 Let's get started again. Attendance list for the second round. Right, okay. Now, back to the middle list. Yes, we were talking about the possible implications. I mean, from your perspective to the extent that you had a chance to follow. Of course, I don't expect you to know everything which has taken place since the 1990s. Most of you, if not all of you, were attending kindergarten or primary schools back then. But at least it's a way of learning your subject. It is essential that you go back and read in retrospect what happened there. And many of the events that unfold, of course, when news coverage, of course, taking place on TV channels, there are also references to the past events. So they are not only talking about what has happened today. For instance, if I'm not mistaken, there is this so-called WikiLeaks. You know, have you heard that? WikiLeaks. The Wiki, there is this Wikipedia which is quite, you know, important to get first-hand information. But of course, never 100% rely on anything or everything you find on the Internet because you have to double-check the veracity of the information. Because Wikipedia and other types of encyclopedia are also open to individual contributions. Well, there may be some, I don't know, a screening process, but still they cannot be knowledgeable about every single thing. Anyway, the WikiLeaks, I did not have much time to read into the subject, but what I get from this somewhat superficial collection of information, there is this leak of information about what happened during this war, prior to the war, 1991, after the war, and prior to the Second War in Iraq, 2003, and afterwards. So, of course, the situation is somewhat tense. Still, very tense, but was tense. And there is this talk about some private contractor firms which were supposed to provide security to not necessarily Iraqi people, but more specifically to the American and British and other countries, top leadership and soldiers as well as such individuals, civil individuals who were part of the administration or part of the, of course, administration not from within the Iraqi people, I mean, some American people as well as Iraqi administrators. And these private contractor firms who were supposed to provide security, especially of these individuals and groups of people, have committed certain crimes, such as the Blackwater, which is, and this is so reported on the media, in various instances everywhere, for so many years since 2004 and onwards. So, this is therefore an indication of what happened in the past. And if you follow the WikiLeaks or other type of information coming in retrospect, I mean, making references to what happened in the past, you might have an understanding of what really happened there. So, there are also other countries like Israel, Jordan, Egypt, the Gulf countries. What in your opinion, or how in your opinion these countries were affected from Iraq war? Yes, Anil, any particular opinion about how Israel may have affected from the situation in Iraq? I mean, when I say a country being affected from a certain development, of course, there are many ways in which you can make comment. I mean, you can say, like Fatih said at the beginning about the situation in Syria, its economy was badly affected from the immigrants, people who fled their countries and went into the Syrian territory. But they're also being affected. We mainly look, not exclusively, but mainly look at the change in the threat perceptions of states. Because our concern is primarily, first and foremost, is the security situation. I mean, of course, Professor Erin Cialda might be interested in the economic situation, or somebody else might be interested, Esra Chouda might be interested in the sociological situation, and Mustafa Kubbal is interested in the security situation. So, therefore, these events can be covered from various perspectives, and all of which would make sense. And of course, when you combine all of them together, you have correct assessment of the situation, which gives you a much better idea. But given the limited time that we have and limited knowledge that each and every one of these professors, including myself, has, and therefore we cannot go beyond certain level and we cannot make comments on everything else. But first and foremost, the thing that we look at, how a particular change in some particular country affects the threat perceptions of other states. And that's why this book as well is titled National Threat Perceptions in the Middle East, meaning how the threat perceptions of these countries was affected by the situation in Iraq. So this is an essential point. When we talk about how Iraq affected the rest of the region, we mainly look at the change in the perception of threat for these countries. Of course, threat perception is something which may be covered extensively and threat is composed of many sort of items under this heading of national threat. But we are confiding our attention mainly to the situation in the metri-security dimension. Sorry. Again, having said that, what do you think or how do you think things have changed in the name of Jordan, for instance, or Egypt, or Israel? Yes, can you speak up? Can you hear her? So if you can't hear her, why don't you say that you can't hear her? Go ahead. Change. Well, Gurdjian says the attitude of Israel towards the biological weapons convention and chemical weapons convention changed after the loss of faith in what ANSCOM has done, actually, because ANSCOM was not able to finish the job. And so what has changed, but in what direction? All right, so while there might have been a possibility for Israel to go ahead and sign and ratify the biological weapons convention and sign and ratify the chemical weapons convention, actually they did sign the chemical weapons convention, but they have not ratified it. Well, this is another dimension of the problem, and again, we have discussed this issue extensively over this past weekend among these people sitting around the table, this rectangular table, but there was a round table type of discussion, and Israel is always made reference to the chemical weapons, biological weapons capabilities of countries, some of the countries in Gurdjian, and others made references to the nuclear weapons capability never been acknowledged by the Israelis. And again, for instance, Israelis are concerned very much, not only merely the presence of chemical and biological weapons or ballistic missiles in the hands of their enemies here in the region, but also they are equally, if not more concerned with the presence of all sorts of rockets or short-range missiles and also hand grenades or RPGs or other types of explosive devices and of course suicide bombers which and who equally take lives of people. So therefore, the situation in Iraq and more so after 2003, invasion of Iraq by the US forces as well as British and some other forces, created this chaotic situation in Iraq, the militia wars among themselves, as well as outside intervention, and Iraq has become the open market for all sorts of weapons systems, all sorts of terrorist organizations to get training and all sorts of smuggling activities, which of course became a major source of concern for Israel because there are people whom they believe go all the way from other parts of the world, come to Iraq, then cross over the Jordanian territory or by way of Syria and Lebanon, they sort of stage their attacks on the Israeli people here in their Haifa, Tel Aviv, other places and then this is an equal concern for the Israeli people, security people. So therefore, this is, I mean, looking at the issue from the smallest or slightest or lightest concern of weapons system to up to the chemical and nuclear biological weapons system, ballistic missiles, there is a wide range of issues that equally cause concern for Israel. This is somewhat typical of Israeli security analysts because Israel is looking forward to having 100% security, which doesn't exist anywhere. There is no such thing as being foolproof, secure, no infiltration, no leaks, no attacks, no killings. Well, that would be the ideal world for every country in the world but this is not the situation and every country, even though this is not the desirable situation for anyone, every country has to tolerate a certain level of insecurity. So you cannot be 100% secure and you cannot take every single measure that might necessitate for 100% security, which may never come and certain things that you might be doing, you may be doing in the name of providing this 100% security may in turn bring you insecurity because certain things cause so much resentment among the population of other countries and give rise to certain new groups who may not have had any such decision in the past but because of what, for instance, one of the governments might be doing so they become an enemy of the government or enemy of the country so become someone who commits attacks or just also commits himself or sacrifices his life for life and in order to cause some damage to the country. I'm talking about these attacks on Israeli cities or Israeli population. So therefore Israel has been affected by on large but also had also certain impact on the developments on Iraq which again we will talk in the coming weeks separately when we will look at the issue a little bit from Turkey's perspective because I mean this is a Middle East Secure Structures course this is a course on the Middle Eastern countries Turkey is not usually and not necessarily counted as one of them but still for reasons that I explained and also will explain in more detail Turkey has big stakes in the security situation in the Middle East and has been significantly affected from the situation in Iraq and also is likely to be affected and still at present time being affected by what is going on with respect to Iranian nuclear capability so we will talk about all this in the coming weeks. Jordan, Jordan something specific took place with respect to Jordan after the first Gulf War in 1991. I mean if there are let's say two or three major events fundamental stones the yardstick type of developments in the Middle East one of them has to do with Jordan. Any idea what might this be? Yes again? Yeah, yeah I think it's 1993 September but you might be right I cannot keep dates so well in my mind but you might be right. After Iraqi war or the war on Iraq actually there are two things that this might be very small a tiny difference there is this thing that we sometimes interchangeably use and sometimes incorrectly war in Iraq or war on Iraq if I were to ask you which one is which I mean first war and second war or 1991 or 2003 which one goes to which one? Exactly I mean this is very good this is important because the first one was not in Iraq it was on Iraq it was against Iraq to you know push them out of the Kuwaiti territory but the second took place in the Iraqi territory and therefore still maybe on Iraq I mean against Iraq but took place in Iraq this is somewhat a tiny difference but something important and this after the first war on Iraq there was this which was later on revealed as being the secret peace process which took place in Oslo at the capital of Norway of course these Scandinavian countries were quite anxious for so many years not only recently to be acting in between the conflicting parties to bring them together in this nice settings in places like Oslo, Stockholm where you relax in a nice environment and far from the public pressure in your countries where there is this situation is chaotic and you are being treated so well and there are also people who almost constantly provide you some encouragement, material encouragement spiritual encouragement to act in certain way or to take certain steps that would bring some positive developments in the future where you can find some solutions to your problems for instance remember back in 1978-79 there was this Camp David meeting between Sadat and Begin and they have cut a deal for peace agreement which paved the way to Egyptian official recognition of Israel actually before that as you know Sadat has gone to Israel and spoke at the Knesset, at the Israeli parliament which of course caused the expelling of Egypt from the Arab League and the headquarters of Arab League was moved to Tunisia the capital of Tunisia Tunis so in Oslo the parties have talked extensively secretly because one major difficulty that again on this past weekend in the United Kingdom in London somewhere pretty close to London in a castle outside of the intervention of anybody one major problem was this issue of recognition of Israel Israel was not recognized by any other country prior to Egyptian recognition and this is something that even though de facto they come together with Arabs and Israelis, Iranians whom you would think being the bloody enemies of each other come together in this kind of settings there is this so-called track one and track two meetings this is a meeting between the government officials or intergovernment official or formal meetings and track two is between non-governmental officials, non-official nothing is binding and there is also so-called track one and health something that was recently produced and which is attended by partly governmental and partly non-governmental people and our meetings are this kind of meetings there are some officials from representatives countries but also they speak in their individual capacity without making any formal commitment but this kind of meetings are places where parties exchange their opinion they put their proposals on the table and better occasions, better opportunities to better understand what the other side has to say or has to say so therefore Oslo was such an environment it was actually a track one type of meeting with the participation of official people because after which if there was going to be any peace treaty that would be among the governments or among the officials but also attended by non-governmental meeting people because there are many specialists, experts on all these middle eastern issues those who know about the economic situation those who know about the sociological situation demographic issues, meter issues, technological issues anything that you can think of being part of this large scale negotiations took place in Oslo which produced something that was quite a breakthrough at the moment was Jordanian official recognition of Israel so that Oslo peace which was conducted separately and behind the doors, away from the scrutiny of other people so in the meantime there was actually a formal peace negotiation which took place in Madrid there was Madrid peace process or Madrid Middle East peace process and this process is still continuing on and off I mean there were up and down sort of developments some expectations were high at certain points were down at other points etc so this is something that goes on and Jordan, of course this time unlike the isolation of Egypt from the Iraq, sorry, Arab League Jordanian recognition of Israel did not produce such results I mean at least officially yeah there might be resentments in the Jordanian public domain in the streets of Arab nations as to why Jordan recognized Israel but when you look at this map and when you remember things that we have learned over the past several weeks about the security situation with respect to Jordan you can see how influential Israel is on Jordanian security and Jordan was actually the king Hussein well it was kind of ambivalent well Jordanian friend of ours will not like this term but it is at least so perceived from outside it was not quite clear whether Jordan supported the resolutions yes they did indeed but Jordanian king Hussein made such statements publicly which were broadcast by TV channels such as CNN International I listened myself live as to what he said and said such things that were really bitter statements about the United States coalition forces so in a sense politically or formally he was on one side but on the other hand he wanted to balance his country's situation by making such statements that would appeal to the hearts and minds of the Arab streets so yet actually Saddam Hussein considered Jordan if not a bloody enemy as he considered Israel but he did not like Saddam Hussein did not like the idea that King Hussein somehow supported the coalition forces therefore Jordan was very much concerned about its security with an Iraqi threat perceived from Iraq same also applies to Syria with respect to Jordanian-Syrian relations are not that perfect are not that well so Israel in a sense in return for Jordan's mild attitude so to speak against Israel I'm not talking about these public statements, rhetorical statements which are pronounced, spelled out for public consumption I'm talking about what has been done in the formal official ground and Israel was quite happy with the performance of Jordan after the war and which produced this official recognition why is that so important and why is it that Israel is so concerned about being recognized this is something psychological I mean everybody knows and I cannot just say this here explicitly but there are people from the region even this past weekend or in the previous conferences last year the year before or many years ago they always say let's admit that there is such and such state whether we like it or not called Israel and let's also admit these are Arab people I mean from Arab countries officials, non-officials or ex-officer people who were in the past or still serving as advisors who occupied higher ranks in their governments in their countries they say let's admit there is the state of Israel and it is not going to go anywhere and that we are not going to beat them militarily and economically but we cannot publicly or officially admit their presence we cannot accept their presence we cannot recognize their presence to be true to our Arab cause so therefore de facto and de jure of course there is this difference but and therefore Israelis are not anymore as has been the case in the past especially prior to the Egyptian official recognition there was some sort of a psychological void a spiritual void in their mind they were concerned about being recognized and they sort of did a lot of things poured a lot of sources, money for lobbying purposes and for other purposes for political influence to get the if not official recognition but at least sympathy within the Arab world they have been successful to the extent of securing Egyptian recognition which was actually at the expense of returning Sinai Peninsula which they had occupied back in 1967 with the 67 war and Egypt one of the reasons why Egypt recognized the state of Israel was to put an end to this hostilities maybe quite noble and objective but the real purpose I would say to get the Sinai Peninsula which is a significant proportion of land of Egyptian territory and also something that provides a strategic depth strategic depth is not only the title of the book written by our foreign minister Ahmed Davutoglu but also something that is used in the terminology of strategic studies it is the distance between your valuable assets and the enemy's capabilities so if you can keep your most valuable assets like your capital like your large population centers or like your most advanced technological sites or facilities and if there is a significant distance that you can feel confident that they are beyond the reach of your enemy then you can believe that you have a strategic depth strategic depth is therefore something that you should keep in mind and we will discuss this issue again later on just to give you an idea so Israel secured the recognition of Egypt yet it was not that satisfactory in terms of political objectives because after all they proclaimed their independence in 1948 most possibly sometime around 1967-68 they must have acquired their nuclear weapons capability even though they do not acknowledge or deny these are important developments they had significant conventional military capabilities state of the art technologies the latest technological innovations in the military sort of industry yet quite confident about their military capabilities military prowess they could trust that they would not be especially after the Yom Kippur war and onwards they would not be invaded or no Arab state would even there attacking again for so many years yet they said something is missing I mean you know someone might be quite rich handsome has everything in his life or her life still there is something missing like and some people therefore go for some adventures go to Himalayas like my friend Nassou or some other people just you know go into politics for political adventure so this may not be a good example Israel is even though in terms of economic capabilities prospered over the years especially you know since the end of the 80s and well into the 1990s there was a significant investment coming from the United States into Israel for instance many of you use computers laptops right and Intel processors are being produced in Israel is one of world's biggest producers so this kind of developments must have made the Israelis quite happy they are secure well of course with the exception of these attacks here and there every now and then but still their territory up until this Iranian threat was not under the threat of any major country economically prospered politically coherent within themselves yes Israeli politics maybe in some respects may be much more chaotic when compared to Turkish politics but still there is a certain sense of unity against vis-a-vis the foreign or foreign policy issues but still they were not happy with that they sought recognition they wanted to be recognized to be taken seriously by every other country even if they may not be a love affair with the Arab countries but still a certain stability was what in their mind but still that has not come with the exception of Jordan and also some countries like Oman like Morocco they have not recognized of course but they have established some trade relations with if not directly but indirectly with Israeli firms or Israeli government so these are things that Israel concern was good nowadays what we hear is that they do not seem to be very much concerned with this recognition issue especially after as I said many Arabs have come to the point of admitting the existence of Israel except for some statements made by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad now let's say a few words about Egypt how do you think the situation in Iraq may have affected the Egyptian foreign policy or security policies because when I say being affected I look at the threat perceptions change in the threat perceptions what in your opinion the Iraq war and the ensuing process I mean from 1991 up to 2003 and after 2003 at present time what do you think might be the major Egyptian concerns in terms of the implications of the Iraq war what in your opinion let me put it that way was the situation for Egypt before the Iraq war and after the Iraq war you should be able to make such comparison or analytical discussion what about our guest speaker one point well made by our guest speaker today was you know the impact of Iraq war on Egypt's claim to be the leader of the Arab world because we have discussed this before Egypt, Syria and Iraq have always found themselves in a rivalry for the leadership in the Iraq war and Nasser's policies and Nasser had a wide ranging impact on the rest of the Arab world and he found himself in such a position that he must also intervene in the Yemen war I mean Egypt intervening in Yemen we talk about this so Egypt that was partly maybe Nasser's personal interpretation partly because some in the Egyptian administration may have encouraged Nasser to do so in order to claim or to prove Egypt's leadership in the Arab world again you would like to say something they are now well actually Arab League was established in 1945 and the headquarters been in Cairo and so remained until Sadat's visit to Tel Aviv and then the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel they were expelled from the Arab League and the headquarters of Arab League moved to Tunis as I just said in Cairo and Amr Musa the former Egyptian for ministry is the secret general of the Arab League and while I was at a friend of mine whom I saw just last weekend as I said is going to contribute to the job of the Jordanian delegation for the simulation so you're lucky so Egyptian ambassador Nabil Fahmi is going to give some hints on the Egyptian policies but Egypt claimed the leadership position Arab League since from the beginning and Nasser in a sense crowned this I mean just in a sense underline or emphasize and made many people believe that Egypt was the uncontested later up to Arab League and that was actually the reason why Syria from Egypt to join their capabilities and there is this United Arab Republic 58 to 61 and then after Egypt's return to the Arab League still Cairo of course again became the headquarters of the Arab League and Egypt, Syria and Iraq still found themselves in a race because Saddam Hussein was no less obsessive person with respect to the Arab leadership so was Hafiz al-Assad the former president and the father of current president Bashar al-Assad's father who was a leader of Syria who also claimed leadership in the Arab world so these three countries always raised so to speak for the Arab League sort of Arab leadership therefore I don't think there should be any misunderstandings in that but this is of course a political issue and Egypt found itself in a rather shaky position after the Iraq war because especially its economy was badly affected because Egypt was not a rich country they have some oil reserves and some natural gas reserves but these are far from being even sufficient for their own economy for their own consumption but still it is not a rich country and Egypt just like Turkish workers going to Germany and other countries in Europe like France, Austria, etc and sending their earnings, parts of their earnings back to Turkey and Turkey for so many years really relied on the money foreign exchange currency coming from the Turkish workers who left their families behind and these monies deposited to Turkish banks after a while have become a source of real and significant amounts of money coming to the Turkish economy Egyptian economy also depended on the Egyptian workers in the Gulf states because rich Gulf states had a lot of oil and gas still they have a lot of oil and gas but very few populations and who would not necessarily willing to do certain jobs like cleaning the streets or serving the guests in the restaurants or housekeeping in some tourist facilities etc or work in the petroleum refineries or in the construction business so many Pakistanis or Malaysians and others but mainly Egyptians because they spoke the very same Arabic language so many of them went to the Gulf after the oil boom like the 70s so throughout the second half of the 70s and 80s up to the 1991 Gulf War many Egyptians have gone to these countries this has helped the Egyptian economy not only in the sense of reducing the unemployment because many of them who would otherwise be unemployed in Egypt have found employment in other countries but also there was money coming from these people to their families etc but in the 1991 war actually disturbed the situation deeply because of of course the situation of Iraqi invasion of Kuwait the war in the region and many of the jobs were lost because many of the jobs or production or constructions or there was no tourist actually who would just spend his time in hotels or in Arab Emirates etc so many of those people who work in the service sector or construction business or some manufacturing business have gone back to Egypt so now that this money coming from these people was cut off but also these I knew a large sum of people who would add to the group of already unemployed people in Egypt that significantly affected the situation but of course this is again the economic dimension that could be further elaborated by economic sort of economists who studied this subject in more detail but of course this had implications for the security situation because Egyptian economy which could barely or hardly cover the expenses of its meter spanning much of which actually was coming from the United States in the name of Drake-4nate meter 8 or in terms of donations of some weapons systems of course this has also was badly affected so there were some concerns about what to do with the Iraqi situation and Egypt thought they lost their significance because in the past Arab-Israel peace meant Egyptian-Israel peace in the first place Egypt claiming to be the leader of the Arab world leading the Arab world in a certain direction but this time the chaotic situation they were losing ground and they were losing they thought they were losing their significance in the eyes of the Americans so if they lose their significance in the eyes of the American administration they thought they would lose economic as well as meter 8 in terms of financial assets, money or weapons systems and also political support so that was again something which impacted the Egyptian security again something that Bush had said in the first hour resentment toward the United States and Western powers because of their extended stay in the Gulf countries with their military capabilities also had an impact on the non-state actors, non-governmental groups and these radical groups for which actually Egypt was a very fertile ground already not just because of the Iraq war or prior to that it was long before a source of where the genesis of Muslim Brotherhood was there so therefore all of these things that we will cover considering that this Friday is the Republic Day and we will not have class on Tuesday next week and coming days and weeks. We will continue discussing these issues. You should make copies of this and start reading and there will be additional readings in due course and check your emails for any instant message that may come from me. Thank you.