With the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, the Jewish nahdah project was also created, something all the Arab states portrayed as a threat to their own particular nahdah projects.
The non-Arab Jewish nahdah project derived particular emphasis from Jewish religious national identity. The Jewish state had in view the renewal of the Jewish age of greatness, not within the borders arrived at by UN Resolution 179 but within the whole area that the Jews had once ruled. The Jewish state, just like the Arab states, did not see its contemporary territorial borders as defining the compass of its nahdah project.
Israel's attempt to recreate a Greater Israel meant that the whole of the Arab East became the sphere of influence it aspired to. The economic structure was a mixed economy with the state as the country's largest employer. Israel put particular emphasis on its Jewish cultural heritage, but maintained an open cultural stance to the outside world, and to Western Europe and the USA above all. Arab opposition to the Israeli political nahdah project was strong, I believe, because of the legitimating worth Palestine had and still has for the Arab and Islamic nahdah projects. The Arab states have never managed to agree how to handle the question of Israel, one of the reasons that led to defeat at Israel's hands in 1948.
The USA, that had begun to take on the role of the old colonial powers, Britain and France, in the Arab East in the 1950s, found that the Arab League was not sufficiently strong to hold the line against any possible Communist Soviet expansion south. For this purpose the USA instead set up the Baghdad Pact. Around these two poles, Pact policies and anti-colonialism, two blocks formed. The Hashemites in Iraq were, until 1958, the strongest proponent of the Pact's policies in the Arab East. Against this were set the Pact policies of Egypt's Nasser and Saudi Arabia's King Faisal, which managed to frighten Hashemite Jordan out of becoming one of the Pact's followers in Baghdad.
When it came to the question of Palestine, King Faisal was much closer to the Iraqi line than to the Egyptian. Syria was closer to Egypt on both matters. Jordan did as it was so often to do in the 1950s; it sought out the powers that opposed the Saudis the most. This was because of the rivalry that had been created between the Hashemite state and the Saudi state in the 1920s. The old conflict did not, however, hinder either state from supporting the other when it looked as if Egypt's Nasser was in way of endangering everything in the Arab East at the end of the 1950s.
The similarities with Muhammed Ali's nahdah project are striking especially when it comes to its relationship with religion's role in society. Civil society was to be the most important prerequisite for modernisation in Nasser's Egypt also, although with a more religious stamp; this gives us reason to typify the new Egyptian nahdah project as an religious Arab nationalistic one. The social class that Egypt set out to mobilise above all others was the Arab middle class. [78] Nasser's Egypt strove by revolutionary means to reunite all the Arab peoples from the Persian Gulf in the east to the Atlantic coast in the west into one vast Arab state. This brought it into conflict with Saudi Arabia, which fought to maintain the status quo. Nasserism developed in the 1950s into a clear theoretical framework for the reunification struggle. The social structure was urban-agrarian with a growing middle class. The economic model was a planned economy with the state as principal employer. Nasser's Egypt laid particular emphasis on its Arab heritage.
Nasser's Egypt did not adopt a confrontational strategy towards its Arab opponents who, like Saudi Arabia and Jordan, were pursuing their own nahdah projects. Instead, Egypt attempted to combine co-operation with one or more of those states when it came to concrete issues such as anti-Pact policies with Saudi Arabia, with attempts to isolate those states that came out against Egyptian politics in order to destroy them from the inside. Egypt's cultural weight and Nasser's extraordinary ability to mobilise the Arab peoples placed Egypt in a dominant position, not only in the Arab East but in the Arab world as a whole.
At the end of the 1950s and the start of the 1960s Nasser enjoyed considerable success, when Egypt founded, together with Syria, the United Arab Republic in 1958. [79] Both Egypt and Syria became once again provinces in a united Arab state which took its inspiration from Muhammed Ali's time and from the Arab Government in Damascus at the end of the 1910s, whose flag became the new state's flag with Salladen's eagle as the state emblem. The new state, when compared with the other Arab states, was by far the most active in the struggle to alter the governing power structure not only of the Arab East but of the whole Arab world. [80]
King Saud and the Saudi state's political nahdah project was then challenged by the United Arab Republic. General Abdulkarim Kassem, who had led the 14 July Revolt in Iraq, gradually became a challenger to the United Arab Republic, although without much agreement from Jordan or Saudi Arabia. The 14 July Revolt lead to a new direction for the Iraqi political nahdah project. Gradually, after an internal struggle between different groups that ended in Kassem's favour, a nahdah project emerged that was more Iraqi-nationalist and Communist in character than Arab. [81]
Kassem's pretensions to Kuwait and his involvement in Syria's internal affairs after its separation from the United Arab Republic, were reason enough for Egypt and Saudi Arabia to oppose Iraq and to increase the co-operation between themselves. It is thus not really accurate to see this period merely as the expression of a competition between the progressive and the reactionary regimes. In 1958 the reactionary Kingdom of Yemen joined the union of progressive Syria and Egypt. This is an example of how the traditional way of looking at the states from the point of view of their political systems alone is not sufficient to understand their political actions. A state might join an alliance with one or more states so long as the sphere of interest the state aspires to, derived from its power structure, is not compromised by the other states in the alliance. This trend grew even stronger in the 1970s and 1980s.
Nasser's Egypt was forced, as a result of defeat by Israel in June 1967, to pull its forces back from Yemen. In practice this meant that Nasser withdrew from the area that Saudi Arabia viewed as its own back yard, and compensation rapidly followed in increased economic co-operation between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. At the same time it constituted the end of a period of Egyptian dominance, not only militarily but also politically and economically. In the first half of the 1960s Egypt belonged as one the so-called developing world's industrial and economic giants, [82] but after 1967, because of the increased cost of restructuring its shattered army, it became much weakened. Rearmament soaked up a large proportion of Egyptian GNP, and forced Nasser to put his ambitious five year development plan on ice. It is worth noting, however, that despite its defeat Egypt was still the dominant cultural centre of the Arab East.
Jordan began gradually to pull back from this front and to move closer to Iraq. The reason was that Egypt and Syria increased their support of the PLO in their struggle to be recognised as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people, something not welcomed by King Hussein.
At the start of the 1970s a regional vacuum was created partly because of the effect of the Egyptian collapse in the June War and partly because Britain withdrew from the southern half of the Arab Peninsula, and from the Gulf in particular, where no fewer than four new states achieved independence. Britain's direct dominance of the Arab East had begun to wane after its withdrawal from Egypt in 1954. Thereafter more and more states were given independence: Sudan in 1956; Kuwait in 1961; North Yemen in 1962; South Yemen in 1967; Oman in 1970; Qatar in 1971; Bahrain in 1971; and finally the United Arab Emirates, also in 1971.
The USA had already begun its attempt to take over the British and French roles in the Arab World as soon as the Second World War was over. This was for two reasons: its confrontation with the Soviet Union; and its desperation to prevent the oil wells from falling into enemy hands. In pursuit of these aims, the USA did not avail itself of the old methods of direct military control, but rather set about it using the following means:
Saudi Arabia, which attempted to take on Egypt's dominant role and at the same time to block the Iranian expansion, was the prime mover in the setting up of OPEC in 1968. [85]
On 17 July 1968 the Ba'ath party seized power in Baghdad and Iraq got a new nahdah project, one based on the Ba'athist's non-religious Arab nationalism, that this time had come to stay. [86] This branch of the Ba'athists was the deadly enemy of its equivalent in Syria that had taken power there on 23 February 1966. The internecine war between the two branches was not only about the leadership of the party's Arab national command, but about the goals of the Ba'athist movement in general. [87] The Syrian branch was convinced that a radical socialist agenda was the prerequisite for the creation of a unified Arab national state. The Iraqis were similarly convinced that the establishment of a unified Arab national state was the prerequisite for a strong socialist national state. The economic structure for both was to be state socialism leavened by Arab experience. Both laid particular emphasis on their Arab heritage. [88]
Until 1975 Iraq was preoccupied with its internal politics and the war in Kurdistan. For this reason Iraq found itself at a disadvantage when it came up against Iran, which was busily laying claim to Shat al-Arab. [89]
After the June War Israel became the principal foe of all the Arab states in the Arab East and their nahdah projects. But Israel was able to establish a good working relationship with Iran for the very reason that spheres of interest they aspired to did not overlap. Israel inspired in the Arab East a sense of unity between the Arab states because `Israel is a stumbling block to the successful carrying out of our nahdah projects, and therefore Israel is an enemy that threatens us all'; but it was also a dividing factor because the Arab states had to ask themselves `how are we to handle the Palestinian question?'. At this point Lebanon was the country where nearly all the Arab states found themselves confronting each other in an unusually democratic manifestation, through the various parties and newspapers founded to promote the different Arab States and their political nahdah projects.
The political and economic problems Egypt had to deal with after 1967 made it all the more inevitable that President Anwar el-Sadat could not concentrate purely on the Egyptian state. [90] El-Sadat, in the corrective May Revolt, tried to revive the Egyptian political system. The Arab Union that Egypt formed with Syria, Sudan and Libya in 1971 had before long become more of a manoeuvre than the hoped-for co-operative venture. By joining the Arab Union, el-Sadat wanted to have the opportunity to do away with all the old apparatus of power left over from Nasser's time. The strong position el-Sadat enjoyed in Egypt because of the October War in 1973 gave him further opportunities to push through a comprehensive political and economic reform in Egypt that came to be known as the Infitah policy. This Infitah policy did not result in any noticeable improvement in the weakened Egyptian economy, which left Egypt's position in relation to Saudi Arabia and Iraq considerably worsened.
In the new power structure for the Egyptian political nahdah project, the Egyptian was stressed far more than the Arab, and strong religious overtones became evident that amounted to a step away from the civil society that had been painstakingly nurtured in Egypt since Muhammed Ali's time. At the same time Egypt began to display much more openness towards to outside world, and in particular to Western Europe and the USA, in economic and political matters. This was accompanied by a much greater emphasis on Egyptian identity. [91] Egypt began to avoid pushing itself forward as the only political leader of the Arab East, thus paving the way for increased co-operation with Iran and for peace negotiations with Israel some years later. El-Sadat had not completely given up on the idea of the Arab Union, though. He proposed instead a gradually increasing economic co-operation, something he typified as the most important prerequisite for an Arab union. [92]
After 1975 Egypt began to draw even further back from the Palestinian problem. Egypt gave limited support to the PLO's attempts to be named as `the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people' by the Arab League. El-Sadat also declined to get involved in the civil war in Lebanon, choosing rather to concentrate on relations with the Gulf states, in particular Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. Egypt wanted to prove itself a stabilising force in the Gulf, and together with Iran proposed guarantees to maintain the flow of oil to Western Europe, Japan and the USA. Egypt depicted its new policies as a sufficient reason to demand increased economic and military assistance from Western Europe and the USA.
This reorientation of Egyptian policies, and particularly in the increased co-operation with Iran, aroused deep suspicion in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Both these countries had had vast incomes ever since the 1973 oil crisis, and this gave them the chance to build not only a modern state apparatus but also strong military forces. [93] Iraq's spending on arms increased in leaps and bounds, especially after the Algiers Border Treaty with Iran in 1975 which had left Iraq free to crush the revolt in Kurdistan. Iraq, with its non-religious Arab nationalistic nahdah project, began to compete in its own right with Saudi Arabia and its nahdah project, but it was still not as powerful as either Iran's or Egypt's. [94]
During this period Saudi Arabia and Iraq competed to take over Egypt's leading role. Saudi Arabia and Iraq were economically superior to Egypt, but culturally and militarily Egypt was still dominant. Because of its economic problems, Syria was unable to act independently either in regional matters or in the civil war in Lebanon. Israel and Iran were for the maintenance of the status quo.
With the triumph of the Islamic revolution in Iran in February 1979, a new social group emerged that took over power and created a Shi'ite revolutionary nahdah project that brought with it a total change to what had been the Shah's Iranian nationalistic project. Iran, with the new power structure as its political nahdah project, set out to spread the Shi'a Muslim revolution not only in the Arab East but in the whole Islamic world. The country's economic structure was changed to a mixed economy based on Islamic principles, and subject to a strong traditional-cum-Shi'ite emphasis on its Islamic heritage. [97] Iran's ambition, true to the spirit of revolutionary Shi'ite Islam, to export revolution to its neighbours made the whole Arab East the sphere of influence it aspired to, [98] and Iraq its foremost opponent into the bargain.
Rivalry intensified between Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, each representing a very different political nahdah project. Economic and military imbalances between the states and their internal political stability were the governing factors in their relationships. The political situation in Iran was marked by instability, while that in Iraq was considerably more stable. This was presented by the Iraqi leadership as a valid excuse for dealing with Iran. Bearing in mind that Egyptian saying, it seems that it was going to be well-nigh impossible for Iran and Iraq to avoid war. Saddam Hussein thought that a Blitzkrieg would bring a rapid victory and a superior position not only in the negotiations about a co-operative organisation for the Gulf, but also in the Arab East in general. [99] Saudi Arabia was the party most eager to defend the status quo. [100]
During the war the regional power structure changed once again. It was thought by Western Europe and the USA in particular that Iran, with its ambitions, posed a much greater and enduring threat to the other Gulf states than Iraq did. It was for this reason that at the start of the war Iraq received support from various parts of the world. [101] Egypt supported Iraq even though relations between the two had worsened considerably after the Camp David Agreement in 1978. [102] Neither Saudi Arabia nor the other Gulf states apart from Oman and the United Arab Emirates hesitated to give Iraq military and economic support, but only to a level they thought would give Iraq the means to defend itself but not to crush Iran.
Seeing that Iran and Iraq were busy fighting each other, Saudi Arabia seized the chance in conjunction with the other Gulf states to found a regional co-operative organisation. There had been intense negotiations about the structure this organisation would take between all the Gulf states, including Iraq, during 1979. [103] With this Saudi Arabia altered the political power structure in the Gulf to its advantage, by creating the Arab Gulf States Co-operation Council, or AGS, as a political and economic co-operation organisation dominated by the Saudis. This was not a chance development at the end of the 1970s, but rather the result of Saudi Arabia's desire to create a regional organisation in the Arab East that can be at least traced back to the founding of Arab OPEC in 1968. The membership of the AGS was not, and still is not, a homogenous group. The kind of Islam that predominates in Oman, Abadsim, is wholly unacceptable to the Wahhabbis in Saudi Arabia. Besides had Oman maintained close relations both with Egypt and with Iran, in the latter case both before and after the Revolution. Kuwait, meanwhile, was characterised by the Saudis as altogether too democratic!
Syria was the power that alone dominated Lebanon during this period, and although the PLO did its best to become an independent actor there its efforts met with little success.
The Gulf War was to large extent good news for many parties. For the international community, the War guaranteed low oil prices, while both countries were excellent markets for arms' sales. Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states found that the war gave them a breathing space to push through their measures for regional co-operation without pressure from either Iran or Iraq, but at the same time the war was an severe drain on resources because of the massive economic support the Gulf states gave Iraq.
Both Iran and Iraq represented the War as a step on the path towards Palestinian freedom. Unsurprisingly Israel, for its part, was only too happy to watch Iran and Iraq keep fighting, and thus weakening, each other. Egypt was thankful that Iraq had stopped the expansion of an altogether too dangerous revolutionary Shi'ite Islam, depicted by Egypt as a threat to the country's political stability. Fears about instability also stemmed from the ideological vacuum that had been created by Nasserism's collapse. Meanwhile, as it had modernised its arms industry, Egypt found a strong market for its products both in Iraq and in the Gulf states.
When the Iranian threat to Iraq and the Gulf states increased in 1987, Egypt declared that it would beat back anyone who invaded any of the Gulf states. This was a clear signal both to Iran, which had had considerable successes in the Fao Peninsula in southern Iraq, and to Israel, which had threatened to bomb the long distance missiles that Saudi Arabia had bought from China. The Egyptian Defence Minister, Abo Ghzala, said during his visit to Kuwait in 1978, that the safety of the Gulf states was indistinguishable from Egypt's. [104]
It appeared as if an Arab co-operative order with power enough to pacify the region's historic powers was very close. But three important players stood outside the new power structure, namely South Yemen, the PLO and Syria. Iraq had been extremely active in the reunification of Yemen that was announced on 26 May 1990, five months earlier than originally planned. With this, united Yemen became a member of the AS. Egypt, in conjunction with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, attempted to drive through a peace treaty between Israel and the PLO. One scenario was that an independent Palestine would join in a federation with Jordan and possibly Syria, and thereby receive membership of the AS, which in its turn would give Israel the guarantees of security that it required. But for this scenario to be acted out it was first necessary for Iraq and Syria to settle their differences, and for Israel to accept the Pact.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan had attempted to mediate for the two countries. Saudi Arabia for its part was eager for Iraq to engage itself in the ASR, and for future co-operation in the Arab world to be brought within the framework of the ASR, AMSU and AGSR, while the Arab League should transform itself into some sort of umbrella organisation over the regional organisations.
The Lebanese civil war, the Palestinian question, oil prices and the Gulf region's security were the questions that the parties, because of their differing political nahdah projects, could not agree on. The peace process between Israel and the PLO failed because the Israeli coalition government fell. It was Israel, because of its strong position, that rejected thoughts of a comprehensive peace negotiations. Instead, it wanted to have separate negotiations with the Arab states after the `step by step' political model that Israel considered to have been so fruitful in the peace process with Egypt. Israeli policies defended the position of those groups within the PLO that accepted negotiations, as opposed to those groups that continued to stand for an armed struggle. Arafat's recognition of Israel's right to exist within specific, secured borders has, however, not borne fruit. Israel's reluctance to make peace with the PLO has created two blocks. Iraq and Libya want Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon, the so-called Security Zone, and of the Golan Heights, together the Palestinian problem, to be solved unilaterally, and that the PLO should make no more `concessions' in addition to the ones already made. Saudi Arabia and Egypt succeeded in getting Syria to enter separate negotiations regardless of whether the problems were be tackled in parallel or not. This alliance also supported the el-Taif treaty intended to bring Lebanon's civil war to an end, and kept the pressure up on the PLO.
When Iraq found that Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria had bypassed its most important regional standpoints, it engaged itself strongly in Lebanon in order to block the al-Taif Treaty. [106] It gave economic and military support to General Aoun's government, which also opposed the Treaty. Iraq managed to stop the Treaty, but did not have the capacity on its own to force a different solution. This, taken with the considerable problems experienced by Egyptian Gastarbeiter in Iraq, and what Iraq denounced as a new Egyptian attempt to take back its leading role in the Arab East, worsened Iraqi - Egyptian relations.
Just as Egypt moved closer to Syria, and Iraq found itself in an increasingly desperate economic situation, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait reduced their economic support to Iraq and, simultaneously, increased their oil production, thus bringing about a drop in oil prices. When Iraq began to negotiate with Kuwait about facilities on the islands of Warbah and Bubiyan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia partly supported the Kuwaiti stance. Iraq raged against what it saw as a serious attempt to stop it from playing a major role in the region,
Iraq's actions in Lebanon in December 1989, the republication of the old National Declaration in February 1990, and the invasion of Kuwait were all expressions of Iraq's attempt to preserve a leading position, while reminding that no solution to the region's pressing problems could be achieved without Iraq's good offices. Saddam also wanted to prevent the country from slowly but surely collapsing in on itself or drowning in debt. This led him to decide to play all his cards at once to change the process that was underway; better to loose today what was going to be lost tomorrow anyway, while at least upsetting regional stability not only in the Arab East but in the whole Arab world.
Saddam Hussein's own scenario was namely that Iraq should offer resistance in Iraq itself, and that the war should be drawn out. This would have been the worst possible situation for the Arab states in the Alliance. This explains why the Arab forces in the Alliance refused to carry the war on into Iraq. [107] The risk was then perceived as too great that pro-Iraqi feeling would be strengthened in the Arab World, particularly after big demonstrations in Saddam Hussein's favour in Amman, Sana, and all the Maghreb states. There were even demonstrations in Cairo against Egypt's participation in the war. The Iraqis did all they could to draw both Israel and Iran into the war.
The consequences of this development were unpredictable. The scenario presented here is not speculation but rather the actual Iraqi strategy. Saddam Hussein himself elaborated upon it in a speech to the delegations of the Arab unions gathered in Baghdad in April 1990. He said then that `If the war begins, then we will hold out until we manage to mobilise you, even if it should take days, weeks, months or years. We [Iraqis] will accept nothing else but you standing at our side in a future war, which we will, with God's will, win'. [108]
The Alliance, and particularly the USA, hoped that there would be a state coup, bringing with it a totally different new outlook and a new leadership that would accept all the UN's resolutions. [109] This scenario was the ideal solution for the Alliance because one then would have glided over two sensitive issues: the Kurdish question; and the creation of a legitimate alternative to Saddam Hussein.
After nearly one hundred hours of combat it became clear that Iraq had decided, after heavy casualties, to accept all the UN's resolutions. This meant that Saddam Hussein was left clearly the loser in the war. The legitimate government with al-Sabah at its head, thanks to the UN's resolutions, came back to power in Kuwait.
But even if Iraq's Saddam had lost the war, he remained in full view! He is still Iraq's leader, while his opponents face even greater political problems than before. By all standards the second Gulf War has altered the political map of the region, and similarly the regional power balance between the historic capital cities of the Arab East. The Arab Co-operative Council, consisting of Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and Iraq, is impotent without Egypt and with the much weakened Iraq. The Gulf States Co-operation Council has survived the crisis, but the outbreak of war showed that the Gulf States, whether singly or united in their Co-operation Council, could not stand against Iraq or Iran if they tried to change the regional power relationships. One must here note that the Arab states' political power structures are on the point of further change. But in what direction are the Arabs headed? This is a question that can be best answered with what Muslims usually say when they are avoiding the issue: Only God knows!
Aflaq, M. Baath och socialismen, Beirut 1973 (in Arabic).
Aflaq, Michel, Baath och enheten, Beirut 1973. (in Arabic).
Ahmad al-Hamid, Saad Zaghlul, Tarikh al-Maghreb al-Arabi, Alexandria 1979, Det arabiska Maghrebs historia. (in Arabic).
Ahmad, Ahmad J. El-seraat el-arabia el-arabia, De inter-arabiska konflikterna, Beirut 1988 (in Arabic).
Ahmad, J. Ahmad, ed. Oljerikedomet och dess konsekvenser på de inter-arabiska relationerna, (in Arabic).
Al-Jabiri, Mahammad Abid, Det samtida arabiska tänkandet (på arabiska), Beirut 1989. (in Arabic).
Amin, Samir, The Arab Nation, p 41 ff, Zed Press, London 1978.
Amin, Samir, Unequal Development: Social Formations at the Periphery of the Capitalist System, Monthly Reveiew,1976
Antonius, George, The arab Awakening- The story of the Arab National movement, Beirut 1969.
Bauomi, Khaled SDS 1991-08-14.
Bauomi, Khaled, "Ockupationen av Kuwait och maktspelet i Araböstern", i Internationella Studier nr.3-4 Stokholm 1990.
Duri, Abd al-Aziz, The historical formation of the Arab Nation, London 1987.
Eduards, Maud, Samarbete i Maghreb -om regionalt samarbete mellan Marocko, Algeriet, Tunisien och Libyen 1962-1984, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen, Stocholm 1985.
Ett videoband som den irakiska ambassaden delade ut i maj 1990.
Fisher, Sydney N. The Middle East -a History, New York 1979.
Gumma, Ahamed M. The foundation of The League of Arab States, London longman 1977.
Hammond, Paul Y. and Alexander, Sidney S. ed. Political Dynamics in the Middle East, New York 1972.
Hassouna, Hussein A. The League of Arab States and Regional Disputes, New York 1975.
Heyd, Uriel, Studies in Islamic History and Civilization, Jerusalem 1961.
Hudson, Michael C. Arab Politics-The Search for legitimacy, London 1977.
Ibrahim, Saad el-din, Egypten i frågasätter sin identitet, Kairo 1983, (in Arabic).
Ismail, Muhammad H. Egyptens nationala säkerhet, Kairo 1987, (in Arabic).
Kerr, Malcolm, The Arab Cold War 1958-1967- A Study of Ideology in Politics, London 1967.
Khalf Allah, Muhammad A. Arab nationalism och Islam, Beirut 1981.
Lapidus, Ira M. The History of Islamic Societies.
Marsot, Afaf Lutffi al-Sayyid, Egypten in the reign of Muhammad Ali, Cambridge University Press 1984.
Nelson, K.L. and G.Olin, Jr. Spencer, Why War? California 1979.
Pipes, Daniel, Greater Syria-The History of an Ambition, Oxford University Press 1990.
Rabie, Hamed A. Arab cooperation and oil policy, problems of Arab Strategy: II, Cairo 1971.
Ramazani R. K. Revolutionary Iran, Johns Hopkins university Press 1988.
Ramazani, R.K. The persian Gulf Iran's Role, The University Press of Virginia 1972.
Salam Qasim, Al-Baath och Arabvärlden, Paris 1980, (in Arabic).
Seif el-Dualah, Esmat, Den arabiska revolutions teorin- vägen till enheten... vägen till socialismen, Beirut 1979..
Taylor, Alan R. The Arab Balance of Power, New York 1982.
The Economist, A survey of The Arab East, 6-12 February 1988.
Tompuri, Gösta, Fredsfördraget med Israel och Egyptens korrektiva majrevolution, FAO rapport C 10171-M3 1981.
Tompuri, Gösta, Irakiska optioner efter Kriget med Iran, FOA rapport C 10220-M3, Stockholm Oktober 1982.
Tägil, Sven, Att studera gränskonflikt en teoretisk ram, Lund 1975.
Wallander, Gunnar, 5000 år av politisk, religiös och social...., Stockholm 1944.
Yale, William, The Near East- A Modern History, The University of Michigan 1958.
© The author and Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies. Archived 24.9.95