"Freedman has collected an array of first-rate political analysts with differing perspectives and areas of expertise. . . .  The result is a work of uniformly high quality . . . readable and up to date."--Jerrold D. Green, University of Arizona Center for Middle East Studies We may not live to see the end of the ripple effect of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 and the ensuing Gulf War.  Meanwhile, this collection is one of the first systematic attempts to investigate the implications of that invasion for the significant political actors, in the Middle East and beyond.  From varied perspectives and fields of interest, well-respected political scientists focus on the military dynamics of the war and its political effects on the Persian Gulf, on the Arab-Israeli zone of conflict, and on the superpowers.  Of particular interest to many readers will be the analysis of both U.S. military and diplomatic strategy during the war and U.S. efforts to convene the Arab-Israeli peace talks after the war; Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's attempts to follow a "minimax" strategy under which he sought a minimum level of cooperation with the United States while retaining maximum influence in Iraq; the debate in Japan about whether to get involved in the Allied war effort; and the reasons for Palestinian support of Iraq during the war.  Other subjects analyzed in the book include Saddam Hussein's postwar strategy for staying in power; Jordan's effort to walk a narrow tightrope between the Allies and Iraq; Syrian, Iranian, and Egyptian exploitation of the war to improve their regional positions; and the changes in Israel and Saudi Arabia precipitated by the war. Robert O. Freedman is Peggy Meyerhoff Pearlstone Professor of Political Science and dean of the School of Graduate Studies at Baltimore Hebrew University.  He is the editor of Intifada: Its Impact on Israel, the Arab World, and the Superpowers (UPF, 1991) and a prolific author and frequent lecturer on the Middle East. Contents Preface Introduction Part I: The Military and Political Dynamics of the Gulf War The Persian Gulf War:  A Political-Military Assessment, by Bard E. O'Neill and Ilana Kass Part II:  The Policy of External Powers U.S. Policy toward the Middle East after Iraq's Invasion of Kuwait, by Robert E. Hunter Moscow and the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait, by Robert O. Freedman Fire on the Other Side of the River:  Japan and the Persian Gulf War, by Eugene Brown Part III:  The Gulf Region Iraq after the Invasion of Kuwait, by Laurie Mylroie Iran from the August 1988 Cease-fire to the April 1992 Majlis Elections, by Shireen T. Hunter Saudi Arabia:  Desert Storm and After, by F. Gregory Gause, III Part IV:  The Eastern Mediterranean Israel, the Gulf War, and Its Aftermath, by Marvin Feuerwerger The Palestinians and the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait, by Helena Cobban Syria since 1988:  From Crisis to Opportunity, by Alasdair Drysdale Jordanian Policy from the Intifada to the Madrid Peace Conference, by Adam Garfinkle Unipolarity and Egyptian Hegemony in the Middle East, by Louis Cantori