I met with Professor Hardig on February 21^st for about twenty minutes. I was very concerned that I would not be able to study cases of foreign invasion when the presence or absence of foreign invasion was also my independent variable, but Professor Hardig assured me that it should not be a problem as long as there is variance on my dependent variable; the level of persecution directed toward religious minorities does vary. I was also having a lot of trouble with my case selection, and I thought briefly about returning to my original case idea where I would only research the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, but Professor Hardig maintained his suggestion that I investigate more cases. He argued that my research would be much more meaningful, and I very much agreed. He said that I should I continue to look at cases where increased persecution occurred and where it did not. He also recommended the book, “Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences” by Alexander George & Andrew Bennett.