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Trita Parsi, President and founder of the National Iranian American Council

“A Single Roll of the Dice – Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran”

Dr. Trita Parsi is the President and founder of the National Iranian American Council, the largest Iranian American grassroots organization in the US, and is the author of Treacherous Alliance – The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States. As a foreign policy expert with extensive experience on Capitol Hill and at the United Nations, he has also authored numerous articles on Middle East affairs with publications in the Financial Times, Jane’s Intelligence Review, the Nation, The Wall Street Journal, The American Conservative, the Jerusalem Post, and The Forward. He is also a frequent commentator on BBC World News, PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CNN, Al Jazeera, C-Span, NPR, MSNBC, and Democracy Now. Dr. Parsi is the recipient of the Grawemeyer 2010 Award for Improving the World Order, and the 2008 Arthur Ross Silver Medallion. He has previously served as an adjunct professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University SAIS. Dr. Parsi was born in Iran, grew up in Sweden, and earned a Master’s Degree in International Relations at Uppsala University, a second Master’s Degree in Economics at Stockholm School of Economics and a PhD in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University SAIS.

Feb 29, 2012 | 0 comments View Post

Steven Cook, Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council of Foreign Relations

Egypt After Tahrir: Military Rule versus Civil Democracy

Steven A. Cook is Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is an expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as U.S.-Middle East policy. Dr. Cook is the author of The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square and Ruling But Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey.

Dr. Cook has published widely in a variety of foreign policy journals, opinion magazines, and newspapers including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Wall Street Journal, Journal of Democracy, The Weekly Standard, Slate, The New Republic Online, The New York Times, the Washington Post, Financial Times, the International Herald Tribune, and Survival. Dr. Cook is also a frequent commentator on radio and television. He currently writes the blog, “From the Potomac to the Euphrates.”

Previously, Dr. Cook was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Soref research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Dr. Cook holds a BA in international studies from Vassar College, an MA in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and both an MA and PhD in political science from the University of Pennsylvania. He speaks Arabic and Turkish and reads French.

Dec 20, 2011 | 0 comments View Post

Qubad Talabani, Kurdistan Regional Government Representative to the U.S.

The Road to a Unified Iraq: Kurds, Sunnis, and Shi’as

Qubad J. Talabani is the Representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to the United States and the son of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. As Representative of the KRG, Talabani works closely with the U.S. Government, the media, and research institutions providing critical analysis and up-to-date information on Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. He hopes to mobilize grassroots support for Kurdish interests, including establishing a Kurdish Congressional Caucus, a Kurdish-American Business Council, and a series of Kurdish educational and cultural links with the U.S.

Previously, from 2001 until 2003, Talabani served as the Deputy Representative of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Washington D.C. Prior to this appointment he was a special assistant to the then PUK representative, Dr. Barham Salih, who is currently Iraq’s minister for planning and international development coordination. Following Operation Iraqi Freedom in the spring of 2003, Talabani served as the Senior Foreign Relations officer for PUK operating mainly out of Baghdad and Sulaimania. He worked closely with the U.S.-led Coalition Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance and was PUK’s top liaison to the Coalition after and to U.S. forces in Iraq. Talabani was also a key negotiator in drafting the Transitional Administrative Law, Iraq’s first post-Saddam constitution.