Near and Middle Eastern Studies Commons^™

After Assad: Syria’S Post-Conflict Reconstruction, H. M. Roff

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Simon Adams and Condoleezza Rice warn us that with the portended fall of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, the country could witness even more heinous crimes and, potentially, regional political fallout. These worries are not unfounded. However, what seems to be truly missing in their discussions is any mention of post-conflict reconstruction planning. This is unfortunate, as much handwringing is still occurring over "what to do" in Syria, and it will continue until there is a clear vision of what to do after this civil war. Syria's post-conflict reconstruction plan is—or should be—inherently tied to its current operational agenda.

Yemen, Sheila Carapico

Political Science Faculty Publications

In February 2011, Tawakkol Karman stood on a stage outside Sanaa University. A microphone in one hand and the other clenched defiantly above her head, reading from a list of demands, she led tens of thousands of cheering, flag-waving demonstrators in calls for peaceful political change. She was to become not so much the leader as the figurehead of Yemen's uprising. On other days and in other cities, other citizens led the chants: men and women and sometimes, for effect, little children. These mass public performances enacted a veritable civic revolution in a poverty-stricken country where previous activist surges never …

English In Iranian Magazine Advertising, Robert J. Baumgardner, Kimberley Brown

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the thirty-two years since the Islamic Revolution occurred in Iran, economic and cultural globalization have affected the role of English in multiple domains in the country. Within the domain of advertising, shifts have occurred throughout the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Persian scholars have attributed the source of these shifts to tension between local and global identities and to shifts in government advertising policy. This paper explores a data set of 335 advertisements taken from magazines from the period 2006–2008. We contrast borrowings and language display and explore language use in the six parts of the advertisements. …

Weaponizing Tear Gas: Bahrain’S Unprecedented Use Of Toxic Chemical Agents Against Civilians., Richard Sollom, Holly G. Atkinson

Publications and Research

The Bahraini government’s response to the early 2011 pro-democracy protests was brutal, systematic, and violent. In addition to birdshot and rubber bullets, government law enforcement attacked unarmed protestors with toxic chemical agents including tear gas. The government’s crackdown on the medical profession was especially harmful, as security forces arrested and detained doctors, raided health facilities, and obstructed patients from receiving necessary care. This report’s findings are based on field research that the authors conducted in Bahrain (April 2012) to investigate excessive use of force by law enforcement officials since June 2011—the end of Bahrain’s state of emergency. The medico-legal team …

Under The Gun: Ongoing Assaults On Bahrain’S Health System, Richard Sollom, Holly G. Atkinson

Publications and Research

In February 2011, the Government of Bahrain began targeting health professionals who treated protesters. In April 2012, PHR's Richard Sollom, Deputy Director, and Holly Atkinson, MD, FACP, past President of PHR's Board and volunteer expert, authored a report showing the devastation on Bahrain's health system that have resulted from the Government of Bahrain’s continued assault on doctors, patients, and the healthcare system.

Reappraising The Land Behind Baghdad: Using Corona Satellite Imagery To Reassess The Archaeological Landscape Of The Diyala Plain, Iraq, James Henry Wesolowski

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

High-resolution low-cost declassified CORONA spy satellite imagery is used to detect archaeological sites and relict canals in the Diyala Plain to the east of Baghdad, Iraq. This project seeks to improve upon the ground survey conducted there in the 1950s by providing better geographic control and discovering sites and canals that were not included in the original survey. CORONA imagery provides a sub-2-meter spatial resolution and was acquired shortly after the original ground survey was conducted, providing an excellent medium for comparison. CORONA imagery is subject to significant spatial distortions because of its camera technology and the LPS package for …

Degrees Of Causality An Assessment Of Endogenous Contributors To Instability In Jordan, Syria, & Turkey, Gabriel Wilman

HIM 1990-2015

The political instability of the Middle East is often perceived to be derived primarily from the interaction of Middle Eastern nations with external forces; with significant emphasis placed upon the disruptive effects of modern colonialism and Westernization. While this study does not seek to directly contest the catalytic primacy of exogenous factors, it does seek to establish the necessary causality of pre-existing internal factors. Rather than approaching the situation from a linear causal perspective, this assessment is oriented around an interdisciplinary examination of confluent factors. By examining the political history, ethno sociology, and economy of the region, the analysis investigates …

Competing For Relevance: Iran's Internal Struggle To Define The Arab Spring, Laila Taraghi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the wake of the recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, political figures in Iran have offered competing claims of inspiration for the protests now spreading through the broader MENA region. This paper aims to compare the discourse of regime leaders to that of opposition activists, each seeking to frame current events in the region as a reflection of their particular aspirations and competing worldviews. Benford and Snow's literature on challenges facing movement adherents embroiled in contested framing processes will be employed as a means of highlighting some of the various obstacles to political transformation in the case of Iran. …

Geoarchaeology Of The Orontes River Floodplain Surrounding Tell Qarqur, Syria, Anna Flora Wieser

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project combines geoarchaeological soil description and GIS analysis of archaeological site distribution to investigate the history of marsh formation in the northern Ghab Basin, located within the Orontes River Valley of western Syria. Tell Qarqur, the archaeological site around which this project is focused, has a continuous occupational sequence throughout the Holocene. Annual inundation of the site by seasonal marshlands suggests that the marsh was either smaller or non-existent in the past, but its history remains unknown. The objectives of this investigation are to interpret the nature of depositional environments, particularly fluvial action, in the vicinity of Tell Qarqur, …

Minority Rights And Health Care Equity In Turkey, Katherine Logan '12

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Fraught With Zigzags: A Realist Examination Of Evolving Great Power-Iraeli Relations, Macy Ayers '12

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Playing Against The Rhythm: The Intersection Of Gender And Performative Space In Iran, Leila Rafei

Theses and Dissertations

Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, women have been legally prohibited from singing or playing a musical instrument solo in public. The government has sought to control women’s performative space by using concepts of permissibility and ideological compatibility. In the past decade, however, Iran has seen the birth of an underground music culture, in which women sing and play illegally. Underground and diasporic female musicians have carved new spaces that subvert state regulations on cultural purity and nationalism, deterritorializing and deconstructing notions of national space and culture. Women musicians have thus demonstrated the failure of the state to successfully regulate …

Delegitimizing Al-Qaeda: A Jihad-Realist Approach, Paul Kamolnick

ETSU Authors Bookshelf

Disrupting, dismantling, and ultimately defeating al-Qaeda based and inspired terrorism is a declared policy of the U.S. Government. Three key strategic objectives have been identified for accomplishing this: attacking al-Qaeda’s terror network, undermining radicalization and recruitment, and hardening homeland defense. The present monograph proposes a distinct "jihad-realist" approach for undermining radicalization and recruitment to al-Qaeda. First, a brief discussion of six means for ending terrorist organizations is provided. Second, the premises of a jihad-realist approach are described. Third, a jihad-realist shari’a case against al-Qaeda’s terrorism is presented. In conclusion, key assertions are summarized, and several specific policy recommendations offered for …

March Roundtable: Responding To Syria, Introduction, Claudia Fuentes Julio

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Save Us from the Liberal Hawks” by David Rieff. Foreign Policy, February 13, 2012.

"Moral Ambivalence Is No Recipe For Engagement", Joel R. Pruce

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The bottom line is that the crisis in Syria is tragic and extremely complicated. Some of its more complex issues include the threat of ethnic conflict, refugee flows, Iran's regional influence, and the impact of this uprising on other protests in the Arab world, ongoing and in the future. However, there are also several incontrovertible facts: the regime of Bashar al-Assad, in the name of putting down a protest movement that turned violent, is responsible for at least 7,500 deaths and shows no signs of relenting.

Who Let The Dogs Out? R, R2p, Christine Bell

Human Rights & Human Welfare

As a long-time human rights advocate I find myself uncomfortably sharing Rieff's central concern over the link between military intervention and human rights advocacy, forged through the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. This common concern is uncomfortable because I don't share his broader sentiments. However, it is also uncomfortable because it involves me swimming against the human rights tide, which seems to have embraced R2P.

One State Or Two In Israel/Palestine: The Stress On Gender And Citizenship, Gordon Babst, Nicole M. Tellier

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

As is the case with any of the three great Abrahamic religions, there is considerable ambiguity regarding the status and role of women both within doctrinal interpretations, and between religious and other cultural traditions in the community. These ambiguities are reflected in political practice and condition women's aspirations regarding what is possible for them to achieve. Nowhere is it more true that understandings of religious imperatives permeate politics and work to make other lines of division all the more intractable than in Israel/Palestine. The proclivity to violence between the two peoples not only victimizes women, but foreshortens attention to their …

Russian Foreign Policy In The Middle East: Priorities And Effectiveness, Brett A. Schneider

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes contemporary Russian Foreign Policy toward the Middle East. Six factors are identified as most critical to Russian foreign policy in the region: Islamic terrorism, arms transfers, natural resources, influence over former Soviet Spaces, general trade, and great power status. With rare exceptions, these principles are shown to guide Russian foreign policy in the Middle East since 2000.

The paper continues by considering the effectiveness of Russia in achieving its desired policy outcomes in the Middle East. This includes assessing situations in which two or more priorities run counter to each other. Generally, Russia is shown to be …

Preventing The Clash: Reexamining U.S. Public Diplomacy In The Middle East, Clifton Martin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes U.S. public diplomacy in the Middle East. In explaining the concept of public diplomacy itself and its evolution in the United States, four factors are identified as most crucial to the capabilities and limitations of U.S. public diplomacy in the region: U.S. foreign policy options, institutions, strategies, and tools. These factors are shown to affect the outcome of U.S. public diplomacy programming in the Middle East and are the foundation for a new U.S. public diplomacy model.

The paper continues by examining the development of contemporary U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, providing a traceable landscape …

Ua12/2/2 Talisman, Vol. 83, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

2012 Talisman:

• Couch, Drew. Life Inside the Suit – Big Red
• Waggoner, Tabitha. Mike Nichols
• Plunkett, Amber. Rememberng 9/11
• Cherry, Lauren. Understanding Each Other
• Brown, Bianca. East Meets Western – Confucius Institute
• Heyne, Richard. Cage the Elephant Comes Home
• Clements, Kristin. Never Solo – Track & Field
• Spees, Monica. Out on the Water - Hilltopper Bass Club
• Simmons, Natasha. Kentucky’s Miss America – Ann-Blair Thornton
• Alleyne, Zirconia. The Hungriest Fans – Football
• Wood, Shane. The Making of a Game – Football
• Duke, Alex. Building Confidence – Football
• Henye, Richard. Clearing the Air – Cheerleading
• Florence, Sara. Two-Wheeled Freedom – Bicycling …