Gerd Nonneman (Temse, 16 May 1959) is a Professor of International Relations and Gulf Studies at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University's campus in Qatar (GU-Q, also often referred to as SFS-Q), where he served as Dean from 2011 to 2016. [1] Before joining Georgetown University, he held the Al-Qasimi Chair in Gulf Studies, and a Chair in International Relations and Middle East Politics, at the University of Exeter. He is a former Director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies (IAIS) and of the Centre for Gulf Studies (CGS) at that university. He is also a former Executive Director of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES). [2]
Born in Flanders (Temse, 1959) and educated at Ghent University, Belgium in Oriental Philology (Arabic) and, at postgraduate level, in Development Studies, Gerd Nonneman subsequently worked in the commercial sector in Iraq during the early 1980s. Returning to graduate studies in the UK in 1984, he obtained his PhD in Politics at the University of Exeter, specialising in the politics of the Middle East. After teaching Middle East politics and political economy at Manchester and Exeter Universities, and a spell as Visiting Professor at the International University of Japan, he taught International Relations and Middle East Politics at Lancaster University from 1993 to 2007, at which point he returned to Exeter to take up the Al-Qasimi Chair in Gulf Studies, until his appointment as Dean of Georgetown University's SFS-Qatar in 2011. [3]
He was a member of the UK's 2001 National Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) panel on Middle Eastern Studies, and served as Executive Director of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) between 1998 and 2002. He was Associate Fellow of the Middle East Programme at Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs) until 2012. [4] [5]
Prof. Nonneman is co-editor of the Journal of Arabian Studies (Routledge), published in association with Georgetown University Qatar (GUQ) and the Association for Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies (AGAPS).
He has acted as a consultant to or worked with a range of companies, national and international official institutions including the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, foreign ministries in Europe and the Middle East, the European Commission, and various NGOs – ranging from Amnesty International to the Bertelsmann Foundation. He has also been a regular media commentator on Middle Eastern and Gulf affairs, and has frequently acted as expert witness on human rights cases relating to the Middle East. [6]
Recent works include: [7] [8] [9]
Books:
Articles/chapters/papers:
The Middle East is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions, and being seen as too Eurocentric. The region includes the vast majority of the territories included in the closely associated definition of West Asia, but without the South Caucasus, and additionally includes all of Egypt and all of Turkey.
The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, also known as the Gulf Cooperation Council, is a regional, intergovernmental, political, and economic union comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The council's main headquarters is located in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The Charter of the GCC was signed on 25 May 1981, formally establishing the institution.
The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) is the school of international relations at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. It is consistently ranked among the world's leading international affairs schools, granting degrees at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Notable alumni include former U.S. president Bill Clinton, former CIA director George Tenet, and King Felipe VI of Spain, as well as numerous other heads of state or government. Its faculty has also included many distinguished figures in international affairs, such as former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright, former U.S. secretary of defense Chuck Hagel, and former president of Poland Aleksander Kwaśniewski.
Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) is a campus of Georgetown University in Education City, outside of Doha, Qatar. It is one of Georgetown University's eleven undergraduate and graduate schools, and is supported by a partnership between Qatar Foundation and Georgetown University.
The Arab states of the Persian Gulf refers to a group of Arab states which border the Persian Gulf. There are seven member states of the Arab League in the region: Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Yemen is bound to the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, based on history and culture.
Mishaal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was a Saudi Arabian politician and businessman. A member of the House of Saud, he held different cabinet posts in the 1950s and was the chairman of the Allegiance Council from 2007 to 2017.
Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares its sole land border with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its territory surrounded by the Persian Gulf. The Gulf of Bahrain, an inlet of the Persian Gulf, separates Qatar from nearby Bahrain. The capital is Doha, home to over 80% of the country's inhabitants, and the land area is mostly made up of flat, low-lying desert.
Joseph Albert Kéchichian is a political scientist.
United States foreign policy in the Middle East has its roots in the 19th-century Barbary Wars that occurred shortly after the 1776 establishment of the United States as an independent sovereign state, but became much more expansive in the aftermath of World War II. With the goal of preventing the Soviet Union from gaining influence in the region during the Cold War, American foreign policy saw the deliverance of extensive support in various forms to anti-communist and anti-Soviet regimes; among the top priorities for the U.S. with regards to this goal was its support for the State of Israel against its Soviet-backed neighbouring Arab countries during the peak of the Arab–Israeli conflict. The U.S. also came to replace the United Kingdom as the main security patron for Saudi Arabia as well as the other Arab states of the Persian Gulf in the 1960s and 1970s in order to ensure, among other goals, a stable flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. As of 2023, the U.S. has diplomatic relations with every country in the Middle East except for Iran, with whom relations were severed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and Syria, with whom relations were suspended in 2012 following the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War.
The Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS), located in Doha, Qatar, is a center for international and regional affairs. The center is a part of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar (SFS-Qatar). The center works closely with SFS-Qatar Faculty to create research and publications, organize events and manage outreach activities.
The Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States is an academic center "distinguished by its emphasis on study of the contemporary Arab world and its rigorous Arabic language training." Part of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, CCAS was founded in 1975; scholars Hanna Batatu and Hisham Sharabi were part of its founding.
Bilateral relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been strained over several geopolitical issues, such as aspirations for regional leadership, oil export policy and relations with the United States and other Western countries. Diplomatic relations were suspended from 1987 to 1990, and in 2016 for seven years following certain issues like the intervention in Yemen, Iran embassy bombing in Yemen, incidents in 2015 Hajj, the execution of Nimr al-Nimr, the attack on the Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran. However, in March 2023, after discussions brokered by China, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to reestablish relations.
The United States’ relationship with the Arab League prior to the Second World War was limited. However, the first country to officially recognize the US was Morocco. Moreover, in comparison to European powers such as Britain and France which had managed to colonise almost all of the Arab World after defeating the Ottoman Empire in 1918, the United States was ‘popular and respected throughout the region’. Indeed, ‘Americans were seen as good people, untainted by the selfishness and duplicity associated with the Europeans’. American missionaries had brought modern medicine and set up educational institutions all over the Arab World. In addition to this, the US had provided the Arab states with highly skilled petroleum engineers. Thus, there were some connections, which were made between the United States and the Arab states before the Second World War. All in all, the American-Arab relations have had their ups and downs, with each conflict changing the relations. At the moment, Arab–American relations are very strong economically, where the Arab world is the third largest exporter to the US, and the US is the first largest importer in the Arab world. Nevertheless, these strong economic relations fail to show in the political arena.
Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) share a naval border and are part of the Arabic-speaking Persian Gulf region. They are both members of the GCC.
Jean-François Seznec is a political scientist specializing in business and finance in the Middle East. He retired in 2020 and now spends his time managing Hollywood Farm, a fourth-generation family farm in the Broadneck peninsula of Annapolis, Maryland.
The Treaty of Darin, or the Darin Pact, of 1915 was between Britain and Abdulaziz Al Saud, ruler of the Emirate of Nejd and Hasa, who founded the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in an ongoing struggle for influence in the Middle East and other regions of the Muslim world. The two countries have provided varying degrees of support to opposing sides in nearby conflicts, including the civil wars in Syria and Yemen; and disputes in Bahrain, Lebanon, Qatar, and Iraq. It also extends to disputes or broader competition in other countries globally including in West, North and East Africa, South, Central, Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and the Caucasus.
Saudi Arabia–Qatar relations refers to the current and historical relationship between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the State of Qatar. Prior to 2017, the two countries maintained cordial ties. Qatar was mainly subservient to Saudi Arabia in matters relating to foreign policy. Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani's assumption of power saw Qatar reclaim its sovereignty in foreign affairs, often diverging from Saudi Arabia on many geopolitical issues. In 1996, the Qatari government launched Al Jazeera in a bid to consolidate soft power. One of the most watched news stations in the Arab world, Al Jazeera proved to be a wedge in the two's bilateral relations as it routinely criticized Saudi Arabia's ruler. The network also provided a platform for Islamist groups which are considered a threat to Saudi Arabia's monarchy.
The Senior Naval Officer, Persian Gulf, was a Royal Navy command appointment who was responsible for administering the Persian Gulf Station military formation including its establishments and naval forces known as the Persian Gulf Squadron later called the Persian Gulf Division. Initially located at Basidu, Qishm Island, in Persia, then Henjam Island in Persia (1911–1935), and finally Ras Al-Jufair, Bahrain (1935–1972).
The involvement of Turkey within the Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict has been ambiguous, and the country has supported both Iran and Saudi Arabia at times.