Letters

Author(s): Afsaneh Najmabadi, Jerry Lembcke and Lorna Gayle Almaini

Source: Middle East Report, No. 173, Gender and Politics (Nov. - Dec., 1991), pp. 2+42-44
Published by: Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP)
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LETTERS

Said's

War on The Intellectuals

Edward Said's interviewwithBarbara Harlow

[Middle East Report, No. 171, July-August
1991] is an attemptto "dislodge"an arrayof
opponents,rangingfrom"scholar-combatants"
and "instantexperts"to "native informants."
An importantfocusoftheinterviewis thewar's
repercussionson "the intellectualand cultural
oftheArabworld."One suchreper?
topography
cussionis the debatebetweenEdward Said and
Samiral-Khalil.This debate,in myview,is not
about who has a more accurate reading of
reality.It concernswhatpoliticalconsequences
flowfromeach position and how we choose
betweenthem.
Said's chargesare mainly directedagainst
oppositionalintellectualswhom he accuses of
failureto deal withtheMiddleEast and to "feel
responsiblefor the behavior of the United
in contrastto "a pow?
States internationally,"
erfuland vocal groupin the universitiesthat
challenged the administration" during the
Vietnamwar.(p. 15) This is a remarkablecase
of forgetfulness.
It took yearsof slow workin
very hostile circumstancesbefore the first
antiwarteach-insand ralliesofthe 1960s could
claim a significant
audience.
By contrast,evenbeforetheveryrapidbuild?
up of US troops on Iraqi borderstook place,
there was a vocal antiwar movementon US
campuses. From the firstdays of the crisis,
beforethe American-ledwar had started,most
critical intellectualson universitycampuses
threwthemselvesinto an antiwar movement
that focusedon opposingUS intervention.
In?
deed, it was this singularfocusthat was prob?
lematic:The antiwarmovementattemptedto
replaya Vietnamscenario?Bring the Troops
Home Now?as if therewas clearlyonly one
In manymeet?
aggressor:the US government.
ings,therewas a silence about Saddam Hus?
sein's policyand politics,a reluctanceto con?
demn Iraq's invasion and occupation of
Kuwait,as ifsuchcondemnationscouldonlybe
read as approval of US military build-up.
(There were at least two other wars, both
launchedby Saddam Hussein's regime,firston
August2 againstKuwait,and then againstthe
popularuprisingsagainsthis regime.The usage
of "war" onlyto referto the January17thwar
acts as a mechanism of forgetfulness
about
theseotherwars.Eric Hooglund'sarticle,"The
Other Face of War," [July-August
1991] was
one of few in Middle East Report that gave
prominentcoverage to the sufferingsfrom
these other wars, although adding up the
counts into single accumulative figures?
"100,000deaths,fivemilliondisplacedpersons,
and over $200 billionin propertydamage" (p.
3)?tends to obliteratethe distinctresponsibil?
ities of the different
wars.)
In those antiwarcoalitionsthat took an ex?
plicitpositionagainsttheinvasionand occupa?
tion of Kuwait,thatpositionwas of littlecon?
sequence in daily practices. In the period
leading up to the January15th deadline,the
failureof various peace initiativesand plans
were invariableand solelyblamed on US gov?
ernment intransigence, rather than on
Saddam's refusalto withdrawfromKuwait.

to assume
This allowedthe US administration
the moral high ground,and put the antiwar
movementin the tragicpositionofbeingsilent
once the US-led war had stoppedand Hussein
had begun to savagelyrepressthe uprisingof
Iraqi people?who themselveshad littledoubt
where to place the responsibilityforthe war
and its catastrophicdestructionof their own
WhenArabIraqis in the southand the
country.
Kurds in the north were beggingthe allied
armies to move into Iraq and protect them
against the Republican Guards, what could a
US antiwarvoice that had remainedat best
of
hesitant,if not silent,on the responsibility
the Iraqi governmentsay? How could it sup?
port the furthermarch of those very armies
requestedby manyIraqis, Arab and Kurd,into
Iraq? Had the antiwar movementsupported
that
the demandby Iraqis forUS intervention,
mean?
presencewouldhave acquireda different
ing: Instead of servingonly US interests,it
would have become,at least in part,of Iraqis'
making:an interventionto serve their cause
ratherthan the new worldorderimaginedby
the US administration.
ofAmerican
Said holdsthe post-modernism
intellectualsresponsiblefortheirhavinginter?
nalized the US imperialrole. If post-modern?
ism deservescriticismforits role in the anti?
war movement,it is because it may have
fostereda reluctance on the part of many
antiwaractiviststo criticizethe Iraqi regime
forthe fear of being labeled "internalizersof
imperialrule." Said's castigationsact to create
an atmosphereofintellectualfear,fearofbeing
accused ofimperialistictendencies,ifyou hap?
pen to criticizea Third Worldmurdererthat
the US governmentalso happens to call a
murderer?forthe moment.It silencescritical
and producesa bipolarworldoftrans?
thinking,
parentlygoodand bad sides.To the extentthat
one can see some credibleconnectionbetween
in
thepresumeddominanceofpost-modernism
Americanintellectuallifeand thepoliticalposi?
tionstakenduringthis criticalperiod,it would
be that the post-modernemphasis on multi?
plicityof identities,culturesand subjectposi?
tions made many reluctantto take a political
stand against a governmentofthe Other!
In Said's world,instead of engagedintellec?
tuals (meaningintellectualswho agreewithhis
politics), we had instant experts (journalists
such as Thomas Friedman whose journalism
Said does not like), scholar-combatants(such
as Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, whose
politics Said disdains) and the native infor?
mant (Samir al-Khalil, whose concern for
Iraqis distractsfromSaid's concern for Pal?
estinians). Friedman is dismissedsimplyand
plainlyas a journalist.Friedmanis not a uni?
versityteacher. Not being anchored "in the
processofintellectualworkor in institutionsof
intellectualproduction,"he is not worthSaid's
seriousconsideration.Are onlyivyleague uni?
versitiesand universityprofessorsengagedin
intellectualproduction? If so, is not Fouad
Ajami as embedded in these institutionsas
EdwardSaid himself?Here Said raisesa differ?
ent charge:Ajami "is a mediocrescholar."(p.
16) Al-Khalil,neithera journalistnora profes?
sor, is dismissed as a "media celebrity,""a

creatureof the moment."It is the case that

RepublicofFear and its authorcame to public
attentionafterAugust2nd.The book,however,
was completedin 1986 and publishedin 1989,
two years before"the moment."Why use its
later prominenceto dismiss its scholarship?
Perhaps because such dismissals serve Said's
project of dislodgingArab intellectualswho
offerinterpretations
of the Arab worlddiffer?
ent fromhis own.
Said's charge,thatthebooksoftheseauthors
"are generallyunsympathetic
to the Arabsand
advance the thesis that the feudsand the vio?
lence in the Middle East are due to, relatively
speaking,prehistoriccauses, inscribedin the
verygenes of these people," (p. 16) is nothing
but outrageous.Ajami's book is about Arab
political thought since 1967; al-Khalil's is
about the constructionof the Ba'thist state in
post-1968Iraq. Both are concernedwith con?
temporarypoliticalchangesin the Arab world
and Iraq. Has Said becomeso mucha "creature
of the moment" that the 20th centuryhas
to him? These books can be
becomeprehistory
construedas hostileto Arabs onlyif,forSaid,
hostilityto the Ba'th or to particularideologies
and statesin the Arabworldmeanshostilityto
Arabs.Nowheredoes theiranalysiscome close
to attributinganythingto Arab genes,nor do
theycall Arab identityand historyfraudulent.
To accuse these books and theirauthorsof
anti-Arab racism may be useful for Said's
dislodgement
project,but it does littleto clarify
the debates now engulfingArab intellectuals
and is itselfa formof racism,forit assumes a
unifiedand undifferentiated
Arab.It is,in fact,
the diversityof the Arab voices that has an?
geredSaid. WhereasAjami and al-Khalil focus
on the politicaland culturalcrisisof the Arab
world fromthe inside, Said argues that such
self-criticism"exonerates the United States
and itspolicymakers,and ofcourseIsrael,from
any role in this appalling mess we're living
throughtoday."(p. 16) One can imagine that
the Kurds and the Arabs of southernIraq may
thinkthat Said, by holdingIsrael and the US
responsibleforthe appallinghelltheyare living
through,is exoneratingthe Ba'thist regime,as
indeedhe has come close to^oing withregards
to the Halabja massacrein The London Review
ofBooks (March 7,1991):
The claim that Iraq gassed its own citi?
zens has oftenbeen repeated.At best,
this is uncertain.There is at least one
War Collegereport,done whileIraq was
a US ally,whichclaimsthatthe gassings
of the Kurds in Halabja was done by
Iran. (p. 7)
For Said, Israel and the US are the
unproblematicauthors of the region's prob?
lems. If Ajami thinksthese are "self-inflicted
wounds,"or if al-Khalil makes a case that the
Ba'thist regimeis a productof the contempo?
raryhistoryofIraq itself,forwhichIraqis need
to take responsibility,
Said cannotacceptthese
as alternativeperspectiveson Arabpoliticsand
history.Drawing on a popular tradition of
he needs to findout "who is
conspiratorialism,
See Letters, page 42

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logical codes of representation. These images, she argues, have women's emancipation. Since the colonial attack on the veil
been mobilized as symbols in nationalist struggles against was a deliberate challenge to indigenous male authority, the
colonial powers in the region. In Atatiirk's Turkey, Reza fight was in fact over who was to control women.
Shah's Iran or Nasir's Egypt, photographs of women unveiled,
Copiously illustrated with black-and-white photographs
in Western dress, apparently participating in public life, could from a range of archives and private collections, and beauti?
be held up as emblems of the progressive nature of the state. fully produced, Images of Women provides an impressively
Yet these propagandist images often obscured a lack of real wide-ranging and accessibly written thematic social history of
change in the vast majority of women's lives, within family or women in the Middle East. While it imparts a vital under?
gender relations.
standing of how to read and interrogate the photographs it
An alternative nationalist position saw women as crucial presents, its cogent thesis goes beyond the treatment of
repositories of indigenous cultural tradition. In Algeria, where photography. What emerges is a far-reaching critique of
the French authorities forcibly discouraged the use of the veil, prevailing codes of representation of women and their social
its retention became a nationalist tenet, with women serving status in the Middle East, and of the power relations that lie
as emblems of nationhood. Yet the dispute was not one over behind these images.
?

Letters, frompage 2
this personreallyspeakingfor.As theysay in
Arabic,minwarrah?'who'sbehindit?'" (p. 16)
It is in factthis kind of conspiratorialview of
politics and allocation of responsibilitiesto
outside forces that both authors challenge.
Said's failureto appreciatethat these alterna?
tive perspectivesmay be as sympatheticto
Arabs as his own comes out mostevidentlyin
his patronizingremarksabout al-Khalil:
What struckme as extraordinarily
sad,
not to say desolate,was his [al-Khalil's]
appeal to the United States, whichhad
to
just devastatedhis countrymilitarily,
enter furtherinto Iraq and unseat
Saddam Hussein.For himtheonlyissue
is the one that he as an Iraqi, genuinely
in pain, feels.That seems to me to be
part of the miseryof this whole story.
He is intelligent,
fluent,but unable to
attachhimselfto anythingbut an issue
of the moment,with no realismin his
perspective.He's suddenly discovered
he's gotto do something,and whatdoes
he do? He appeals to the United States,
to
whichhas just destroyedhis country,
come and rescuehim!It's astonishing.
... Al-Khalil appeals to the very
same people who are responsiblefora
largepart of the presenttragedyof his
country. They collaborated with
Saddam and now they'reproppinghim
up afterdestroyingthe infrastructure.
(p.18)
therelevantissue
Despite Said's consternation,
is not al-Khalil's activism,his fluency,
pain or
intelligence.Rather, whereas al-Khalil, like
mostIraqis,Arab or Kurd,holdsSaddam Hus?
sein and his regimeresponsibleforthe cruelties
perpetratedin his country,Said thinks he
should point his fingerat the US. When alKhalil made his plea forthe US forcesto take
forthe disastroussituationtheir
responsibility
war had createdand help the Iraqi intifadato
oustSaddam Hussein and to set up provisional
structuresin postwarIraq [New
governmental
YorkTimes,March 27, 1991],the suppression
of the uprisingsin the south and the northof
thatcountryhad just begun.If thatappeal had
a chance in a million to have averted the
crueltieswe have witnessedsince,it was worth
making.That it was not so void of"realism"as
42

Said thinksis evidentin the similarpleas by

Iraqis in the southand the Kurds in the north.
Does Said findthe pleas to the same US forces
fromKuwaiti
by Palestinians, now suffering
vengeance,astonishingand void of realism?
The debate betweenSaid and al-Khalil goes
back to August 1990. In an article that ap?
peared in The Sunday Independent (August
12,1990), Said had connectedthe crisisto "the
culturalabyss that exists between the Arabs
and the West."In response,al-Khalil suggested
thatthe Gulfcrisisabove all "revealsthe deepseated crisis inside Arab cultureitself (The
Independent,August25,1990). Said, insteadof
welcoming this diversityof opinion among
Arab intellectuals,is threatenedby it: "There's
a seismic shiftin the intellectualand cultural
topographyof the Arab world,which is very
hardto assess but whichcan't be good." (p. 16)
The reasonforhis concernis that in "an Arab
world divided between victors and van?
quished,""[t]he Palestiniansare losers."If the
crisis has placed the Palestinians in a losing
position,surelythis has somethingto do with
the Palestinian support for Saddam?a sup?
port that Said regretsat one point in the
interviewbut later minimizes by suggesting
that "[t]he reallypopularpositionin the Arab
world... is a rejectionof what Saddam stands
for,and the disastrousresultswhichhe brought
to his own countryand people,and a rejection
of the Americanmilitarysolution."(p. 18)
Havingmalignedeveryonehe disagreeswith,
Said piouslyproclaims,"What we reallyneedis
a criticallanguageand a full-scalecriticalcul?
ture,not name-callingor the rhetoricalequiva?
lentofpoliticalmurder."(p. 18) Do Ajami and
al-Khalil's books not assess and critiquepower
in the Arab world?How can a criticallanguage
and newdiscoursesbe constructed
whena criti?
cal Arab intellectualsuch as Said engages in
"the rhetoricalequivalentof politicalmurder"
of those who dare critiqueArab cultureand
politics?
The stakes in this debate are high. On the
one side,Said and manyPalestiniansand their
supportersthinktheiropponentsexonerateIs?
rael and the US. On the other,al-Khalil and
otherIraqi oppositionistsare appalled by what
they see as the silence of theircriticson the
crueltiesperpetratedby Saddam Hussein's re?
gime.In the Arab world,these deep suspicions
and divisionsfindtheirtollin theuntoldsuffer?
ingofKuwaitis,Palestinians,Iraqis and Kurds,

in killingand counter-killing.
Said in this interviewhas done nothingto
facilitatethe conditionsforcreatinga dialogue.
He has aimedto fixone side as thegoodand the
otheras the bad, and close offthe changesfora
debateby "dislodging"thosehe disagreeswith.
One final point. When he criticizes "the
representationsof the conflictin the West,"
Said equates personalizationof the crisis and
demonization of Saddam with "eliminating
Iraq as a nation,a people,a culture,a history."
(p. 15) However,this can also be read as an
indicationof the remarkablereluctance/diffi?
on the vergeofwar
cultyofthe US government
to produce "an enemy." Clearly "the Arab"
could not be cast as "the enemy,"for two
reasons: 1) the anti-Vietnamwar, the civil
rights,and the women'smovementshave pro?
duceda climatewhichbetterappreciatesdiver?
and 2) because the
sityand resistsstereotypes;
US had been invitedto interveneby a number
of Arab governmentsin the area. Nor could
"the Iraqi" be cast as "the enemy,"since the
administration'sdiscoursegave prominenceto
the unpopularityand illegitimacyof Saddam's
rule,and even called forthe overthrowof his
regime.The personalizationof the war had a
profoundly
negativeconsequence.If therewere
no categoricalenemy,it became imperativeto
denythatanyonebut Saddam Hussein and the
in
RepublicanGuardsweretargetedor suffered
this war.Bombingtargetsweredescribedas if
they were buildingsempty of people. There
were no named casualties, no human body
counts,only "collateral"damage. The human
tragediesproduced by pulverizingthe infra?
structureofthe countryand the impactofthat
destructionon the people of Iraq wereobliter?
ated.
Yet the difficulty
of producing"an enemy"
also workedagainst mass anti-Arab,or even
anti-Iraqi,racismin theUS. WhilemanyIraqis
and Arabsweretargetsofracistattacksin this
period, nonetheless,it was remarkablethat
schools would inviteparentsof studentsfrom
Arab backgroundsto come to class and talk
about theirperspectiveson thewar.My daugh?
ter?who like manychildrenof hergeneration
has connectionsto several countriesand cul?
tures?when asked where she was from,felt
impelled,forthe firsttime in her life,to say
that she was fromIraq and feltsafe sayingso.
The rupturebetween Hussein and anything
else Iraqi opened up a space forbeingan Iraqi

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ical and onlyoccasionallyinformative

polemics etc.?as to make one wonder whetheralong
against Saddam, he seems quite incapable of withan inabilityto reason clearlyshe has any
argument,scholarship,or rationalexchange.I commonsense at all.
do in factwelcomediversityofopinion,whenit
Edward
W.Said,1991
? Copyright
is opinionand discourse,and not abuse or selfpromotingopportunismcarriedout exclusively
in the US, as opposed to the Arab world.
Ajami's even less usefulviewsare knownto all
and deserveno further
discussionhere.
Attacks and the Kurds
Chemical
But there is something else at work in
Said Responds
Edward
Najmabadi,especiallysince she suggeststhat I In Middle East -Report [#171,July/August
have a particularlyrichhistorywithSamir al- 1991] Eric Hooglund writes matter-of-factly
Khalil. A fewwordsthat will allay this rather that "Saddam Hussein ordered[the northern
AfsanehNajmabadi's wackyand ratherobtuse
sillyillusionmightbe ofinterest.In late 1969 or Iraqi town of Halabja] bombed with chemical
politicalviews,whichare thereto dressup her
1970 I became acquainted with a youngIraqi weaponsin March 1988 duringthe finalstages
defenseof Fouad Ajami and Samir al-Khalil,
militantactive in Palestinian politics.Aftera of the Iran-Iraq War." An estimated 5,000
deserveonlya fewlinesofresponse.She seems
few monthshe seemed to disappear fromthe Kurds died in that attack, he says, and this
unable to distinguishbetweenthe criticismI
scene, althoughI gatherhe remainedat MIT
was advancingof these intellectuals,and?a
explainswhyKurds flednorthernIraq follow?
In February1990 I was ingthe collapseofthe Kurdishrebellionin the
thing?instillingfearand trying fora whilethereafter.
verydifferent
sent an unsolicitedmanuscriptby one "Samir springof 1991.
to stampthemout,somethingI neverwould(or
An April 28, 1991, storyin the New York
could) do. Both of her preferredintellectual al-Khalil" forpublicationin a seriesofcultural
have no shortageofoutlets: studiesthatI editat HarvardUniversityPress. Times says US governmentanalysts believe
heroesincidentally,
Its authorinformedme he was using a pseud? that both Iran and Iraq used "chemicalarms"
Ajami is the residentanti-ArabArab of the
New Republic, US News and WorldReport, onym,that he was the author of Republic of in the fightforterritoryaround Halabja but
Fear, that in the submittedbook he was pro? thattherewas no attemptby eitherside to kill
and CBS. Samiral-Khalilwas an obscureLon?
don-basedIraqi architectwho shot to promi? posinga politico-cultural
analysisof"the Mon? Kurds and that, in any case, therewere hun?
nence because The RepublicofFear suddenly ument."Frankly,I thoughtit was ill-suitedto dreds,notthousands,of"civilians"killedin the
The storygoes on to cite a 1990 US
became relevantto the US governmentand
myseries,and nota distinguished
piece ofwork fighting.
media propaganda campaign to demonize
(althoughmanyof its reviewersnow celebrate Army War College reportthat disputed the
its brilliance,for often transparentpolitical contentionthat Iraq was responsibleforthe
Saddam. He too has been taken up by the
establishment.
Republicis by no means a con? reasons). Samir al-Khalil made no allusion to Halabja killings.The War College Report,ac?
tributionto scholarshipnor, to its author's our earlieracquaintance.
cordingto the Times, said it was "the Iranian
All ofa suddenin late August19901 was the bombardmentthat had actually killed the
credit,does he pretendit is. Neverthelessmy
point was that knowledgeabout the Middle
object of a nasty and unprovokedattack in Kurds."
In earlyMarch, six weeks beforethe Times
London's The Independentby the verysame
East is in factpolitical,and the divisionsbe?
tweenintellectualsin this fieldare principally Samir al-Khalil. In a long and maundering story,the Mexico CityEnglish-languageNews
in politics,notin abstract piece of self-pityand rant (his all-too-charac? reportedthe same story.The News story,how?
relatedto differences
teristic tone) he attacked me for ever,added that the War College'sconclusions
theory.
formy theoryof Oriental? werebased on the factthatIraq did notpossess
Yet Najmabadi never mentionsthe role in
deconstructionism,
thebuildupto thewarofpro-Israeliinterestsin
ism, and most preposterouslyof all, for my the kind of chemicalagent responsibleforthe
the US. This is a major omission,as is her alleged supportof Saddam. Virtuallynothing deaths in Halabja, whileIran did.
In "The Intellectualsand the War" (Middle
failureto understandthatthe US did not fight he said about me had any truth to it, but
1991), Edward
mainlyto liberateKuwait or Iraq but to serve quixotically perhaps I responded anyway, East Report,#171,July/August
its ownimperialdesigns.Most US intellectuals drawing attention to his errors and to his Said observes that the demonization of
are eitherignorantabout Iraq or hostileto the pseudonymousscurrility
which,I said, was the Saddam Hussein was part of the US govern?
mark of a coward (he had of courseprotested ment'sraciststrategyof "eliminatingIraq as a
Araband Islamicworlds(and sometimesboth);
ofthe anti-war that a nornde plume was necessaryto protect nation, a people, a culture,a history"in the
hencethestriking
shortcomings
his familyin Iraq). It tookme all ofa handfulof minds of Americansand the government'sal?
movementwhich in the main certainlydid
minuteson the phone fromNew Yorkto Lon? lies. That accomplished,the bombing could
condemnSaddam (as did I, unequivocally)but
don to discoverthatSamiral-Khalilwas in fact commencewithlittleopposition.Was the story
failedto make a case forthe Iraqi people, as
opposed to Saddam. That people still suffer the ex-studentfrom MIT, a revelationthat ofthe 1988 gassingofthe Kurds manufactured
because of Saddam and the US. Anyonewho doubtlesscould have been made by the Iraqi as part ofthis strategy?
At about the time the enclosed Times story
believesthatthe US was evercapable of help? authoritieswitheven less trouble.So muchfor
appeared,the Times also began addingqualifi?
ing the Kurds to achieve self-determination, the drama of "Samir al-Khalil" a.k.a. Kanaan
promotingdemocracy,or installinga liberal Makiya, who remainsneverthelessan item in ers such as "alleged" and "as claimed by the
Kurds" to its referencesto the gassingof the
regimein Baghdad is eithera foolor a knave. what has come to be known as "second
The US recordis thereforall to scrutinize,and
thoughts,"i.e. political recantation and self Kurds. I wouldlike to knowwhat Middle East
I challengeNajmabadi to show me one pro- reinvention.As to whetherso clearlypeculiara
Report's certaintyis based upon and I would
democracystrugglein the Middle East encour? personalityis interestedin (or suitable for) like to have Middle East Report'sperspective
on the War College Report referredto by the
agedbytheUS. A lookat its shamelesssubsidi? dialogue,or whetherhe is about otherthings,I
shall leave forMiddle East Report'sreadersto Times. If the 1988 gassingof the Kurds (and
zation of Israel's horrendous occupation
the fearthat it mighthappen again) does not
policies would be enough to dispel any such determine.
In that strange conjunctureof half-truth, explain theirrapid departurefromIraq, then
illusions.In everythingI said or wrote since
and pureand cruelfantasywhich what does?
August 1990 my point was to denounce the demagoguery
JerryLembcke
occupation of Kuwait, but also to connect is the US-Iraqi relationshipnow,Fouad Ajami,
Massachusetts
Samir al-Khalil and Afsaneh Najmabadi are
events with their contexts and not, as in
Worcester,
Najmabadi's case, to separatethemfromeach not criticalintellectualsat all. They are career?
ists who do not hesitate to echo each other
other.The rest of her political argumentis
the wordsof
puerile,particularlythe notions that no one whileeithertrashingor falsifying
condemnedSaddam, and thatI hold a conspir? people they feelhave offendedthem. In addi? Eric Hooglund
Responds
atorial view of events. Coming froma fan of tion,theirworkon the Arabworldis filledwith
Samir al-Khalilthe latterview is galling.
easy, and easily marketable,cliches; as schol? I have seen the reportby Stephen Pelletiere,
I come finallyto her personal accusations, ars, therefore,
theyare hardlyin the forefront Douglas Johnsonand Leif Rosenberger[Iraqi
archival research,or insight. Powerand US Securityin theMiddle East, US
the essence of which is: that I want to herd of methodology,
people under "good" and "bad" rubricsand Najmabadi's notion that there was no anti- Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA,
that in doing so I oppose dialogue,especially Arabracismin the US fliesso completelyin the 1990]. None of its authors were in Halabja,
withpeoplelike Samir al-Khalil.What is there face of the reality?what with the FBI cam? althoughscoresofinternational
journalistsand
to dialoguewithhimabout?Aside fromhyster- paign, the horriblecaricaturesin the media, officialrepresentativesof internationalorgawithoutbeing "an enemy."This atmosphere
was in strikingcontrastto the vicious antiIranianracismofthetimeofthe hostagecrisis.
The possibilityof such an alternativeexperi?
and cher?
ence is somethingto be remembered
ished,not ignoredand erased.
AfsanehNajmabadi
Cambridge,MA

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43

nizationsdid enterthe townwithin24 hoursof

the chemical attack. Their well-documented
accountsare the sourceswhich verifythat at
least 5,000 people died of chemicalpoisoning.
The three identifiedchemicals were subse?
in Iraq after
quentlyfoundbyUN investigators
the Gulfwar.The Pelletierereportwas written
to advance a specificpolitical agenda, i.e., to
reinforcea de facto alliance betweenthe US
and Iraq whichtheReagan administration
pro?
moted.SupportersofthetilttowardsIraq were
reluctantto acceptevidencethatIraq was using
chemicalweaponsagainstIranianforcesduring
the Iran-Iraq war. The US, forpolitical rea?
sons, refusedto condemn Iraq and took the
position that both sides were using chemical
weapons,eventhoughtherewas neverevidence
that Iran possessed any.When evidencecame
in 1988 that Iraq had used chemicalweapons
againstits own Kurdishpopulationin Halabja,
the State Department and the intelligence
communitywere divided over the response.
The split among analysts and officialspre?
vented the publication of an officialreport.
Some of the pro-Iraq factioneventuallysuc?
ceeded in gettingtheirreportpublishedby the
US ArmyWar College.Regardlessofthe merit
ofthisreport,everyKurdbelievesthatSaddam
Hussein was responsibleforHalabja. And the
strengthof thatbeliefis what compelledmore
than a million Kurds to flee toward Iran to
escape Saddam Hussein.

Iraq

THE

CRISIS
Classroom

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WAR

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If a convincingcase could be made that

Washingtonhad set up Baghdad, it wouldstill
be necessaryto account forthe Iraqi regime's
decision to invade,pillage and torturein Ku?
wait, activities which I don't believe Mr.
Clark's tribunalis planning to take up. Nor
does the "set-up"notionexplainwhyBaghdad
as muchas Washingtonrefusedto countenance
effortsat a negotiatedwithdrawal
third-party
linkedto Palestine issues. The politicalthrust
of the "set-up" explanation is to effacethe
ofthe Iraqi regime,and its parti?
responsibility
sans, forthe catastropheof this war and its
aftermath.

for just $20 ($25

I am writingto express my disappointment

withyourcoverageofthe GulfCrisis.Granted,
youdid comeout againstthe war,and you have
publishedsomeverygoodarticleson the devas?
tatingeffectsofthewarin the MiddleEast, but
what I don't understandis yourlack of cover?
age of any of the evidencewhichmakes a very
goodcase fortheset-upofIraq (and Kuwait) by
the Bush administration.Afterall, even Time
reportedsomeverysuspiciouseventsas earlyas
October1,1990.
Many of your readersmust be of Arab de?
scent, and would surely appreciate knowing
that someone of Ramsey Clark's stature is
bringingInternationalWar Crimes charges
againstGeorgeBush, on thebasis ofa set-upof
I
Iraq (and Kuwait) by the US administration.
heardClarkspeak in Torontoin mid-May,and
was notaltogethersurprisedto see no coverage
of this momentousevent in the mainstream
media. However,I am dismayedat findingno
mentionof it in yourmagazine.
I am at a loss in understandingthis lack of
Are you un?
extremely
importantinformation.
informed?Are you being muzzled by the US
administration?Do you not want people to
have this information?
I hope I am notinsultingyourintelligence
by
assumingthat you are not familiarwith this
all of whichhas been reportedin
information,
Time, The Village Voice, Harper's and the
TorontoStar. However,if I have insultedyour
intelligence,then I have overestimatedyour
integrity.
Lorna GayleAlmaini
Toronto,Canada
Responds

AFTERMATH

resources

of MIDDLE

the Gulf Crisis

EAST

Resource

REPORT,

Packet,

overseas).

Includes:
On The Edge of War, November
No Place to Hide, January 1991

Set Up?

Joe Stork

featuredthe case fora Washington"set-up"of

Iraq is that we have not foundthe case to be
in the
veryconvincing.There weredifferences
Bush administrationoverpolicytowardsIraq,
butuntiltheeve ofIraq's invasion,the momen?
tumstilllay withthose who saw Saddam Hus?
sein as a key US ally in preservingthe status
quo in the Persian Gulf. There were persons
like Undersecretary
ofDefensePaul Wolfowitz
who appear to have differedwiththis agenda,
and theirefforts
to shiftWashingtontowardsa
more confrontationalposture with Iraq ac?
countforat least some ofthe inconsistenciesin
the administration'sapproach.

Crossing the Line, March 1991

Power, Poverty, and Petrodollars,
The Day After, July 1991

1990

May 1991

Crisis in the Gulf Resource Packet

on Iraq, Kuwait and the US in
(Background
the Gulf) September
1990
$20.00 US and Canada
$25.00 Overseas
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Mastercard and Visa accepted.

please.)

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Send to: MERIP, 1500 Mass. Ave. NW, *119, Washington, DC 20005

Feminist Teacher
seeks
contributions dealing with "Feminist
Education and War/' Topics include the sexual, racial and cultural
implications of the Gulf War; -war and feminist ethics; women in
war; descriptions of pedagogical
efforts to address the war in the
classroom;
personal teaching experiences
from different stages
of the war. For further information, please contact Feminist Teacher,
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The chiefreason that this magazine has not

44

Middle East Report ? November-December1991

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