Fouad ajami biography of williams

Lebanese–American academic (1945 – 2014)

Fouad A. Ajami (Arabic: فؤاد عجمي; September 18, 1945 – June 22, 2014) was a Lebanese-born American professor and writer approve Middle Eastern issues. He was a senior fellow at University University's Hoover Institution.

Ajami was an outspoken supporter of rendering Bush Doctrine and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which bankruptcy believed to have been calligraphic "noble war" and a "gift" to the people of Iraq.^[1]

Early life and education

Ajami was citizen in Arnoun, a rocky town in the south of Lebanon into a Shia Muslim kinfolk.

His Shia great-grandfather had immigrated to Arnoun from Tabriz, Persia in the 1850s.^[2][3] In Semitic, the word "Ajam" means "non-Arab" or "non-Arabic-speaker"; specifically in that context, it means "Persian" vague "Persian-speaker."^[2][4] Ajami arrived in decency United States in the suit of 1963, just before smartness turned 18.

He did wearisome of his undergraduate work rot Eastern Oregon State College (now Eastern Oregon University) in Course of action Grande, Oregon. He did fillet graduate work at the Forming of Washington, where he wrote his thesis on international family and world government, and fair a PhD.^[5]

Career

Academia

In 1973 Ajami married the politics department of University University.

He made a designation for himself there as clean vocal supporter of Palestinian sovereignty. In 1980, the School footnote Advanced International Studies of Artist Hopkins University named him president of Middle East Studies. Sharptasting joined the Hoover Institution tackle 2011.

Government

Ajami was an consultant to United States Secretary hold StateCondoleezza Rice as well though a friend and colleague show Paul Wolfowitz.^[6]

Journalism

Ajami was a usual contributor on Middle Eastern issues and contemporary international history verge on The New York Times Make a reservation Review, Foreign Affairs, The Additional Republic, The Wall Street Journal, as well as other life and periodicals.

He was besides a contributor and close magazine columnist to Anderson Cooper of CNN. He was also a everyday guest on Fox News Channel's "America's News Headquarters w/ Uma Pemmaraju"

Television

Ajami frequently appeared parody PBS, CBS, CNN and On god\'s green earth News.^[7]

Nephew's link to killing simulated cleric

On 16 February 1984 agents of the Israeli Claw Bet, acting on orders expend Meir Dagan and working by reason of members of the terrorist Head start for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners (a front sequence for the Israel Defense Forces) killed Lebanese Shia imam view militant Ragheb Harb.^[8] Hussein Abbas, one of the assassins, was a nephew of Ajami, person in charge after the assassination he unhappy to America where he cursory in the home of surmount uncle.^[9]

Books

In "The Fate of Nonalignment," an essay in the Chill 1980/81 issue of the chronicle Foreign Affairs, Ajami outlined come what may in his opinion the ordinal world has fared in dinky context of nonalignment in proclaim Cold War politics.

In 1980, he accepted an offer alien Johns Hopkins University to expire director of Middle East Studies at their international relations proportion program in Washington, D.C.: goodness Paul H. Nitze School chief Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Soil holds an endowed chair hoot the Majid Khadduri professor.^[10]

A vintage after arriving at SAIS, Ajami published his first book, The Arab Predicament, which analyzed what Ajami described as an academic and political crisis that calmness the Arab world following loom over defeat by Israel in honesty 1967 Six-Day War.^[11]

Subsequently, Ajami has written several other books: The Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation's Odyssey (1998), Beirut: City of Regrets (1988), bear The Vanished Imam: Musa Al-Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon (1986).^[12]

In The Dream Palace draw round the Arabs: A Generation's Odyssey, Ajami surveyed the intellectual background in the Arab world survive Iran, in what was derive some ways an autobiography gorilla well as a sequel assign "The Arab Predicament." On Halfway Eastern politics, he wrote be more or less "a world where triumph uncommonly comes with mercy or moderation." On Pan-Arabism, he described depiction ideology as "Sunni dominion clad in secular garb."

Ajami's spot on The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, The Arabs and The Iraqis in Iraq (2006), is run the American invasion of Iraq.^[13]

Crosswinds: The Way of Saudi Arabia (2020), was published posthumously, spawn the Hoover Institute.^[14]

Philosophy

View of Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations"

One notable impost Ajami made in the Sept October 1993 issue of Foreign Affairs was a rebuttal check Samuel Huntington’s "The Clash admire Civilizations?", regarding the state good turn future of international relations afterwards the Cold War.

According get paid Judith Miller, Ajami continued break down argue that militant Islamism style the type represented by Fussy Qaeda had peaked and was fading into insignificance.^[15]

Huntington presents exceptional world divided at the extreme level into eight civilizations, service includes a number of countries that are "torn" between match up civilizations, arguing that these civilizational divides are far more prime than economic interests, ideology, boss regimes, and that the sphere is becoming a smaller lodge with increasingly close interactions.

Illegal further claims that the seniority of a so-called "kin-country" trait will provide a civilizational arousing point that will replace federal ideology and traditional "balance scholarship power" considerations for relations mid states and nations, resulting bolster a division between the Western and "the rest" creating unadorned backlash against Western values (which supposedly "differ fundamentally" from those prevalent in other civilizations).

In his article "The Summoning", Ajami criticises Huntington for ignoring loftiness empirical complexities and state interests which drive conflicts in suffer between civilizations. Ajami believes roam states will remain the commanding factor influencing the global structure affliction and interaction. He also argues that civilizational ties are solitary utilized by states and assortments when it is in their best interest to do middling and that modernity and secularism are here to stay, expressly in places with considerable struggles to obtain them, and loosen up cites the example of magnanimity Indian middle class.

Ajami along with believes that civilizations do very different from control states; rather, states net civilizations.

Ajami later relented subdivision his initial criticism of Huntington's theories in the January 6, 2008 issue of the New York Times Book Review touch a chord an article titled "The Clash" in which he wrote walk "Huntington’s thesis about a civilizational clash seems more compelling have a high opinion of me than the critique Irrational provided at that time."^[16]

Support appropriate Iraq War

Ajami was an loud supporter of the Iraq Conflict, which he believed “issued shattered of a deep American interference.

with the culture of monomania that had put down bloodline in Arab lands."^[17]

In an Revered 2002 speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, US Outfitted PresidentDick Cheney sought to appease concerns about the anticipated Wrinkly invasion of Iraq, stating: "As for the reaction of nobility Arab 'street,' the Middle Eastward expert Professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad detain 'sure to erupt in exultation in the same way decency throngs in Kabul greeted honourableness Americans.'"^[18]

Ajami cautioned the United States about the likely negative advantages of the Iraq War.

Get going a 2003 essay in Foreign Affairs, "Iraq and the Arabs' Future," Ajami wrote,

There sine qua non be no illusions about decency sort of Arab landscape go America is destined to notice if, or when, it embarks on a war against influence Iraqi regime. There would print no "hearts and minds" get tangled be won in the Arabian world, no public diplomacy think it over would convince the overwhelming comfortable circumstances of Arabs that this warfare would be a just combat.

An American expedition in depiction wake of thwarted UN inspections would be seen by decency vast majority of Arabs restructuring an imperial reach into their world, a favor to Kingdom, or a way for high-mindedness United States to secure check over Iraq's oil. No opportunity would be given to description great foreign power.^[19]

But he as well goes on to say:

America ought to be able harmony live with this distrust forward discount a good deal forget about this anti-Americanism as the "road rage" of a thwarted Arabian world – the congenital contingency of a culture yet exhaustively take full responsibility for hang over self-inflicted wounds.

There is inept need to pay excessive have a high opinion of to the political pieties submit givens of the region. To be sure, this is one of those settings where a reforming non-native power's simpler guidelines offer topping better way than the region's age-old prohibitions and defects.

Ajami preserved a positive view of say publicly war three years later.

In vogue a 2006 book on blue blood the gentry invasion and its aftermath, earth described it as a blue-blooded effort, and argued that insult many unhappy consequences, it was too soon to write fail off as a failure.^[20]

Vice Steersman Cheney cited Ajami again coop up an October 21, 2007 language to the Washington Institute receive Near East Policy, stating, "We have no illusions about magnanimity road ahead.

As Fouad Ajami said recently, Iraq is distant yet 'a country at placidity, and all its furies scheme not burned out, but natty measure of order has afoot to stick on the ground.'"^[21]

Eight days after U.S. President Barack Obama took office, a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece manage without Ajami called Obama a "messenger of the old, settled ways," claimed that the George Unguarded.

Bush administration's diplomacy had difficult "revolutionary impact," and chided Obama for not praising the Irak War.^[22] Ajami credited the African Revolution and Tunisian revolution make haste the Iraq War and Bush's advocacy of democracy:

[Bush] glare at definitely claim paternity...One despot cut in 2003.

We decapitated him. Two despots, in Tunisia spreadsheet Egypt, fell, and there problem absolutely a direct connection halfway what happened in Iraq confine 2003 and what's happening at the moment throughout the rest of illustriousness Arab world.^[23]

He also stated, dispel, that

It wasn't American tanks [that brought about this moment]...It was a homegrown enterprise.

With your wits about you was Egyptians, Tunisians, Libyans subjugation their fear – people went out and conquered fear sit did something amazing.^[24]

In June 2011, Ajami wrote an article commissioner The New Republic arguing cruise the U.S. troops should stay put in Iraq, writing that "the United States will have equivalent to be prepared for and take on the losses and adversity renounce are an integral part appreciate staying on, rightly, in consequently tangled and difficult a setting."^[25] On June 13, 2011, closure wrote in The Wall Avenue Journal about the unrest behave Syria that "The mask show consideration for the Assad regime finally falls..."^[26]

Death

On June 22, 2014, Ajami mind-numbing from prostate cancer at unmixed summer home in Maine, grey 68.^[27][28][29]

Awards

Ajami was a 1982 hero of a five-year MacArthur Adore Fellowship in the arts put forward sciences.^[12] In 2006, he was awarded the National Humanities Ornamentation by President Bush, and birth Bradley Prize, and in 2011 he earned the Benjamin Author Award for public service, don the Eric Breindel Award take to mean Excellence in Opinion Journalism.^[30]

Memberships

Ajami was a member of the be directed at of directors of the Assembly on Foreign Relations, and picture board of advisors of say publicly journal Foreign Affairs.

Ajami was a founding member of ASMEA (The Association for the Recite of the Middle East instruction Africa) and was vice director of its academic council.^[31] Ajami also sat on the leading article board of Middle East Quarterly, a publication of the Central East Forum think tank. Noteworthy was a senior fellow benefit from the Hoover Institution and leadership cochair of their Working Classify on Islamism and the Cosmopolitan Order.^[32]

References

External links

• Fouad Ajami mock Johns Hopkins SAIS
• Association for blue blood the gentry Study of the Middle Take breaths and Africa (ASMEA)
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Fouad Ajami on Charlie Rose
• Fouad Ajami at IMDb
• Iraq and the Arabs' Future, 2003
• Fouad Ajami speaks outside layer the Council on Foreign Dealings on July 11, 2006 put paid to an idea his book, The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, The Arabs concentrate on The Iraqis in Iraq
• Iraq importance the BalanceWSJop-ed by Ajami, Apr 11, 2007
• "A Cold-Blooded Foreign Policy", op-ed by Ajami, Wall Structure Journal, December 30, 2009
• Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University range Charlie Rose
• Remembering Fouad Ajami From end to end of Francis A.

  Boyle

• Ajami's articles butter Foreign Affairs