Rami Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune. He is an internationally syndicated journalist, author, and director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. He is currently a visiting fellow with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.

Mr. Khouri will speak about the war in Lebanon this summer. He will provide an analysis of the Israeli-Hezbollah war and discuss its fallout for Lebanese society and government, and its impact on the region's power dynamics. He will also comment on escalating violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and heightening tensions between the U.S. and political movements in the region, including Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

David Patel is a PhD candidate in Stanford's Dept of Political Science and,

beginning in Fall 2007, an Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell

University. He is currently a pre-doctoral fellow with the Center on

Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.

Mr. Patel will speak about changes in the communal support base of the

Jordanian Islamic Movement. He asks, why did a flourising Islamist movement,

capable of transcending Jordan's communal boundaries and shifting the broad

axes of social division, instead transform into an ethnic party in the

1990s? He argues the Transjordanian-dominated government, threatened by

Islamists' cross-communal appeal, purposely exploits communal divisions

within the Islamic Movement by engineering electoral rules, gerrymandering

districts, and provoking communally-divisive crises with the Movement. These

changes lead the Islamic Movement to increasingly cater to

Palestinian-Jordanian voters, which preserves national origin as the most

salient cleavage in Jordanian society.

In this conversation, Huang and Diamond will talk about a variety of issues associated with notable challenges confronting democracy in Taiwan. Specifically, their topics will include Taiwan's democracy and China's democratic development, Taiwan's relations with the U.S., Cross-strait relations, and Taiwan's diplomacy.

The Honorable James C. F. Huang is Minister of Foreign Affairs of Republic of China (Taiwan). Before he was appointed Foreign Minister, Huang served as Deputy Secretary-General (2004-2005) and Director-General of Department of Public Affairs at Office of the President (2002-2004). He also served as Deputy Director-General (2001-2002) of Department of Information and Liaison and Senior Researcher (2000-2001) at Mainland Affairs Council of Executive Yuan.

Larry Diamond is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy. At Stanford University, he is professor by courtesy of political science and sociology, and he coordinates the democracy program of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), within the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

Anwar Ibrahim was deputy prime minister of Malaysia in the 1990s. He also served as Malaysia's minister of finance. A sharp disagreement with then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad led to Anwar's dismissal, prosecution--many would say outright persecution--and imprisonment.

Upon regaining his freedom, Anwar took up his current role as an opposition voice. He is currently a distinguished visiting professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Since his release he has also held lectureships at St. Anthony's College (Oxford) and the School of Advanced International Studies (Johns Hopkins). He has advised the World Bank on questions of governance and accountability. Recently he was appointed honorary president of AccountAbility, a London-based organization that advocates socially responsible business practices.

This event is co-sponsored by the Southeast Asia Forum at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

Josef Joffe is the Marc and Anita Abramowitz Fellow in International Relations at the Hoover Institution and is publisher-editor of the German weekly Die Zeit.

Joffe's areas of interest include U.S. foreign policy, international security policy, European-American relations, Europe and Germany, and the Middle East.

His essays and reviews have appeared in a wide number of publications including the New York Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, Commentary, New York Times Magazine, New Republic, Weekly Standard, and the Prospect. Additionally, his scholarly work has appeared in many books and in journals such as Foreign Affairs, the National Interest, International Security, and Foreign Policy as well as in professional journals in Germany, Britain, and France.

Joffe is currently an adjunct professor of political science at Stanford, where he was the Payne Distinguished Lecturer in 1999-2000. He also is a distinguished fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford. In 1990-91, he taught at Harvard, where he is also an associate of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies. He was a visiting lecturer in 2002 at Dartmouth College and in 1998 at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He was a professorial lecturer at Johns Hopkins (School of Advanced International Studies) in 1982-1984. He has taught at the University of Munich and the Salzburg Seminar.

His most recent book is Überpower: The Imperial Temptation in American Foreign Policy.

Reared in Berlin, Joffe obtained his Ph.D. degree in government from Harvard.

http://www.hoover.org/bios/joffe

Event Synopsis:

Professor Joffe opens his talk with two movie quotes, "With great power comes great responsibility" from Spiderman, and "If you build it, they will come" from Field of Dreams. Both quotes, he explains, relate to the idea of modern American hegemony. The United States must concern itself with policies and institutions that promote its own interests and those of others, and by doing so will attract international support and cooperation as it did in the "golden age" of American-led institutions such as NATO. This era ended with the fall of the Soviet Union, following which the United States has seen its legitimacy decline lower than ever, even while accumulating unprecedented military power. The void left by the Soviet Union has unbalanced the global power structure and caused other countries to turn against the aggressive policies of the new single hegemon, the United States, in situations like the invasion of Iraq under George W. Bush.  Professor Joffe describes the role that America's "imperial temptation" played in its invasion of Iraq, causing a further decline in America’s global legitimacy, a crumbling of international support, and an unwitting boon to Ahmadinejad's regime in Iran, which Joffe considers to be the real threat and which essentially had its "dirty work" of removing Saddam Hussein from power done for it by the United States. Joffe urges the U.S. to think strategically about how collaboration with other countries can help rebuild mutually beneficial institutions and bolster U.S. legitimacy, rather than approaching its role in the world ideologically, treating other nations with contempt and turning them against the U.S.

A discussion session included such questions as: What has the role of American exceptionalism played in the events of the last decade? Was the outcome of the most recent Iraq war inevitable, or was it a result of bad policies and poor handling by the U.S. government? How can a country go so wrong as the US has (in pursuing the "wrong war, in the wrong country, at wrong time" as Joffe describes)? To what extent has the de-legitimization of the US been caused by its policy toward Israel? What should the U.S. approach now be toward Iran?

Ambassador Eva Nowotny is the official representative of the Republic of Austria in the United States and is responsible for all aspects of the relationship between the two countries. On December 04, 2003 she presented her credentials to President George W. Bush at the White House. She is also Permanent Representative of the Observer Mission of Austria to the Organization of American States (OAS) and Ambassador to the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.

Cosponsored by the Consulate General of Austria, Los Angeles http://www.austria.org

Audio Synopsis:

In this presentation, Ambassador Nowotny offers her thoughts on Austria's recent six month presidency of the European Union, which she points out has fostered an increase in positive attitudes toward the EU on behalf of Austrian citizens. While 2005 was a difficult year for the EU in light of the French and Dutch rejections of the latest treaty and disagreement about enlargement policy especially with respect to Turkey, the Austrian presidency has "reestablished a cooperative climate" and a degree of optimism to the European Union. Several unexpected events early in Austria's presidency presented challenges, including Russia's decision to stop the flow of Gazprom gas to Ukraine, the Maoist uprising in Nepal, and Iran's declaration that it would continue developing nuclear weapons. Austria used these challenges as an opportunity to reinvigorate discussion of foreign policy and negotiate a coherent EU response to international conflicts. 

The ambassador then highlights key issues dominating Austria's presidency. These include the debate over the future of Europe, centering on the constitutional treaty and enlargement; the internal development of the European project, especially fostering economic competitiveness and addressing crime and terrorism; and the role of Europe in the world, where Austria has contributed strongly by helping to resolve conflicts like those in the Balkans, and helping to develop Europe's "neighborhood policy." 

Finally, Ambassador Nowotny emphasizes the importance of the transatlantic relationship, which she feels the US and Europe attach equal weight to. Key areas of cooperation in years to come will include resolving international conflicts and dealing with crises, fostering the transatlantic economic partnership, improving international governance structures, and combatting terrorism.

A discussion session following the presentation raised such questions as: Where are there differences between the interests of Austria and of the European Union? In a post-9/11 world, do we have the institutional structure necessary to deal with new issues such as terrorism, and can we rely on those left over from WWII (NATO, OSCE, etc.)? Does Austria approach Southern and Eastern European countries as one group or does it prefer to deal with them individually?

Lawrence F. Kaplan is senior editor at The New Republic, where he writes about U.S. foreign policy and international affairs. At this seminar, he will discuss military operations in Iraq, the implications for politics here at home, and competing explanations for what went wrong. On this last point, the speaker hopes to engage in a dialogue with the audience.