The Middle East has for long played a strategic role in the world order. Its location, and complex history with Europe, going back to the early years of Islam and the modern West, had made the Middle East a central concern for European strategists for centuries. From the Crusades to European invasions during WWI and WWII to modern day American involvement in regional conflicts, first Europe and the United States, have viewed the Middle East as important to their interests in the world order. European great power rivalry, the Cold War, oil shocks, terrorism, and rise of Islamism have at one time or another invited great power attention and fueled regional rivalry and conflict. Despite this long running involvement with the Middle East, understanding its shifting geopolitics remains a challenge for academics and policymakers. No other region of the world, in recent decades, has been subject to the kind sustained internal rivalry and superpower and great power intervention as has the Middle East. From Arab-Israeli conflict to Iran-Iraq war, to rise of Islamism, U.S. war in Iraq, Iranian nuclear program, the region has produced a series of crises, abiding rivalries, and devastating conflicts.

Over the past six decades, American involvement in the region has steadily increased to contend with these events, and in the process, it has contributed to them, and influenced the direction of regional politics. The Middle East remains among the most strategically consequential and geopolitically fluid regions of the world. The recent interest of both Russia and China in the region attests to its relevance to global politics today. This course will examine the historical background to the region’s rivalries, examine the reasons for the shifts in balance of power between Arabs, Israelis, Turks, and Iranians. The course will discuss the main cultural and religious axes of conflict and territorial disputes, and how they have become entwined with great power interests. We will examine the main trends, identify the main actors and episodes that have shaped the region’s geopolitics. The course will rely on theories of international relations as analytical tools for interpreting patterns of rivalry, conflict, and alliances. The course will also examine how American foreign policy thinking has grappled with the Middle East.

Instructor: Vali Nasr
Email: vnasr@jhu.edu
Website: https://sais.jhu.edu/users/vnasr1
Class Time: Mondays 8:45-11:15
Office Hours: By appointment

Main Books

• Narges Bajoghli, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, Vali Nasr and Ali Vaez, How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare (Stanford University Press, 2024).
• Marc Lynch, The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East (Public Affairs,2017).
• Victor McFarland, Oil Powers: A History of U.S.-Saudi Alliance (Columbia University Press, 2020).
• Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future (W.W. Norton, 2016).
• Ewan Stein, International Relations of the Middle East: Hegemonic Strategies and Regional Order (Cambridge University Press, 2021).

Students are required to adhere to the following guidelines when submitting written assignments, unless otherwise noted in the assignment.

• Adhere to word/page limits for each assignment
• Use a 12-point font (Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman), double space and 1-inch margin
• Use APA/MLA/Chicago format and cite sources properly
• Submit all assignments in Canvas
• SafeAssign may be used for written assignments

Please submit your assignments by the deadlines outlined in the course syllabus and Canvas. If you are not able to meet an assignment deadline, contact your instructor in advance of the deadline. If an assignment is late and prior arrangements have not been made, the assignment score will be reduced by half a grade each day it is late.

All students are expected to participate actively in class discussions and demonstrate command of the assigned reading. Class participation will be considered on a discretionary basis when assigning the student’s final grade.

Mid-Term 50% (Will consist of 7-9 pages take-home assignment)
Final Exam 50% (Will consist of 7-9 pages take-home assignment covering material Mid-Term on)

This course uses the following table:

Week 1 (January 22)
Scene Setter: What the War in Gaza Says About Middle East Geopolitics
• Baconi, “What was Hamas Thinking?” https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/22/hamas-gazaisrael-netanyahu-palestine-apartheid-containment-resistance/.
• Bajoghli and Nasr, “How the War in Gaza Revived the Axis of resistance” (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-war-gaza-revived-axis-resistance)
• Cohen, “The Inevitable, Ongoing Failure of Israel’s Gaza Strategy” https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2023/10/the-inevitable-ongoing-failure-ofisraels-gaza-strategy.html.
• Dassa Kaye, “Will the War in Gaza Ignite the Middle East” https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/will-war-gaza-ignite-middle-east.
• Fantappie and Nasr, “The War that Remade the Middle East,” https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/war-remade-middle-east-fantappie-nasr
• Reisinezhad, “7 Reasons Iran Won’t Fight for Hamas” https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/04/iran-hamas-gaza-israel-regional-war/.
• Seurat, “Hamas’s Goals in Gaza,” https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/hamass-goal-gaza.
• Yadlin and Evental, “Why Israel Slept” https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/why-israelslept-yadlin-evental

Week 2 (January 29)
Geography, Ethnicity and Balance of Power
• Bonine, “Of Maps and Regions,” pp.56-99.
• Hourani, A History of Arab Peoples, pp.7-98.
• Kaplan, The Revenge of Geography, pp.38-78 and 255-315.
• Marc Lynch, “The End of the Middle East” https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/africa/2022-02-22/end-middle-east.

Week 3 (February 5)
Gunpowder Empires: 16th Century-WWI
• Dale, The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals, pp.48-76 and 247-92.
• Hourani, A History of Arab Peoples, pp.209-264.
• Nasr, Shia Revival, pp.31-62.
Class will be on Zoom. Login information will be on Zoom section of Canvas

Week 4 (February 12)
Legacy of Colonialism and Cold War
• Alvandi, Nixon, Kissinger and the Shah, pp.7-27.
• Hourani, A History of Arab Peoples, pp.253-273.
• Little, “The Cold War in the Middle East,” pp.305-26.
• Rogan, Fall of the Ottoman Empire, pp.275-384.
• Rogan, The Arabs, pp.175-276.

Weeks 5 (February 19)
Arab Nationalism and Shifting Boundaries of Arab World
• Barnett, “Sovereignty, Nationalism and Regional Order in Arab States,” pp.479-510.
• Del Sarto, “Contentious Borders in Middle East and North Africa,” pp.767-87
• Hourani, A History of Arab Peoples, pp., 401-433.
• Rogan, The Arabs, pp.277-354.

Week 6 (February 26)
Arabs v Israel
• Alpher, Periphery, pp.3-75.
• Indyk, Master of the Game, pp.23-112.
Class will be on Zoom. Login information will be on Zoom section of Canvas

Week 7 (March 4)
Geopolitics of Oil
• Cooper, Oil Kings, 137-68
• McFarland, Oil Powers, pp.15-234
• Yergin, The Prize, pp.633-52.
MID-TERM will be posted March 4

Week 8-9 (March 11-25)
Iran’s Conception of Its National Security: Before and After the Revolution
• Cooper, Oil Kings, pp.17-136
• Nasr, Shia Revival, pp.119-84.
• Nasr, “Iran Among the Ruins,” Foreign Affairs (March/April 2018), pp.108-118; https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2018-02-13/iran-among-ruins.
• Parsi, Treacherous Alliance, pp.19-60.
• Tabatabai, No Conquest, No Defeat, pp.187-226.
• Tabatabai, Iran’s National Security Debate, all pages.
• Tabatabai, Nuclear Decision-Making in Iran, pp.6-31; https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/file-uploads/IranNuclear_CGEPReport_080520.pdf.
• Tabatabai and Samuel, “What Does the Iran-Iraq War Tell Us”; https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/42/1/152/12165/What-the-Iran-Iraq-War-Tells-Usabout-the-Future.
• Bajoghli, How Sanctions Work, pp.111-45.

No Class on March 18 Spring Break

Week 10 (April 1)
U.S. Strategies: From Outsourcing to Israel and Iran to Containment and Beyond
• Alvandi, Nixon, Kissinger and the Shah, pp.28-64.
• Brands, Cook and Pollack, “RIP the Carter Doctrine”; https://jh.zoom.us/j/97101400107 https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/15/carter-doctrine-rip-donald-trump-mideast-oil-bigthink/
• Gause, “The Illogic of Dual Containment,” https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/1994-03-01/illogic-dual-containment
• Simon and Takeyh, Pragmatic Superpower, pp.239-328

Week 11 (April 8)
Containing Islamism and War on Terror
• Brands, What Good is Grand Strategy? pp.144-89.
• Ghattas, Black Wave, pp.7-109.
• Nasr, Shia Revival, pp.147-68.
• Stein, International Relations of the Middle East, pp.161-82.
• Westad, “Islamist Defiance: Iran and Afghanistan,” pp.288-330.

Week 12 (April 15)
The Implosion of the Arab Order, 2003-Present
• Harvey, A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, pp.65-108.
• Lynch, The New Arab Wars, 1-138 and 189-224.
• Nasr, Shia Revival, pp.169-274.
• Stein, International Relations of the Middle East, pp.183-220.

Week 13 (April 22)
New Regional Order?
• Cagaptay, Erdogan’s Empire, pp.25-71, 111-35, 155-97.
• Danford, “Turkey’s New Maps,” https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/23/turkeys-religiousnationalists-want-ottoman-borders-iraq-erdogan/.
• Burton, China and Middle East Conflicts, pp.96-110, 151-72, 188-200.
• Fantappie and Nasr, “A New Order in the Middle East” https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/iran-saudi-arabia-middle-east-relations
• Morozov, “The Middle East in Russia’s Foreign Policy,” pp.15-36.

TAKE HOME FINAL EXAM

Articles and Book Chapters
• Roham Alvandi, Nixon, Kissinger, and the Shah: United States and Iran in the Cold War (Oxford University Press, 2014), pp.7-64.
• Yossi Alpher, Periphery: Israel’s Search for Middle East Allies (Rowan & Littlefield, 2015), pp.3-75.
• Tariq Baconi, “What was Hamas Thinking?” Foreign Policy (November 22, 2023) https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/22/hamas-gaza-israel-netanyahu-palestine-apartheid-containmentresistance/
• Narges Bajoghli and Vali Nasr, “How the War in Gaza Revived the. Axis of Resistance” Foreign Affairs, January 17, 2024 (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-war-gaza-revived-axis-resistance).
• Michael Barnett, “Sovereignty, Nationalism and Regional Order in Arab States” International Organization, 49:3 (1995), pp.479-510.
• Michael Bonine, “Of Maps and Regions: Where is the Geographer’s Middle East?” in Michael Bonine, Abbas Amanat and Michael Ezekiel Gasper, eds., Is There A Middle East? The Evolution of a Geopolitical Concept (Stanford University Press, 2012), pp.56-99.
• Hal Brands, What Good is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush (Cornell University Press, 2014), pp.144-89.
• Hal Brands, Steven Cook and Kenneth Pollack, “RIP the Carter Doctrine, 1989-2019” Foreign Policy (December 13, 2019); https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/15/carter-doctrine-rip-donald-trump-mideast-oil-big-think/
• Guy Burton, China and Middle East Conflicts: Responding to War and Rivalry from Cold War to Present (Routledge, 2020), pp.96-110, 151-72, 188-200.
• Soner Cagaptay, Erdogan’s Empire: Turkey and the Politics of the Middle East (I.B. Tauris, 2020), pp.25-71, 111-35, 155-97.
• Raphael Cohen, “The Inevitable, Ongoing Failure of Israel’s Gaza Strategy” Rand Corporation, October 19, 2023; https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2023/10/the-inevitable-ongoing-failure-of-israels-gazastrategy.html
• Andrew Scott Cooper, Oil Kings: How U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance in the Middle East (Simon & Schuster, 2011), pp.17-168.
• Stephen Dale, The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals (Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp.48-76 and 247-92.
• Nick Danforth, “Turkey’s New Maps Are Reclaiming the Ottoman Empire” Foreign Policy (October 23, 2016) https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/23/turkeys-religious-nationalists-want-ottoman-borders-iraq-erdogan/.
• Dalia Dassa Kaye, “Will the War in Gaza Ignite the Middle East” Foreign Affairs (October 19, 2023); https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/will-war-gaza-ignite-middle-east.
• Rafaella Del Sarto, “Contentious Borders in Middle East and North Africa: Context and Concepts,” International Affairs, 93:4 (July 2017), pp.767-87.
• Maria Fantappie and Vali Nasr, “A New Order in the Middle East” Foreign Affairs, March 22, 2023; https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/iran-saudi-arabia-middle-east-relations.
• Maria Fantappie and Vali Nasr, “The War that Remade the Middle East,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2024; https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/war-remade-middle-east-fantappie-nasr
• Gregory Gause III, “The Illogic of Dual Containment,” Foreign Affairs (March/April 1994); https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/1994-03-01/illogic-dual-containment.
• Kim Ghattas, Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry that Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East (Henry Holt, 2020), pp.7-109.
• Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Harvard University Press, 1991), pp.7-98, 209-273, and 401-433.
• Martin Indyk, Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy (Knopf, 2021), pp. 23-112.
• Robert Kaplan, The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate (Random House, 2012), pp.38-78 and 255-315.
• Douglas Little, “The Cold War in the Middle East: Suez Crisis to Camp David Accords,” Melvyn Lefler and Odd Arne Westad, eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Volume II (Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp.305-26.
• Marc Lynch, “The End of the Middle East: How An Old Map Distorts A New reality,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2022; https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/africa/2022-02-22/end-middle-east
• Viacheslav Morozov, “The Middle East in Russia’s Foreign Policy, 1990-2020” in Nikolay Kozhanov, ed., Russian Foreign Policy Towards the Middle East (London: Hurst, 2022), pp.15-36.
• Vali Nasr, “Iran Among the Ruins; Tehran’s Advantage in A Turbulent Middle East,” Foreign Affairs (March/April 2018), pp.108-118; https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2018-02-13/iranamong-ruins.
• Trita Parsi, Treacherous Alliance, the Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the U.S. (Yale University Press, 2007), pp.19-60.
• Arash Reisinezhad, “7 Reasons Iran Won’t Fight for Hamas” Foreign Policy (December 4, 2023) https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/04/iran-hamas-gaza-israel-regional-war/
• Eugene Rogan, The Fall of the Ottomans; the Great War in the Middle East (Basic Books, 2015), pp.275-384.
• Eugene Rogan, The Arabs: A History (Basic Books, 2009), pp.175-354.
• Leila Seurat, “Hamas’s Goals in Gaza,” Foreign Affairs, December 11, 2023; https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/hamass-goal-gaza.
• Steven Simon and Ray Takeyh, The Pragmatic Superpower: Winning the Cold war in the Middle East (W.W. Norton, 2016), pp.239-328.
• Ariane Tabatabai, No Conquest, No Defeat: Iran’s National Security Strategy (Oxford University Press, 2020), pp.187-226.
• Ariane Tabatabai, Iran’s National Security Debate: Implications for Future U.S.-Iran Relations (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2019), all pages.
• Ariane Tabatabai, Nuclear Decision-Making in Iran: Implications for U.S. Non-Proliferation Efforts, pp.6-31; https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/file-uploads/IranNuclear_CGEPReport_080520.pdf.
• Ariane Tabatabai and Annie Tracy Samuel, “What Does the Iran-Iraq War Tell Us About the Future of Iran Nuclear Deal” International Security 42:1 (2017), pp.152-85; https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/42/1/152/12165/What-the-Iran-Iraq-War-Tells-Us-about-the-Future
• Odd Arne Westad, “Islamist Defiance: Iran and Afghanistan,” in The Global Cold War (Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp.288-330.
• Amos Yadlin and Udi Evental, “Why Israel Slept” Foreign Affairs (November 21, 2023) https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/why-israel-slept-yadlin-evental.
• Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power (Touchstone, 1991), pp.633-652.