The Wave: Man, God, and the Ballot Box in the Middle East

 The Wave:
Man, God, and the Ballot Box in the Middle East

Monday, November 7th

3:00 – 4:30 PM
Remarks & Discussion 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Avenue Northwest

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Introduction:        Robert Kagan

 The Brookings Institution

 Foreign Policy Initiative

Author:                 Reuel Marc Gerecht

 Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Discussants:        Jeffrey Goldberg

The Atlantic

 Martin Kramer

 Washington Institute for Near East Policy

  Book Overview

The promise of democracy for Muslims offers something historically unparalleled. But how powerful is the idea of democracy in the Middle East? Could the region actually be at the beginning of a democratic wave, or is a "democratic recession" under way in Islamic lands? In The Wave, Middle East expert Reuel Marc Gerecht argues that the Middle East may actually be at the beginning of a momentous democratic wave whose convulsions could become the region's defining theme during Obama's presidency. He describes the powerful Middle Eastern democratic movements coming from both the secular left and the religious right and asserts that America must reassess democracy's supposed lack of a future in the region. Mr. Gerecht explains the importance of those countries that hold the keys to the success or failure of democracy in the region, most notably Egypt, Turkey, Iran, and the United States. He tells why mainstream Islamist groups today see elections, not revolution, as a means for society to maintain akhlaq: the mores that define good Muslims. And he shows why any legitimate form of government in the contemporary Arab Middle East must be seen to be complementary to the Prophet Muhammad's legacy and the Holy Law. If democracy is to succeed in Arab lands, Mr. Gerecht concludes, it will be because devout Arabs have decided that their faith and representative government can meld.

Speaker Biographies

Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He focuses on Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, and intelligence. He was previously a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the director of the Middle East Initiative at the Project for the New American Century. Earlier, he served as a specialist at the CIA's Directorate of Operations from 1985 to 1994, and a risk assessment consultant on the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Former Soviet Union from 1999 to 2001. Mr. Gerecht is the author of Know Thine Enemy: A Spy's Journey into Revolutionary Iran and The Islamic Paradox: Shiite Clerics, Sunni Fundamentalists, and the Coming of Arab Democracy. He is a contributing editor for The Weekly Standard and a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, as well as a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and other publications. Mr. Gerecht received his B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and a master’s degree in Islamic History from Princeton University.

Jeffrey Goldberg joined The Atlantic as a national correspondent in 2007. Previously, he was a Middle East and Washington correspondent for The New Yorker as well as a correspondent for The New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. He is the author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, which was hailed as one of the best books of 2006 by The New York Times and The Washington Post. Mr. Goldberg has received a number of awards including the 2003 National Magazine Award for his coverage of Islamic terrorism, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists prize for the best international investigative journalist, and the 2005 Anti-Defamation League Daniel Pearl Prize. In 2001, Goldberg was appointed the Syrkin Fellow in Letters of the Jerusalem Foundation and was appointed in 2002 to be a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He received his undergraduate education at the University of Pennsylvania.

Robert Kagan, a board member of the Foreign Policy Initiative and a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, is an expert and frequent commentator on U.S. national security, foreign policy, and U.S.-European relations. He writes a monthly column on world affairs for The Washington Post and is a contributing editor at The Weekly Standard and the New Republic. Prior to Brookings, Dr. Kagan spent 13 years as a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. From 1984 to 1988, he served as a member of the State Department’s Office of Policy Planning, as principal speechwriter for Secretary of State George Shultz and as deputy for policy in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. Dr. Kagan is a prolific author on U.S. foreign policy issues. His most recent book is The Return of History and the End of Dreams. His previous book, Dangerous Nation: America’s Place in the World from its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the 20th Century was the winner of the 2008 Lepgold Prize and a 2007 Finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize. His book, Of Paradise and Power was a New York Times bestseller, and a bestseller in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Canada. Dr. Kagan received his B.A. from Yale University, his M.P.P. at John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and his Ph.D. from American University.

Martin Kramer is a Wexler-Fromer fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, and president-designate of Shalem College. Previously, he spent twenty-five years as the director of the Mashe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University. He has taught as a visiting professor at a number of Universities including Cornell University and Georgetown University. Dr. Kramer was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and was a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies where he founded and co-convened Middle East Strategy at Harvard (MESH). He is the author of the bestselling monograph, Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America. Dr. Kramer earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Near Eastern studies from Princeton University.