Monday, October 20, 2008

Juan R.I. Cole
Historian and Author

Iraq, Afghanistan and the Presidential Contest
8 p.m.
Eben Holden Center

Juan R. I. Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He has written extensively about Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and South Asia. He has given numerous media and press interviews on the War on Terrorism since September 11, 2001, as well as concerning the Iraq War and the building conflict with Iran from 2003. He has a regular column at Salon.com. He continues to study and write about contemporary Islamic movements, whether mainstream or radical, whether Sunni and Salafi or Shi`ite. For three decades, he has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context, and his most recent book is Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

Lecture Abstract
US policy toward Iraq and Afghanistan has been important to the US presidential campaign in unexpected ways.  The Iraqi government defends the decision of the US to invade and overthrow Saddam, siding with John McCain on that issue against Barack Obama.  But the question of a timetable for US troop withdrawal from Iraq was internationalized when the Iraqi prime minister endorsed the idea, seeming to side with Obama.  The Afghanistan government has joined Obama in criticizing Pakistan's inability or unwillingness to rein in a resurgent Taliban.  McCain has called for more understanding of the position of Pakistani Gen. Pervez Musharraf.  How US politics has interacted with the domestic issues in these countries could be a factor in the fateful presidential election of November, 2008.