Instability and Conflict in the Middle East: People, Petroleum and Security Threats [Hardcover]

Naji Abi-Aad (Author), Michel Grenon (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312172540 | ISBN-13: 978-0312172541 | Publication Date: June 15, 1997

The present book is about instability and conflict in the Middle East at a time when many still believe that peace between the Arabs and Israel will bring an end to all problems in the region. Maybe that is due to the fact that the Arab-Israeli conflict has dominated much of the discussions about the area over the past fifty years. Insufficient attention has therefore been devoted to other important issues that may not be quite as eye-catching or newsworthy. This is exactly what the book is aiming to offer.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (June 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312172540
• ISBN-13: 978-0312172541
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,207,951 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Instability and Conflict in the Middle East:, July 31, 2001

By 

Daniel Pipes, Middle East Forum, Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Instability and Conflict in the Middle East: People, Petroleum and Security Threats (Hardcover)

"[T]he turbulent history of the area does not augur well for stability; if it is not one country, it is another, and if it is not one issue it is another." So do Abi-Aad and Grenon sigh toward the end of their book, having catalogued the Middle East's very many problems. They look at power politics, ideology, military confrontations, and religious and ethnic differences. They look in depth at the arbitrary borders of the region, the problems that arise from vast disparities in growth, in divergent oil and gas policies, in water discrepancies, demographic growth rates, migrations of workers and refugees, and the outside world's deep interest in Middle Eastern oil supplies.

The total picture is a most unhappy one, and so is it when one looks at the issues one by one. The region's border disputes they call "time bombs" that are "poisoning" relations between states. The potential for conflict over water "is at its most extreme" in the Middle East. The demographic explosion creates "some of the most difficult" challenges of the decades ahead. "Conflicts in the Middle East since the Second World War have produced the largest refugee flows" of any region. So pervasive has conflict been that "of the 260 years representing the cumulative age of the international export pipelines (crossing at least one state boundary), some 134 years of actual pumping, or only 52 per cent, have been recorded."

The authors point out much else of note. Remarkably little prospecting for oil is taking place in the Middle East; in June 1996, only 7 percent of the world's active exploration rigs were in that region. In 1991, Iran hosted more refugees than any other country. Iran and nearly all the Arab countries grew poorer in the decade 1985-94. In all, Instability and Conflict in the Middle East offers a useful primer to the troubles of a troubled region.

Middle East Quarterly, December 1997