Center for International and Regional Studies

The Euro's Future in the Balance
2011-02-10 08:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Moscow)
Ibrahim Oweiss, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Georgetown University, delivered a lunch time lecture on February 10, 2011 on the subject of “The Euro’s Future in the Balance.” Oweiss was one of the founding members of Georgetown University Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, and also spent four years on the faculty of the School of Foreign Service in Qatar.

Basing his lecture on the question “what are the possible scenarios for the Euro’s future?” Oweiss explored the ways in which the Euro has shaped and will continue to shape the economies of the European Union countries. Although the Eurozone is a significant economic region of the world and has a combined population that exceeds that of the United States, the recent bailouts of Ireland and Greece by Germany have indicated a serious weakness in the zone’s strategy. “The future of the European unification project is on life support, while Germany’s fingers are on the power switch,” he said. Indeed, because “Germany has the only healthy economy in Europe,” Oweiss argued, “either all of the sovereign debts of Europe become German public debt or the Euro will collapse.”

Many of the Eurozone countries have adopted the Euro as their sole legal tender, while others, such as the UK, are members of the European Union, but have opted out of the Euro. “The Monetary policy of the Eurozone is the responsibility of the European Central Bank, though there is no common representation, governors, or fiscal policy for the currency union.” There needs to be cooperation between these elements “in order to help smooth fluctuations in the business cycle” and so this is represents a major weakness related to the Euro. “There is,” however, “some cooperation which takes place through the Euro Group, which makes political decisions regarding the Eurozone and the Euro.”

Before taking questions from the audience, Oweiss concluded that regardless of the negative of the economies of the Eurozone, the Euro will remain one of the world’s key currencies. When asked whether or not Eurozone countries could opt out of the Euro and return to their former currencies, Oweiss argued that although it was possible, it is unlikely. Finally, he argued that he does not expect the Euro to collapse as long as Germany holds onto the Euro and doesn’t return to the Deutsch mark.

As an international economic advisor, Oweiss worked for several governments and multinational corporations. He has authored over fifty scholarly publications including:Petrodollar Surpluses, Arab Civilization, and The Political Economy of Contemporary Egypt.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Popular Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt
2011-02-08 08:00 - 18:00
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar held an open discussion on Tuesday, February 8, 2011, to discuss the recent political upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt and their implications on the Arab world. The discussion, organized by Professor Karine Walther and the Center for International and Regional Studies, featured four experts from Georgetown’s Qatar campus.

The roundtable discussion titled, “Popular Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt: The Jasmine Revolution and Its Aftermath,” allowed members of the Georgetown community the opportunity to ask questions and discuss the events unfolding in Tunisia and Egypt. The speakers included Abdullah Al-Arian, a doctoral candidate in Georgetown’s History department; Sharif Elmusa, Visiting Associate Professor in the Political Science department; Daniel Stoll, Senior Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs; and Mohamed Zayani, Visiting Associate Professor of Critical Theory.

The first question posed by a member of the audience related to the role played by the Egyptian constitution in the event of a government transition. Commenting on the inherent problems with using Egypt’s current constitution to foster change, Al-Arian argued that in its present form, the constitution is an ineffective document. “The way that the constitution is structured is that it puts so much power in the president’s hands that it’s basically impossible to get anything accomplished without President Hosni Mubarak,” said Al-Arian.

Elmusa echoed Al-Arian’s statement saying, “The regime has rewritten the constitution in such a way as to make it impossible for anyone else but the regime and the ruling party [NDP] to participate.”

In addressing how the constitution could prove useful, Stoll argued that the document provided a framework that could be used to implement change. “It’s a flawed document, but it’s a starting point,” said Stoll. Al-Arian agreed, adding that perhaps earlier versions of the constitution that vested less power in the Mubarak regime’s hands could be used as a “common frame of reference” to advance change.

In response to a question asking why the U.S. government had been slow to react and offer support to pro-democracy protesters in Tunisia and Egypt, Stoll answered that the Obama administration was perhaps acting cautiously. “It’s a political tightrope as to how a response is structured,” he remarked. Stoll explained that in the Egyptian case, the U.S. government was likely uncertain about whom to support since the Mubarak regime had successfully suppressed the emergence of a viable opposition leader.

Elmusa asserted that the U.S. government could perhaps do more by suspending the billions in aid it sends to the Egyptian military “without looking like they’re intervening.” In addition, he argued, this would allow the armed forces in Egypt to play a neutral role, rather than continue to act at the Mubarak regime’s behest.

Asked about the impact of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, Zayani cautioned against two looming threats for the region. “One is that countries will try to preempt this rather than engage in real change.” He continued, “The other thing that happens, and there are signs starting to come out of this in Tunisia, is that real demand for real political and institutional change is being hijacked by more social demands.”

Speaking to the question of the reasons that led to pro-democracy protests in Egypt, Al-Arian responded that economic disenfranchisement due to decades of government corruption was largely at fault. “Imagine if you could get rid of all that [corruption]. So in terms of development, things can only look up,” concluded Al-Arian.

Article by Jennifer Ponard, Media Writer

Mohamed Zayani Lectures on Transnational Arab Media
2011-02-01 08:00 - 18:00
Mohamed Zayani, Professor of Critical Theory at Georgetown University in Qatar, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture entitled “Transnational Arab Media, Regional Politics and State Security: Saudi Arabia between Tradition and Modernity” on February 1, 2011.

Offering “a social sciences perspective which places the development of media within a broad, historical, cultural and socio-political context,” Zayani delved into the intricacies of the Saudi media systems, exploring how the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia came to be an important media player. “Although lacking the historical depth which characterizes other prominent media traditions in the region,” Zayani noted, “the rise of Saudi media is remarkable.”

Within the span of a few decades, Zayani explained, “the Saudis managed to develop a decentralized media empire which encompasses a plethora of media conglomerates, transnational foreign-based networks, pan-Arab satellite channels, influential newspapers, and regional publications.” Prominent Saudi media ventures include pan-Arab newspapers like Al Hayat and Al Sharq Al Awsat and television networks like MBC, Orbit, ART and Rotana. Interestingly, most of these ventures, which are in private Saudi hands, tend to be entertainment oriented.

Driving the Saudi interest in media, Zayani noted, is “what maybe loosely described as a security imperative.” The Saudi interest in media goes back to the 1960s, when the kingdom found itself confronted with “a number of cultural and political challenges.” The development of Saudi media is tightly connected to “internal dynamics” which are social, cultural and political in nature, and “external dynamics” which are related to geopolitical considerations, and historical regional rivalries.

While designing a “circumscribed domestic media system” which protects its social values, limits the influence of Western culture, and enhances its national identity, Zayani noted, “Saudi Arabia invested in a transnational, foreign-based media system which helped safeguard its interests in the face of hostile regimes in the region, promote its foreign policy and exert regional political influence.” Contributing to the rise of Saudi media is oil wealth, the establishment of a regional infrastructure of satellite technology and the receding role of traditional media players in the region.

For Zayani what is interesting to note is “not only how and why Saudi Arabia came to be an important media player, but also what kind of contradictions, disjunctions, and unintended consequences the Saudi investment in media created, and to what effect.” According to Zayani, “the liberalization, expansion and deterritorialization of Saudi media brought about a number of challenges and conflictual dynamics which cannot be easily managed, let alone reconciled.” The most important disjunctions point to an uneasy relationship between tradition and modernity, between a protectionist drive and a liberalizing impetus, between national identity markers and market imperatives, and between depoliticization and repoliticization.

In a fast changing Middle East, these disjunctions are potentially consequential. For Zayani, “tremendous wealth, business imperatives, strategic allies, and political clout have positioned the Kingdom well and helped it play an important media role in the region. However, these assets are no longer sufficient to claim influence in an increasingly entangled and congested Arab mediascape”

Pointing to the rise of competing media ventures like the heavy weight Al Jazeera and the wide adoption of new and social media, Zayani concluded that “the unfolding of the political reality of the Middle East will be deeply intertwined with the reconfiguration of the media dynamics in the region.”

Mohamed Zayani’s works include Reading the Symptom (1999), Arab Satellite Television and Politics in the Middle East (2004), The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media (2005) and The Culture of Al Jazeera: Inside an Arab Media Giant(2007).

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Wikileaks and Intelligence Reform
2011-01-25 08:00 - 18:00
Carl Ford was Assistant Secretary of State and head of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research under President George W. Bush. He gave a lecture at Georgetown’s Qatar campus on the topic, “Wikileaks and Intelligence Reform” on January 25, 2011. Ford is a Professorial Lecturer with Georgetown University’s Master of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS) program.

Ford began the discussion by saying that Wikileaks’ “basic assumption is that transparency should be complete and that every citizen should know everything that goes on in the government.” With such resounding ideals, “it’s hard to argue against the people’s right to know,” but the freedom of speech principles that Wikileaks is purporting to promote are naive and impractical in the current political climate. Ford argued that “complete transparency” is an idealistic principle that is sound in theory, but cannot be sustained in practice. There are many incidences where secrecy can and should be used as leverage in political negotiations that serve the national interest. “The fact is,” he said, “there are things that have to remain secret – not because we want to hide it from people, but because it is a practical matter, for national security interests.”

The Wikileaks saga has brought into public debate a variety of core questions about the relationship between societies and governments. Ford said that “this is an issue that is extremely important and extremely complex. There are major principles at stake: freedom of speech, press freedoms, and the ability for people to know what their government is doing.” These issues are fundamental to democracy and remain the tenets of any liberal state, but, Ford said, Wikileaks has hijacked and capitalized upon them as an excuse for testing the U.S. democratic system to its limit and doing untold damage to methods of information gathering and sharing.

Ford argued that although Wikileaks may have had good intentions when it exposed private and classified documents, its plan has backfired. Ford said that “Wikileaks is going to have the opposite effect of what the people who support it want.” As such, Wikileaks is self-destructive, counterproductive, and a short-term phenomenon that will have negative effects on transparency.

“I guarantee you,” Ford said, “that Wikileaks has already had a major impact on tightening down of security procedures and the flow of information, not only with our policy-makers, but within the intelligence community.” This means that the United States as well as other countries will necessarily become even less transparent than they were in the past. In future, reporters will find it hard to find sources and those who do leak sensitive material will face criminal charges.

In conclusion, any idea of future intelligence reform has been dealt a major set-back. “The knowledge of the U.S. intelligence community and the quality of our analysis will suffer because of Wikileaks. The information itself was not very important, but the damage it did to the process was what concerned most people in the intelligence community.”

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Seymour Hersh on the Obama and Bush Foreign Policies
2011-01-17 08:00 - 18:00
Seymour Hersh is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and author on national security issues for the New Yorker magazine. On January 17, 2011, he gave a CIRS Distinguished Lecture titled “The Obama/Bush Foreign Policies: Why Can’t America Change?” before an audience of 800 members of the community in Doha.

Hersh has covered everything from Vietnam to Iraq to Iran to the whole of the Middle East, and he regularly analyzes current U.S. foreign policy and issues pertaining to military intelligence, national security and the press. His bestselling books include, The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House, The Dark Side of Camelot, and, most recently, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib.

Currently, Hersh is at work on a new book in which he argues that the heightened sentiments of fear and reprisal after September 11, 2001, paved the way for a handful of neo-conservatives to take control of the White House with anti-Islam ideologies and policies. According to Hersh, the U.S. invasion of Iraq was presented to the public, both locally and internationally, as a crusade. The Cheney/Bush administration assumed that most people would back their actions because of the supposed nobility of the cause. “There is a tremendous amount of anti-Muslim feeling in the military community,” Hersh argued. “It is a crusade, literally.” What alarmed him most, Hersh explained, was not the drastic policy, but how easy it was to implement. None of the necessary checks and balances was put into place as the public acquiesced and the press became complicit and signed on to the narrative of the “global war on terror” without questioning the underlying motives.

The Obama administration has not made any significant improvements to how the U.S. is handling the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hersh claimed. Since 2003, the war in Iraq has been a losing battle and has resulted in a “war of attrition.” Similarly, the war in Afghanistan is as unsuccessful now for the Americans as it was unwinnable for the Russians in the 1980s. “I truly don’t know any serious officer or special operator or civilian who has been in the war who has any confidence about it. We are not going to prevail in Afghanistan,” he said.

Although Obama’s rhetoric is very different from Bush’s, their policies remain very much aligned, according to Hersh. Unmanned drones continue to bomb targets in Afghanistan and continue to kill both legitimate targets and noncombatants indiscriminately. Obama is fully aware of the damage being done and yet has not tampered with the existing system nor done anything to stop it.

When it comes to American citizens being held in countries like Iran, “we complain bitterly in America about the lack of jurisprudence and the lack of a good legal system and, yet, how many people now are still in Guantanamo, suffering away?” Such double-standards continue to operate and are thoroughly counterproductive. “The truth is,” Hersh said “if they weren’t Al Qaeda when we captured them, and most of them were not, as many of you probably understand, they are now after seven, eight, nine years of being incarcerated without any hearings or any rights.” The insurgency is spreading and is becoming much more violent. Opportunism and morally questionable acts, Hersh argued, have been features of American governance for a long time. He said that “After WWII, we had a secret program of bringing and ‘de-Nazifying’ some of the German scientists who were valuable to our own energy and missile program.”

There was hope that much of the damage done during the Bush era would be fixed when the new administration was sworn in, but, Hersh argued, not much has changed in U.S. foreign policy since Obama took office. Many morally questionable acts like torture, the use of secret prisons, assassinations, and extraordinary renditions have continued unabated.

Hersh expressed his disappointment in Obama’s inability to learn from the mistakes of the Bush administration. He argued that, in America, “We are anti-history […] Why else would we make the same mistake we always make?” Hersh concluded by saying, “I am stunned and appalled that this president did not do what he said he was going to do.”

Earlier in the day, Hersh was invited to the Georgetown’s Qatar campus and spoke informally to faculty and students.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Conspiracy Theories in the Arab World
2011-01-11 08:00 - 18:00
Matthew Gray, Senior Lecturer at the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University in Canberra, lectured on “Explaining Conspiracy Theories in the Arab World” on January 11, 2011.

Gray’s lecture was based on work conducted for his recent book on this topic, Conspiracy Theories in the Middle East: Sources and Politics (Routledge, 2010). He argued that because “conspiracy theories are real political language,” they are worthy of serious study. Although the proliferation of unverified stories is a social phenomenon that can easily fall into the delusional and exaggerated, they are nonetheless important indicators of social fears and apprehensions and can reveal underlying ideas often ignored by mainstream discourse.

The first daunting task of studying the phenomenon, Gray said, is to define what a conspiracy theory is. This is difficult because such theories sometimes turn out to be true or are widely believed to be true. In general terms, “a conspiracy theory almost always involves absolute secrecy and it nearly always is negative and disadvantages people. It often sounds like it is using a rational argument, but once you scratch beneath the surface, there is either a flaw of logic or a factual error.” As such, conspiracy theories flourish because they tend not to be falsifiable.

There are three main areas that enhance the conditions in which conspiracy theories flourish; these are historical, ideological, and state-society drivers. Gray argued that agreement on certain historical narratives can build a support network between the conspiracy theorist and the receiver. “History is important for laying the foundations of a conspiracy theory” and allows for a reappraisal of historical values and impacts and thus is a means of political engagement.

Ideology is a second main driver for conspiracy theories in Gray’s view. He explained that ideologies such as state-led development, Arab socialism, Arab nationalism, democracy, and Islamism, have failed to capture the imagination of the majority of people and, so, in the absence of a compelling ideology, conspiracy theories are rife.

The third factor revolves around problems in the state-society relationship in the Arab World. Gray described the Middle East as a place where opaque governing structures operate at the elite level of politics. It is an area where complicated bureaucratic networks and repressive state institutions often thrive. Under these conditions, Gray noted that “societies have trouble understanding how people in power operate” and this fosters the perfect environment for conspiracy theories to emerge.

Sometimes the reverse is true and conspiracy theories can suit those in positions of power. Indeed, “the state and the political elite can actually be the narrators of conspiracy theories,” he said. State-endorsed conspiracy theories can divert attention from other explanations or other pressing issues. “Conspiracy theories can help in the construction of a counter fact to confuse or disorient people. People get bombarded not just with factual information, but with bias, with conspiracy theories, and after a while, especially in a strict authoritarian context, it becomes difficult to know what the truth is, what is safe to say and not say,” explained Gray.

Concluding the lecture, Gray explained that conspiracy theories will continue to flourish in the wake of global television stations, new media, and communication technologies. “The paradox of communications technology is that just as you can spread fact and education very easily over satellite TV and the internet, you also get a fragmentation of knowledge and authority and it becomes very difficult for a lay listener or viewer to differentiate between someone speaking with formal, traditional authority and someone merely claiming to have authority,” he said.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

A Changing Kingdom: Saudi Arabia in 2030
2011-01-10 08:00 - 18:00
Thomas W. Lippman, former Middle East bureau chief of The Washington Post and adjunct senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Middle East Institute, was invited to Doha as part of the CIRS “Nuclear Question in the Middle East” working group meeting. In conjunction with the meeting, Lippman delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue on January 10, 2011. on the topic “A Changing Kingdom: Saudi Arabia in 2030.”

The subject of Lippman’s lecture revolved around likely future shifts in the religious, strategic, and economic principles of Saudi Arabia. There has been much literature written on the kingdom, especially since September 11, 2001, but, he argued, most of these are exaggerated accounts of radical Islam and extremism. In his new book, Saudi Arabia on the Edge: The Perilous Future of an American Ally, Lippman advocates a more sober approach to the country’s future, rather than dwelling on events of the past. Over the next two decades, Lippman argued, there will be seismic demographic and economic shifts that will affect all aspects of life in the kingdom. “Saudi Arabia has to make some very difficult and very expensive decisions in order to sustain economic growth and to maintain a basic standard of life for the population,” he said.

Listing some of the demographic and economic trends that are likely to occur, Lippman noted that “the population will grow probably by 70%, but it will grow at a slower rate than in the past.” The reason for this, he said, was because “women are collectively better educated than any previous generation and in Saudi Arabia, as anywhere in the developing world, better educate women marry later and have fewer children.” Because more women will enter the workforce, working women need a certain degree of personal mobility and will need to be able to drive legally. In the long run, he said, “Saudi Arabia cannot afford to educate all those women as it is doing, at great cost, and not recoup any of the economic output from that investment.”

Further, the current cost of living in Saudi Arabia is already extremely high and will only increase over the next few years. As such, it will become increasingly difficult to sustain large families in such an inflationary environment. Although Saudi Arabia is traditionally oil-rich, “the population has been growing faster than the GDP,” and so, Lippman argued, “the country will face the beginnings of what will be a difficult and expensive struggle to provide the population with basic necessities such as food, water, housing, and electricity.” A major consequence of the housing shortage is that the entire traditional way of life in Saudi Arabia, which is “based on living in the family compound, or in the village,” is going to change and we will see more people living in high rise apartment buildings in urban areas.

Lippman predicted that on the basis of the trends he discussed, “Saudi Arabia in twenty years, or at least by mid century, will inevitably be a more open, moderate, and educated country. It will be more like the rest of the developed world.” This is especially true since “the greatest test of the government and its ambitions was the Al Qaeda uprising” and its ultimate failure because of lack of popular support.

In conclusion, Lippman cautioned that unless there are some serious changes made, Saudi Arabia will be overwhelmed by its own demography, economy, and climate. These changes are not exactly a matter of choice; “the whole way of thinking about life and urban development is going to be inevitably transformed by the forces of demography and economics in Saudi Arabia.”

Lippman has been studying and writing about Middle East affairs for thirty five years. A frequent guest and commentator on television in the United States and in the Middle East, he is the author of five books about the Arab world, Islam and U.S. foreign policy and of several journal articles on related subjects.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

The Nuclear Question in the Middle East Working Group II
2011-01-09 08:00 - 2011-01-10 18:00
On January 9–10, 2011, CIRS concluded the second meeting of its “Nuclear Question in the Middle East” working group. The working group participants were invited back to Doha to deliver their chapter submissions and to critique each others’ findings and conclusions. The papers will be collected by CIRS in an edited volume titled, The Nuclear Question in the Middle East (Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2012). Seven international experts on the field discussed a variety of topics related to the study.

The participants stated that nuclear energy will always be considered of dual character and although many countries claim that they will establish a peaceful civilian program, there always remains suspicion that the program can be used for purposes of proliferation. Because a civilian nuclear program can be modified into a military one regardless of the original intention, there are a number of strict international nonproliferation laws and treaties that countries must adhere to in order to allay international suspicions.

Deliberating different models of regime survival strategies, the participants indicated that these have a bearing on why some countries have nuclear programs, while others steer clear of such projects. According to such “nuclear logics,” countries that wish to internationalize and integrate into the global economy by attracting foreign investment tend to avoid acquiring nuclear capabilities. Inward looking models, however, tend to want to acquire nuclear programs as they are less dependent on the global economy and as such do not adhere to international treaties. Further to macro level analysis of states’ nuclear ambitions, the participants also discussed the more detailed minutiae of such projects. As part of this analysis, the participants spotlighted the social psychology and the role of individual leaders in nuclear decision-making. Thus the group concluded that personal characteristics of decision-makers are key variables in understanding why and when states pursue nuclear power.

The nuclear programs of many countries of the Middle East were presented as case studies, including Israel, Egypt, Libya, Turkey, Iran, and the UAE. Countries such as the UAE, for example, cannot rely on their own oil supplies for their high energy intensive petro chemical and water desalinization industries. The energy and electricity demands in these countries are extremely high. Many argue that these countries must pursue a combination of hydrocarbon, renewable energy sources such as hydro and solar, as well as nuclear energy in order to meet their needs. In order to be in full transparency, the Abu Dhabi nuclear power program has been established in accordance with international treaties and protocols and by openly inviting foreign know-how and observers.

Concluding the second day, the participants discussed some overall themes that emerged from the meeting and a general theoretical overview of the nuclear issue in the Middle East. As an overarching framework, the chapters will address the issue of Middle East proliferation/nuclearization within the scope of the Iranian and Israeli shadows as well as the opaque relationship between civilian and security programs.

Participants and Discussants:

Zahra Babar, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarAvner Cohen, Woodrow Wilson International Center for ScholarsJohn T. Crist, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMehran Kamrava, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMustafa Kibaroglu, Bilkent UniversityThomas W. Lippman, Council on Foreign Relations and Middle East InstituteGiacomo Luciani, Gulf Research CenterMari Luomi, Finnish Institute of International AffairsSuzi Mirgani, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMaria Rost Rublee, University of AucklandDebra Shushan, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarEtel Solingen, University of California, Irvine

Click here for the working group’s agendaRead more about the research initiative

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Zalmay Khalilzad on America and the Middle East: Future Challenges and Opportunities
2010-12-13 08:00 - 18:00
Zalmay Khalilzad was invited to deliver a CIRS Distinguished Lecture on the topic, “America and the Middle East: Future Challenges and Opportunities” on December 13, 2010, in Doha, Qatar. Khalilzad served as U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations (2007-2009), U.S. Ambassador to Iraq (2005-2007), and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan (2003-2005).

The Ambassador spoke about the relationship between the United States and the Middle East within two different contexts. The first, he said, “is the framework of thinking about the Middle East after 9/11, which was a decisive moment in American history in terms of its approach to this part of the world” and the second is the “transition to a new approach, which I think is in formation.” The word “transition,” he said, “implies continuity and change” of current policies as the United States adjusts to shifts in the global order.

Khalilzad defined the broader Middle East as stretching from Pakistan in the east to Morocco in the west and argued that in order to understand the relationship between the United States and the Middle East, it was first necessary to begin with observations regarding the impact of the events of September 11, 2001. Although the Ambassador pointed out that America is a heterogeneous country that is made up of a multitude of ideologies and schools of thought, he noted that “9/11 had a big impact on American thinking – on official American thinking.”

One significant change, Khalilzad argued, was that “9/11 made the United States think of this broad region geopolitically,” and as having real and lasting impacts on national and international security. The challenges of this region, he said, have the ability to reverberate around the world. In today’s integrated world, regional problems have great consequences for the entire international community. “In the post 9/11 environment,” Khalilzad said, “working towards a region that would be more at peace with itself and with the world became a strong tendency orientation in the U.S. foreign policy debate discussion and doctrines.”

It was within this framework that Khalilzad said the United States ventured into Iraq. “I believe Iraq, although it still remains in a difficult transition, is in an improved situation than it was at times in its recent past.” This is because the United States worked to “encourage a process of democratization and a belief that democratization through elections and support of civil society organizations was going to lead to a decrease in the unhappiness of the people” which produces extremism, he argued.

Other issues that impact the stability of the Middle East region’s development, the Ambassador said, is the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the problems in Afghanistan that transpired to be far more complex than the United States originally thought; and the lingering threat of Iran.

Taking all of these regional conflicts into account, Khalilzad spoke of how the United States has modified its approach to the Middle East. He argued that the Iraqi challenge is currently less than it was in the past, but the challenge of Iran and Afghanistan are becoming increasingly prominent. The challenge of terrorism and extremism has lessened in some areas, but, he warned, has spread and became stronger in other parts of the world. Other than these issues, East Asia has become an area of increasing geopolitical importance with the rise of China and India, and the challenges imposed by North Korea. The Ambassador said that “as a result of the shifts in the geopolitical issues in the world, there is going to be a greater focus on the issues of East Asia both in terms of diplomacy and in terms of military strategy for the longer term to adjust to the balance of power changes that are taking place.”

Looking to which issues will become important in the future, Khalilzad argued that “although political challenges remain, it is the future of the economy – particularly the US economy – that has gained in relative importance.” He continued by saying that “the U.S. position in the world ultimately rests on its economic and military power, and its military power cannot be sustained without its economic power being such to be able to afford the kind of capabilities that its global role so far has required.”

Concluding the lecture, the Ambassador said that these political and economic problems will necessarily result in adjustments in future U.S. policy. These adjustments will include “a greater emphasis on stability in order not to produce more demands on resources and effort on the part of the United States,” he said.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Political Economy of the Gulf Working Group II
2010-12-11 08:00 - 2010-12-12 18:00
On December 11–12, 2010, CIRS concluded the second session of its “Political Economy of the Gulf” research initiative with a two-day working group meeting that took place at Georgetown University in Qatar. Several experts on the political economy of the Gulf were invited back to Doha to present their chapter submissions and to discuss their original research during the two-day meeting. In the coming months, CIRS will gather the chapters in order to submit them for publication as an edited volume titled, The Political Economy of the Persian Gulf (Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2012).

The meeting was divided into several sections, including discussion on the demographic aspects of the GCC; the GCC monetary union; the “Dubai Model” of economic diversification; attempts at establishing knowledge-based economies in the GCC; the effects of rentierism on state autonomy; sovereign wealth funds; and Islamic banking models across the GCC.

The working group members discussed all of these issues within the overarching framework of rentierism and the relationships of mutual interdependence that become established between states and societies. Mutually beneficial rentier arrangements have guided the means in which the GCC countries have formed their oil-based economies and labor relations.

The working group participants examined the fact that over the past few years, the GCC states have become increasingly powerful actors on the global scene, and have become important markets for foreign investment. In order to adapt to changes within the global order, the concept of knowledge-based economies has become integral to the GCC states’ ambitious economic diversification attempts. In each GCC state, huge budgets have been allocated to programs that concentrate on issues of education, scientific research, increased flow of information, and investment in human capital.

The transition from oil-based economies to knowledge-based has had different levels of success in the various GCC states. The failure of the “Dubai Model” of economic development has meant that Dubai’s financial strategies, which were once seen as leading examples of economic progress in the region, are now being organized along more cautious and less ambitious investment plans. The GCC states’ various diversification plans, whether successful or not, have signaled official acknowledgment of the necessity of investing in a future of well-educated and qualified workforces that are able to compete in internationally.

Much of the budgets allocated to these diversification projects are funded by the GCC states’ sovereign wealth funds (SWF), which also came under examination by the working group members. Sovereign wealth funds are often constituted of staggering amounts of money that are used to sponsor large-scale projects in the interest of a country’s long-term development.

The participants discussed further financial considerations regarding “Islamic banking,” which was reported to be more developed in the Gulf region than anywhere else in the world. The participants examined Islamic banking methods across the various GCC states and compared them with those operating across Iran.

Members of the working group also looked at the political and economic possibilities of the GCC states forming a monetary union and how moving away from the U.S. dollar peg may or may not result in global imbalances in the value of the dollar. The participants concluded that many of the economic and political efforts currently underway in the GCC fall under a larger plan to establish the Gulf states as leading international powers. The GCC states have attempted to enhance their political stability both regionally and internationally and to increase their international bargaining power.

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Participants and Discussants:

Alexis Antoniades, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarZahra Babar, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarJohn T. Crist, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarChristopher Davidson, Durham UniversityNada Eissa, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarSteffen Hertog, London School of EconomicsMehran Kamrava, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarFred Lawson, Mills CollegeSuzi Mirgani, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarDjavad Salehi-Isfahani, Virginia Tech UniversityJean-François Seznec, Georgetown UniversityNadia Talpur, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarKristian Coates Ulrichsen, London School of EconomicsRodney Wilson, Durham UniversityMohamed Zayani, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Foreign Policy and Regime Survival in Jordan
2010-12-01 08:00 - 18:00
Debra Shushan, the 2010-2011 CIRS Post Doctoral Fellow, delivered the December Monthly Dialogue on the topic, “Jordan in the Gulf Wars: Foreign Policy and Regime Survival,” where she illustrated key differences between Jordan’s foreign policy initiatives in the first and second Gulf Wars which, respectively, occurred in 1990-91 and from 2003 onward. Shushan noted that “the question that motivates this research is: How do non-democratic states make foreign policy?” Given the dearth of theorizing by political scientists on this question and the opacity of foreign policy-making in autocratic regimes, shedding light on the ways in which a country such as Jordan conducts its foreign policy is crucial in expanding the reach of international relations theories.

As Shushan indicated, Jordan took very different foreign policy positions regarding the two Gulf Wars. During Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the United States was moving beyond the Cold War era and becoming the world’s sole superpower. Led by President George H. W. Bush, the U.S. spearheaded an international coalition against Iraq and put pressure on other countries, particularly in the Arab world, to contribute troops and materiel. Jordan abstained from joining. However, with regard to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Jordan adopted a very different policy and became “an important tacit coalition partner of the United States” by supporting the war effort, most crucially through allowing military bases in eastern Jordan to be used in staging operations in Iraq.

Debra shushan monthly dialogue dec 1, 2010 slides from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
In order to explain the drastic change that occurred between the Gulf Wars, Shushan stressed the importance of understanding the regime survival strategies employed by Jordan’s leadership. She maintained that “whether we are in democratic regimes or non-democracies, leaders care first and foremost about retaining power.” To this effect, regime survival depends on identifying and retaining the support of a group of key backers – what Shushan calls “a winning coalition” – which includes financial, social, and military elites, sometimes with the aid of foreign supporters. She argued that “a winning coalition can be more or less populist depending on the extent to which it incorporates support from the mass public.” In both Gulf Wars, Arab governments were faced with the choice of whether or not to back the U.S.-led coalition. Supporting the United States brought the prospects of economic rewards from the U.S. and its Gulf Arab allies, while adopting a neutral or pro-Iraq stance promised domestic support from publics attracted by Saddam Hussein’s populist, anti-imperialist, and pro-Palestinian rhetoric.

Based on interviews she conducted with Jordanian leaders who were close to King Hussein during the first Gulf War, Shushan contends that “because of the extreme strength of public opinion and the dramatic amount of support within the mass public for Saddam Hussein, if the Jordanian regime had in fact sided with the U.S.-led coalition, there was a genuine fear that the regime could be overthrown.” However, in the second Gulf War, economic considerations played a more prominent role in Jordanian foreign policy. In the years leading up to 2003, Jordan’s economic dependence had shifted from Iraq to the United States, with dramatic increases in U.S. aid to Jordan after Amman signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 and substantial growth in Jordanian exports to the U.S. following the implementation of the Jordan-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in 2001.

In conclusion, Shushan argued that it was important to understand that not all non-democratic states act in the same way and that further research is necessary to elaborate ways in which varying domestic arrangements shape foreign policy initiatives. Also, she indicated that interesting questions remain regarding how public opinion affects foreign policy in non-democratic contexts. For example, how do autocratic regimes go about gauging the content and intensity of public attitudes? Shushan looks forward to pursuing these questions in her future work.

Debra Shushan comes to CIRS from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, where she is an Assistant Professor of Government and member of the faculties of International Relations and Middle East Studies. She is working on a book manuscript that examines Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian foreign policies in the Gulf Wars through the lens of regime survival.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Carol Lancaster on the Results and Consequences of the U.S. Mid-term Elections
2010-11-14 08:00 - 18:00
Carol Lancaster, Dean of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and Professor of Politics at Georgetown University, lectured to a group of Georgetown faculty and Qatar-based diplomats on November 14, 2010 on the subject of “The Results and Consequences of the US Mid-term Elections.”

The mid-term elections, Lancaster said, “were predicted to be a setback for Obama and predicted to produce a change in the Congress.” These forecasts, she said, were true insofar as “the change of party in the House of Representatives was dramatic,” but, although “the democrats will control the Senate, they will not control much, because in order to get anything through the U.S. Senate, you normally have to have sixty votes.”

Explaining various elements of the United States government structure, Lancaster said that “the Congress can block the president from doing almost anything that requires a congressional vote. […] Currently, the Republicans have the votes in the House to block legislation, but, similarly, Obama can block legislation from the Congress, because he has the veto power,” which, she said, “is a recipe for stalemate.”

One of the major issues that will be affected after the mid-term elections, Lancaster said, is the size and distribution of the federal budget. “The Republicans are either going to have to pass a budget, which means they are going have to compromise on a variety of issues because they cut everything they want, or not pass a budget, in which case, I think they’ll be blamed for impeding life and the economy of the United States.” If the Republicans do compromise with the administration in passing a budget, then the right-wing will become part of what they criticized in their bids to become elected – “too much wheeling and dealing in Washington.”

The second test, Lancaster argued, will be raising the federal debt limit. “If you don’t raise the limit on the federal debt and the federal government cannot borrow, then it cannot pay its bills. We will be essentially bankrupt.” In this case, “if the new Republican members of Congress, especially the very right wing ones, put above all else limiting the growth in federal borrowing and spending, they will have to block raising the debt limit for federal borrowing. If they do not vote to raise the limit, they will be blamed for what could be an economic disaster.”

Regarding the future of American foreign policy influenced by the Republicans, Lancaster argued that “I think what we are going to see is a more aggressive American foreign policy, if the Congress has its way. I think the people who will be coming into key positions – some of them at least – are more hostile to Iran, more supportive of Israel, and more hostile to North Korea.”

Further, Lancaster speculated how the results of the mid-term elections will be used to influence the 2012 elections. “The Republicans may decide that this is really the beginning of the presidential elections of 2012 and they will maneuver politically to position themselves for a better shot at the presidency.” In this case, the Democrats will need to make some serious changes to their mode of operation, because “over the last two years, Obama has left the definition of issues – the healthcare bill, the economic stimulus, etc. – to the opposition.” If he continues to let the Republicans define these issues through the media and other public forums, then, Lancaster said, the President may have a hard time winning a second term.

In conclusion, Lancaster argued that at every presidential election, the two parties are regularly being voted in and out and that is because “we have a closely divide electorate, which goes back and forth.” She added that “It isn’t that they are voting for something; it is that they are voting against something and that isn’t a very stable way of governing.” There are two underlying and largely contradictory philosophies that are the basis of the United States model. She argued that “since the beginning of the American republic, we have had a very strong libertarian impulse in our politics,” but “since the depression, we have had a ‘social democratic’ impulse which is more comfortable with government addressing social and economic problems.” There are tensions between these two traditions that are played out and negotiated every election year.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Researching the Gulf: Thinking Outside the Box in Qatar
2010-11-10 08:00 - 18:00
Mehran Kamrava, Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies, gave a talk, entitled “Researching the Gulf: Thinking Outside the Box in Qatar”, at the American University of Beirut’s Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs. The event was sponsored jointly by CIRS and IFI.

Kamrava discussed the challenges and opportunities present in conducting social science research in the Gulf in general and in Doha in particular, focusing specifically on the research projects undertaken by CIRS and the roles, both current and potential, in influencing or shaping public policy in Qatar and elsewhere.

Beginning with a broader discussion of the establishment and purpose of CIRS as part of the School of Foreign Service in Qatar, Kamrava discussed the primary research focus and scholarly endeavors of CIRS and the broader consequences of these research initiatives on the state of social science scholarship and the encouragement of a culture of research in Qatar and elsewhere in the Gulf region. By undertaking in-depth, multiyear studies such as “nuclear programs in the Gulf,” “migrant labor in the Gulf,” and “food security and food sovereignty in the Middle East,” Kamrava told the audience that CIRS aims to contribute to our understanding of relevant political phenomenon through engaging in empirically grounded, original research.

The talk was followed by a question and answer session. A video of the event is available here.

Nuclear Question in the Middle East: Regional Perspectives
2010-11-07 08:00 - 18:00
On November 7, 2010, CIRS held a Working Group meeting to discuss regional perspectives related to the ongoing “Nuclear Question in the Middle East” research initiative that CIRS commenced in May 2010. The project is designed to look into nuclear proliferation concerns associated with the GCC states’ aims of establishing nuclear power capabilities in the region. Through close examination of the complex political and economic issues involved, CIRS aims to give due diligence to study of the topic.

The meeting was divided into broad thematic sections, including 1) regional security and arms control; 2) civilian nuclear energy programs; 3) Israel’s nuclear program and security in the Middle East; and 4) regional perspectives of Iran’s nuclear energy program.

The participants began by surveying the security climate across the region. They noted that the complexity of arms control and weaponization in the region is worth further in-depth study. In many cases, the countries of the Middle East have strategic alliances with various different countries and this produces complex political networks. The participants argued that what is unique about the state of security in the Middle East is that, despite always being seriously affected by foreign influence, many countries in the region have historically made strategic decisions against the advice of foreign allies. In the past, Iraq’s weapons program was closely associated with Western countries as a buffering measure against the Islamic Republic of Iran and, yet, Iraq had its own independent motivations and initiated various clandestine nuclear programs.

Further, the threat perception, they argued, was “sub-regional” in that the countries of the Middle East are more concerned with neighbors’ security programs, rather than regional ones. Morocco, for example, is less concerned with Iran and Israel’s nuclear ambitions than it is with Libya’s. Threat perceptions, therefore, are based on geographic location and proximity of security hazards, and are the basis for driving regional security policies. The participants also considered the power of nuclear ambitions in the face of non-conventional terrorist threats.

Despite tremendous pressure exerted by Western powers, many countries of the Middle East have voiced their right to pursue nuclear ambitions. Many, however, do not have the necessary capacity, infrastructure, and technological capabilities. The countries that do, such as the GCC states, have opted for rational economic strategies by seeking contracts from Asian firms to build their nuclear plants, rather than relying on the expertise of their Western allies. The strength of the Israeli lobby has meant that the United States has been discouraged from engaging in these regional GCC initiatives.

The threat from Iran is often attributed as one of the main drivers behind the GCC states’ nuclear ambitions, the participants argued. Despite this credible threat, there are various other factors that are just as influential. Issues such as energy consumption, economic stability, climate change, and the depletion of natural resources in the GCC have become of paramount importance to the establishment of nuclear energy ambitions. Further to these practical issues, notions of prestige and image-building are also key drivers for the acquisition of nuclear power in the region.

In conclusion, the participants argued that it was oil and gas prices that have caused the “nuclear renaissance” in the Middle East. The interest in nuclear programs in this case is based on nuclear power rather than on the fuel cycle and enrichment possibilities for weapons.

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Working Group Participants:

Mustafa Alani, Gulf Research CenterSalih Al Mani, King Saud UniversityZahra Babar, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarKai-Henrik Barth, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarJohn T. Crist, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarNabil Fahmy, American University in CairoRiad Kahwaji, INEGMAMehran Kamrava, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarSuzi Mirgani, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarAdnan Shihab-Eldin, Adviser and Member of Kuwait National Nuclear Energy Committee (KNNEC)Debra Shushan, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarAbdullah Toukan, Strategic Analysis and Global Risk Assessment (SAGRA)

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Miriam Cooke Lectures on Heritage Projects in the GCC
2010-11-07 08:00 - 18:00
Miriam Cooke, Professor of Arab Cultures at Duke University and Fall 2010 Scholar-in-Residence at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, delivered the November CIRS Monthly Dialogue on the topic of “The Tribal Modern: The Past as Future.”

In examining a variety of “heritage projects” in Qatar and the Gulf states, Cooke acknowledged the literature of Ibn Khaldun and his binary scheme of distinction between the desert nomadic, otherwise known as “badawa,” and the sedentary urban, known as “hadara” in many current Arab cultures. The “badawa” symbolizes nomadism, loyalty, and tribalism and “hadara,” on the other hand, is symbolic of modernity, urbanization, and individualism. Both concepts are used to distinguish the “self” from the “other” in Arab societies. When used to describe the self, Cooke argued, either word has positive connotations, but when used to describe the other, it is often tinged with criticism of the other’s way of life, be it modern or traditional. “These two terms,” she argued, “are current in Gulf vocabulary, and are deployed to designate cultural differences.”

Cooke argued that both concepts are constitutive of the heterogeneity inherent in Arab cultures and so it is important “to bring the two cultures together in such a way that they complement and enhance each other and strengthen the modernization efforts underway” in many Gulf states. These largely oppositional tropes between the traditional and the modern, Cooke noted, are negotiated and played out in the current “heritage projects.” Areas such as Suq Waqif in Doha are primary examples of how the old and modern aspects of Qatari culture are intertwined in architectural design of public spaces.

In order to further explore these underlying cultural imaginings, Cooke contacted Mohamed Ali, the designer and architect of the restoration of Suq Waqif. She noted that “it was through him that I began to see that ‘badawa’ and ‘hadara’ are being braided together.” In order to reconstruct the old market area, the architect, “finding very little reliable historical documentation, interviewed old people for fragments and figments of their imagination.”

Suq Waqif differs greatly from the highly modernized cityscape of the downtown financial district of West Bay, and, so, Cooke argued, the architecture of Doha has become an assimilation of the old and new and of the ‘badawa’ and ‘hadara.’ She noted that “where the skyscrapers compete for the prize in cutting-edge Western technology and aesthetics, and the Museum of Islamic Art was designed to blend the architectural variety of Islamdom into a single seamless whole, Suq Waqif was to be made of local materials and to embody the spirit of the Gulf.” Indeed, Cooke argued, “Suq Waqif, for me, is the emblematic working out of the tribal modern.”

This historical reference to cultural and tribal purity, or asala, is a symptom of globalization and modernity, argued Cooke, as nations attempt to rebuild cultural identities after years of colonial struggle. She noted that “the Arab world states, whose citizens are the first generation to grow up with a national, rather than a regional, identity, are involved in a future articulation of a largely unrecorded past that lies buried under the surface of identical newly global cities.” In this sense, many of these renovation projects are state-sponsored and are in service to the idea of the patriotic.

Cooke confirmed that “heritage projects erase pre-national ethnoscapes and deterritorialize lifestyles. They provide the tabula rasa on which the mass migrations of workers can be projected as new. Colonialism disappears behind the façade of ethnic purity and isolation. The heritage that is being revived glosses over four centuries of struggle between the Portuguese, the Ottomans, and the British for control of the valuable waterways that link the Fertile Crescent with the Indian Ocean.”

Concluding the lecture, Cooke argued that, in any of these heritage projects, whether architectural, sartorial, or linguistic, it is not an actual tribe that is being revived to serve as the backdrop for the embodiment of cultural purity, but the “idea” of a tribe. In fact, she said, “it doesn’t matter that Suq Waqif is a simulacrum; it produces the ideal, the idea, and the feel of the authentic (the aseel).”

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Barbara Stowasser Lectures on Concepts of Time in Islam
2010-10-25 08:00 - 18:00
Barbara Stowasser, Director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, was invited to Doha to deliver aFocused Discussion on the subject of “Time Sticks” and concepts of time in Islam, to Georgetown faculty and staff.

Stowasser began the lecture by noting that “time is essential to the very structure of Muslim communal life. Time of ritual and worship of Muslim obligation are regulated according to celestial events – both lunar and solar.” She studied how the hours of the five daily prayers of Sunni Islam are controlled by the movement of the sun as well as its absence, and how these rituals have been reconfigured in today’s globalized world of regimented time-keeping. The Islamic calendar, she argued, has been instrumental in holding the Islamic world together over geographic distances and over many centuries.

In order to calculate prayer times in the pre-modern era, it was common to use “time sticks.” These, Stowasser said, are simple astronomical technologies that use shadow-length to measure daylight hours. They were part of religious knowledge and practice in all pre-modern societies, including that of the ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Chinese, the Greeks, and the Romans. Unfortunately, she said, very few of these have been preserved in the Muslim world, but are prominently described in the literature.

Stowasser explained the difference between the notion of “seasonal time” that was used in the past and our modern conception of “abstract time.” In a world where the day is divided into abstract, standardized, and equal hours, “the five Islamic ritual prayers endow the day with a specific pulse that remains a vital sign of time perception in Muslim societies,” as these prayers are pegged to the older tradition of seasonal time and unequal hours. For millennia, other than those who resided on the equator, Stowasser argued, human patterns of living and working were organized around local astronomical time that differed along shorter and longer hours of daylight throughout the year.

Examining prayer times and standardization problems that arise as a result of geographical latitudes, Stowasser argued that they vary in length depending on their position between the equator and poles. Since “Islamic prayer times depend on terrestrial latitudes, this requires that prayer times should be defined in terms of shadow increase, not shadow length, which varies according to degree of latitude,” she said. Thus, shadow length in Mecca and Medina would not correspond with shadow lengths in other latitudes. “In the classical hadith, the historical and the normative are intertwined,” said Stowasser, and so, over time, the five daily prayers were negotiated and then established.

Surveying different historical periods, Stowasser said that in the Islamic world, the beginning of a new day started at dusk, and so was in keeping with the mechanisms of the lunar calendar. With the advent of the mechanical clock in the fourteenth century, time gradually became standardized across the nations. In the modern era, in order to coordinate regional time for the establishment of railroad and telegraph systems, longitudinal calculation was required to organize different time zones separated by geographic distances. “Technological progress has meant chronographic and calendrical standardization that eventually took on global validity. The Islamic prayer times are now regionally computed, often by electronic means,” Stowasser said. Moreover, “technology has also created the concept of linear time; a relatively recent Western invention that is replacing or is poised to replace the multiple subjective and situation specific times of the past […] The new form of clock-based time is producing a new form of global psychology where time equals punctuality, efficiency, and economic rationality.”

In conclusion, Stowasser said that “by way of early conquest and expansion, the Islamic realm fell heir to several much older civilizations that had long traditions of scholarship in the theoretical and applied sciences. From an early date, the science tradition was integrated into an Islamic world view,” said Stowasser. Currently, we are faced with Eurocentric and Western-enlightened critiques that claim pre-Islamic civilizations were profoundly mistrusted by an ever stricter Islamic orthodoxy. She argued, however, that the pre-modern Islamic texts do not support this critique. “In the Islamic world today, the Western calendar provides a global point of reference, even where the Islamic year reigns supreme,” but, she said, in some areas of Yemen and Saudi Arabia, “the old system has survived and created a system of double time-keeping.”

During the past several decades, Stowasser’s research and publications have focused on Islam and gender, which has made her one of the early pioneers on this topic in the West. Among her publications is Women in the Qur’an, Traditions and Interpretation and she co-edited and contributed to the volume Islamic Law and the Challenges of Modernity. At Georgetown, Stowasser developed and taught all the graduate courses on Qur’anic tafsirand introduced the study of Islam and gender into the curriculum. Stowasser was the former Chair of the Department of Arabic (now the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, in Georgetown College).

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Iraq in the Balance: Security and Democracy After the U.S. Troop Withdrawal
2010-10-19 08:00 - 18:00
In light of the United States’ withdrawal of troops from Iraq, CIRS organized a panel discussion to analyze the political upheavals that have taken place in Iraq and to gauge the possible outcomes. The panel took place on October 19, 2010, at the Intercontinental Hotel in Doha and featured Anthony Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, Laith Kubba, Director of Middle East & North Africa at the National Endowment for Democracy, and Rend Al-Rahim, Executive Director for The Iraq Foundation.

Anthony Cordesman began with an overview of the current security and military operations in Iraq. Addressing the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, he said that “the U.S. now has four Advisory and Assist brigades in Iraq. These are full combat brigades” that provide military assistance to Iraqi forces. The U.S. continues to fly aircraft over Iraq to provide satellite intelligence and there are major airbases in neighboring Kuwait, military facilities in Qatar, fleet headquarters in Bahrain, as well as other naval capabilities in the area. “Withdrawal,” therefore, “is relative,” argued Cordesman. The United States will continue to play a role in Iraq, but “when the new Iraqi government comes to office, it has to define what the strategic partnership agreement means,” he said.

The U.S. Transition in Iraq: Iraqi Forces and the U.S. Military Aid from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Currently, Iraq is importing and building up its military capabilities to aid in its counter- insurgency operations. However, Cordesman warned, “even if you delivered equipment tomorrow, Iraq does not have the facilities – the training and the background – to make that equipment effective. There is probably no worse way to acquire military equipment than to rush large amounts into a force that isn’t prepared.” To this effect, the United States is providing military advisory missions and is assisting with the purchase of military equipment and trainers. “This, in part, is driven by the fact that Iraq remains under a major budget crisis and will remain in that crisis for at least two to three years,” he said.

In terms of the ongoing threat of violence, Cordesman argued that, despite media portrayal, the levels of violence have decreased and have become concentrated in certain areas. He said that “the patterns of violence are not easily measurable,” but, in comparison to Afghanistan, there is greater stability. There remains a worrying level of outside interference, foreign support, and importing of illegal weapons for extremist purposes from Syria and Iran, which back Sunni and Shiite causes respectively.

In conclusion, Cordesman argued that, in future, “you cannot develop effective police without an effective judicial system and jails, and you cannot develop either one without an effective government presence in the field.” The United States will continue to support Iraq and give aid depending on how much Iraq needs or allows. Cordesman said that he has often heard Iran being described as the hegemon of the Gulf, but, to put things into perspective, “in the last five years, ignoring Iraq, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries have spent more than ten times as much on defense as Iran, and more than seventeen times as much on arms imports.”

Iraq and the Military Balance in the Gulf from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Rend Al-Rahim gave the second speech in which she outlined the current precarious position in which Iraq finds itself. She argued that “we are, in fact, in a situation where Iraq is verging on tipping in one direction or another.” Indeed, “the next four years are going to indicate what Iraq is likely to be as a state.”

During her talk, Al-Rahim focused on three essential questions. The first concerns whether Iraq will remain one country, or whether it will become divided along ethnic and religious lines. The second question wonders whether democracy will become the prevailing governing ideology, or whether Iraq will revert to its historical system of autocratic and authoritarian rule. The third and final question asks whether Iraq will become a functional state that is able to maintain security for its people and deter external threats and pressures.

The answers to these questions, Al-Rahim said, can be defined by the problems that arise from constitutional and political challenges in the country. There are a variety of problems associated with Iraq’s constitution. She noted that “the constitution was written in a period of about three months, but, most importantly, it was written without the participation of the Sunni community who boycotted the process and refused to participate in the negotiations that produced the constitution. They were eventually persuaded to ratify the constitution.” Al-Rahim noted that “because of the haste with which the constitution was written, it is riddled with internal contradictions, ambiguities, lack of clarity, and is essentially, an unbalanced document that does not have a fully-fleshed conception of what the state is and how the state is going to function.” Indeed, “if the Iraqi federal government was to follow the constitution today, literally and strictly […] it would not be able to provide internal security – the article about security specifically says the federal government is in charge of Iraq’s security against external threats; it does not talk about internal threats.” Al-Rahim argued, “to the extent to which the Iraqi government functions, it is functioning extra constitutionally.”

There are two major areas – internal and external – where there are serious political challenges, Al-Rahim argued. The first of these is “the reductionist approach to Iraqi society that began in 2003 that was adopted by the U.S. administration” and this is the view of Iraq as being divided into Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish factions that have their own conflicting agendas. She argued that “this is neither an accurate, nor a healthy description of Iraqi society.” The second problem is the unease with which Iraq is identified within the region and how it relates to neighboring countries. Al-Rahim questioned whether Iraq can actually identify itself as an Arab country given the sizeable Kurdish and Shiite populations that do not consider themselves Arabs.

Finally, Al-Rahim argued that because of these constitutional and political variables, “there is still no common agreement among the political elite about what Iraq is or indeed what Iraq should be.”

The third and final speaker was Laith Kubba whose talk centered on the question “what impact will the U.S. withdrawal have on Iraq’s role in the region?” He also questioned whether the country would be able to stabilize after the withdrawal, especially with the prospect of civil war looming on the horizon.

For the eighty years before the invasion, Kubba argued, Iraq was a balancing force in the region and “maintained a strong position among the Arab countries; it was quite influential and independent.” However, “with the invasion in ’03 that order inside Iraq ended,” he said, and it has become a weak state that no longer poses a threat to its neighbors, or to the international community.

Kubba outlined the current trends that are driving the Iraqi political scene, both internally and externally. He argued that for a combination of economic and political reasons, the U.S. significantly reduced its troops. “Back in ’08, as Obama was elected, there was the dawn of a new policy on Iraq.” The focus has now shifted back onto the Iraqi government as “the perception of a diminishing U.S. presence throws the ball back to Iraqi players.”

Externally, a weakened Iraq will change the nature of the power balance in the region. “When the U.S. invaded Iraq, it more or less warned the neighbors not to interfere in Iraq; Saudi Arabia was kept in check; Syria was kept at bay; Turkey, for reasons of its own, decided not to cooperate. So, effectively, Iran was in a position to do what it wanted because it had no working understanding, or working relationship with the U.S. and it has built a very complex presence inside Iraq” that has made it extremely influential on a number of fronts, both culturally and militarily. Importantly, “As its neighbors look at Iraq, can they be indifferent to what sort of order is emerging in Iraq? The answer for Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Saudi Arabia is a definite ‘no.’” What happens in Iraq will have a direct influence and impact on their security and interests. Until Iraq becomes autonomous and independent, neighbors will have opportunities to influence the country.

Looking to the future of Iraq, Kubba said that there are two competing visions. The first perceives of Iraq as a modern state that has a clear citizen-state relationship irrespective of communal loyalties. He argued that despite the upheaval caused by the U.S. invasion, “the most positive outcome is that Iraq has set itself up with an electoral system” and there is now tremendous pressure on the government to take the public’s demands into account – something that Iraq has not experienced in a long time. The second vision sees Iraq as a weak and fractured state that has strong ethnically divided communal centers or provinces. The various factions will be encouraged to overlook political agendas in favor of sectarian ones. Finally, Kubba argued that “the new order is yet to materialize; we are still in a transitional phase in Iraq and I think it will take a while before the new order is shaped.”

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Migrant Labor in the Gulf - Working Group III
2010-10-10 18:00 - 2010-10-11 18:00
On October 10–11, 2010, CIRS held its third and final meeting of the “Migrant Labor in the Gulf” working group. Each participant submitted a draft paper in advance of the meeting. The goal of the meeting was for those taking part to critique each other’s work and advise the authors as they prepare a final draft for submission to a planned edited volume titled Migrant Labour in the Gulf (Columbia University Press/Hurst, 2012).

CIRS launched the “Migrant Labor in the Gulf” initiative in 2008. The working group is composed of experts in the field of migrant labor who hail from a variety of different academic disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, history, and political science. The working group is also composed of the four CIRS Research Grant awardees: Andrew Gardner from the University of Puget Sound/Qatar University, Arland Thornton and Nathalie Williams from the University of Michigan, Susan Martin from Georgetown University, and David Mednicoff from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

The participants adopted different perspectives on migrant labor. Some focused on macro trends that drive migration and define labor patterns within the GCC and among sending countries. In addition, several participants employed ethnographic methods to analyze the lived experiences of the migrants themselves.

The term “migrant labor” was historicized in order to analyze how the relationship between the citizen and the migrant in the Gulf has traditionally centered around the question of labor. Connections between the Gulf and other parts of the world were built around the pearling industry, trade, kinship relations, and religion. Migrant labor is usually depicted as a transient activity, and although many laborers are indeed short-term employees, this masks the fact that there are long-term and more culturally and socially-integrated forms of labor that exist in the Gulf. Importantly, historicizing migrant labor in the Gulf is useful in pointing out all the actors that are often excluded from discussions. Racialized hierarchical systems can be attributed to British colonial relations, and the establishment of the multinationals and the oil industry in the region.

Further, the participants examined the issue of gender in relation to migrant labor. Migrant labor in the Gulf tends to be highly gendered, where construction work and public sector work is dominated by males, and domestic work is performed by females. In general, and not just in the Gulf, domestic work falls outside of the purview of a country’s labor laws because domestic work is not considered part of the market economy. However, the participants argued that including domestic work within the framework of labor was not necessarily a solution to the problems associated with this type of employment. Here, the participants agreed that migrants should not be examined solely in terms of labor, but their social relations, political beliefs, and social formations should be examined as well.

Another key discussion was based on GCC states’ nationalization plans. The researchers spoke about the importance of not overlooking these schemes as the development of local human resources is a main target for most Gulf nations in the future. There has been little research regarding these nationalization schemes because of the difficulties of their implementation. As the Gulf strives toward knowledge based economies, long-term development is regarded as the responsibility of the national workforce. Although the nationalization strategies of the GCC countries differ, nationalization policies are geared towards breaking decades-long dependence on foreign labor in both the public and private sectors. In future, lower illiteracy rates, better global technological connectivity, and more women in leadership roles all pave the way for increased diversification of the Gulf economies.

The working group addressed other significant issues such as the ‘kefala’ system, human trafficking, illegal migration, and regional regulation efforts. The participants relied on a variety of data sources, including in-depth interviews, field observation, survey research, as well as demographic and other statistical data. The edited volume will be the first of its kind to be produced within the region.

Click here for the working group’s agenda
Read about the working group’s first and second meeting
Read more about this research initiative

Participants include:

Attiya Ahmad, Wesleyan UniversityZahra Babar, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMary Breeding, The World BankJane Bristol-Rhys, Zayed UniversityJohn T. Crist, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarAndrew Gardner, University of Puget SoundMehran Kamrava, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarPardis Mahdavi, Pomona CollegeSusan Martin, Georgetown UniversityDavid Mednicoff, University of Massachusetts–AmherstSuzi Mirgani, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarCaroline Osella, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of LondonFilippo Osella, University of SussexKasim Randeree, Oxford UniversityHélène Thiollet, Sciences PoArland Thornton, University of Michigan, Ann ArborNathalie E. Williams, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Birol Baskan on the 2010 Turkish Referendum
2010-10-06 08:00 - 18:00
Birol Başkan, Visiting Assistant Professor of Government at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, delivered a Focused Discussion on the topic, “Turkey at the Crossroads: The Last Referendum and its Implications” on October 6, 2010. Başkan’s talk focused on how the September 12, 2010, referendum in Turkey left the country at the crossroads of choice. Did Turkey move towards a more liberal democracy or towards religious authoritarianism? The decision to vote “yes” or “no” was considered to be a decision between “Islamism” and “secularism” in Turkey, he argued.

The 2010 referendum mainly revolved around making constitutional changes to the judiciary and the outcome was that “21 million people said ‘yes’ and 15 million people said ‘no.’ So, the referendum was in favor of the amendments introduced by the Justice and Development party,” Başkan said.

These changes are historically significant. Exactly thirty years ago, the professor said, “the 1980 military coup in Turkey left incredible scars on Turkish historical memory:” The parliament and various political parties were closed down, and political leaders were arrested, expelled, tortured, and killed. During that turbulent time, “the Turkish military destroyed all the societal networks – the leftist and the nationalist groups in Turkey – and, unintentionally, prepared the ground for Islamic revivalism.” As a result of the coup d’état, the 1982 constitution was enshrined, which, Başkan argued, “established the foundation of the contemporary political system in Turkey.”

The agenda regarding the establishment of the constitution, according to Başkan, had two basic objectives: “to insulate the high echelons of the state against political influence and to set boundaries around political action and discourse.” In order to achieve these, the government played a secondary role in making appointments. For example, “In making military appointments, military promotions, and military expulsions, the government was a junior partner of the supreme military council,” he said. The constitutional court could thus act with impunity and had closed down 21 political parties, which is a record in Europe.

The problem with this type of a governance structure is that it lacks democratic legitimacy and so “the judiciary does not feel obliged to follow what the society wants, but only serve the higher interest of the state.” As such, “the Turkish state in all high level appointments in the judiciary and the military is a self-regulating institution.” In other words, it has a democratic façade.

In 2007 there was a referendum that didn’t attract so much international media speculation. In this referendum, the people voted for Turkey to make a transition from a parliamentary system to a semi-presidential system where the public elects the president. Başkan argued that “the October 2007 referendum added considerable strength to the democratic legitimacy of the appointment system in Turkey by making the president popularly elected, and the September 12, 2010, referendum paved the way for the possibility of a broad sector of judges and prosecutors to rise to the top. This will dilute the ideological rigidity of the Turkish judiciary” and much more democracy-loving personnel can hopefully rise to the higher echelons of the country’s governance.

In conclusion, Başkan said that these reforms raised once again the question: “Where is Turkey heading?” Currently, “Turkey has made a huge leap towards liberal democracy,” but, he said, “this is not enough. Turkey should introduce stronger measures to improve freedoms and rights” such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion. For many years, the Turkish legal education system had been extremely successful in “training men of law who feel obliged to serve the state and the regime, not the society,” but in future, “Turkey needs to train democracy-loving and democracy-respecting generals, judges, prosecutors, and state university professors” in order to complete the transition towards becoming a full liberal democracy.

Başkan received a B.A. in International Relations and in Economics from Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey in 1998 and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Northwestern University in 2006. Başkan taught at State University of New York-Fredonia in 2006-2007 and at Qatar University in 2007-2010. His research looks at the roles religion, religious institutions, and grassroots religious groups play in creating, maintaining, undermining and destroying political order in the Middle East. He recently completed a book manuscript contracted to Syracuse University press. Currently, he works on several projects, one of which is a book project analyzing the role of religion in state and nation building in the Gulf. At SFS-Qatar, Başkan teaches courses on comparative politics, religion and politics, and methodology.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Mary Ann Tetreault on Education in the Gulf
2010-10-04 08:00 - 18:00
Mary Ann Tétreault, the 2010-2011 CIRS Visiting Scholar and the Una Chapman Cox Distinguished Professor of International Affairs at Trinity University in San Antonio, was invited to deliver the October CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture on the subject “Who Am I? International Education and Identity in the Gulf.”

The lecture was based on the phenomenon of transplanting foreign universities – particularly from the United States – into the Gulf. Tétreault pointed out that there were two interesting aspects to the American education model that has been established in many Gulf states. The first aspect is that “the model that is being transplanted to the Gulf is a model that Americans seem to have backed off from – it’s too expensive.” In America, high quality education is not something that is provided for all; many connect higher education solely to jobs rather than to human development, and see higher education as wasteful as job prospects for graduates decline while salaries and benefits shrink. The second aspect revolves around the question of compatibility. Tétreault asked: “How compatible are the values of American education with societies in the Gulf? And how can we get some compatibility between what is a questioning and interrogating educational philosophy and one where people memorize, accept, and have a much stricter view.”

During her research, Tétreault argued that she first had to gauge people’s expectations of universities and educational systems. Students attend university for a variety of different academic and social reasons; university faculty have certain expectations of their students; and the public too is an important stakeholder. Traditionally, “universities are funded by taxpayers and by the public in general and so the public has expectations too – what are these kids learning? Are they going to be able to graduate and go out and get jobs? Will they contribute to the growth of our society?”

Tétreault’s research focused on the American University of Kuwait (AUK), where she taught and conducted focus groups and interviews with students, faculty, and administrators for four months in spring 2010. Using AUK as her case study, the main research question that structured her project was “What is the contribution of these American universities to education in the Gulf?” At AUK, Tétreault observed that there was a great deal of negotiation that took place between the American values of the university and the Kuwaiti cultural mores that existed in the broader society. She noted that there was a significant amount of friction between these two ideals. Other contentious issues between American and Kuwaiti values center on questions of censorship; gender; and academic freedom and autonomy.

Tétreault concluded by saying that there are serious compatibility issues between the effects of an American-style education and the Gulf society it is being transplanted into. Long-term issues such as the question of academic freedom, censorship, and the role of women in society are just some of the cultural clashes that are occurring and may have long-term effects in the future. In her findings, Tétreault did, however, observe that AUK does display many features of American education that are valuable to students and the larger community. For example, faculty devotes a significant amount of time to students, and there is a great deal of attention paid to student development. Tétreault concluded that the students who go to AUK do internalize American values: “they think they should be independent, they think they should be autonomous, and they think they should be able to go out into the economy” and find opportunities as Kuwaitis who are both American-trained and compatible with their own society.

Mary Ann Tétreault’s publications include books and articles about democratization, social movements, gender, oil markets, war crimes, international political economy, world politics, and American foreign policy. Her regional focus is the Gulf, with an emphasis on Kuwait about which she has written many articles and two books, The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and the Economics of the New World Order and Stories of Democracy: Politics and Society in Contemporary Kuwait. Her forthcoming co-edited book, Political Change in the Arab Gulf States: Stuck in Transition, is scheduled to be published in December.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, Publications Coordinator

Professor Westbrook Lectures on Education and Market Transition in Viet Nam
2010-08-30 08:00 - 18:00
On August 30, 2010, Daniel Westbrook, an economics professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, delivered the August CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture on the topic of “Education and Market Transition in Viet Nam.” Westbrook first traveled to Viet Nam in 1993 to spend a semester teaching at the National Economics University in Hanoi under a program sponsored by the Ford Foundation; he returned to the Ford Foundation program during the 1995–1996 academic year. Professor Westbrook also spent a year at the Fulbright Economics Training Program in Ho Chi Minh City during 2001–2002. More recently, he worked on Viet Nam as a “case study for looking at the effects of marketization on returns to education.” This is an ongoing research project that centers on the question: “How has the payoff to education evolved during Viet Nam’s market transition?”

To provide context for his research, Westbrook explained the role of education in the economic development process. “The traditional view of economic development,” he said “describes a process where labor moves from agricultural activities to industrial activities.” Historically, policies based on this view tended to focus on heavy industry. Westbrook also described a more modern definition of economic development which gives a central role to human capital and “acquisition of increasingly sophisticated and productive ways of competing.” This model, he said, “envisions a world where developing countries’ abilities to compete in world markets depend very much on their acquisition of human capital.” Westbrook cited the role education played in producing the rapid economic growth the Asian tiger economies experienced in the latter part of the 20th century.

At the beginning of its transition period, Viet Nam was on the verge of starvation. Even though Viet Nam has enjoyed GDP growth rates of 7–8 % per year for over two decades, it remains very poor and there is much room for economic development to occur. Viet Nam’s education policies have been advancing along ambitious goals to support further development. “In order for people to invest in education,” Professor Westbrook explained, “they have to have an incentive.” It is generally understood that “education gives you access to better jobs and higher wages,” but this assumes the existence of labor markets sophisticated enough to compensate workers for their educational attainments. Viet Nam’s market transition experience provides an opportunity to examine the effect of improving markets on the returns to education. At the beginning of the transition period jobs were administratively allocated and market returns to education were weak. During the late 1980s, Viet Nam began its transition to a market-oriented economy. Professor Westbrook documented the degree to which greater labor market depth generated higher returns to education.

Professor Westbrook’s statistical work indicates that the impact of education in Viet Nam is substantial and significant. Moreover, the impact is larger where labor market depth is greatest. Thus, he concluded, “education pays off in a big way and this indicates a very strong incentive to acquire additional schooling or to invest in the schooling of one’s children.”

Daniel Westbrook received his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 1978 and joined the faculty at Georgetown at that time. He joined the School of Foreign Service in Qatar in 2008. His current research interests focus on applied micro-econometrics in economic development and on Vietnam. Professor Westbrook regularly teaches micro-economic principles, international trade, globalization, environmental economics, economic statistics and econometrics.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator.

View the presentation from lecture below:

Education and Economic Transition in Viet Nam 1993 -2006 from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

Imam Feisal Lectures on Moderate Islam
2010-08-24 08:00 - 18:00
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a prominent Muslim leader in the United States and Chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, visited Qatar during a trip to the region sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. He was invited to the Georgetown University in Qatar campus on August 24, 2010, to talk about “Moderate Islam, the Muslim Community in America, and Inter-Faith Dialogue.” Mehran Kamrava, Interim Dean of GU-Qatar, introduced the Imam as a “peace-builder” and welcomed the audience “in the spirit of dialogue, discussion, and discourse;” pillars of Georgetown University’s mission in Washington, DC, and Qatar.

The Imam said that the Cordoba Initiative was a means of bridging U.S.-Muslim relations. He noted that a major initial task was to unpack these binary oppositional terms to reveal complexities at the heart of the problem between the “West” and the “Muslim world.” The “West,” he said, is much more than a geographical location; it is a political and ideological projection that has very real and long-lasting impacts on the world. As such, “bridging the divide between Islam and the West involves unpacking the sources of the problem, and looking at the opportunities that can be made.” The Imam argued that there is a misperception that Islam-West relations will take generations to fix, but, he said, “I am convinced that the so-called tension and polarization between the West as the United States, or the West at large and the Muslim world, can be fixed in a ten-year time-span if there is the will to do it and the resources put behind it.”

The causes of the divide can be analyzed in different ways, but the Imam identified four basic sources of the problem. The first of these is rooted in global political conflicts such as Israel-Palestine, U.S.-Iran relations, and the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. The second revolves around a rapidly changing demographic occurring primarily in Europe, where Muslim populations are rapidly increasing. Imam Feisal argued that “because the native populations are declining, there is a sense that the identity make-up of the society is undergoing some permanent shift.” Thirdly, there are fundamental problems that arise as a result of theological interpretation and jurisprudence, where the West believes in secularism in direct opposition to how Muslim political communities are formed. Further, there are fundamental differences related to gender relations. These issues present challenges in the United States as well as Europe. Fourthly, the Imam argued that there are general misrepresentations of the ‘other.’ “The perception of each side is another issue where the media plays a profound role.” In the interest of a perceived fairness, the media usually polarizes issues further by insisting on two opposing sides to each issue. Not only this, the media – both the news and entertainment media – also tends to emphasize negative factors that generate equally negative reactions among audiences.

In conclusion, in order to solve these divisive issues, Imam Feisal argued that the resolutions must be “context specific” and that there is an urgent “need to look at the architecture of power” as Muslims living in the United States need to improve their understanding regarding how the country is structured. Therefore, he argued “it is important to understand how decisions are made, and to be engaged in that process.”

Imam Feisal is the chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, an independent, non-partisan and multi-national project that works with state and non-state actors to improve Muslim-West relations. In this capacity, he directs projects that aim to heal conflict between Islamic and Western communities by developing youth leadership, empowering women, and engaging Islamic legal scholars in addressing the implications of contemporary Islamic governance. In 1997, he founded the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), the first Muslim organization committed to bringing American Muslims and non-Muslims together through programs in academia, policy, current affairs, and culture. As Imam of Masjid al-Farah, a mosque located twelve blocks from Ground Zero in New York City, he preaches a message of understanding between people of all creeds. Additionally, Imam Feisal sits on the Board of Trustees of the Islamic Center of New York and serves as an advisor to the Interfaith Center of New York.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator.

The Nuclear Question in the Middle East Working Group I
2010-05-23 08:00 - 2010-05-24 18:00
On May 23–24, 2010, a two-day working group meeting in Doha, Qatar took place, CIRS invited a group of scholars to discuss the “Nuclear Question in the Middle East.” The presentations took several different approaches ranging from theoretical deliberations, to practical implications, to historical narratives. During the course of the meeting, the scholars noted that it was important to define the terms in use, including the difference between nuclear exploration, nuclear acquisition, and nuclear energy options, as there are fundamental differences between these various programs. Although alluding to the constant overshadowing threat of a weapons program, civilian nuclear energy programs do not directly imply such a drastic development.

After giving situational and historical analysis, the scholars analyzed past, current, and future concerns regarding countries that have, or seek to acquire, nuclear capabilities. The participants talked about macro decision-making in relation to securitization across borders, and also analyzed how the individual characteristics of a state’s leader can influence a country’s abstinence from, or embracing of, a nuclear weapons program. As such, they relayed a direct correlation between domestic politics and the decision to go nuclear. In relation to regional politics, GCC states face a nuclear opponent in Iran and so may acquire nuclear capabilities as a direct response to this threat. Apart from the issue of securitization, the GCC states, although rich in hydrocarbons, have presented a strong case for why there is need for nuclear energy infrastructures as a means of engaging the global economy. The petrochemical industry in the Gulf is an intensively high-energy one that needs sources other than hydrocarbon, and these countries have the capacity and capital costs for making this happen

Among other issues discussed during the meeting were matters related to global security, regional mistrust, the prestige of gaining nuclear capabilities, and the role of NGOs and civil society groups in pressuring governments to abstain from nuclear energy initiatives. The scholars compared the domestic politics and the international relations for nuclear weapons acquisition. The participants also questioned the extent to which a single government can control such long-term and multi-institutional projects over decades.

The format of CIRS working group research initiatives is to convene two or three working group meetings a year to complete a variety of research projects. The first meeting is an introductory and brainstorming session where the scholars discuss the parameters of the initiative, offer themes and areas of research, and deliberate original questions and problems. The scholars then take the shared information and begin writing draft research papers, which are circulated among the group prior to the second meeting. At a subsequent meeting, scholars critique each other’s papers and offer possible alternatives for research. Towards the conclusion of the project, the papers are refined and then collected into an edited volume titled The Nuclear Question in the Middle East (Columbia University Press/Hurst, 2012).

Click here for the working group’s agendaClick here for the participants’ biographies Read more about this research initiative

Participants and Discussants:

Zahra Babar, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarKai-Henrik Barth, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarKayhan Barzegar, Center for Middle East Strategic Studies; Islamic Azad University; Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International AffairsAlvin Chew, Gulf Research CenterAvner Cohen, Woodrow Wilson International Center for ScholarsJohn T. Crist, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMehran Kamrava, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMustafa Kibaroğlu, Bilkent UniversityThomas W. Lippman, Council on Foreign Relations and Middle East InstituteGiacomo Luciani, Gulf Research Center FoundationMari Luomi, Finnish Institute of International AffairsSuzi Mirgani, CIRS, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in QatarMaria Rost Rublee, University of AucklandEtel Solingen, University of California, Irvine

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator

Fred Lawson Lectures on Alternative Explanations for U.S. Policy in the Gulf
2010-05-13 08:00 - 18:00
On May 13, 2010, Fred Lawson, Professor of Government at Mills College and the 2009-2010 CIRS Senior Fellow, gave a CIRSFocused Discussion on the topic of “Alternative Explanations for U.S. Policy in the Gulf” to a group of Qatar-based diplomats, embassy staff, and Georgetown University in Qatar faculty. The lunch talk was held at the Four Seasons hotel in Doha.

Lawson’s lecture delivered an academic overview of American foreign policy toward the Gulf region. He noted that while diplomats and politicians around the world “are busy carrying out the practice of diplomacy and the practice of international relations, there is a whole army of scholars sitting at colleges and universities in the United States trying to understand what is going on and trying to explain international relations.”

Lawson stated that “American foreign policy toward the Gulf has changed dramatically over the last three decades.” From the 1940s to the 1980s, the American presence, especially its military presence, in the region remained minimal and unobtrusive, but during the 1990s, this situation was spectacularly altered and the American military presence became a major feature of many Gulf states. The U.S. presence was not only larger, but also more overt, and culminated in large-scale military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

American scholars, Lawson said, have tried to explain this dramatic shift by proposing three different theses. The first of these, and the most widely accepted, is that “the United States is trying hard to solve problems of security in a world that has no overarching authority structure,” and so acts in its own self interest. This explanation is often called a “realist perspective,” and assumes that most, if not all, aspects of U.S. foreign policy represent a response to changes in the strategic circumstances in which the country finds itself due to changes in world affairs. From this perspective, in order to understand American policy toward the Gulf, there needs to be an analysis of international events that have led to a larger U.S. military presence in the region. Lawson said that a common explanation is that “during the 1990s, both Iraq and Iran had the capability to disrupt oil supplies to the international market,” thereby threatening U.S. interests and prompting greater military engagement in the region. But, he cautioned, there are far more compelling reasons for the activation of regional U.S. military engagement, including the strategic rivalry between the United States on one hand and the People’s Republic of China, India and Japan for influence in Central Eurasia and the steady weakening of U.S. dominance in the international economy.

The second explanation for U.S. policy emphasizes the United States’s unique ideological and historical characteristics, or “strategic culture.” This explanation, Lawson said, assumes that “the U.S. respects the principles of limited and representative government, values the individual liberties of citizens, and believes that the market offers the best way to organize the economy.” Therefore, policy toward the Gulf is fundamentally shaped by these concerns. During the 1980s and 1990s, both Iran’s and Iraq’s authoritarian governing structures represented forms of rule that were directly antithetical to the United States’s liberal principles and values. As a result, Lawson argued, “the United States conceives of itself as having an obligation to bring the advantages of limited government and market economies to others.”

The third, and final, outlook characterizes America as an empire that is interested in expanding territorial control and cultural influence around the world. This is a different notion of “empire” from the traditional one, Lawson said, in that, in the Gulf as in other areas of the world, “the U.S. is invited to take responsibility” in order to establish regional orderliness. The decentralized global U.S. military presence reflects the peculiar command structure of the American armed forces, which consists of a “network of regional commands around the world,” he said.

In conclusion, Lawson argued that these three explanations are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but that different aspects of American foreign policy can be linked to each of these lines of argument.

Article by Suzi Mirgani, CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Herbert Howe on Dilemmas of Humanitarian Military Intervention in Africa
2010-05-03 08:00 - 18:00
Herb Howe, Visiting Associate Professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar and expert in African military conflicts, presented his lecture, “Boots on the Ground, Eyes on the Sky: Dilemmas of Military Humanitarian Intervention in Africa” on May 3, 2010 in the final CIRS Monthly Dialogue of the 2009-2010 academic year. In addition to his two decades teaching at Georgetown University, Dr. Howe spent time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria and worked for both the U.S. government and as a consultant for NGO’s. He is the author of a book on African militaries entitled Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States.

Focusing on the tangled moral and political implications of armed peacekeeping efforts from a largely American perspective, Howe enumerated the complicating factors that must be considered when launching a humanitarian mission, including the forces of public opinion and concerns for the preservation of national sovereignty. “Boots on the ground” versus “eyes on the sky” served throughout the talk as a metaphor for the change in the prevailing ideology of peacekeeping on the continent. The former refers to an on-the-ground troops and equipment approach to assistance seen in the American efforts in Somalia in the 1990s and in various UN peacekeeping missions in Africa such as MONUC in the Democratic Republic of Congo, while the latter reflects the shift towards the training of African soldiers and sharing of satellite and intelligence capabilities in lieu of the deployment of troops to troubled regions.

Howe pointed to the issue of sovereignty as the foremost challenge in an international intervention of any kind, calling it one of the most fundamental principles of the modern nation-state.

“It is a Pandora’s Box if you start messing around with sovereignty,” he said, observing that once nations or organizations interfere in the domestic activities of states, complicated questions of the rights of governments versus responsibility to humanity arise. The violation of national sovereignty by Western powers is an especially touchy issue in Africa, where bloody battles for independence remain fresh in many minds. In situations of humanitarian intervention, outside action is justified by the idea that, according to Howe, “If you don’t act responsibly, we have the right to come in against your will and change the situation and help the people.”

The idea of a humanitarian intervention for the sake of national interest was also explored, with Howe posing the question of whether or not the spread of certain values was reason enough for an intervention.“Should this be part of our national interest,” he asked, “to safeguard these values not just for Americans and Canadians but for people around the world? Are they universal rights that people have?”

Howe also delved into the impact of domestic politics on international humanitarian interventions, pointing to the impact of negative American public opinion during the war in Vietnam and Somalia, and raised the controversial idea of allowing a war to run its own course, theorizing “war will kill a lot of people, but once that war finishes you may have a better, more durable, peace than if you try to intervene. Intervention gives people a chance to reload, it may prolong the suffering, and the post-conflict situation will be more problematic.”

To close his talk, Howe offered scenarios on what future military humanitarian interventions in Africa might look like, focusing largely on the development of an African Standby Force, consisting of soldiers from nations around the continent but aided by Western countries. Already, he pointed out, the United States has trained around 70,000 African soldiers and is offering intelligence and technological support. Because African countries have more at stake in conflicts in their own region, Howe said, there is a greater chance that their interventions will be more successful that Western-led attempts: “We’re giving them the specialized skills and they’re contributing what we don’t have—political will and commitment.”

Despite the promise that such cooperative military humanitarian interventions hold, Howe surmised that dilemmas would continue to arise, largely centered around the troubling question of whether or not Western governments would be able to ensure the responsible use of their military technology.

“Once you transfer that technology you may lose control over how it is used,” Howe said. “Is this helping the solution or leading to greater problems?

Professor Howe became interested in the topic of Africa when he served with the U.S. Peace Corps in Nigeria during the Biafra war. He subsequently freelanced in southern Africa during the liberation wars for the Philadelphia Inquirer and then taught “African Militaries” at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service for twenty years. Author of “Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States,” he holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Article by Clare Malone. Malone is a Student Affairs Officer at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar.

Mehran Kamrava International Lecture
2010-04-26 08:00 - 18:00
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, Dean Mehran Kamrava speaks about “A 2020 vision of the Middle East”

Click here to download an MP3 of Kamrava’s speech

In its inaugural International Lecture, CIRS travelled to the Kingdom of Bahrain on April 26, 2010, to offer insights and dialogue with people in the neighboring GCC state. In this unique Public Affairs Program, CIRS emphasized the objective of providing a forum for exchange of ideas with other communities in the Gulf region and beyond. The distinguished speaker, Mehran Kamrava, was introduced to the audience by GU-Qatar Alumna Haya Al Noaimi.

Kamrava is Interim Dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies. He lectured on the topic of “A 2020 Vision of the Middle East,” where he introduced and analyzed several key trends he sees that have the ability to shape the future of the Middle East over the next ten years. Kamrava said that, “as students of the Middle East, and as citizens of the region, often times we dwell on the past.”

Outlining the evening’s lecture, the four primary areas that Kamrava focused on were related to 1) the nature of the state that currently exists across the Middle East; 2) the role and the nature of the relationship between the United States and the region; 3) the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and 4) trends occurring in the Gulf region, including the events unfolding in Iran and Iraq.

Turning to the first area of discussion, or “the state of the state” in the Middle East, Kamrava argued that there are a number of different political dynamics that are currently being played out in the international arena. There are a number of different state formations and governance models that range between the democratic, the non-democratic, and the many other models in between these two opposing spectrums. In the Middle East, there are democratic models of governance that vary in their viability and vibrancy; “some democracies are somewhat more cosmetic, or at least have much more limited political parameters around them – you might call them pseudo democracies,” of which Turkey, Israel, and Lebanon are good examples, Kamrava said.

The Middle East also has several states that are non-democratic as they attempt to exclude the public from any political participation through the instrumentalization of repressive mechanisms. There are other political systems in the region that are thoroughly non-democratic, but try to appear democratic. Many of these non-democracies, Kamrava argued, “try to be inclusionary and inclusive insofar as the population is concerned – the streets become democratic theaters.”

Discussing the United States’ relationship to the region, Kamrava argued that since WWII, there have been four primary features that have guided American foreign policy towards the Middle East. These include, guaranteeing the safety and security of the state of Israel; guaranteeing access to Middle Eastern oil at reasonable prices; containing regional threats to American interests across the region; and, “after the Cold War – or once Iraq invaded Kuwait – there was a fourth aspect and that was to station military forces in the region directly because regional allies, at least insofar as the United States saw them, turned out to be unreliable for American policy calculations,” Kamrava argued. Expounding upon American military presence in the Middle East, he said that if one looks at a map, it becomes clear that “across the Middle East, there is a very strong American presence” in the form of large and easy to mobilize military bases. To this effect, Kamrava said, “the big question is: does it look like, at any time in the foreseeable future, even in the next ten years, the American military is going to disengage from the Middle East?”

These features of American foreign policy, Kamrava said, are instrumental to the third area of discussion regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “America’s alliance with Israel is certainly key in the way that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has unfolded historically and also currently,” he said. Projecting his views on the situation, Kamrava said that “as we move forward, we can see a continuation of this unending ‘peace process,’” especially in light of the encroachment of illegal Israeli settlements and rapidly increasing population growth. With this knowledge in mind, and by looking at the sobering facts on the ground, he posed an uncomfortable question to the audience by asking “does it still make sense to talk about a Palestine?”

Looking into the future, Kamrava posed three possible models for what future political turns Palestine might take. The first of these is the “Tibetan model,” where Palestine’s objective to be an officially recognized sovereign state all but disappears as it becomes subsumed under Israel. In this model, “although there is a Palestinian identity, there will not be a Palestinian state,” Kamrava explained. The second and opposite possibility is for Palestine to take on the “East European” or “Central Asian” model, which is for it to emerge as a distinct state in the future. The third, and final, model is for Palestine to become a disparate amalgam of reservations and entities that are landlocked and isolated from one another with little economic and political power.

Finally, turning to the Gulf region, Kamrava projected that, politically, “I don’t think much is going to change, at least insofar as states are concerned” in the GCC, but it is very difficult to predict what will happen in Iran over the next few years. He added that “the regional superpowers [Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt] are not going to be as dominant in dictating regional foreign policy.” Indeed, “we will see a continued ascendance in the economics of the Gulf region, particularly smaller countries like Bahrain and Qatar.” The region will see a new set of powers that, because of their economic wealth, policy agility, and elite cohesion, will become more prominent in shaping the future of the GCC, the Middle East, and beyond.

In conclusion, Kamrava summed up his prognosis for the Middle East of 2020 by saying that “what we will continue to see in the region are American ‘footprints,’” in the form of U.S. military bases, as well as “a continued domination of Israel.” He also noted that “I don’t think there is going to be a wave of democracy sweeping across the region and that is because oil-based economies will continue to exist throughout the region.” As a final thought, Kamrava said that he was optimistic that we will see “the continued enrichment of human capacity and human capital in every country of the Middle East.”

Dr. Mehran Kamrava is Interim Dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar and Director of Georgetown’s Center for International and Regional Studies. He is an expert in comparative politics, political development, and Middle Eastern politics. He is the author of nine books, including, most recently, Iran’s Intellectual Revolution and The Modern Middle East: A Political History Since the First World War.

Article by Suzi Mirgani. Mirgani is the CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Robert Fisk on Western Journalism and the Middle East
2010-04-20 08:00 - 18:00
Robert Fisk, award-winning journalist and Middle East Correspondent for The Independent newspaper, gave the annual faculty-appointed Distinguished Lecture on April 20, 2010 on the subject of “State of Denial: Western Journalism and the Middle East.” GU-Qatar student Amna Al-Thani introduced Fisk to a capacity audience of 800 guests at the Four Seasons Hotel in Doha.

Fisk began by noting that on September 11, 2001, he was contacted by various news agencies who repeatedly asked him “who did it?” This, he said, was very telling of the state of Western journalism as they would not ask the obvious question of “why did this happen?” Fisk argued that “when you have an ordinary crime on the street, the first thing the police do is look for a motive. But when we had an international crime against humanity in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, the one thing journalists were not supposed to do was look for a motive.”

In today’s terror driven discourse, Fisk said, delving into the background historical reasons for why such attacks happen is considered synonymous with an apology for terrorist activity. This is challenging because it would open up a problematic discourse that questions the relationship between the United States, the Arab world, and Israel.

In Western journalism, Fisk argued, “what we were confronting, especially in the United States, was the parasitic, osmotic relationship between journalists and power.” Because the United States administration refers to the Israeli “occupied territories” as “disputed territories” and the Israeli “wall” is referred to as a “security barrier,” this language is picked up by the popular press and becomes the sanitized language of journalism. “By failing to use the real words, we de-semanticize the conflict,” said Fisk. “Through our journalistic cowardice, we make it easier for those who suffer to become the aggressors and those who are the occupiers to become the victims,” he argued. Journalists become complicit in conflicts when they subscribe to this type of reporting.

The worst example of this sanitization of conflict is television, where producers will not allow scenes of death or violence, thus concealing the reality of war from the public. Viewers of television in the West are not given the opportunity to see for themselves the effect of wars. Fisk argued that “our leaders, all of whom at the moment have zero experience of real war – the journalists do, but not our leaders in the West – they are able to present to the public war as a bloodless sandpit, war as something primarily to do with victory and defeat rather than death.”

Currently, Fisk argued, there is a wall of fortresses that divide the world into West and East. There are British, US, and Western European military posts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Tajikistan, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, as well as in a variety of other strategically located regions. “It’s a kind of iron curtain across the Middle East,” he said.

Western governments say that they want to export democracy, but, Fisk argued, the voices on the other side say they want nothing more than justice. Currently, the enemies of the Western world are predominantly Islamist. He said that “we don’t even largely reflect upon what I suspect is one of the principle frustrations that exist in this region: that Muslims have kept their faith and we have not.” He continued by saying, “what has happened is that a people who have kept their faith are now largely dominated socially, economically, politically, and, usually, militarily, by a people who have lost their faith. How do you explain that to yourselves?”

In conclusion, Fisk said: “I think the West should always be encouraged to send its teachers, and its educators, its builders, its engineers, its bridge-builders, and its scientists to the Muslim world, to learn as well as to help and teach. But, militarily, we have no business being in the Muslim world.”

Earlier in the day, Fisk was invited to the GU-Qatar campus to speak informally to a group of faculty, students, and staff. He answered questions related to the effects of technology on journalism.

A prominent journalist and the Middle East Correspondent for The Independent in the UK, Robert Fisk has won numerous press awards for his work including being named the British International Journalist of the Year seven times and receiving the Amnesty International UK Press Award twice. He has lived in the Middle East for over 30 years, and has reported on the 1979 Iranian revolution, the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the Sabra and Chatila massacre, the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. He is one of a few western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden, which he has done three times, and is also a best-selling author, whose books include The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East and Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War. Robert Fisk holds a PhD in politics from Trinity College Dublin and holds 12 honorary degrees from other universities.

Article by Suzi Mirgani. Mirgani is the CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Michael Nelson Lectures on Preparing for the Next Digital Revolution
2010-04-12 08:00 - 18:00
In partnership with ictQatar, on April 12, 2010, CIRS organized a Distinguished Lecture featuring Michael Nelson, Visiting Professor of Internet Studies in Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture, and Technology Program. Nelson, an expert in the areas of business, culture, and technology, lectured to an audience of 450 people on “The Cloud, the Exaflood, and the Internet of Things–Preparing for the Next Digital Revolution.” Nelson gave an overview of the future of the internet by delving into the policy, technology, and business decisions that are shaping how the technology will be used.

Nelson drew on his experiences working for the United States government, and his contribution to the Obama campaign specifically, by highlighting the strategic use of words in order to make or break certain initiatives. Language, he said, can be used tactically to shape policy decisions. In order to think about the future of computing and the internet, Nelson shared with the audience, eleven key words that sum up the discourse. The first word that he offered was “people,” and this, he said, “is the most important word because it is what defines how technology develops.” The development of new hardware and software used in computing is growing at an accelerated rate and is surpassing the pace at which people are learning to use these technologies. Currently, there is a growing gap between the progress of new technologies and the people able to operate them.

The second word Nelson offered was “vision,” and this referred to what kind of future people foresee for technology. He argued that “we are entering the third phase in the development of the internet, and this phase is as profound, revolutionary, and transformational as the World Wide Web was ten or fifteen years ago.” This next phase is only just now being defined; “over the next two or three years, we are going to make critical decisions about how the internet evolves and how it is used,” Nelson argued. Importantly, decisions made in the business sector will either open up new possibilities or curtail existing ones.

Through the third word, “Cloud,” the cost of technologies has been lowered significantly. “The ‘cloud,’” Nelson said, “is really a different way of doing computing” that developed out of academia and research institutions that needed to store large quantities of data remotely. Cloud computing involves outsourcing to a third party or provider. Organizations like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are at the leading edge of the development of this technology.

Nelson’s fourth word was “game changer,” which emphasizes how these new cloud computing services will radically change the way computing is done. The first phase of computing was based on the notion of individual computers working independently of others based on software and data, the second phase developed when computers were plugged into the web giving access to the world, and the third and current phase is the cloud, which means that individual computers do not have to be tied down to their own software and data, but can operate remotely by accessing data from other computers. This new mode of operation is defined by Nelson’s fifth word: “Many-to-many.”

Nelson’s sixth offering was the word “things,” which referred to the sharp increase in technological applications and gadgets. He said that “it’s not just about computers and people anymore; it’s about a hundred billion devices.” Indeed, Nelson said “today, about one and a half million PCs and a few hundred million smart phones plug into the internet.” Because of these tools, we are now dealing with an “exaflood.” This is the seventh prominent word in Nelson’s lecture, and refers to the huge increase in the amount of data available on the internet. “We all know what a megabyte is, and a gigabyte, but if you take a billion gigabytes, you get an ‘exabyte,’ Nelson remarked.

This increase in the amount of raw data led to Nelson’s eighth word “collaboration,” which refers to how people can work together to make sense of it. “Social media is, of course, one of the leading edge applications for enabling new types of collaboration. For a lot of people in their teenage years, Twitter and Facebook are actually replacing e-mail,” he said. This is inspiring ‘crowd sourcing,’ which is a means of rallying people from all over the world to sort data. “In the last twenty years, we have gone from having a scarcity of data to having an overwhelming amount of data,” Nelson explained. In fact, “the reason President Obama is in the White House is because of these technologies and because of the ‘cloud’ […] The campaign used social media to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people to get them involved in the campaign and to get millions of people to give money,” he said.

“Consumerization” was Nelson’s ninth word, and defines the upgrade of digital technologies in the workplace as people begin to blend their work and home technologies. “This is the trend we see now where people are bringing into the workplace incredibly sophisticated tools and software applications that they use at home,” such as social media capabilities, he said.

The tenth word was “predictions,” and refers to a vision of what the internet will make possible in the near future. One of the predictions that Nelson offered was that “within five years, 80% of all computing and storage done worldwide could happen ‘in the cloud,’” but it is more likely that it will take a decade. Another prediction he suggested was that “within five years, 100 billion devices and sensors could be connected to the net,” but this too will most probably happen within ten years’ time. For these changes to happen there needs to be substantial changes in technological usage, cultural shifts, and policy implementations.

These necessary changes led to Nelson’s eleventh, and final, word, “policy.” He argued that “policy is often fifteen to twenty years behind the technology, and if that policy is not well designed, it can hold everything back. So, governments have a critically important role to play and I am very glad that Qatar, and the Qatari government, is focused on this.”

Concluding the lecture, Nelson gave three possible scenarios for the future of computing. The first of these is the ‘clouds scenario’ wherein a variety of organizations operate different forms of ‘clouds,’ using different technologies that are purposefully incompatible. The second is the ‘cloudy skies’ scenario where different organizations operate different technologies, but agree upon methods of interoperability. The third, and most desirable, possibility is the ‘blue skies’ scenario where different clouds, run by different organizations, all use common standards that make flexibility and interoperability the norm. Finally, Nelson said that “we are now less than 15% of the way through this incredible change” and so it is up to the users to demand the changes that they would like to see happen in the future.

Article by Suzi Mirgani. Mirgani is the CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Judith Tucker on Globalization 18th Century Style
2010-04-07 08:00 - 18:00
Judith Tucker, Professor of History at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar and former editor of the International Journal of Middle East Studies, gave the April 7, 2010 Monthly Dialogue lecture on the topic of “Globalization 18th Century Style: The Adventures of Salim the Algerine.”

Tucker introduced her biographical research on the elusive historical figure, Salim, and noted that the project was still in progress as she sifts through a variety of historical data, chronicles, travelogues, letters, among other eighteenth century materials in order to construct a narrative of the man’s life. Tracing records of Salim’s various forced and unforced journeys across the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, Tucker said that she was captivated by this extraordinary “drama of connections among far-flung regions and the displacement of what we might consider a hapless victim of globalization eighteenth century style.”

Tucker first came across Salim, who has gone down in the historical record as “Salim the Algerine,” by examining a collection of Appalachian tales and privately owned records. According to Tucker, the records tell of a man who was born the son of an Ottoman official and a local woman from Algiers. On his way home to Algiers from time spent studying in Istanbul, Salim was abducted by Spanish pirates in the western Mediterranean in the mid-eighteenth century, transferred to a French cargo vessel heading to the port of New Orleans, and then sold into slavery to work on a local plantation. Within a year, Salim escapes and flees northwards, only to be captured by the Shawnee in the Ohio valley. He escapes once more and comes close to perishing in the woods before he is rescued by an English settler on a hunting expedition. The English settler takes Salim in and lodges him at his home in West Virginia until he recovers his strength and learns enough English to tell his story and express his desire to return home to Algiers. His hosts sent him to Williamsburg, the local colonial capital, and he receives the patronage of local gentry, who help sponsor his repatriation, and he makes his way to London. At this point in the historical narrative, Salim disappears for a few years but resurfaces again back in Williamsburg after returning from time spent in Algiers. Tucker explains that he is now recorded as a changed man who has suffered great disappointments. He settles in Virginia, is again taken under the wing of the local gentry, and acquires the reputation of a harmless eccentric who hovered on the edge of sanity and then drifts into obscurity. “The story seems to have it all,” Tucker said, “piracy, slavery, captivity, and redemption.”

One chapter of the story that puzzled her, Tucker said, was “why Salim enjoyed a certain social success among the Virginia gentry.” The reason, she said, was probably due to the fact that Salim was well educated and had knowledge of Greek, which was a sign of gentry, elitism, and nobility.

Tucker noted that there is no doubt that Salim existed, but much of the story remains obscure and its truth may never be determined. She argued, however: “whether I find additional material about the historical Salim or not – and I’m still looking – I think that this is a story well worth telling, particularly for today’s audiences, because it brings the history of eighteenth century globalization into a different focus.” If globalization is “more the subject of multiple conversations than it is of systematic or fixed lines of contestation,” Tucker said, then globalization is not merely a modern-day phenomenon based on virtual networks of instantaneous communication and technological feats, but is evident through the global connectivities traced through stories such as that of Salim. “Historians,” she said, “have found globalization a useful concept for understanding longer-term transformations” and, indeed, “the eighteenth century was a very important period for shaping the global as we inhabit it today,” she said.

Globalization, Tucker argued, can be defined as having three broad dimensions. The first of these is material, which is defined by the physical movement of goods and people through increasingly efficient transportation systems that “shrink the globe.” The second dimension is what can be defined as the spatio-temporal, which refers to the intensity and speed of global connectivities enhanced by new infrastructures, institutions, and norms. The third is cognitive and cultural, which is defined by the flow of ideas, tastes, and desires into a global imaginary leading to “the dominant understandings of the design and destiny of the world as a whole.” But, Tucker said, it is important to note that “the globalization debate, in fact, to date, as has often been pointed out, is Eurocentric in a variety of ways. It has often been told as the story of European expansion at the expense of other perspectives.”

“Viewing the story of Salim through the lens of globalization,” Tucker argued, “lends nuance and complexity to the eighteenth century globalization narrative in all its dimensions – its material, spatial, temporal, and cultural.” Indeed, “the story of Salim is unthinkable outside of the global frame” she said. “If the phenomenon of globalization is about the physical movement of people and goods on a global scale, then Salim is surely an excellent example of both: a person who is transformed into a good and then catapulted out of his Mediterranean world into a global transatlantic space.” However, Tucker argued, the story complicates the norms of European expansion as “Salim was not incorporated into the global economic system as part of the established patterns of labor recruitment, but rather as the by-product of a struggle for regional control that has to do, ultimately, with the contested globalization of the Mediterranean.”

Tucker argued that “the complex situation in the Mediterranean in the time of Salim reminds us that the material patterns of globalization were established in ways more far more fluid, contested, and uncertain in outcome than we sometimes think.” She noted that “the Salim story of globalization is a far cry from the tale of the benign spread of Enlightenment ideas.” Rather, “it could be told as the story of a major displacement and marginalization of the cosmopolitan Arabo-Islamic heritage, to which Salim was an intellectual heir.”

During her research, Tucker encountered different versions of the Salim story, each re-told towards a specific cultural project. Over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the story becomes one of Salim’s conversion to Christianity and is tailored to fit within the specific “global imaginary” of the time, lending to enhanced dichotomies and conflict between Christianity and Islam. “The revised Salim story serves to bring him into line with what looks like a global imaginary of the spread of Christianity – an adjustment of the Salim story that signals a transition in the nineteenth century to a less eclectic and a more parochial engagement with the global,” Tucker concluded.

Judith Tucker (PhD, History and Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University) is Professor of History and former Editor of the International Journal of Middle East Studies.

Her research interests have focused on the Arab world in the Ottoman period, women and gender in Middle East history, and Islamic law, women, and gender. She is currently working on a project that explores globalization and the Middle East in the eighteenth century. She is the author of many publications on the history of women and gender in the Arab world.

Article by Suzi Mirgani. Mirgani is the CIRS Publications Coordinator.

Open-Sea Piracy in the Modern World: Perils and Prospects
2010-03-21 08:00 - 18:00
On March 21, 2010, CIRS convened a Panel presentation on the topic of “Open-Sea Piracy in the Modern World: Perils and Prospects.” The panel was made up of Pottengal Mukundan, Director of the International Maritime Bureau, Roger Middleton, Consultant Researcher working for the Africa Programme at Chatham House, and Daniele Archibugi, Research Director at the Italian National Research Council.

Click here to download an MP3 of Piracy Panels’ discussion

Pottengal Mukundan headed the panel presentations with an overview of the current situation regarding pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia. He reported on statistical data collected by the Piracy Reporting Center located in Kuala Lumpur. The Center compiles information on attacks against vessels and acts as a catalyst for governments to respond to the growing problem. Mukundan reported that in 2009, there were 406 attacks, 49 vessels hijacked, over 1,000 crew taken hostage, and 11 crew members killed. He argued that “in today’s world, this is unacceptable.” Because all types of vessels – large and small, commercial and private – have been attacked, Mukundan explained that, contrary to popular belief, ships are not being targeted in advance. These are opportunist attacks.

View the presentation from lecture below:

The Challenges of Piracy Today from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
“What we are seeing [in Somalia],” Mukundan said, “is an unprecedented criminal phenomenon.” As with any crime, unless there is a firm push-back, the criminals will extend the frequency and audacity of their attacks. Pirates are now ranging 1,000 nautical miles out to sea in their mother-boats and small vessels and are attacking much larger, and better equipped, ships and tankers. In many instances, these vessels are seized by the pirates and sailed back to the coast of Somalia where they are held until a ransom is paid. “These vessels are held for anywhere between six weeks and three months on average,” he said.

Mukundan argued that “the deterrent to crimes is usually enacted by the state. In Somalia, it is not possible because it is a failed state. There is no national law enforcement agency and there is no judicial system,” so taking action against these criminals has become very difficult, particularly when these criminals are bringing vast sums of money into the local economy. Much of this money provides revenue streams for local militias. He argued that what is needed in this situation is to try to change the risk/reward balance for the pirates. It is little wonder, Mukundan said, that the crimes are so rampant when the rewards are so great, the risks so negligible, and the economic outlook of Somalia so dire.

Apart from the problem of how to deter the pirates, there remains the problem of what to do with them after they are caught. There still needs to be better coordination between countries and law enforcement agencies regarding the criminal prosecution of pirates. Currently, Somalia has bilateral relations with Kenya, but Kenya has reached its capacity in this regard.

In conclusion, Mukundan argued that piracy is not just a governmental problem; it is a public problem because all commercial goods that people consume on a daily basis come via sea routes. Therefore, Mukundan said, there is good reason for all governments to allocate resources to deal with this very prevalent problem.

View the presentation from the lecture below:

Wy Somalia Works for Pirates from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Continuing the debate was the second panelist, Roger Middleton, who placed Somali piracy within a historical context and argued that the current situation is a result of the many failed political formations that the country has experienced. Middleton noted that although the problem of piracy is rampant in Somalia, “it is worth remembering that piracy is not, by a long distance, the biggest problem in Somalia, but it is a means of engaging the world’s attention on what is one of the most difficult political situations in Africa.” Piracy is just one example of the myriad political and structural deficiencies that Somalia faces.

The political, economic, and geographic conditions in Somalia create the ideal situation for pirates and criminal networks to thrive on a major naval trade corridor. Middleton explained that, since at least the 1970s, Somalia has been at war with itself and with its neighbors leaving 3.5 million people in desperate need of aid. This is compromised by criminal acts of piracy and corruption, and is further compounded by the fact that “external actors do not always have the best of intentions when they come into Somalia.” Indeed, Middleton argued, “the failure of the international community to effectively prevent illegal fishing in Somali waters certainly has fed into the hands of the pirates in terms of giving them an excellent public relations tool.”

The war in Somalia, Middleton argued, was originally an attempt to liberate the country from a dictator, but this quickly evolved into an economically-motivated warlord struggle. Currently, he said, the war has taken yet another turn and there are areas of Somalia that are being governed by groups like Al-Shabaab who aim to impose fundamentalist ideologies. These factions are further fueled by an abundance of easily available illegal weapons. Middleton said, “when the regime of Siad Barre fell in the beginning of the 1990s, the barracks and the armories were opened and onto the Somali market flooded hundreds of thousands of weapons.” Somalia has become one of the major entry points of illegal arms into Africa.

Middleton argued that it was important to point out that piracy is a criminal act and not one of terrorism, contrary to numerous media reports. The reason why piracy has become such a sensationalist media topic is because “there is real paucity of good intelligence about what is going on in Somalia,” and this has fed into the international community’s general fears about terrorism.

In conclusion, Middleton urged the international community to address the humanitarian and political problems in Somalia with just as much focus as it gives to piracy. “Piracy,” he said, “is just one example of what happens if you do nothing about Somalia’s internal problems.”

View the presentation from lecture below:

Pirates in the Gulf of Aden from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar
Daniele Archibugi concluded the panel with a presentation on how European countries view piracy and their responses to it. Archibugi noted that the social and cultural struggles taking place at the heart of the piracy debate are often forgotten by policy-makers who focus on the broader political and macro-economic implications, leaving little room to discuss the daily effects of piracy.

Somali piracy is interesting, Archibugi said, because the perpetrators are usually poor and disenfranchised people, not the organized criminal networks one would expect to pull off such daring feats against large commercial oil tankers. The political situation in Somalia has meant that the international community, made up of powerful states, utilizing modern warfare technologies such as satellites, weaponry, and navies, is rendered powerless in the face of a much lesser enemy. “It is surprising to see that the new holy alliance to fight 1,000 illiterate boys is so far unable to address the problem,” he said.

The international community’s inaction regarding the political situation in Somalia has generated a failed state, increased poverty, and the conditions which encourage piratical acts. The cost of this inaction, Archibugi explained, is far greater than the resources the business sector and tax payers spend in the United States and Europe to pay for navies to patrol the Gulf of Aden. Paying insurance premiums, hiring private security firms, and agreeing to ransoms do not solve the problem, but avoids it in order for daily business to continue. To skirt the problems of imposing international law on a failed state, ship owners and insurance companies have opted to settle matters privately with pirates. This is an option that is more profitable and preferable to European corporations in comparison to the drawn-out negotiations otherwise necessary to solve the problem in the long-term.

Currently, Archibugi argued, both piracy and war crimes could potentially be treated as part of the same universal jurisdiction discourse. He said, “in my view, and according to my scale of values, I would nominate war crimes as a far greater crime than piracy. I would like to see […] that the same rules and the same legal procedures applied to pirates are applied to war criminals.” Archibugi continued by saying, that the reason why all the international community’s energies’ are focused on piracy and not war criminals is because “war criminals are the powerful and the pirates are the powerless.”

Because piracy is a crime that has garnered much media interest, the international community pays close attention to what happens to the pirates after they are caught. If the arresting country is European, it must insist that the pirates be tried fairly and placed in jails that meet European human rights standards. Archibugi argued that piracy has, therefore, opened up discussions about forcing pirate-receiving countries to better their standards and living conditions in jails. The legal frameworks for conducting such novel international trials, Archibugi said, have yet to be put into place. “Somali piracy tells us that global governance is very fragile,” he said.

Archibugi concluded by arguing that the problems of piracy should be addressed on land and not at sea. “At sea it is very difficult to trace them and it is very difficult to fight them, but not on land.” Indeed, he said, if the international community manages to help recreate a federal state in Somalia, it will eventually be possible to control the coast and eliminate piracy, and, above all, to provide a decent life to the Somali population.

Article by Suzi Mirgani. Mirgani is CIRS Publications Coordinator.
