S1E111 - Stephen Zunes - Middle East Expert on an Imminent Shift There
The episode with Professor and Middle East expert Stephen Zunes began with Professor Michael Krasny asking about the victory of HTS over Assad in Syria and the poison weapons that remain there, as well as what to expect of the new government and its effect on ISIS, the Kurds, and migration.
Krasny spoke of the profound enmity and divisions, and he and Zunes discussed prospects for democracy and the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Talk of Iran's role, the Houthis and Yemen, secularism, and the Sunni/Shia divide followed, as did discussion of Saudi Arabia rebranding itself, rising anti-Semitism, and "intifada" and "jihad" as triggering words. A listener posed questions about Egypt refusing to open its borders to Palestinians.
Krasny then brought up the question of possible paths to peace and how best to determine bad actors from good ones in the region, as well as the likely effects of ongoing turmoil there and the effect of change in Syria on Russia's Putin and the ongoing war in Ukraine. The episode concluded with a listener's question about if and when Jewish Americans will be permitted to visit Syria.
Biography
Dr. Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he served as founding director of the program in Middle Eastern Studies. Recognized as one the country’s leading scholars of U.S. Middle East policy and of strategic nonviolent action, Professor Zunes has served as a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus project of the Institute for Policy Studies, an associate editor of Peace Review, and a contributing editor of Tikkun until June 2024. Dr. Zunes was honored to serve March-June 2024 as Torgny Segerstedt Visiting Research Professor at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. [See his Vitae, Photo and Contact/Appearances.]
Over nearly four decades, Dr. Zunes has authored hundreds of articles for scholarly and general readership, and is frequently interviewed and lectures as a prominent expert on Middle Eastern politics, U.S. foreign policy, international terrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, strategic nonviolent action, and human rights. He is also the principal editor of Nonviolent Social Movements (Blackwell Publishers, 1999), the author of the highly acclaimed Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003) and co-author (with Jacob Mundy) of Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution (Syracuse University Press, second revised expanded edition, 2022.)
Professor Zunes received his PhD. from Cornell University, his M.A. from Temple University, and his B.A. from Oberlin College. He has previously served on the faculty of Ithaca College, the University of Puget Sound, and Whitman College. He has served as a research associate for the Center for Global, International and Regional Studies at the University of California-Santa Cruz; a visiting professor for the International Master in Peace, Conflict, and Development Studies at Jaume I University in Spain; and, a visiting research professor at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
He has been a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship on Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies at Dartmouth College, a Human Rights Fellowship at the Center for Law and Global Justice at the University of San Francisco, and a Joseph J. Malone Fellowship in Arab and Islamic Studies, as well as research grants through the Institute for Global Security Studies, the United States Institute of Peace, and the International Resource Center. He was the 2016 Research Monograph Awardee along with Michael Beer of Nonviolence International.
In the early 1990s, Dr. Zunes served as founding director of the Institute for a New Middle East Policy in Seattle. He was the recipient of the 2015 Dean’s Scholar Award from USF’s College of Arts and Sciences and, in 2002, he won recognition from the Peace and Justice Studies Association as their first Peace Scholar of the Year. His work opposing the US invasion of Iraq was also the inspiration for creating The Luxembourg Peace Prize for Outstanding Peace Journalism.
Professor Zunes has made frequent visits to the Middle East and other conflict regions, where he has met with top government officials, academics, journalists, and opposition leaders.
He is also a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post, Open Democracy, Common Dreams, Truthout, Foreign Policy in Focus, The Progressive, and the National Catholic Reporter. His op-ed columns have appeared in major daily newspapers on four continents. In addition, he has spoken at over 150 colleges and universities and scores of community groups in the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, and Australia, and is a frequent guest on National Public Radio, Pacifica Radio, PBS, BBC, MSNBC, CNN, Voice of America, Al-Jazeera, China Radio International, and other media outlets for analysis on breaking world events. He has also served as a consultant and board member for a number of peace and human rights organizations in both the United States and overseas.
Conversation recorded on December 27, 2024.