Articles

Here we continue to reprint a series of articles reflecting on the Islamic Revolution of Iran and its impact on world history, which were written by DR KALIM SIDDIQUI and first published in 1989.

Egypt, having maintained a low profile over Iraq and avoided having high-level contacts with Ariel Sharon, is now blaming Saddam for sabotaging Mubarak’s efforts to prevent a US attack, and is also about to entertain Sharon at a summit.

US secretary of state Colin Powell’s long-awaited case for war against Iraq to the UN Security Council on February 5 was supposed to be the conclusive revelation of the full extent of evidence that America hold to justify its determination to go to war.

Israel’s continuing economic crisis was brought to attention on February 4, when some 50 Israeli business leaders in Tel Aviv called for a broad governing coalition, despite the landslide victory on January 28 of the right-wing Likud Party, led by prime minister Ariel Sharon.

​George Bush senior, father of the US president, attacked Iraq in 1991 because Saddam Husain had dared to disrupt the order imposed on the Middle East (by the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916) by invading and occupying Kuwait.

After claiming for months that everything in Afghanistan is under their control, the Americans got a rude shock at the end of January; it has forced them to concede that several of their soldiers have been killed. But even this admission came with a fantastic amount of ‘spin’...

US president George Bush’s obsession with Saddam Husain of Iraq has eclipsed other trouble spots in the world, such as Kashmir, Chechnya and Palestine. True, Saddam is a brutal dictator who waged a vicious war against Iran for eight years, and who has tortured his own people, but is the Iraqi ruler the only tyrant in power to be guilty of such crimes?

Interpreting Islam edited by Hastings Donnan. Pub: Sage Publications, London, 2002. Pp: 196. Pbk: £18.95.

Contending Liberalism in World Politics: Ideology and Power by James L. Richardson. Pub: Lynne Rienner, Boulder CO, USA, 2001. Pp: 237. Hbk: $49.50 / Pbk: $19.50.

Although millions of people from Manila to Montreal joined peace rallies on January 18, these may not prevent the US war-machine, fuelled by raw imperial ambition and lust for oil, from attacking Iraq. Americans are now playing a leading role in the peace movement...