URL: _62/iss_5/28_1.shtml Published: May 2009

Issues and Events

Science representatives seek to ease tensions in Middle East

US science delegation visits Syria with hope of improving bilateral
relations. Similar overtureswith Iran suffer a setback.

David Kramer

May 2009, page 28

Members of a US scientific delegation visiting Syria in March were
expecting only a perfunctory handshake from President Bashar
al-Assad. Instead, the 10 US visitors began their scientific diplomacy
mission at the top, conversing for 90 minutes with the
ophthalmologist-turned-ruler about the role of science and education
in meeting national economic and social needs.

It may have helped that Assad’s father-in-law took part in arranging
the visit. Still, as Vaughan Turekian, director of science diplomacy
at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and
one of the visitors, observed, it came as a pleasant surprise that the
Syrian president `could talk with some level of comfort and detail
about the role of science and technology to economic development.’

Cold war origins
Scientific cooperation was a frequent tool for defusing tensions
between the superpowers during the cold war. In recent years the
concept has been extended to help thaw relations between the US and
many Muslim nations in the Middle East. Although Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton has not explicitly proposed ramping up scientific
diplomacy, her science adviser, Nina Fedoroff, said cooperation
between scientists of nations having poor or nonexistent diplomatic
relations is `immensely important.’ Fedoroff, a molecular biologist,
believes that connections between US and Soviet physicists helped to
`keep the cold war cold.’

Fedoroff speaks from experience. She served on the founding board of
the International Science Foundation, a nonprofit organization that
was established in 1992 with $100 million from billionaire George
Soros to find new jobs for Soviet scientists after the breakup of the
Soviet Union. Fedoroff also recalled organizing, 30 years ago, the
first US`Soviet workshop on agricultural biotechnology, jointly
sponsored by the science academies of the two nations. The US`Russian
collaborative relationship, she related, is about to celebrate its
50th year as a stabilizing force.

`I would love to see a more official scientific cooperation program
[at State], and I will work hard to enhance [scientific exchanges],’
Fedoroff said. She adds that exchanges are especially useful for
addressing issues such as wildlife and water management that transcend
national boundaries.

An unofficial visit
US government officials did not participate in the scientific mission
to Syria. The science trip came about through the efforts of multiple
nongovernmental organizations, including the Washington-based Center
for the Study of the Presidency and Congress and the British Syrian
Society, whose cochair, London cardiologist Fawaz Akhras, is the
father of Assad’s wife. Akhras acted as head of the Syrian scientific
delegation throughout the four days of meetings held with the US
team. Syrian-born British businessman and philanthropist Wafic Said
provided his Boeing 737 to whisk the US delegation to Damascus and
back. The US team also included Nobel laureate biologist David
Baltimore, immediate past board chairman of AAAS.

The two teams identified water, energy, and agriculture as topics of
mutual interest for possible collaboration. According to Turekian,
Assad said that he hopes to build a Western-style system for bringing
innovations to the marketplace. Other topics addressed included
assistance for Syrian hospitals to win accreditation, establishment of
a Syrian`American institute to help develop programs for medical
technicians and nurses, and an examination of how the US visa system
hinders scientific exchanges.

As the next step, the parties agreed to select a Syrian scientist to
come to the US later this year for a three- to six-month fellowship at
the Washington headquarters of AAAS. That individual will help
organize US`Syrian joint activities, put together a program for the
AAAS annual meeting, and interact with the broader US science and
technology community.

Syria’s ambassador to the US, Imad Moustapha, a computer scientist,
told a post-visit gathering at AAAS that the trip could mark a
`watershed’ in bilateral relations that, while always testy, had
worsened after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Syria has been on the
State Department’s list of statesthat sponsor terrorism since
1979. Angered by the alleged incursion of US troops from Iraq into
Syrian territory last October, Assad retaliated by closing three US
educational and cultural institutions in Damascus. Ironically, those
actions were harmful mainly to Syrian citizens aspiring to obtain a
Western-style education, noted Theodore Kattouf, a former US
ambassador to Syria who accompanied the scientists.

But Moustapha also cautioned that more extensive cooperation will
require that scientific activities be separated from the broader
political relationship between the countries. That requirement can
easily be accomplished by having universities manage the joint
efforts, said Norman Neureiter, director of the AAAS Center for
Science, Technology and Security Policy and a member of the
delegation. Topics of mutual interest, such as agriculture in arid
regions and illnesses that occur in the Middle East, must be
delineated, he said, adding that cooperation does not imply aid. `We
are not in the assistance business,’ Neureiter emphasized.

Incident in Iran
Syria isn’t the only nation in the Middle East where scientists are
attempting to bridge the political divide with the West. Most
strikingly, American scientists have traveled to Iran several times in
recent years on visits that were brokered by the National Academies
(see PHYSICS TODAY, May 2008, page 51, and August 2008, page
30). Among the topics discussed on those trips were medicine and
public health, water management, earthquakes, and higher education.

But scientific relations with Iran were damaged by an incident in
Tehran in December 2008. Glenn Schweitzer, who has arranged numerous
trips to Iran as director of the Academies’ Central Europe and Eurasia
program, was twice detained in his Tehran hotel room and interrogated
for a total of nine hours by individuals claiming to be government
security officials. The Academies’ presidents immediately wrote to
protest Schweitzer’s treatment and to demand assurances that it would
not be repeated. But as PHYSICS TODAY went to press, their letter had
gone unanswered. In the meantime, Schweitzer said he has been
arranging meetings to be held in third countries. A visit to the US by
Iranian scientists also lies ahead, but Schweitzer won’t discuss the
itinerary for fear that it may not happen. He said the combination of
economic sanctions, travel restrictions, and US export controls makes
Iranian trips the toughest to pull together.

Hosein Dabiri, a microbiologist at Tehran University of Medical
Sciences, was a member of an Iranian delegation that visited the US in
2007 to discuss food safety. He said that apart from their scientific
value, exchanges are useful `to give [a] true view of each country
[that] can influence opinions of politicians and the general public.’
But he expressed frustration with what he describes as the lack of
follow-up communication from the US scientists he met. Without ongoing
contacts, the delegation meetings had `very limited scientific
benefit,’ Dabiri lamented.

Cooperative approaches
More formal cooperative science and technology programs sponsored by
the US have been under way with states in the region that have a
cordial relationship with the US. A program with Pakistan has provided
funding for 46 mainly applied research projects since its
establishment in 2005. The US Agency for International Development and
the State Department have contributed $7.5?million in grants that
range up to $350?000 each over three years. The Pakistani government
has kicked in a somewhat higher amount for the projects, which must
involve researchers from both countries. But this year a new round of
awards has been delayed as the Pakistanis struggle to come up with
their share of the money, said Kelly Robbins, the National Academies
staffer who administers the US side of the program.

A State Department`sponsored program with Egypt, in which inventions
arising from Egyptian academic research are assessed for their
commercial potential, is taking a different sort of cooperative
approach. Managed on the US side by the University of Texas at Austin
IC2 Institute, an incubator for technology startup businesses, the
program selected four candidates for commercialization from more than
400 submissions. Each of those is to receive a grant of at least
$15?000 from the Egyptian Ministry of Scientific Research, and the
aspiring inventor-entrepreneurs will also get support and training in
the business skills needed to bring their inventions to market. The
winning inventions are a compound that could regenerate teeth
following a root canal or other dental procedure, a bacterial culture
to give low-fat cheese the same texture and taste as full-fat, a
genetically modified plant for combating whitefly disease in the
developing world, and a thermally stable, solid hydrogel support for
immobilizing enzymes used in industrial or laboratory processes.

The same model has been applied in Jordan, which, like Egypt, has
signed an umbrella science and technology agreement with the
US. Robert Senseney, senior adviser for science partnerships in the
State Department’s Bureau of Oceans, Environment, and Science, said
department officials are examining how to apply the approach to help
strengthen economies and create jobs in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia,
Libya, Lebanon, and even the West Bank. Syria, which Senseney said has
`strong science,’ would also be a good candidate, but that level of
cooperation will probably have to await improvements in diplomatic
relations.

In March a subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and
Technology approved legislation designed to better coordinate
international science and technology activities across federal
agencies. The bill would mandate formation of a new, cabinet-level
interagency policy coordinating mechanism. The committee acted out of
concern that significant opportunities at the intersection of science
and diplomacy may be missed through the lack of coordination.

The subcommittee’s chairman, Daniel Lipinski (D-IL), said he welcomed
the news that John Holdren, new director of the White House Office of
Science and Technology Policy, intends to reestablish the position of
associate director for international and national security affairs in
OSTP. Holdren’s predecessor, John Marburger, had eliminated the
position.

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