The next speaker to take the podium at the Bainbridge Library Speakers Forum is a man who has an indepth knowledge of the messy situation in the Middle East. Prof. Resat Kasaba will share what he knows in his presentation Oct. 15 in a talk broadly labeled “Iran, U.S. and the New Middle East.”

Kasaba is a University of Washington professor in the Jackson School of International Studies and the author and editor of several books on the Middle East including “Rule and Rights in the Middle East: Democracy, Law, and Society,” and “Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey.”

He is a native of Turkey and came to the United States to continue college. He earned a master’s degree in sociology from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1978 and a doctorate from the same school in 1986. He has taught at the Jackson School since 1986 and in 1999 was awarded a Distinguished Teaching Award.

His peer, International Studies Professor Joel Migdal, said of him at that time, “Resat Kasaba is one of the great teachers the University of Washington has had in the last generation. He is the best I have observed in a quarter century of teaching. . .”

Shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Kasaba took part in a public presentation by experts at the University of Washington intended to shed light on the situation. The title of his lecture was “Do They Really Hate Us?”

He began by expressing a desire to see Americans turn the negatives of Sept. 11 into something positive, “through informing ourselves.”

He stressed that the attacks should not be attributed to “evil, or any general group,” but instead recognized as the action of a specific ideologically motivated group with an “extremely narrow interpretation of Islam, which is not compatible with the modern world, (who) used force to make the world conform to its own ideal of what it should be,” according to a report from the Washington Center on Ethnic Conflict and Conflict Resolution, where Kasaba also gave his lecture.

“What is troubling,” Kasaba said, “is that the appeal of bin Laden is attractive to many who are ready to blame much on an unknown, outside enemy.”

Kasaba is an outspoken opponent of the current U.S. policy in Iraq. In May of 2004 the Seattle Times published an editorial by him titled “We Should Exit Iraq Now, and Here’s How We Do It.”

In that editorial Kasaba noted that “the longer U.S. military and civilian personnel stay involved in Iraq, the more enemies they make.”

He advocated a complete and immediate departure of U.S. troops followed by a summit with Pres. Bush and other world leaders in order to create a “truly international military force to help Iraq with its security.”

Kasaba ended by saying, “Leaving Iraq as I’ve suggested should not be seen as a defeat. By reassuming moral leadership and regaining its international legitimacy, the United States would find itself in a much better position to affect the international system. This is a much better route than the one we are embarked on now, where countless lives and reputations are being wasted and the country’s treasure is being spent for a cause no one is able to articulate anymore.”

Kasaba speaks at 4 p.m. Oct. 15. Because of the anticipated turnout for this event, the talk will be held at Eagle Harbor Congregational Church, 105 Winslow Way W., instead of the Bainbridge Library. Individual tickets are available at the door for $15. For more information, call Speakers Forum Director Susan Bray at (206) 842-4156.