Documents�mostly but not exclusively from the United Nations�are the star here, taking up 700 pages. Implicitly recognizing that the United Nations had only a minor role until the fighting ended in February 1991, nine-tenths of the documents date from the period since then, presenting the sanctions regime in all its military and economic complexity. They contain very little legalese or U.N. self-importance and lots of substance, including much hard-hitting analysis (a human rights report by Max van der Stoel, for example, cites Iraq as �one huge prison�).
A reader looking for Boutros-Ghali�s few perfunctory introduction lines might look in vain and conclude that they got omitted. Not so; the secretary-general is credited for the fine 113-page analysis that opens the volume. Lest it be assumed that this be a courtesy for the U.N.�s chief executive, note that he cut his teeth as a professor of international law and, in addition to other books in this same U.N. series, compiled prior such books. But Boutros-Ghali�s text, for all its virtues, is prisoner to the unique U.N. perspective. The first paragraph lauds that organization for acting �as a powerful instrument for international peace and security.� The second presents the Iraqi assault on Kuwait as �the first instance� since 1945 when �one Member State sought to completely overpower and annex another��a bit of revisionist history that ignores other such instances (Israel and Bosnia) where more controversy reigns.
Middle East Quarterly, December 1996
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