I was born in Baghdad, Iraq and left for England to continue my education at the early age of 16. After completing my General Certificate of Education, I entered Twickenham College of Technology, earning a Diploma in civil engineering in 1966. Two years of hard work on building sites and road construction convinced me to change tracks. In 1968, I enrolled in the Department of Politics at Lancaster University south of the famed Lake District in northern England. It was there that I met Karen, an American exchange student, who later became my wife. After finishing our degrees at Lancaster, we both went to the London School of Economics where we earned our PhDs in international relations.

My teaching career began at my alma mater, the University of Lancaster. I also taught at Keele University, and was the Deputy Director of Studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. In 1983, the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) awarded me a one-year visiting professorship, and in the following academic year I held concurrent fellowships at Princeton University and the Council on Foreign relations (CFR). By then, Karen, who specializes in Russian and post-Soviet Studies, and I had decided to stay in the United States and fortunately we were able to secure tenured full professorships. Mine was at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia where I taught for 15 years before assuming the position of professor of political science at Miami University of Ohio in 2000. The highlight of these last 25 years or so was my naturalization as an American citizen in 1990. Another highlight occurred in June 2009 when Miami’s Board of Trustees awarded me the title of Distinguished University Professor.

In addition to the fellowships from Princeton and the CFR, and the visiting professorship at SAIS, I have been awarded other fellowships and grants, including ones from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the British Social Science Research Council, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Ford Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

I have published extensively on the comparative and international politics of the Middle East. While of course there is a place for textbooks and pedagogical articles, all my publications are works of scholarship that use extensive primary research, much of it in the original language. In addition to over 65 journal articles and book chapters, I have 10 books, the latest of which is Iraq: A Political History from Independence to Occupation (Princeton, 2009).

I have also lectured widely at academic institutions, think tanks and governmental agencies in the United States and around the world, including Britain, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece, Japan, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco. 

I have written articles for the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and International Herald Tribune. I have appeared on British and American television, most frequently on CNN and the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and have been interviewed regularly by National Public Radio and the BBC’s world and domestic services.

For more details, please consult other links on this site.