BY ANNABELLE SHEA ‘23
On Monday, Feb. 17, a panel of Five College professors held a teach-in in Hooker Auditorium titled “The Middle East Crisis: How Did We Get Here? What’s Next?” The purpose of the event was to examine the impact of U.S. foreign policy on the Middle East. According to Director of the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives and panel moderator Kavita Khory, the catalyst of the event was the death of Iranian General Qasem Suleimani, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in early January.
“Suleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him,” President Donald Trump said during a press briefing following the General’s death. This unexpected action by the U.S. military concerned global activists, who raised questions about the future of U.S.-Iran relations.
“The panel provides the opportunity to ask why we are not questioning U.S. action in Iraq and Afghanistan and why there is so little public debate,” Khory said.
Featured panelists included Mount Holyoke Professor of International Relations Sohail Hashmi, Mount Holyoke Professor of History Daniel Czitrom, Amherst College Professor of History and Asian Languages and Civilizations Monica Ringer and Hampshire College Associate Professor of Economics Omar Dahi.
The panelists addressed a variety of topics, including the Syrian Civil War, the American role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Iran Nuclear Deal. Professor Hashmi addressed the question “how did we get here?” by focusing specifically on comparative observations between the foreign policy of the Obama and Trump administrations.
Professor Ringer provided a historian’s perspective on the Middle Eastern crisis. During her speech, Ringer stated that foreign policy is about exerting political power and expanding economic gains and that those who believe that policy “is about doing good” are mistaken.
“The older I get, the more cynical I get,” Ringer said.
Both Ringer and Czitrom emphasized the importance of civic involvement. “It’s up to the population to force their government into moral positions,” Ringer said.
As a participant in the 1967 anti-Vietnam War effort, Czitrom provided insight on the lack of protests against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, “Today [for] the great majority of Americans, war is a distant affair – it doesn’t touch them or their families,” Czitrom said. “U.S. military responsibilities have been off-loaded on 10 percent of the population – disproportionately poor people of color.”
“I think [the talk] was really informative and there were some really good points regarding the U.S.’s role internationally,” Paola Granados ‘22 said. “It was really interesting to know how different countries used civil wars within a country to promote their own agenda.”