America and the Rise of Isis

Catalog description

This class examines the sweep of twentieth-century American policy in the Middle East, then focuses on the politics and history after the Cold War and how it has affected the rise and potency of the Islamic State. The bulk of the course addresses issues surrounding the U.S. wars in Iraq from 1990 to 2011, the American approach to Syria, and the tangle of international and non-state actors in the region since the fall of Saddam Hussein. We seek to understand the potential and the limits of U.S. actions, and Western influence in general, in the region.