International relations theory meets the Middle East in Birthe Hansen's Unipolarity and the Middle East. In an admirable attempt to adapt Kenneth Waltz's theory of neorealism to Middle Eastern events in the 1990s, Hansen discusses a number of key developments during that period, including the Gulf War, the unification of Yemen, and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, from the perspective of what is depicted as the “unipolar world” that emerged in the 1990s. Hansen offers some useful insights, but the problem, as with some of other international relations theorists who seek to deal with a region in which they do not have first-hand knowledge, is that a series of factual errors and questionable interpretations mar the rigor of analysis. Nonetheless, Hansen's discussion of unipolarity has strong theoretical merit and can be usefully refined by other scholars, including those with a greater knowledge of the region as well as international relations theorists, to reflect more closely Middle Eastern realities.

Essentially, Hansen argues that in the unipolar world that emerged in the 1990s the states of the region had to adapt or suffer the consequences. Syria, which did adapt, was able to reinforce its position in Lebanon by “flocking” (p. 65) to the side of the United States during the Gulf War. By contrast Iraq, which did not adapt, suffered a major defeat. Similarly, Hansen argues, Yemen unified because the northern and southern sections of the country could no longer benefit from the superpower “zero-sum game” competition for their support. Morocco was able to consolidate its control over the former Spanish Sahara because Algeria no longer had the Soviet Union to support it, whereas Morocco continued to have the support of the unipole, the United States.

A number of other interpretations of these events and others cited in the book are possible. To take but one example, it can be persuasively argued that the bloody civil war in Algeria, rather than the loss of Soviet support (which, in any case, diminished during the 1980s [p. 164]), was the primary reason Algeria acquiesced in Moroccan control of the former Spanish Sahara. Another questionable assertion is that the Cold War ended in September 1989, when Moscow made concessions on strategic arms to the United States (p. 78), rather than in January 1989, when the USSR withdrew from Afghanistan, or, as most observers contend, when the USSR acquiesced in both the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the subsequent unification of Germany.

In addition to some questionable assertions, there are some factual errors. Syria intervened militarily in Lebanon for the first time in 1975, not 1976 (p. 141). Following the Hebron massacre in 1994, foreign observers were sent to Hebron, not Jericho (p. 169). There is also a misreading of Soviet support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war (after flip-flopping several times, Moscow tilted to the side of Iran in 1987) (p. 109) and a downgrading of the increasing Soviet opposition to the U.S. war effort against Iraq in January and February 1991. Hansen overestimates the influence of the Arab Cooperation Council in the 1989–90 period.

One also may question the theory of unipolarity itself. If the United States is indeed the unipole in the system, how does one explain Iraqi and Iranian opposition to the United States from 1991 to 2001, and the Palestinian rejection of U.S. mediation efforts in July 2000 (the Camp David II talks) and December 2000, during the Al-Aksa Intifadah? Perhaps it might be more useful, from a theoretical perspective, to call the 1990–2000 period one of limited unipolarity and to restructure the theory accordingly to explain the behavior of Iraq, Iran, and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Such a restructuring also would add more credence to the other case studies in the book. Despite its faults, the book is well worth reading because of Hansen's contribution to international relations theory.

Whereas Hansen asserts that the unipolar world led by the United States, with its emphasis on the spread of liberal democracy and free market capitalism, is basically a positive development, Tim Niblock describes the new world order established by the United States after the Gulf War as a “malign hegemony” (p. 6). A strong strain of anti-Americanism pervades his book, which purports to show “the view from the underside” (p. 7). Niblock asserts that this persective “does not imply disregard for international law but rather a determination not to allow international law and international institutions (such as the UN) to be used to promote Western/U.S. interests” (p. 6). He cites numerous interviews in both Libya and Iraq in his footnotes, and he clearly sympathizes with both countries, which weakens the analytical quality of the book. In the case of Libya, he asserts that one effect of sanctions, corruption, reflects the more general commercialization of society that is clearly associated with wider global processes that have spread Western values (pp. 76–7), and he also blames sanctions for the spread of Islamism in Libya (p. 90).

If Niblock takes a rather gentle view of Kaddafi's policies in Libya, he is even more sympathetic to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Time after time Niblock supports Iraq's resistence to UN efforts, from ascertaining the status of Iraq's holdings of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to the UN distribution of food to the Iraqi population, as justified because of Iraq's sense that its sovereignty was being challenged. Niblock frequently simply restates Iraqi arguments without critically evaluating them, such as the statement that the UN WMD inspection efforts were “simply a cover for creating an imbalance of power in the region favorable to Israel” (p. 104). In sum, if one is looking for an apologia for the Libyan and Iraqi regimes, and a strong denunciation of the U.S.-led sanctions against them, this is the book.

By contrast, the edited book by Steven Heydemann is an example of first-rate scholarship. Heydemann asked a group of scholars to examine the thesis of Charles Tilly and others in Tilly's edited book, The Formation of National States in Western Europe (1975), to see whether their perspectives on the role of war in the expansion of state capacities, the emergence of new patterns of human and economic mobilization, and the organization of extractive institutions could be usefully compared to the formation of states in the Middle East. There are a number of excellent chapters in Heydemann's book, many of which not only add a new theoretical perspective to the dynamics of statebuilding in the Middle East but also offer new information about the evolution of many states in the region.

One of the best chapters is by Heydemann and Robert Vitalis on the role of the Middle East supply center in Cairo during World War II. The story of the center has been told before, as Roger Owen notes in a very helpful concluding chapter, but Heydemann and Vitalis cover new ground by convincingly demonstrating how Egypt and Syria, once they became independent states, had a much greater role for the state in their economies than they otherwise might have, due to the effect of the supply center on the two countries during World War II.

The chapter by Reem Saad on the experience of the Egyptian peasants during the 1967 and 1973 wars, based on detailed interviews in a single village, provides some fascinating insights on peasant attitudes toward their government and leaders in time of war. Although loyal to the state, they were very angry at Nasser, hitherto a hero for his land distribution policies, whom they blamed for lying to them at the beginning of the conflict about Egypt's great “victory” (p. 242), although they felt he was misled by his advisers. Interestingly enough, there was little lasting emotional feeling about the 1973 war. Saad speculates that this may have been due to the exhaustive Egyptian state propaganda about the “victory” in the 1973 war.

Another very strong chapter deals with the formation of the militarized regime in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Written by Isam al-Khafaji, it demonstrates how, through a combination of external war and internal terror, Saddam built loyalty among Sunni Muslims while marginalizing both Shia and Kurdish Iraqis (p. 282). Al-Khafaji also analyzes Saddam's use of “Arabism” as a device to secure loyalty not only from Sunni Iraqis but also from Arabs throughout the Arab world. According to Saddam, as their champion, Iraq deserved, indeed, was owed money by the Gulf Arabs (al-Khafaji calls this “strategic rent extraction,” p. 273) to support its war against Iran (despite the fact that Saddam started the war by invading Iran).

A central theme in the Heydemann book is that unlike the states of Europe from the 17th to 19th century, which extracted taxes from their own populations to build up their military power and, in some cases, became more responsive to their populations as a result, a number of states in the Middle East avoided conflicts with their populations over taxes by becoming rentiers. This group included not only the oil-rich states of the Persian Gulf but also Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, which received military equipment from abroad either gratis or paid for by other Arab states. Needless to say, the end result was a very different relationship between rulers and ruled in the Middle East than in Europe. The Heydemann book goes a long way toward explaining why, in countries such as Syria, Egypt, and Iraq as well as in the Gulf states, genuine democracy has yet to develop.