Brain Storming – July 24, 2007 

 Today was a day of difficult decisions; our group tried to negotiate the areas we wanted to focus on in the Middle East. The Middle East has such a wide spectrum of issues that it seemed almost impossible that we were going to be able to come to an agreement on what two issues we wanted to concentrate on. Though there was a level of agreement that was reached after our group had adjourned to the library for a period of time to research.  

Questioning the Candidates - July 25, 2007 

After spending the evening contemplating what we wanted to ask the Republican Candidates we returned to class ready to discuss our thoughts and opinions. After much heated debate we can up with a general idea of what we wanted to ask in relation to Democracy Promotion in the Middle East. The ideas ranged from:  

When would or what would it take for a candidate to accept that Democracy in the Middle East is no longer an option? 

What would be your political policy and course of action if you were to deem that democratization was no longer a practical option? 

Under the circumstances that democracy is no longer a practical option what would your political policy and course of action be? 

Given the results of the free election in Palestine is democracy in the Middle East counterproductive? 

So after much time, argument, and fine tuning my group finally came to a decision about what our finalized question was going to be along the lines of:

“Imagine it is January 2009, you have just been inaugurated. Recent elections in elections in Lebanon and Palestine have given more seats to Hezbollah and Hamas respectively, helped by support from Iran and Syria, sectarian violence in Iraq continues to escalate, and poverty continues to affect a growing number of Afghani and Iraqi people. Would you still consider democracy promotion in the reason a primary and viable option as your formulate your foreign policy to the region? If not, what alternatives would you consider?”