ID#: 1977 Nov 13 : Houston : Is the Arab World Dying or..

IS THE ARAB WORLD DYING OR BEING BORN?

The conflict in the Middle East involves many players, with ISIS taking a leading role in today's narrative. The people of the Middle East seem to be in a struggle for identity, where ethnic, religious, and tribal affiliations are vying for power and control of state and national identities. The map of the Middle East is being redrawn, with a common thread for all of the countries involved. Are the old orders dying only to be replaced by narrowly-defined identities? 

Rami Khouri is director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. He also serves as editor at large of the Beirut-based Daily Star Newspaper. He spent the 2001-2002 academic year as a Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University and was appointed a member of the Brookings Institution Task Force on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World. He was editor-in-chief of the Jordan Times for seven years and has written for leading international publications, including the Financial Times, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post.