By: Stephanie Bernhard, Rami Khouri, editor at large of the Lebanese newspaper the Daily Star and longtime journalist, gave a lecture Friday afternoon concerning strategies for creating peace in the Middle East. Students and professors filled the Joukowsky Forum of the Watson Institute for International Studies beyond capacity to hear Khouri speak.

Khouri began by listing problems currently plaguing the Middle East, citing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Iran's fuel cycle and Turkey's relation to the European Union as four of the most contentious issues. He pointed out that while Americans view the Middle East as a troubled region, they rarely understand the reasons for the tension."Terrorism is the main problem people tend to look at when they look from far away, but there are many other problems in the Middle East as well," Khouri said.
Khouri went on to explain that he knows there need to be changes in the Middle East - it is the form of change and method of implementation that concern him.