Yale Professors Debate War in Iraq

On Wednesday, March 26, at 8 p.m., a distinguished panel of Yale faculty members will meet at Yale Law School’s Levinson Auditorium, 127 Wall St., to debate their diverse positions on the Iraq War.

In a letter to the Yale community, President Richard C. Levin expressed the view that an open forum of dissenting ideas conveys a central mission of the University.

“In an environment of civility, where we respect and listen carefully to one another, controversy stimulates learning,” Levin wrote. “In the weeks to come, let us, as a university community, continue to model the free, open and tolerant society that the United States at its best represents.”

The panelists taking part in this discussion are historians Donald Kagan and Paul Kennedy and political scientists Charles Hill and Ellen Lust-Okar.

Kagan, the Sterling Professor of Classics and History, is the author of many highly respected works on the military history of the Greek and Roman Empires, as well as “While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today” about contemporary foreign policy. Kennedy, the J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History and director of the International Security Studies program, is author of “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers” and “Preparing for the 21st Century.” Hill served 27 years in the U.S. Foreign Service and is a former chief of staff at the State Department. He is a lecturer in international affairs, with particular knowledge of the Middle East and diplomacy. Lust-Okar is an authority on government-opposition relations and institutional reforms in the Middle East, focusing on Jordan, Syria and the West Bank/Gaza Strip.

The moderator of the panel is John Gaddis, the Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History and chairman of the International Affairs Council of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies.

Following brief introductory remarks by President Levin, each of the panelists will give five- to six-minute statements of their positions. Panelists will open the forum to the audience for questions.

The forum is free and open to the public.