Graduation Year
2015
Document Type
Campus Only Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Anthropology
Second Department
Middle East Studies
Reader 1
Seo Young Park
Reader 2
Lara Deeb
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2015 Danica P. Harootian
Abstract
This project examines the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons during the Syrian civil war in 2013 and places the disarmament process in the context of the international nonproliferation regime and the history of United States weapons of mass destruction (WMD) policy. Additionally, I argue that U.S. policy on WMDs does not operate by a fixed set of standards; rather, cultural assumptions about a state and its weapons (such as the USSR, Iraq, Israel and their WMDs) are used to justify nonproliferation action. I present weapons as a mode of Othering that the U.S. and the nonproliferation regime employ to justify the designation of an enemy state. This analysis also examines the “myth of neutrality” of humanitarian intervention and applies these concepts to nonproliferation intervention.
Recommended Citation
Harootian, Danica P., "Contextualizing the Elimination of Syria's Chemical Weapons: The Nonproliferation Regime, U.S. Policy, and Cultural Assumptions of the Middle East" (2015). Scripps Senior Theses. 661.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/661
This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.
