to be halted by the ceasefire between Iran and Iraq. The conflict has brought home to the Arab Gulf states a frightening realisation of their vulnerability, and this has only further encouraged them to spend ever larger sums on "off-the-shelf" defence.

Issue 374 - 13 November 1989

SAUDI ARABIA'S RAW NERVES

Subscriber

The Saudi government is feeling increasingly vulnerable -- and is starting to show its anxiety. Security measures are being tightened around key installations, the number of executions has gone up significantly, and Islamic sharia law is being applied more resolutely than ever before. The assassination of a Saudi diplomat in Beirut earlier this month will only because for further alarm in the kingdom.

Issue 361 - 02 May 1989

PERHAPS WE CAN TALK AFTER ALL

Subscriber

As if the political and military situation in Afghanistan were not unsettled enough, Iran is now showing signs of increasing the complexity of the crisis by making discreet approaches to the Kabul regime. In the process, it is causing serious concern in Saudi Arabia which hopes by its prompt recognition of the mujahedin government-in-exile to be a major influence over a future Islamic state in Afghanistan.

Issue 345 - 06 September 1988

COMPROMISE OR CONFRONTATION

Subscriber

The opening session of the lran/lraq peace talks in Geneva was as stiff and as sticky as had been expected by most observers. Indicative of the sensitive concerns of the two parties was the reluctance of either to enter the negotiating chamber before the other, lest this be taken as a sign of weakness or concession. Eventually the two negotiating teams entered the chamber simultaneously, from opposite doors. The thirteen-man Iranian delegation, led by Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, included Dr. Hashemi Rouhani, a deputy of Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Majlis Speaker and acting Commander in Chief. The fifteen-strong Iraqi team, headed by Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, included Ismat Kittani, Iraq's long-standing ambassador to the United Nations, and Dr. Riad Mahillud al Qaysi, a senior Foreign Ministry official.

Issue 358 - 20 March 1989

THE CHANGING FACE OF IRAQ

Subscriber

The formation last month of the Arab Cooperation Council (ACC) by Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen ) occasioned only mild international interest and not much more that polite statements of welcome from some of the other Arab states. The ACC's sotto voce debut is in contrast to wide publicity given to the establishment in 1981 of its precursor and probable model, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Issue 373 - 30 October 1989

IRAN TAKES A TOUGH LINE

Subscriber

Last week, Iran's President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani treated the Western media to a rather odd display of antipathy towards the United States and Britain. But his real audience was, in all probability, the turbulent political factions inside Iran. The hardline which even known moderates have adopted in the past few weeks is a clear demonstration that the radicals in Iran remain a force to be reckoned with, not to say pandered to.

Issue 380 - 19 February 1990

DOWN THE FUNDAMENTALIST ROAD

Subscriber

Last week's stormy session of the Israeli Likud party's central committee, at which the hardline prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, was brazenly challenged by the even more hardline Ariel Sharon, may not seem to have particular immediate relevance to the Gulf. But if matters proceed as they now seem set to do, the repercussions for the region could be very nasty.

Issue 349 - 31 October 1988

ANOTHER ARAB SUMMIT?

Subscriber

The recent call by UAE President Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahayan for an urgent Arab summit meeting to discuss the current political crisis in Lebanon is a confirmation of the widening regional dimension of the situation in Lebanon. It also betokens a recognition of the fact that the Gulf countries, mainly through recent political actions by Iraq, are once again being brought to a practical involvement in Lebanon's internal affairs.

Issue 401 - 24 December 1990

THE COSTS OF COMPROMISE

Subscriber

First, let it be said that the Gulf crisis may end with war after all. No-one can sensibly make any predictions. The US administration's official attitude is quite simply that Iraq must quit Kuwait by 15 January – the deadline sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council – or else it will be ejected by force. There is no middle way.

Issue 397 - 29 October 1990

GOOD DREAMS AND BAD DREAMS

Subscriber

Consider this. In 1991, Saddam Hussein will still be securely in power in Baghdad (forget all the nonsense about his exasperated colleagues overthrowing him). He will have withdrawn from most but not all of Kuwait which will be returned to a humbled Sabah family. The United States and the Western powers will have reduced their military presence but not evacuated the region entirely since Washington has decided that the Gulf is now, for all intent and purpose, an American protectorate. Nobody in the Arab world will thank them for the effort, though the Saudis and the smaller Gulf states will be mutely reassured that the United States is there as an insurance policy.

Issue 409 - 23 April 1991

A KURDISH TRAGEDY

Subscriber

There is not a single government involved in the Kurdish tragedy which is not playing politics with the fate of that unhappy race. Saddam Hussein is bent on asserting the government's central authority; the Turkish and Iranian governments are trying to give succour whilst avoiding even the appearance of support for the independence of their own Kurdish minorities; the United States and Britain are giving a confused and confusing response to this latest stage in the Middle East's seemingly endless story of violence and misery. The picture stamped indelibly on the mind is of vast human suffering being endured against a background of scheming and squabbling politicians.

Issue 396 - 16 October 1990

IT ALL GETS MORE COMPLICATED

Subscriber

The Gulf crisis must have looked fairly simple to the participants when it started. Saddam Hussein assumed he could walk into Kuwait, confronted by little more than the odd ritual denunciation from the UN Security Council and some timid squeaks of protest from the GCC states. The Bush administration thought that it could put a lot of firepower in place and show who, in the last event, was in control. No-one seems to have thought through the possible subsequent sequence of events and – to be fair – neither side could have been expected to predict their course.

Issue 393 - 04 September 1990

THE SEARCH FOR AN ESCAPE ROUTE

Subscriber

Events in the Gulf in the second half of August have followed a trend which was already identifiable during the earlier course of the crisis but which is now falling into a distinct pattern. President Saddam Hussein of Iraq appears to be prepared to adopt any strategem which will either secure him whatever gains he can make out of the mess he has created or minimise the losses he may incur.

Issue 408 - 09 April 1991

MUTUAL DILEMMAS

Subscriber

There will still be more than 200,000 American troops sweltering in southern Iraq, even after the planned withdrawal of 20,000 men by mid-April. Unavoidably, the US troops have become elements in Iraq's civil war. More and more Iraqi refugees, needing all the necessities of life, have flooded into American camps, escaping from President Saddam Hussein's merciless assertion of authority over the rebellious Shia population of the south. The thousands of refugees, most without any resources of their own, need all the basic necessities of life and there is no- one to whom they can turn except the American troops.