Eastern Cauldron: Islam, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq in a Marxist Mirror

by Gilbert Achcar

Overview

The route to any coherent understanding of our time runs through the issues addressed in this collection of essays: the political meaning of Islam, the relation of the West to the Islamic world, the new form of imperialism signaled by the Soviet and U.S. occupations of Afghanistan, the intractable conflict over Palestine. In confronting these inescapable issues, global power is being reshaped and the ends for which it will be used are being decided.
This volume brings together Gilbert Achcar's major writings on these issues over the past decades. The essays collected in Eastern Cauldron describe and explain the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism, the fate of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and its aftermath, and above all the Palestinian conflict—in which the regional stakes are so dramatically embodied and contested. Achcar analyzes the social bases, strategies and tactics of PLO, Hezbollah, Israel and the United States from the establishment of the state of Israel to the second Intifada. He pinpoints the contradictions of the Israeli state—seeking at the same time to be Jewish and yet democratic—and the impact of these contradictions on all parties to the conflict.
Eastern Cauldron is primarily aimed at producing a better understanding of the conflicts of the region. Achcar's work is informed by strong moral and political commitments but is never limited to polemic. His work demonstrates the immense capacities of Marxism to illuminate economic, political, and ideological developments without losing sight of their concrete singularity and their complex interconnection. His analyses are supple and inventive, and consistently informed by reflection on rival traditions of political thought and a deep knowledge of the region.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781583670958
Publisher:	Monthly Review Press
Publication date:	09/01/2003
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.77(d)

About the Author

Gilbert Achcar grew up in Lebanon and now teaches politics and international relations at the University of Paris—VIII. He is a frequent contributor to Le Monde Diplomatique and the author of The Clash of Barbarisms: September 11 and the Making of the New World Disorder (Monthly Review Press, 2002).

Table of Contents

	Preface	7
	Introduction: U.S. Imperial Strategy in the Middle East	9
Part I	The Resurgence of Islamic Fundamentalism	47
1.	Eleven Theses on the Resurgence of Islamic Fundamentalism	48
2.	The Swan Song of Khomeini's Revolution	60
3.	The Arab Despotic Exception	69
Part II	Afghanistan: Quagmire of the Great Powers	75
4.	On the Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan	76
5.	Afghanistan: Balance Sheet of a War	79
6.	The Agreement on Soviet Withdrawal	98
7.	The "Lebanonization" of Afghanistan	112
Part III	Palestine: From One Intifada to the Next	115
8.	The Palestinian Uprising	116
9.	The Uprising's Fourth Month	124
10.	Where Is the PLO Going?: The Long March...Backwards	129
11.	Where Is the PLO Going?:: The State, the PLO, and the Palestinian Left	154
12.	The Dynamic of the Intifada	175
13.	The Washington Accords: A Retreat Under Pressure	189
14.	Zionism and Peace: From the Allon Plan to the Washington Accords	205
15.	Hezbollah's Victory	223
16.	Israel's Military Onslaught and U.S. Interests in the Middle East	228
Part IV	Iraq: From One War to the Next	233
17.	The Long Tragedy of the Iraqi People	234
18.	Operation Oil: Why the United States Wants a War	242
19.	The Empire Prepares to Strike	247
20.	Washington and London's Problems Have Only Just Begun	252
21.	The War in Iraq and the Establishment of a "New Imperial Order"	254
22.	Letter to a Slightly Depressed Antiwar Activist	258
	Notes	265
	Index	280