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xi Acknowledgments This book is the result of two highly productive meetings held in Doha, Qatar, under the auspices of the Center for International and Regional Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar. The meetings were held in June 2008 and January 2009 and gave the chapter contributors the opportunity to share and exchange ideas with one another, refine and revise their own arguments, and examine the project in its entirety. In addition to the authors whose contributions appear here, a number of colleagues joined in at the group’s second meeting with the express purpose of providing additional input and advice. They included Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Rami Khouri, Lawrence Potter, Paul Salem, and Robert Wirsing. Both individually and collectively, they gave the group invaluable advice and insightful comments. The present volume is all the richer because of their input. The meetings at which this book was conceived and discussed were organized and managed by the capable staff of CIRS, whose unflappable professionalism and enthusiasm for the project made the otherwise difficult task of collecting scholars from around the world in Doha both easy and enjoyable. Zahra Babar, Aphrodite Hammad, Suzi Mirgani, Naila Sherman, and Maha Uraidi deserve great credit for making work on this and on other projects sponsored by CIRS a delight. Alex Richard Schank and Fahimeh Ghorbani, at the time based in Doha and Tehran respectively, provided invaluable research assistance with chapters 1 and 9 and deserve great thanks for locating much of the data presented and the sources used in the two chapters. Thanks also go to James Reardon-Anderson, founding dean of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar, for his unwavering support and enthusiasm for this and for the many other research initiatives undertaken by the Center for International and Regional Studies. Perhaps more than any other xii | Acknowledgments individual in recent times, Jim deserve the credit for pioneering the institutional study and research of international relations in Qatar and many of its neighboring countries. Joseph Kostiner, Yossi as he was affectionately called by friends, passed away in August 2010 and did not see one of his final works in print. He will be remembered fondly by all who knew him and for his multiple contributions to Middle Eastern studies, including his insightful chapter here. Putting a book together is always taxing on the author’s loved ones, and mine are no exception. My wife, Melisa, and my daughters, Kendra and Dilara, bore the brunt of my preoccupation with this book while cheerfully providing the loving care and happiness that enabled me to work on its editing. For that and for everything they are to me, I dedicate this book to them. ...

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