An Arab Exit Strategy

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1 Missed Call: An unexploded IED in Iraq [Girard Alexandre / Flickr]

On last night’s show we discussed Iraq exit strategies. We’re there now, but how do we get out? Should we stay or should we go? And if we go, when? And how? And what do we leave behind? And under what circumstances?

Tonight we’re having the same conversation, but instead of talking to American military strategists, we’ll be talking about exit plans from the Arab perspective, with some of the region’s top thinkers. Including Syrian philosopher, cultural historian and human rights activist Sadik Jalal Al-Azm. Some things we want to hear from them: Do they buy Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn analogy? Can the US make things better by staying longer? What will Iran do once we leave? And Syria? And Israel? What else?

Sadik Al-Azm

Emeritus Professor of modern European philosophy, University of Damascus

Recipient of the 2004 Erasmus Prize

Visiting scholar, Princeton University

[In studio in Princeton, NJ]

Vali Nasr

Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Contemporary Conflict

Author, Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power

[On the phone from California]

Vahal Abdulrahman

Researcher with the Iraqi Memory Foundation

Blogger, Dear Baghdad (no longer active)

[In our Boston studio]

Extra Credit Reading

Sadik J. Al-Azm, Time Out of Joint: Western dominance, Islamist terror, and the Arab imagination, Boston Review, October/November 2004

Vali Nasr, Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, July 14, 2004 (PDF)

Ammar Abdulhamid, Rumors, Facts and Heresies!, Amarji – A Heretic’s Blog, March 3, 2005

Iraq Memory Foundation