[Dean's World] Dave Schuler: Announcing a blogging colloquium on Iraq

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dave Schuler:
Announcing a blogging colloquium on Iraq
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1165972524.shtml


   Beginning Friday, December 15, and continuing through Wednesday,
   December 20, I will be hosting a blogging colloquium on Iraq entitled
   âDirections on Iraq: a Blogging Colloquiumâ at [1]The Glittering Eye.

   I'm thrilled with those who will be participating. Participants
   include:

   John Burgess is a former U. S. foreign service officer who has had two
   tours of duty in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the first in 1981-1983
   and the second 2001-2003. He reads and speaks Arabic and has spent the
   bulk of his career in the Middle East with assignments in Tunisia,
   Egypt, Syria, and Bahrain in addition to his assignment in the KSA.
   His blog, [2]Crossroads Arabia, is one of the blogosphere's finest
   resources for information and commentary on the KSA.

   Michael Cook is the Cleveland Dodge professor of Near Eastern Studies
   at Princeton University. In 2002 he was awarded the Andrew Mellon
   Foundation's Distinguished Achievement Award.

   James Hamilton is a professor of economics at the University of
   California, San Diego. His special area of study is oil economics. His
   blog, [3]Econbrowser, is a premier econblog.

   Rasheed Abou Al-Samh is a Saudi-American journalist based in Jeddah,
   Saudi Arabia. He is a senior editor at Arab News and a correspondent
   for the Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Times, Al-Ahram
   Weekly, and Forbes Arabia. His blog is [4]Rasheed's World.

   Shivaji Sondhi is a professor of physics at Princeton University.

   I'm still accepting submissions. I'm especially seeking participants
   with knowledge of the Middle East and specialist expertise. If you're
   interested, please leave contact information in the comments below or
   in the comments to [5]this post at The Glittering Eye.

   I don't know if you're as discouraged by the present political climate
   and the likely turn of events with respect to Iraq as I am (not to
   mention Iran) but I've been wracking what I like to think of as my
   brains for some time now trying to consider U. S. interests
   in the region, how they're likely to be affected by a withdrawal of U.
   S. troops before the country can be stabilized, what other measures
   are available to secure those interests in the event of such a
   withdrawal, and so on.

   I'm also discouraged by what I consider the poor level of analysis
   being done both in the blogosphere and in the larger world. The Iraq
   Study Group's report has been somewhat disappointing, not offering
   much in the way of new perspectives, and I doubt that the Democrats'
   forum on the subject announced a week or so ago will be a great deal
   better.

   So rather than continue speculating myself I thought I might try to
   organize a blogospheric colloquium, basically a cross-blog discussion,
   on the subject. I've tried attract participants better informed than I
   (that leaves the field pretty open). Among the general topics I
   propsed were:
     * military issues
     * diplomatic alternatives
     * regional stakes
     * economics and development
     * communications and information

   The general format of the colloquium will be that each participant
   will elaborate on a topic in a post of his own (the contributions of
   participants without blogs of their own will be hosted here).

   Participants and, indeed, all readers would be encouraged to address
   questions to the participants either in the pages of the participants'
   blogs or here:

   iraqdirections at theglitteringeye dot com

   (replace âatâ with * and âdotâ with a period).

   I will coordinate, organize, and promote. I will also convene the
   colloquium, host posts and discussion as required, and call the
   colloquium to a close.

   I'm very excited by this project and hope to learn a lot. Perhaps we
   can contribute some substance to the discussion on this crucial
   subject.

References

   1. http://www.theglitteringeye.com/
   2. http://xrdarabia.org/blog/index.php
   3. http://www.econbrowser.com/
   4. http://rasheedsworld.blogspot.com/
   5. http://theglitteringeye.com/?p=2539