This is an 10-week seminar, starting September 26th, 2017

Moderator:                 Linda Lau
Day and Time:          Tuesday 2:00-4:00PM
Format:                        Seminar
Location:                    Applewood Meeting Room, Amherst
                                         (free parking on site)

The purpose of this seminar is to explore the question of US policy in the region by examining the various US involvements in the region and then trying to determine if the US has any over-arching principles that inform our decisions.

The idea is to have each participant give a presentation on one of the topics suggested which divide up the various points of US current involvement in the region. For example, Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan. Then the last meeting of the class would be to spend time discussing US policy or see if we can determine if there is one.

Role of participants:
The role of each participant would be to give a presentation of about 30 minutes on his or her topic leaving 30 minutes.

Resources:
The US Should Admit That it Has No Foreign Policy in the Middle East, Robert Walt, Foreign Policy, 29 Jan 2016

Perilous Power, Noam Chomsky and Gilbert Achar US Foreign Policy in the Middle East, Pratti and Bledar, Palgrave and Macmillan, 2017. US Middle East Policy: Realpolitik or Wrongpolitik?, Hossein Askari Economist, Professor of Business and International Affairs at GW University, writer on Middle East Economies and Islamic economics-finance http://www.ips.org.pk/international-relation/the-muslim-world/current-situation-in-the-middle-east/1291-the-us-foreign-policy-and-the-middle-east

About the Moderator:
Linda has a PhD in Islamic History and worked for nearly 30 years as a Middle East Analyst for the Department of Defense.

Maximum number of participants: 14

Emeritus/a accepted: yes, up to 2