In an article published in The Daily Star – Lebanon, Moritz Pieper and Octavius Pinkard, PhD students at BSIS, argue that outsourcing regime change to disparate, uncontrollable rebel groups is likely to facilitate a repeat of the kind of instability and lack of security that has emerged in post-Qaddafi Libya. They further contend that any post-Assad settlement for Syria must be informed by consultations with Iran. This article is the first in a series of columns in which they will focus on conflict and conflict resolution in the Middle East and Central Asia.
The focus of Moritz Pieper’s research is on regional and inter-regional power dynamics in the Middle East and Central Asia, with a special interest in non-Western foreign policies toward the Iranian nuclear programme. His PhD dissertation comparatively analyzes Chinese, Russian and Turkish foreign policy toward the Iranian nuclear programme, reflecting on the emergence of alternative narratives of diplomacy over the Iranian nuclear programme in a world of conflicting power centres and on changing conceptions of security cultures toward Iran.
Octavius Pinkard’s research has a focus on Lebanese politics and the regional power and security dynamics of the Levant, with a particular emphasis on sub-state actors such as Hezbollah and Hamas and the states that support them. His doctoral thesis examines the political mobilization of the Lebanese diaspora in Europe, and analyzes its attempts to both inform and influence French, British, and EU-level foreign policy towards Lebanon.