Fawaz Gerges

Fawaz A. Gerges
Born	December 1958 Akkar District, Lebanon
Citizenship	United States; Lebanon; United Kingdom
Occupation	Academic
Title	Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics
Spouse	Nora Colton
Children	4
Academic background
Education	St. Antony's College, Oxford (DPhil), London School of Economics (MSc), University of Southern California (M.A.)

Fawaz A. Gerges (Lebanese pronunciation: [fawˈwaːz ˈʒeɾʒes]) (born 15 December 1958) is a Lebanese-American academic, author, and public intellectual. He is a leading authority on the Middle East, U.S. foreign policy, international relations, social movements, and relations between the Islamic and Western worlds. Gerges was a high-profile critic of the United States' 2003 invasion of Iraq, appearing twice on The Oprah Winfrey Show in March 2003 as part of Oprah's Anti-war series to urge Americans not to believe pro-war propaganda and to say that he felt a moral responsibility to dissent right up to the last minute.^[1]

Biography

Gerges was born into a Greek Orthodox family in 1958 in the Akkar District of Lebanon. During the Lebanese Civil War, Gerges' hometown was attacked, forcing his family to flee to Syria and to take refuge in Christian monasteries.^[2] Gerges' younger brother, Bassam, who served in the Lebanese military and was the commanding officer of Joseph Aoun (general), was killed during the war. Gerges has referred to himself as a member of Lebanon's 1975 war generation, saying: "My generation was wiped out—killed, mutilated and polluted by sectarian-tribal conflict between 1975 and 1990, or forced into exile."^[3]

After immigrating to the United States, Gerges earned a master's degree in international relations at the University of Southern California, an MSc in international history at the London School of Economics, and a DPhil in social sciences from Oxford University. At Oxford, Gerges was a member of St. Antony's College and his research was supervised by Israeli-British historian Avi Shlaim.^[4]

Gerges has taught at Oxford, Harvard University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Columbia University, and he was a research fellow at Princeton University for two years. At Sarah Lawrence, where Gerges was based until 2009, he held the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation Chair in Middle Eastern Studies and International Affairs.^[5]

Since 2010, Gerges has been a professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics.^[6] Gerges holds the Emirates Chair of the Contemporary Middle East, and he was the inaugural Director of the LSE's Middle East Centre from 2010 to 2013.^[7]

Personal

Gerges is married to Professor Nora Colton, an economist and Director of the University College of London's Global Business School for Health.^[8] They met while both were studying at Oxford University. The couple have four children. Their eldest son, Bassam Gergi, graduated from Oxford in 2014 and Yale Law School in 2017, and he practices law in the United States.^[9] Gerges is a citizen of the United States, United Kingdom, and Lebanon.

Views and Opinions

U.S. Foreign Policy Towards the Middle East. Gerges has been a sharp critic of America's approach to the Middle East. In his book America and Political Islam, Gerges accused "the U.S. foreign-policy elite" of frequently cloaking their real political aims "behind an idealistic facade" and of using "democratic rhetoric as mere window dressing." When American officials were pressed, Gerges wrote, "democratic ideals were sacrificed at the altar of realpolitik calculations of self-interest."^[10]

Indeed, writing for The New York Times, Gerges has called "shortsighted" America's pattern of using "democracy as a whip to punish its enemies, . . . while doing business as usual with its autocratic allies."^[11] He is of the opinion that "ultimately, democracy and respect for human rights and the rule of law are the most effective way to undermine extremism."^[12]

Gerges has advocated for an American foreign policy approach that "recognize[s] the costs of continuously propping up dictators" and makes "a strategic commitment to democracy promotion, not through the barrel of a gun and social engineering . . . , but by partnering with local civil society and the international community."^[13] He believes better outcomes could be achieved by the United States using "its power to help resolve regional conflicts and civil strife, rebuild institutions, and invest in education and jobs, the building blocks of democracy."^[14]

Gerges has also critiqued American officials for "ignoring[ing] the high-cost ways in which the U.S. 'war on terror' and the use of tactics such as drone strikes fuel the fires of . . . radicalization" and have driven a "pattern of violent rage."^[15] Gerges encouraged "halting the questionable use of tactics such as drone attacks" as a "way to deactivat[e] the . . . minefield that entrap disillusioned Muslims teens and spur some of them down a violent path."^[16]

Books

Gerges is the author of numerous books.

Gerges' DPhil thesis at Oxford resulted in his first book, The Superpowers and the Middle East: Regional and International Politics 1955-1967, published in 1994.^[17] A review in the International Journal of Middle East Studies said that Gerges analyzed "in a masterly way both the difficulties a superpower has in trying to influence a regional state and the dangers facing a regional power if it goes too far in alienating or depending on an outside superpower."^[18]

Gerges' next book, published by Cambridge University Press in 1999, was America and Political Islam: Clash of Cultures or Clash of Interests? The book provides an account of the origins of American policy on political Islam and assesses the relative importance of culture and values in the words and deeds of American officials.^[19] A review in The Journal of Politics characterized America and Political Islam as "a richly textured analysis of American foreign policy toward political Islam since the 1979 collapse of the pro-Western government in Iran."^[20]

Then, after the September 11 attacks on the United States, Gerges published with Cambridge University Press in 2005 his third book, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global. Gerges argues that "far from being an Islamist front united in armed struggle, or jihad against the Christian West, al Qaeda represented a small faction within the jihadist movement, criticized by other groups who preferred to concentrate on changing the Muslim world, rather than attacking the Far Enemy and making the fight global."^[21] Writing for Foreign Affairs magazine, Professor L. Carl Brown of Princeton University said that The Far Enemy made "surely the most extensive use of Arabic sources on the subject to be found in any Western-language book," and the "overall interpretation presented is often persuasive . . . and always well informed."^[22] The Washington Post selected The Far Enemy in 2006 as one of the best 15 books published in the field.^[23]

A year later, in 2006, Gerges published his fourth book with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy. Built around a series of profiles, Journey of the Jihadist examines how key personalities within the jihadist vanguard see the world and notes how Islamic militants often disagree on critical issues, including their approach to the United States.^[24]

Next, on the ten-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Oxford University Press published Gerges' fifth book, The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda.^[25] Gerges argues that after 9/11 the Western powers become mired in a "terrorism narrative," stemming from the mistaken belief that America was in danger of a devastating attack by a crippled al-Qaeda, while they neglected other growing national security dangers. A review in the journal Perspectives on Politics said that Gerges "argues with a powerful and convincing voice" that a primary reason al-Qaeda "continues to loom large in the imagination of Western policy makers and publics . . . [is] a combination of cultural, economic, and political factors inherent to the West."^[26]

Gerges' sixth book, Obama and the Middle East: The End of America's Moment? was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2013.^[27] Gerges contends that the cynically realist policy the United States employed since World War II—and that the Obama administration continued—is at the root of current bitterness and mistrust in the Middle East, and he submits that it is time to remake American foreign policy. A literary review in the Los Angeles Review of Books said that, amid a "political culture of misplaced punditry," Obama and the Middle East "is a welcome contrast, and a voice of dissent. . . . [Gerges] aligns himself with a biting critique of Washington, and of the latent biases and tropes in much American reporting and policy-making on the Middle East."^[28]

Gerges' forthcoming book, What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East, is scheduled to be published by Yale University Press in May 2024.^[29] Gerges considers how Middle Eastern history might have been different if American leaders after the end of the Second World War had encouraged independent Middle Eastern leaders and peoples instead of supporting potentates, autocrats, and strongmen.^[30] Chris Hedges, former Middle East Bureau Chief of The New York Times, calls the book "a searing indictment of an American foreign policy establishment that, in country after country in the Middle East, consistently made things worse."^[31]

Television and Radio Appearances

For three decades, Gerges has been a regular contributor on television and radio networks throughout the world, including CNN, ABC, CBS, NPR, the BBC and Al Jazeera.

During the weeks leading up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Gerges was a vocal critic of the proposed invasion and a regular guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and The Charlie Rose Show.^[32]

During the Arab Spring in the early 2010s, Newsweek magazine noted that Gerges was one of the favorite experts called upon to explain unfolding events, appearing on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, among others, and penning eight op-eds.^[33]

Works

• Gerges, Fawaz A. (2018). Making the Arab World: Nasser, Qutb, and the Clash That Shaped the Middle East. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691167886.
• Gerges, Fawaz A. (2016). ISIS: A History. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691170008.
• Gerges, Fawaz A. (2015). Contentious Politics in the Middle East: Popular Resistance and Marginalized Activism beyond the Arab Uprisings. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137537218
• Gerges, Fawaz A. (2013). The New Middle East: Protest and Revolution in the Arab World. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107616882.
• Gerges, Fawaz A. (2012). Obama and the Middle East: The End of America's Moment?. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0230113817.
• Gerges, Fawaz A. (2011). The Rise and Fall of Al Qaeda. Oxford University Press.
• Gerges, Fawaz A.; Wynbrandt, James (2009). A Brief History of Pakistan. Facts On File. ISBN 978-0-8160-6184-6.
• Gerges, Fawaz A. (2009). The Far Enemy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521737432.
• Gerges, Fawaz A. (2006). Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy. Harcourt. ISBN 0-15-101213-X.
• Gerges, Fawaz A. (2005). The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-79140-5.
• Gerges, Fawaz A.; Wynbrandt, James (2004). A Brief History of Saudi Arabia. Checkmark Books. ISBN 0-8160-5795-8.
• Gerges, Fawaz A. (1999). America and Political Islam: Clash of Cultures or Clash of Interests?. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-63957-3.
• Gerges, Fawaz A. (1994). The Superpowers and the Middle East: Regional and International Politics, 1955–1967. Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-8696-9.

External links

• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Articles at The Guardian

This page was last edited on 14 April 2024, at 16:14