Critical Issues Facing the Middle East

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vii

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • James A. Russell

      Pages 1-9

3. Political Economy

   1. Long-Term Sources of Instability in the Middle East

      • Alan Richards

      Pages 13-36

   2. Reforming the Rentier State: The Imperatives for Change in the Gulf

      • Robert Looney

      Pages 37-73

4. Emerging Political Dynamics

   1. Oslo’s Success, a Militarized Resistance: Changing Opposition Tactics in the Palestinian Territories

      • Anne Marie Baylouny

      Pages 77-102

   2. Islamization and American Policy

      • Barak A. Salmoni

      Pages 103-123

   3. Democratic Nation Building in the Arc of Crisis: The Case of the Presidential Election in Afghanistan

      • Thomas H. Johnson

      Pages 125-146

5. Regional Security and Stability

   1. The Arab-Israeli Conflict and Regional Stability

      • Ellen Laipson, Emile Hokayem

      Pages 149-177

   2. Iraq and the New Regional Security Dynamic

      • Judith S. Yaphe

      Pages 179-195

6. Strategy and Policy

   1. Strategy, Policy, and War in Iraq: The United States and the Gulf in the Twenty-First Century

      • James A. Russell

      Pages 199-219

7. Back Matter

   Pages 220-224

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Addressing systemic changes in the Middle East's security environment since the Iraq War, prominent experts analyze the challenges these changes pose to US strategy and policy. They examine the causes of profound economic, political and religious transitions and their implications for hopes of reform.

• environment
• Iran
• Israel
• liberty
• networks
• Policy
• politics
• Proliferation
• reform
• strategy
• war
• weapons
• Weapons of Mass Destruction

'A timely and readable compendium of informed expertise; bridging the divide of internal and external security; addressing the sources of Middle East insecurity from the interdisciplinary perspectives of economics, politics, history, international relations and religion. To cope with such a variegated security environment the sources of potential instability and conflict are broken into their constituent parts, developing a holistic focus that pierces the fog in shedding new light of the impending Middle East storm. Having no equal it will readily find its utility on student reading lists and the shelves of practitioners, commentators and critics.

- Glen M. Segell, FRGS, Director, Institute of Security Policy.

"Critical issues in Middle East Security challenges the conventional wisdom that the driving search for Middle East is, or should be, a purely military consideration. Although current events in Iraq and elsewhere give good reason to rest comfortably with such a notion, the book's authors dig deeper to probe the underlying sources of the region's current and coming challenges. Critical Issues is an important contribution, by important scholars, and deserves a wide readership by those concerned with the seemingly unending cycle of conflict roiling the Middle East."

- Rachel Bronson, author of Thicker than Oil: America's Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia, Senior Fellow and Director, Middle East Studies, Council on Foreign Relations

JAMES A. RUSSELL is Senior Lecturer, Department of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School, USA.

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