UCI professors and other guests who discussed the latest events in the Middle East and the larger Muslim world in a panel on Wednesday, November 29. Sponsored by the Middle East Studies Student Initiative, UCI’s Deptartment of History and the Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies, the event was entitled “The Middle East in 2007.”

Panelists featured were:
Nasrin Rahimieh, Director of the Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies, UCI
Lina Kreidie, Dept. of Political Science, UCI
Mark LeVine, Prof. of Modern Middle Eastern History, UCI
Jon Elliott, Air America Radio host who also acted as moderator.
Brian Van Riper, a sergeant who served over one year in Iraq will discuss his experiences in the country.

Elliot talked about “the media’s treatment of Iraq” stating his feeling that the Bush administration was so caught up with “protection,” that lost sight of things. Elliot asserted that when the Bush administration needed to get support from Americans before the war, the media began to “complicate” things and persuade “Americans that it is right to go to war with Iraq.” Elliot also discussed conspiracies relating to the war and how oil wells were “pinpointed” during the invasion. Elliot said that students have the duty to care about what is going in the Middle East even though it might not have a direct effect on them today.
Kreidie focused on the recent war in Lebanon, which she witnessed firsthand. She said the Lebanese “do not want a civil war” and discussed how “demographics changed and the Muslims became more [in Lebanon].” Kredie sarcastically suggested that “when in doubt, when no one knows what’s going in Lebanon, bomb Lebanon.” She asserted that going to war for two soldiers who were kidnapped was a “miscalculation” for Israel and that the “outcome [of the war] was the destruction of Lebanon, not Hezbollah.” Kredie also suggested that Israel might have started a war with Lebanon because Lebanon poses a threat as another regional power in the Middle East, and expressed doubt that the Syrian government had anything to do with the recent assassination of Pierre Gemayel, that perhaps Israel had more to gain than Syria by assassinating the former Lebanese cabinet minister. “[It was] not in their interest to do the assassination,” Kredie said of Syria, noting “they are busy with with negotiating, Syria is back with negotiations…for getting back Golan Heights…Israel, why not? It could be Syria, it could be Israel.”
Van Riper talked about his experiences in the Marines.
Rahimieh discussed today’s situation in Iran, pointing to discontent among the younger generation there, and Iran’s nuclear stand-off with the US and Europe. She suggested that Iran and America have a lot to learn from one another.
LeVine discussed the situation between Israelis and Palestinians, suggesting that perhaps the two are “wounded” enough to consider moving forward. LeVine also stated that demographically Israel will have more Arabs than Jews within a few generations. LeVine also criticized the mainstream media for supporting the Bush administration when America first went to war with Iraq.