History Professor to Discuss President Obama’s Middle East Policy

Juan R.I. Cole, Ph.D., professor of Middle Eastern history and the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, will present, “Obama’s Middle East Policy,” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 25 in Mabee Theater on the Rockhurst University campus as part of the Visiting Scholar Lecture Series. 

For three decades, Cole has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context. His lecture will focus on President Obama’s Middle East policy as it relates to Iran. 

Cole has written extensively about Egypt, Iran, Iraq and South Asia and has commented at length on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the Iraq War, the politics of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Iranian domestic struggles and foreign affairs. Cole has lived in various part of the Muslim world for nearly 10 years and has become one of America’s foremost experts in Middle Eastern and South Asian history. He has been a regular guest on PBS’s Lehrer News Hour and has appeared on ABC Nightly News, Nightline, the Today Show, Charlie Rose, Anderson Cooper 360, and The Colbert Report.

The presentation is free and open to the public. To register your attendance, call (816) 501-4828. Mabee Theater is located in Sedgwick Hall on the Rockhurst University campus, 54th Street and Troost Avenue.