WREL 374 Blog Quiz

There will be a 30 minute blog quiz Wednesday March 27, 2008 for WREL 374. Answers to 3 questions will be required.

1. How does Fouad Adjami evaluate 5 years of war in Iraq?

2. How does George Freeman understand the real motive for going to war in Iraq?

3. Explain how modernization led to the rise of ethno-nationalism in Europe in the twentieth century and are there parallels between that development and the rise of a sense of national identity among Palestine's Arabs today?

4. How does Bret Stephens see General John J. Pershing's response to Pancho Villa's attack of an American town in New Mexico in 1916 as offering a model of how the Israelis should respond to Hamas's rocket attacks on Sederot, Israel today?

5. Who was Imad Mughniyeh and why was his assassination important?

6. To what region of the Middle East has the center of gravity shifted from Israel and Palestine?

7. How does Andrew Cordesman see a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel playing out?

Five Years of War In Iraq

There have been many views of America's war in Iraq. George Friedman's article "Stratfor's War: Five Years Later" suggests that the conventional wisdom concerning Iraq has failed to understand what is at stake for the United States and the region. I strongly commend this article to your attention.

Fouad Adjami, an important Middle Eastern scholar, has offered another view of the war in the Wall Street Journal for March 19, 2008. His "No Surrender" is worth reading, as is everything Adjami writes, but I believe Friedman's article is the more insightful. Adjami's article can be found at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120588186774146747.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries.
You may have to Google this one to bring it up. I am having difficulty with the link.

No Class for WREL 374 Wednesday March 5, 2008

Because of a death in the family, the instructor will be unable to meet the class Wednesday March 5, 2008. There will be a make-up session later in the semester.

RLR