Don’t miss our latest issue: Return to Revolution
Return to Revolution
The 2019 uprisings in Sudan, Algeria, Lebanon and Iraq, in addition to resurgent protests in Morocco and Jordan—all countries that did not experience revolutionary uprisings in 2011—extend the previous wave of revolt to the rest of the region. Protestors are no longer content with merely toppling their unelected dictators as we saw in 2011: They are demanding a fundamental change of the entire political and economic system. In Iraq and Lebanon they are also rejecting the entire political class and their use of sectarianism to maintain their wealth and rule, chanting “All of them means all of them!” MERIP devotes this double issue Return to Revolution to assessing the nature of the challenges confronting this new wave of uprisings through the interrelated themes of continuity, entanglement and counterrevolution.CURRENT ANALYSIS
Voices from the Middle East: US Sanctions on Iran Devastate the Health Sector
US sanctions against Iran, along with Iranian government policies, have created insurmountable obstacles for domestic drug manufacturers who are struggling to provide people with the health care they need, especially now as COVID-19 ravages Iran. An Iranian pharmaceutical company employee explains why procuring supplies has become so difficult.
Saudi Arabia’s Weaponization of Oil Abundance
Saudi Arabia and Russia cooperated for years to maintain the value of their chief export—oil. This month, that collusion collapsed into a price war with both countries unexpectedly boosting production. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and China’s decreasing oil demands, fears of an uncertain future are shaking the fossil fuel economy.
From the Archive: Iraqibacter and the Pathologies of Intervention
As Iraq now confronts the arrival of COVID-19, its war-damaged medical infrastructure and degraded environment will make it harder to combat the virus. In 2019, Omar Dewachi explained how these same conditions transformed innocuous bacteria into dangerous drug-resistant strains.
LATEST ISSUES
FEATURED PRIMER
One of MERIP’s signature issues over the years has been the question of Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict—partly because of its intrinsic interest but largely because so much myth and cant clouds the mainstream media coverage of this subject that independent analysis is particularly necessary. This primer by Joel Beinin and Lisa Hajjar is a good place to start in understanding what is at stake as events unfold.
(Photo of Israeli separation barrier by Alfonso Moral.)
