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 refugees, 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 a mixture of autocratic, theocratic 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. The changing narratives and discourse emerging from years of foreign intervention, corruption and social change offset through globalisation will be the focus of this short course. This course will examine past conflicts and crises in the Middle East ranging from the creation of its modern borders, the Arab-Israeli wars, the 1956 Suez crisis, the Iranian revolution, the rise of political Islam, to the changing real politik in the post-September 11 environment and beyond.