POLI 2120 - Conflict and Crisis in the Middle East

Since the creation of the modern Middle East in the early 20th Century the region has been consumed with both conflict and crisis. Many of these problems stem from the legacies of Ottoman and European colonialism. This course will examine the impact of colonialism, the creation of new nation-states, the division of ethnic and tribal groups, and the experimentation with new and foreign political ideologies. The search for national political identity in a post-colonial world has been influenced and shaped by key regional developments such as the establishment of Israel, the Palestinian regugees, intra-country conflict, the Cold War, and the influence (and at times occupation by) regional and Western powers. In the post-Cold War period a political vacuum emerged which was quickly filled by political Islamists and led to the era known as the 'war on terror'; resulting in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Currently the region remains an area of stark contrasts of under-development and modernity, poverty and wealth, and autocracy, theocracy and democratic systems of governance. The majority of the region's population is under 25 years of age and the political, social and economic implications this is going to have on the region and internationally in the next couple of decades is critical. This course will examine past conflicts and crises in the Middle East ranging from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the 1956 Suez crisis, the 1967 war, the Iranian revolution and rise of political Islam, to the post-September 11 environment.