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Iran and Iraq: The Threat from the Northern Gulf

Anthony H. Cordesman
Reviewed by Eliot A. Cohen
July/August 1995
Iran and Iraq: The Threat from the Northern Gulf
Anthony H. Cordesman
Westview Press
1994
380 pp.
$64.95
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The conclusion--that the United States is the crucial guarantor of Persian Gulf security and needs to play that role with some adroitness--is sound if unsurprising. But the main value of this book, which examines security problems posed by these uneasy neighbors over the last five years, lies in eight chapters of accumulated technical, organizational, and operational detail. The author's forte is the massively documented military study, and this volume, amply furnished with chronologies, tables, and technical data, is no exception.

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