Iraq and the limitations of American foreign policy in the Middle East

The Bush administration has manoeuvred itself into an exquisite dilemma. Iraq is by all reasonable assessments a foreign policy calamity and perceptions of American power and legitimacy are at an all time low. All the options available to the US in dealing with the situation carry significant costs. For the US to extricate itself from Iraq it must engage with regimes that it claims it has an existential and intractable conflict with, such as Iran and Syria. This is a direct outcome of the failure of the Bush administration to acknowledge the realities of the situation in Iraq and the complexities involved in solving this crisis. It also highlights a much greater problem with current US foreign policy towards the Middle East, namely an ignorance of the interconnected nature of conflicts and tensions in the region. Approaching Iran and Syria regarding the Iraqi crisis would signal a positive shift away from the current values-driven unilateralism towards a more realistic and flexible policy to further US national interests.     

Visualization of lidar-derived relief models for detection of archaeological features

This paper presents visualisation techniques of high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) for visual detection of archaeological features. The methods commonly used in archaeology are reviewed and improvements are suggested. One straightforward technique that has so far not been used in archaeology – the shift method – is presented. The main purpose of this article is to compare and evaluate different visualisation methods. Two conclusions have been reached. Where a single method must be chosen – for printing or producing digital images for non-professionals – the use of sky view factor or slope gradient is endorsed, both presented in greyscale. Otherwise interpreters should choose different techniques on different terrain types: shift on flat terrain, sky view factor on mixed terrain, slope gradient on sloped terrain and sky view factor (preferably as a composite image with slope gradient) on rugged terrain.     

Engineering the North American waterscape: The high modernist mapping of continental water transfer projects

Starting in the late 1950s, at least fifteen separate proposals to radically alter the North American waterscape emerged. These proposals typically sought to bring water from northern regions (especially in Canada) to southern ones in the United States and Mexico through canal construction, the massive alteration of river flow, and (in some cases) nuclear excavation. This study analyzes the cartographic strategies used in support of re-engineering the continent’s water flow. The project maps promoted a specific political agenda that sought to redistribute North America's water resources by transcending political boundaries and physical barriers. Furthermore, conventions of cartographic representation, particularly the need for generalization and simplification, worked to reinforce and heighten the original modernist, engineering ethos. This led to representations that de-emphasized political communities and boundaries, that both assumed and hid nuclear technology, and that ultimately removed water from the natural environment by treating it as a purely abstract resource.     

The Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project: a first look at the Peter B. Cornwall Collection at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology

This article presents an overview of the Peter B. Cornwall collection in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Cornwall conducted an archaeological survey and excavation project in eastern Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in 1940 and 1941. At least twenty‐four burial features were excavated in Bahrain from five different tumuli fields, and surface survey and artefact collection took place on at least sixteen sites in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The skeletal evidence, objects and faunal remains were subsequently accessioned by the Hearst Museum. The authors recently formed the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project to investigate this collection. This article provides background information on Cornwall’s expedition and an overview of the collection. Additionally, skeletal evidence and associated objects from two tumuli in Bahrain, D1 and G20, are presented to illustrate the collection’s potential contribution. Although the tumuli’s precise locations cannot be determined, associated objects help assign relative dates to these interments at the beginning of the second millennium BCE, the Early Dilmun Period.     

Seeing Past Parallel Play: Survey Measures of Collaboration in Disaster Situations

The literature on the management of policy networks has expanded greatly in the past decade. In spite of this attention, no consensus has emerged on how to measure collaboration or even what constitutes collaboration. This article uses data from a postdisaster survey to compare some existing approaches to measuring collaboration. We analyze various survey‐based measures ranging from respondent‐defined collaboration to activity‐based or contact‐based measures. We recommend that scholars consider opportunity costs as a key component in differentiating between significant collaboration and basic coordination (or “parallel play”). Based on this opportunity cost approach, we consider the distinctiveness of disaster collaboration.     

The politics of Australia's withdrawal from Iraq

This article examines the complex matrix of public, political and policy debates that were brought to bear on Australia's decision to withdraw from Iraq. In analysing the ‘politics of withdrawal’ in Australia, this article identifies four dominant frames that served to polarise the issue along party-political lines and reduce the complexities of Australia's withdrawal to a set of simple polarities (such as ‘stay the course’ versus ‘responsible withdrawal’). Specifically, these frames obfuscated an assessment of the myriad challenges facing post-Saddam Iraq and the prospects for peace, security and development beyond Australia's withdrawal. Understanding the ways in which Australia framed its decision to disengage from Iraq is critical to further analysis of Australia's approach to current (or future) military draw-downs (such as in Afghanistan), as well as those conducted by other liberal democracies, such as the US and the UK.

澳大利亚从伊拉克撤军的决定引起了公共、政治、政策上的舌剑唇枪,本文探讨了这些辩论的复杂背景。本文分析了澳大利亚的“脱身政治”,发现有四个框框依政党—政治思路将话题两极化,将澳大利亚脱身的复杂性简化成一套极端性（如“坚定不移”对“负责任地脱身”）。特别是这些框框妨碍了对后萨达姆伊拉克所面临的无数挑战的认识,对澳大利亚撤军后的和平、安全、发展前景的认识。理解澳大利亚形成其退出伊拉克决定的方式,对于分析澳大利亚最近的军事低介入（例如在阿富汗）,以及其他自由民主国家如美英的同类选择,都至关紧要。     

Multi-image Photogrammetry for Underwater Archaeological Site Recording: An Accessible,Diver-Based Approach

This article presents a discussion of recent advances in underwater photogrammetric survey, illustrated by case studies in Scotland and Denmark between 2011 and 2013. Results from field trials are discussed with the aim of illustrating practical low-cost solutions for recording underwater archaeological sites in 3D using photogrammetry and using this data to offer enhanced recording, interpretation and analysis. We argue that the availability of integrated multi-image photogrammetry software, highly light-sensitive digital sensors and wide-aperture compact cameras, now allow for simple work flows with minimal equipment and excellent natural colour images even at depths of up to 30 m. This has changed the possibilities for underwater photogrammetric recording, which can now be done on a small scale, through the use of a single camera and automated work flow. The intention of this paper is to demonstrate the quality and versatility of the ‘one camera/ambient light/integrated software’ technique through the case studies presented and the results derived from this process. We also demonstrate how the 3D data generated can be subjected to surface analysis techniques to enhance detail and to generate data-driven fly-throughs and reconstructions, opening the door to new avenues of engagement with both specialists and the wider public.     

Challenges to Neoliberal Hegemony in Bolivia

Since 1985, Bolivia has undergone three phases of the imposition of and popular resistance to neoliberal policies. This article charts the uneven course of neoliberal hegemony beginning with the structural adjustment program in the mid‐1980s through popular uprisings between 2000 and 2003 that ousted the national government. Even though the current administration may be unable to resist World Bank and IMF pressure to continue neoliberal policies, powerful and diverse popular movements will certainly continue to contest them. This article makes two contributions to discussions of neoliberalism as a hegemonic system: it identifies problems of scale in maintaining neoliberalism, and it reminds us of the importance of coercion in maintaining hegemony.     

Building in Colonial Louisiana: Creolization and the Survival of French Traditions

Documents and limited archaeological evidence indicate that the building methods of the Louisiana Acadians during the colonial period strongly reflected a heritage of late-medieval and early-modern French methods and techniques of constructing vernacular buildings.