Confusion in Cairo

Hosted by: AIIA NSW in Sydney

The event will start on: Tuesday, 04 October 2011 6:00 PM

And will end on: Tuesday, 04 October 2011 7:30 PM

At The Glover Cottages, Sydney

124 Kent Street , Sydney NSW

    nsw.branch@aiia.asn.au

Posted by: nsw   

With Peter Khalil, Adjunct Associate Professor at the Centre for International Security Studies at Sydney University

 The 2011 pro-democracy demonstrations across the Middle East and North Africa are akin to a wildfire. Their speed and effectiveness in removing ironclad autocrats has been bracing. But they have also been indiscriminate and largely unpredictable. The changes sweeping through the region haven’t led to uniform outcomes. Some of these dictators’ houses will be completely destroyed, burnt to ashes, while just across the street some will be untouched.

 What is probable, however, is that what happens in Egypt will be the key to future regional peace and security. Egypt has long been the linchpin of the regional security framework, and indeed the keystone of regional stability. It has also been a key to Israel's stability, epitomised by the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty that followed the Camp David Accords.

Assuming the United Nations General Assembly votes to recognise Palestine as an independent sovereign state next month, one part of Palestine, controlled by Hamas, may seek to win Egypt's support for revoking this treaty. So far the military, which has run Egypt since the overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown, have kept the treaty in place. 

 But, accurately forecasting what may transpire in Egypt over the transitional period, and what form of government will finally emerge, depends on examining and understanding the motivations of the protest movement and how it operated, as well as assessing the power and influence of Egypt's generals.   Peter will discuss the outcomes of Egypt’s September elections and what these mean for the Eygpt and its neighbours.

Peter Khalil is a consultant for Hawker Britton and also holds the position of a non-resident adjunct associate professor at the Centre for International Security Studies at Sydney University where he develops national security courses for senior levels of Government. He was recently made a director of Life Education, a not for profit that provides drug and alcohol prevention programs to a million schoolchildren around Australia.

Previously Peter worked as foreign policy and national security adviser and as senior international adviser to the Federal Government.
Prior to these appointments Peter was based in New York providing political risk consultancy to government, multinational corporations and Wall Street financial institutions. Peter has been a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC after earlier serving with the Australian Department of Defence in Iraq in 2003/04, where he was the director of national security policy for the Coalition Provisional Authority and was awarded the Australian Overseas Humanitarian Services medal. He has also worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Peter has testified before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has published widely including op-ed pieces in the New York Times, The Guardian, and Australian newspapers. He has degrees in both law and arts from Melbourne University and a masters of international laws from the Australian National University.