LEAD 227
International Relations of the Middle East Fall 2024
Division II
Cross-listed PSCI 227

This is a course about the Middle East in international politics. The structure of the course combines political science concepts with a detailed survey of the region’s diplomatic history. The basic format of the course will be to combine brief lectures–either posted on the class website beforehand or given at the start of each class–with an in-depth discussion of each class session’s topic. The goal of these discussions is to generate debates over the conceptual, historical, and policy significance of the subjects that we cover. Specifically, the first section of the course will cover the emergence of the Persian Gulf as an area of strategic importance in international politics; U.S. policy toward Saudi Arabia and Iran after World War II; the origins of the Arab-Israeli dispute; the June 1967 and October 1973 Middle East conflicts; Egyptian-Israeli peace; the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War; the 1991 Persian Gulf War and its consequences; and the rise of Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas. The second part of the course focuses on the Iraq War and its consequences; the rise of ISIS; the Arab Spring; Turkey’s changing foreign relations; and the war in Syria. The last section of the course covers contemporary policy challenges confronting the Middle East.