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