For four decades Saudi Arabia and Iran have vied for influence in the Muslim world. At the heart of this ongoing Cold War between Riyadh and Tehran lie the Sunni-Shia divide, and the two countries' intertwined histories. Saudis see this as a conflict between Sunni and Shia; Iran's ruling clerics view it as one between their own Islamic Republic and an illegitimate monarchy. This foundational schism has played out in a geopolitical competition for dominance in the region: Iran has expanded its influence in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, while Saudi Arabia's hyperactive crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, has intervened in Yemen, isolated Qatar and destabilised Lebanon. Dilip Hiro examines the toxic rivalry between the two countries, tracing its roots and asking whether this Islamic Cold War is likely to end any time soon.

First published in 1985, this is a comprehensive study of the Middle East's most strategic country, set against the background of the Islamic heritage of Iran and the rise and fall of the Pahlavi dynasty. Dilip Hiro describes the various phases through which the Islamic revolution has passed, gives an incisive account of the first Gulf War, and provides an historical survey of Iran's relations with the West, the Soviet bloc, and other countries of the region.

This highly controversial and topical book provides the first full, balanced account of how Iraq cheated the UN inspectors on disarmament, and how the US manipulated and infiltrated the UN inspection teams and other staff to gather intelligence on Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Aimed at the general reader, it follows and assesses the role of Saddam Hussein, who became president of Iraq in 1979 and shows no sign of relinquishing office.
Dilip Hiro, an experienced journalist who has written extensively on the region, provides a historical and accessible perspective to the relationship between Iraq and Iran, and examines the consequences of internationally significant events such as the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran about a year after the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, and the 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Providing a full account and analysis of events in Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War, he contrasts the continuing totalitarianism under Hussein with the evolution of the political-religious system in Iran and the development of its internal politics.

To some, Islamic Fundamentalism means the restoration of a true religion. To others, it is a politics that stands apart from capitalism and socialism. To many Westerners, particularly in the past decade, it has come to constitute a threat to established order and international security. There can be no disputing the phenomenal importance of Islamic Fundamentalism today. Holy Wars, first published in 1989, comprises a non-partisan narrative that takes account of both the socio-cultural values expressed in Fundamentalism, and its political consequences. Dilip Hiro's starting point is that fundamentalist forces have been active Islam since the death of the Prophet Muhammad. He presents the two major sects, Sunnis and Shias, in this light. Clearly and concisely, Hiro provides the background for an understanding of what was taking place in Middle Eastern countries such as Afghanistan, Libya Egypt and Syria at the end of the 1980s. This is a comprehensive and readable work, of great relevance and value to those with an interest in Middle Eastern politics and history, and the growth of Islamic Fundamentalism.

Events in the Indian sub-continent during the 1970s, where, in the summer of 1975, the ruling party engineered a 'constitutional' coup by declaring a national emergency, re-emphasised the need for a fuller understanding of India's social system and people. First published the following year, in 1976, Inside India Today attempted to fulfil that need. Drawing on personal interviews, conducted during his two years' travels throughout the country collecting a mass of first hand evidence, and on various surveys and studies published in the press, the author sketches a broad portrait of Indian life in the villages and cities. Hiro relates this research to the existing socio-political structure of the time: the constitutional framework, the electoral system, the performance of the Indian National Congress and the Communist system. Written in an accessible, engaging style and containing a wealth of information and insight, Inside India Today is a major contribution towards the scholarship surrounding this complex and fascinating country.

First published in 1982, Inside the Middle East is a definitive study of the region. It provides a clear, concise description of the complex social, political and economic life of the Middle East. Beginning with an outline of the birth and growth of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula and the history of Israel and the Jews since 1020 B.C., the book is split in to five geographical and thematic parts. This thorough analysis in particular examines the forces at work within the Arab world, the domestic politics and economy of Israel and the state's relationship with the West and the Soviet Bloc, and the relationship between the Arabs and the West since the Ottoman Empire. Dilip Hiro concludes with an overall analysis of the past in social, economic and political terms and considers the various possibilities for the future of the Middle East. Containing an unprecedented wealth of information and insight, this fascinating work presents a comprehensive understanding of the world's richest and most volatile region. It remains of great relevance to scholars and students of Middle Eastern politics and history.

First published in 1985, this is a comprehensive study off the Middle East's most strategic country, set against the background of the Islamic heritage of Iran and the rise and fall of the Pahlavi dynasty. The author describes the various phases through which the Islamic revolution has passed, gives an incisive account of the Gulf War , and provides an historical survey of Iran's relations with the West, the Societ bloc, and other countries of the region.

To some, Islamic Fundamentalism means the restoration of a true religion. To others, it is a politics that stands apart from capitalism and socialism. To many Westerners, it has come to constitute a threat to established order and international security. Holy Wars, first published in 1989, comprises a non-partisan narrative that takes account of both the socio-cultural values expressed in Fundamentalism, and its political consequences. Dilip Hiro's starting point is that fundamentalist forces have been active within Islam since the death of the Prophet Muhammad. He presents the two major sects, Sunnis and Shias, in this light. Hiro provides the background for an understanding of what was taking place in Middle Eastern countries such as Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt and Syria at the end of the 1980s. This is a comprehensive and readable work, of great relevance and value to those with an interest in Middle Eastern politics and history, and the growth of Islamic Fundamentalism.

First published in 1982, Inside the Middle East is a definitive study of the region. It provides a clear, concise description of the complex social, political and economic life of the Middle East. Beginning with an outline of the birth and growth of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula and the history of Israel and the Jews since 1020 B.C., the book is split in to five geographical and thematic parts. This thorough analysis in particular examines the forces at work within the Arab world, the domestic politics and economy of Israel and the state's relationship with the West and the Soviet Bloc, and the relationship between the Arabs and the West since the Ottoman Empire. Dilip Hiro concludes with an overall analysis of the past in social, economic and political terms and considers the various possibilities for the future of the Middle East. Containing an unprecedented wealth of information and insight, this fascinating work presents a comprehensive understanding of the world's richest and most volatile region. It remains of great relevance to scholars and students of Middle Eastern politics and history.

Events in the Indian sub-continent during the 1970s, where, in the summer of 1975, the ruling party engineered a 'constitutional' coup by declaring a national emergency, re-emphasised the need for a fuller understanding of India's social system and people. First published the following year, in 1976, Inside India Today attempted to fulfil that need. Drawing on personal interviews, conducted during his two years' travels throughout the country collecting a mass of first hand evidence, and on various surveys and studies published in the press, the author sketches a broad portrait of Indian life in the villages and cities. Hiro relates this research to the existing socio-political structure of the time: the constitutional framework, the electoral system, the performance of the Indian National Congress and the Communist system. Written in an accessible, engaging style and containing a wealth of information and insight, Inside India Today is a major contribution towards the scholarship surrounding this complex and fascinating country.

'The first war of the twenty-first century.' That is how President George W. Bush described the start of the war against terror signaled by the catastrophic terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC on September 11th 2001. In reality, though, the war against terror began during the Presidency of Bill Clinton in August 1998 when the US responded to the Islamist terrorists' bombing of American Embassies in Nairobi and Dar as Salaam.
This book provides the historical and political context to explain these acts of terror and the West's response. After providing a brief history of Islam as a religion and as socio-political ideology, Dilip Hiro outlines the Islamist movements that have thrived in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, and their changing relationship with America. It is within this framework that he describes the rising menace of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida network.
Hiro examines the Pentagon's amazingly swift victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan. He then discusses the implications of the Bush Doctrine, encapsulated in his declaration, 'so long as anybody is terrorizing established governments, there needs to be a war' - a recipe for war without end.

This highly controversial and topical book provides the first full, balanced account of how Iraq cheated the UN inspectors on disarmament, and how the US manipulated and infiltrated the UN inspection teams and other staff to gather intelligence on Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Aimed at the general reader, it follows and assesses the role of Saddam Hussein, who became president of Iraq in 1979 and shows no sign of relinquishing office.
Dilip Hiro, an experienced journalist who has written extensively on the region, provides a historical and accessible perspective to the relationship between Iraq and Iran, and examines the consequences of internationally significant events such as the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran about a year after the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, and the 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Providing a full account and analysis of events in Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War, he contrasts the continuing totalitarianism under Hussein with the evolution of the political-religious system in Iran and the development of its internal politics.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203303199

In this up-to-date, painstakingly researched dictionary, author Dilip Hiro brings one of the most tumultuous regions of the world to our fingertips. It is easy-to-read, simple to use, authoritative, and comprehensive. If offers a wide range of alphabetically arranged information on topics ranging from current affairs, history and politics to religions, literature and tourist destinations. Topics covered include: Arab Spring, Arab-Israeli Wars, Biographies, Christianity and Christian Sects, Civil Wars, Country Profiles, Ethnic Groups, Government, Gulf Wars, Historical Places, History, Hostages, International Agreements and Treaties, Islam and Islamic Sects, Judaism and Jewish Sects, Languages, Literary Personalities, Military and Military Leaders, Nonconventional and Nuclear Weapons, Oil and Gas, Peace Process, Politics, Regional Conflicts, Religion, Terrorism, Tourist Destinations, United Nations, and much more. This is a must-have reference for anyone genuinely interested in understanding more about the history and current events of the Middle East. Dilip Hiro is a playwright, political writer, journalist, historian and analyst specializing in South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East and Islamic affairs. He was born to Hindu parents in Larkana, British India, who migrated to independent India after partition in 1947. He is the author of 33 books, including Apocalyptic Realm: Jihadists in South Asia (2012) and Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Iran (2009), which was hailed as one of the best history books of the year by the Financial Times. He contributes regularly to the Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Observer and is a commentator for CNN and the BBC. He lives in London.

The partitioning of British India into independent Pakistan and India in August 1947 occurred in the midst of communal holocaust, with Hindus and Sikhs on one side and Muslims on the other. More than 750,000 people were butchered, and 12 million fled their homes,primarily in caravans of bullock-carts,to seek refuge across the new border: it was the largest exodus in history. Sixty-seven years later, it is as if that August never ended.Renowned historian and journalist Dilip Hiro provides a riveting account of the relationship between India and Pakistan, tracing the landmark events that led to the division of the sub-continent and the evolution of the contentious relationship between Hindus and Muslims. To this day, a reasonable resolution to their dispute has proved elusive, and the Line of Control in Kashmir remains the most heavily fortified frontier in the world, with 400,000 soldiers arrayed on either side.Since partition, there have been several acute crises between the neighbours, including the secession of East Pakistan to form an independent Bangladesh in 1971, and the acquisition of nuclear weapons by both sides resulting in a scarcely avoided confrontation in 1999 and again in 2002. Hiro amply demonstrates the geopolitical importance of the India-Pakistan conflict by chronicling their respective ties not only with America and the Soviet Union, but also with China, Israel, and Afghanistan.Hiro weaves these threads into a lucid narrative, enlivened with colourful biographies of leaders, vivid descriptions of wars, sensational assassinations, gross violations of human rights,and cultural signifiers like cricket matches. The Longest August is incomparable in its scope and presents the first definitive history of one of the world's longest-running and most intractable conflicts.

Dilip Hiro's Inside India Today (Routledge, 2014; orig. 1976), banned by Indira Gandhi's government, was acclaimed by The Guardian as simply 'the best book on India'. Now Hiro returns to his native country to chronicle the impact of the dramatic economic liberalisation that began in 1991, which ushered India into the era of globalisation. Hiro describes how India has been reengineered not only in its economy but also in its politics and cultural mores. A masterful panorama, The Age of Aspiration covers the whole social spectrum of Indians at home and abroad.

Tomdisaptch.com has established itself as the go-to blog for contemporary US politics, and the favored web platform for radical commentators from Noam Chomsky to Howard Zinn. Its powerful, no-holds-barred features draw a huge response from the public and resonate throughout the global media, acting as a touchpaper for debates which subsequently become headline news. This comprehensive volume offers readers a chance to catch up on some of the finest political analysis of our age, including trenchant accounts of the two Bush administrations' catastrophic imperial adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq; Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition and its apologists; and Hurricane Katrina, global warming, black gold and the rise of Hugo Chavez.Introduced, arranged and with additional commentary throughout by the blog's founder Tom Engelhardt, The World According to Tomdispatch is the essential primer for anyone seeking illumination and guidance along the highways and byways of our post-9/11 world.

For four decades Saudi Arabia and Iran have vied for influence in the Muslim world. At the heart of this ongoing Cold War between Riyadh and Tehran lie the Sunni-Shia divide, and the two countries' intertwined histories. Saudis see this as a conflict between Sunni and Shia; Iran's ruling clerics view it as one between their own Islamic Republic and an illegitimate monarchy. This foundational schism has played out in a geopolitical competition for dominance in the region: Iran has expanded its influence in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, while Saudi Arabia's hyperactive crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, has intervened in Yemen, isolated Qatar and destabilized Lebanon. Dilip Hiro examines the toxic rivalry between the two countries, tracing its roots and asking whether this Islamic Cold War is likely to end any time soon.

The United States' victory in the Cold War in 1991 led to triumphalist claims that humanity had reached the end of history," and that Washington would enjoy everlasting supremacy. Some years later, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called America the indispensable nation." And a senior aide to President George W. Bush crowed: We are an empire now." But by invading Iraq, Bush irreparably undermined U.S. credibility worldwide. And by curtailing Americans' civil liberties in the name of waging an endless war on terror," and resorting to torture in the prisons of occupied Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, his administration,as well as America,lost its claim to a moral high ground. Moreover, the 2008-2009 global fiscal meltdown, triggered by the sub-prime mortgage crisis on Wall Street, exposed a stark fact: The heavily indebted America had ceased to be the financial behemoth it had been since World War II. After Empire sketches the contours of a complex world system emerging during the late imperial phase of the U.S. It examines, critically, the events that prepared the ground for the world to move from the tutelage of the sole superpower, America, to a multipolar, post-imperial global order. Refreshingly, it does so from a distinctly non-Western perspective. Unlike other scholars, Dilip Hiro,one of the world's leading experts on the geopolitics of hydrocarbons as well as the Middle East and South and Central Asia,does not offer a comforting thesis that the U.S. is quite capable of accommodating the rising world powers like China, Russia, India, and the European Union while retaining its dominant position at the table. Neither does he frame global politics in a Manichean way,America versus China the West against Asia. The world, he suggests, is set to revisit the pre-World War I Europe, where rulers frequently changed allies and adversaries to achieve the shared aim of keeping the continent free of an overarching power,to date, a privilege enjoyed globally by America. With more than two trillion dollars in its foreign reserves, China's state-owned corporations are busily buying up companies worldwide. By surpassing Saudi Arabia in its oil output, Russia, the number one producer of natural gas, is now the world's foremost producer of hydrocarbons. Its nuclear arsenal is on par with America's. Elsewhere the hydrocarbon-rich nations of Venezuela and Iran are challenging the Washington-dominated status quo respectively in South America and the Middle East. Already, the 27-nation European Union of nearly 500 million has surpassed America as the globe's largest trading entity, and the euro has emerged as a strong rival to the U.S. dollar as a dominant reserve currency. After Empire is realistic and nuanced in its assessment of global politics. Shorn of an ideological bias or a soft corner for America, it abounds in unsettling and stimulating insights on politics, history, hard and soft power, political economy and democracy.

In The Longest War, Dilip Hiro describes the causes and courses of the Iran-Iraq military conflict and its effect on the two antagonists, as well as the rest of the world. He reveals the intricate twists and turns of international diplomacy and the realpolitik behind the rhetoric, providing a comprehensive and admirably balanced account of the political and military aspects of the longest war.

As Tehran faces a crisis in its escalating showdown with the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding its nuclear program, renowned Middle East expert Dilip Hiro clears the way through the labyrinth that defines today's Islamic Republic. In a country stereotyped as fundamentalist by America, Hiro finds a contradictory land-where black chador-clad women are the majority at universities, Iranian films are shown at international festivals, and human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi is a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Drawing on Iran's rich history, its vast oil and gas reserves, and its unique strategic importance, Hiro reveals a complex nation whose theocratic rulers are struggling to prove that Islamic democracy is a viable and enduring social system.

The Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, masterminded by U.S. President George W. Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, is the single most important event since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Just as that break-up ushered in a new era in international relations following the end of a bipolar world system, this war has given a new twist to the present global order. Secrets and Lies tells in detail how Operation Iraqi Freedom came about, what it means and where it is likely to lead the Middle East and the world at large. It reveals the scope of the "dirty tricks" used by the Anglo-American alliance to sell the war through the phony intelligence reports and the exaggeration of Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction. It examines the media campaign to win hearts and minds-including the stage management and spin surrounding the rescue of Private Jessica Lynch. Picking up from the author's recently celebrated essay in the New York Times, "Why the Mullahs Love a Revolution," this leading authority on the Middle East provides us with his skeptical view of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and his examination of the future in Middle East.

This is the most up-to-date book your students can find on the past, present, and future of the countries of the Middle East. A statistical profile at the start of each country's chapter gives students detailed, current information in an easy-to-use at-a-glance format. Author, playwright, and journalist, Dilip Hiro applies his expertise and unique insights to explaining the struggles, conflicts, and alliances of this troubled area. From the days of Great Britain's dominance after World War I to the Gulf War and the emergence of the Palestinian National Authority in the 1990s, Hiro successfully weaves the varied threads of history, politics, and economics into a narrative that never lacks for high-interest drama.

'The first war of the twenty-first century.' That is how President George W. Bush described the start of the war against terror signaled by the catastrophic terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC on September 11th 2001. In reality, though, the war against terror began during the Presidency of Bill Clinton in August 1998 when the US responded to the Islamist terrorists' bombing of American Embassies in Nairobi and Dar as Salaam.
This book provides the historical and political context to explain these acts of terror and the West's response. After providing a brief history of Islam as a religion and as socio-political ideology, Dilip Hiro outlines the Islamist movements that have thrived in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, and their changing relationship with America. It is within this framework that he describes the rising menace of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida network.
Hiro examines the Pentagon's amazingly swift victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan. He then discusses the implications of the Bush Doctrine, encapsulated in his declaration, 'so long as anybody is terrorizing established governments, there needs to be a war' - a recipe for war without end.