This volume brings together Gilbert Achcar's major writings on issues including: the political meaning of Islam, the relation of the West to the Islamic world, the new form of imperialism signaled by the Soviet and US occupations of Afghanistan and the intractable conflict over Palestine.

This volume brings together Gilbert Achcar's major writings on these issues. The essays collected in The Eastern Cauldron describe and explain the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism, the fate of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and its aftermath, and above all the Palestinian conflict - in which the regional stakes are so dramatically embodied and contested. Achcar analyzes the social bases, strategies and tactics of PLO, Hizbollah, Israel and the United States from the establishment of the state of Israel to the second Intifada. He pinpoints the contradictions of the Israeli state - seeking at the same time to be Jewish and yet democratic - and the impact of these contradictions on all parties to the conflict.

Part one. The resurgence of Islamic Fundamentalism
1. Eleven theses on the resurgence of Islamic Fundamentalism
2. The swan song of Khomeinism
3. The absence of democracy
Part two. Afghanistan: The dilemma of the super powers
4. The Soviet Intervention
5. Afghanistan: eight years on from Soviet intervention
6. The implications of the Soviet troop withdrawal
7. After the fall of Najibullah: The Lebanonization of Afghanistan
Part three. Palestine: Another uprising
8. Self-determination of the Palestinian people
9. Four months of the uprising: Rebellion continues against Israel's "Apartheid"
10. The PLO: The long march backwards
11. The PLO: Questions of practical politics
12. The dynamic of the intifada
13. Washington accords: A retreat under pressure
14. Zionism and peace: From the Allon plan to the Washington accords
15. The Hizbollah victory
16. Israel's military onslaught and U.S. interests in the Middle East
Afterword: After the U.S. invasion of Iraq
Notes
Index