In the modern history of the Arab East, there has never been a time when wars were waged on three Arab societies at once. Nowadays, Palestine lives in a state of low intensity warfare; Iraq continues to experience a systematic process of devastation that has entered its fifth year; and Lebanon is suffering the repercussions of one of the most unrelenting and intense military campaigns ever mounted on a civil society this century. Is this a chance occurrence or is there a common thread that explains the causes, perpetrators, features and future settlement prospects of the three wars? This article will demonstrate that all three wars, notwithstanding their particularities, are impacted by similar forces. Consequently, an approach that attempts to deal with each conflict separately and without regard to the others will have little prospect of success. More alarming is the fact that there is a chance the region may witness the flare up of new wars if the present situation is left to fester.
University of California Press