Review: The Gulf War
| Published date | 01 June 1994 |
| Date | 01 June 1994 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070209404900212 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
436
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
THE
GULF
WAR
Regional
and
international
dimensions
Edited
by
Hanns
W.
Maull
and
Otto
Pick
London:
Pinter/New
York:
St
Martin's
Press,
1989,
x,
203pp,
£30.00
This
book
is
the
product
of
an
international
symposium
on Europe,
the
superpowers,
and
the
Middle
East,
held
in
March
1988.
In
that
conference the
Iran-Iraq
War,
which
was
winding
down,
emerged
as
a
significant
theme.
In
the
subsequent
year,
the
papers
were revised
to
bring the
book
up
to
date
and
others
were
commissioned
to
give
the
volume
the
broader
coverage
that
it
needed.
The
result
is
a
very
useful
and
multi-perspective
assessment
of
a
war
whose
importance
was
imme-
diately
obscured
by
the
more
recent
Gulf
War
of
i
99o-1.
The contributions
to
the
volume
are
almost uniformly
excellent,
covering
key
themes
which are
developed
through
focused
discussions.
Chapters
on
the
war
itself,
on
oil,
and
on
Islamic
fundamentalism
set
the
stage
for
that
discussion.
Shahram
Chubin's
analysis
of
the
key
turn-
ing
points
of
the
war,
which he
sees
as
principally
a
contest
over power
and
ideas,
is
a
helpful
framework for
the
book.
Giacomo
Luciani's
exploration
of
the
concept of
the
'rentier'
states
and
his
differentiation
between 'allocation
states'
(oil-producing
states which allocate
oil
income
and therefore
only
need
an
expenditure
policy)
and produc-
tion
states
(which
must
tap the domestic
economy
through
fiscal
instru-
ments
if
they
are
to
grow
and
which
therefore
require
legitimacy)
is
useful.
The shah's problem,
he
asserts,
was
that
he did not
allocate
the
oil
rent
in
a
way
that
enabled
him
to
maximize
political
support.
James
Voll's
overview
of
Islamic
fundamentalism
provides
insight and
clarity
into
a
complicated
subject
which
he
sees
as
neither
a
single
movement
nor
a
single
organization
but
an
emerging
perspective
-
a
mode
of
thinking
with
important
local
dimensions,
a
reaction
to
the
failures
of
existing regimes
-
whose
destructive power
is
clear
even
if
its
capacity
to
create
viable
new
structures
remains
to
be
seen.
Subsequent
chapters
focus
on the
regional
actors
-
including
the
Gulf
Cooperation
Council
and
the
Kurds
-
while
still
others
look
at
the
international
environment.
Johannes
Reissner
provides
useful insight
into Iranian thinking
about
war
aims
and
the
persecution
of
the
war;
Malcolm
Yapp,
a
thoughtful
nuanced account of
the
Kurds;
Philip
Rob-
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