The Middle East Institute's 63rd Annual Conference
Rewriting the Middle East Agenda
November 9 & 10, 2009
Banquet: November 9
Conference: November 10
The National Press Club
529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor
Washington, DC 20045
*Registration for the Conference and Banquet is now closed*
See the Full Agenda
BANQUET SPEAKERS
Conference Banquet
November 9
Keynote Banquet Speaker
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad
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Zalmay Khalilzad, Ph.D., served as US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and most recently the United Nations, before stepping down in January 2009. Prior to those positions, he served as Special Presidential Envoy to Afghanistan (2001-2003) and at the National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President for Islamic Outreach and Southwest Asia Initiatives, an as Special Assistant for Southwest Asia, Near East, and North African Affairs. Mr. Khalilzad is currently President and CEO of Khalilzad Associates, LLC.
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Award Recipient
Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish
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Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish is a Palestinian obstetrician who lost three of his daughters and a niece during Israeli military operations in Gaza last January. A longtime peace activist who has spoken out against violence, Dr. Abuelaish advocates Israelis and Palestinians working together to steer their leaders toward reconciliation. He turned his personal tragedy into a message of peace and has become for Israelis and Palestinians alike an icon of hope for reconciliation. In 2009 he was a finalist for the Sakharov Prize from the European Union. |
CONFERENCE SPEAKERS
Conference
November 10
Keynote Conference Speaker
Under Secretary for Political Affairs William J. Burns
 |
William Burns holds the highest rank in the Foreign Service, Career Ambassador, and became Under Secretary for Political Affairs, the highest career position in the State Department, in May 2008. Ambassador Burns served from 2005 until 2008 as Ambassador to Russia. He was Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from 2001 until 2005, and Ambassador to Jordan from 1998 until 2001. Ambassador Burns has also served in a number of other posts since entering the Foreign Service in 1982, including Executive Secretary of the State Department and Special Assistant to Secretaries Christopher and Albright; Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs at the US Embassy in Moscow; and Acting Director and Principal Deputy Director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff. |
CONFERENCE PANELS TO INCLUDE
|
Assessing the Iranian Nuclear Challenge
Toward an Enhanced Gulf Security Framework
Iraq in 2020
Arab-Israeli Peace and the Domestic Politcal Obstacles
|
CONFERENCE SPEAKERS
Sami Alfaraj, President, Kuwait Centre for Strategic Studies
|
Sami Alfaraj is the head of the Kuwait Centre for Strategic Studies, which he established in 1997 as the first private consulting center on strategic issues in the Gulf region. He serves as an advisor to the GCC and is a consultant to the Kuwaiti government and to parliamentary organizations, private corporations, and government agencies throughout the Gulf region. He has advised Kuwait's Office of the Prime Minister, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the National Security Bureau on crisis management issues. Alfaraj currently participates in Kuwait’s contingency planning for the Iranian nuclear crisis and the situation in Iraq, and also contributes to the quarterly strategic assessment of Kuwait.
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Ali Allawi, Former Minister of Defense,
Interim Iraqi Governing Council
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Ali Allawi is a Senior Visiting Fellow at Kennedy School of Government’s Carr Center at Harvard University. Under the Interim Iraq Governing Council, Allawi was appointed Minister of Trade in 2003 and Minister of Defense in 2004. He subsequently served as Minister of Finance in the Iraqi Transitional Government between 2005 and 2006. Before being appointed by the Iraqi Governing Council, he served in various finance positions outside Iraq, including at the World Bank, and was co-founder of Arab International Finance, a merchant bank based in London. He is the author of The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace and The Crisis of Islamic Civilization, which was awarded The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Silver Prize in their 2009 Book Prize competition.
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Deborah Amos, NPR News; Member, Council on Foreign Relations
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Deborah Amos covers Iraq for NPR News and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She returned to work with NPR after a decade in television news, including stints with ABC's Nightline, World News Tonight and the PBS programs NOW with Bill Moyers and Frontline. Prior to her work with ABC News, Amos spent 16 years with NPR, where she last served as the London Bureau Chief. Previously she was based in Amman, Jordan, as an NPR foreign correspondent. She has won several awards for her news coverage and documentaries, including widespread recognition for her coverage of the Gulf War in 1991. She is the author of Lines in the Sand: Desert Storm and the Remaking of the Arab World (1992) and The Eclipse of the Sunnis: Exile, Power and the Transformation of the Middle East, due out in March, 2010.
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Hans Blix, Former IAEA Director General and Chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission
 |
Hans Blix heads the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission established by the Swedish government in 2003 to reduce the dangers of weapons of mass destruction. Blix has a long history working in the field of nuclear and weapons proliferation. He was Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1981 until 1997 and in 2000 was appointed Executive Chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) for Iraq by the UN Secretary-General. He began his career with the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1963 and in 1978 was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs. He has been awarded many prizes for his efforts to combat proliferation, including the Gold Medal for distinguished service in the field of nuclear affairs by the World Nuclear Association.
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Michael Corbin, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
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Michael Corbin, a career Senior Foreign Service Officer, is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs for Iraq issues, a position he assumed in July 2009. Prior to this assignment, Mr. Corbin served as Minister-Counselor for Political-Military Affairs at the US Embassy in Baghdad. He was previously assigned as Charge d’Affaires in Damascus, Syria from 2006 to 2008. He also served as the Minister Counselor for Economic and Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo from August 2003 to June 2006 after serving as the Deputy Director of the State Department’s Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs from 2001 to 2003. Mr. Corbin has also served in Kenya, Kuwait and Tunisia and has received several Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards for his service. |
Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff (ret.) Former Commander NAVCENT
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Vice Admiral Kevin J. Cosgriff is Vice President of Business Development and Strategy in the Washington Operations office of ATK Corporation, a premier aerospace and defense company. He served 37 years in the US Navy, becoming Commander of US Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT). As Vice Admiral, he oversaw all naval combat, combat support, and maritime security operations throughout the Middle East and Southwest Asia. He simultaneously commanded the US Fifth Fleet and the Combined Maritime Forces. He also served as Deputy Commander of Fleet Forces Command and with the National Security Council. Earlier in his career he was the Director of the White House Situation Room and Director of Systems and Technical Planning for the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton. |
James Dobbins, Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center, RAND Corporation
 |
James Dobbins is director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at RAND. A veteran diplomat who has held senior White House and State Department positions under four presidents, he most recently served as the Bush administration's special envoy for Afghanistan, where he raised the flag over the newly reopened US Embassy in 2001. He also served as Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Special Adviser to the President and Secretary of State for the Balkans, and Ambassador to the European Community. Dobbins has had numerous crisis management and diplomatic troubleshooting assignments as special envoy for Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia. He is also an Iraq specialist and testified before Congress in 2007 on US policy options in Iraq. |
Robert J. Einhorn, Special Advisor for Nonproliferation
And Arms Control, State Department
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Robert J. Einhorn is the Special Advisor for Nonproliferation and Arms Control at the US State Department. Before returning to the State Department, where he had earlier served for over 29 years, he was a Senior Adviser at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies from 2001 to 2009. From 1972 until 1986, Mr. Einhorn held a wide range of arms control and nonproliferation positions at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, including as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the Soviet Union. He joined the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff in 1986 and left it in 1992 to become a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. From 1999 to 2001 he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation.
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Rend al-Rahim Francke, Iraq Foundation
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A native of Iraq, Ms. Francke is Executive Director (and one of the principal co-founders) of the Iraq Foundation, a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting democracy, human rights and civil society in Iraq. Established in 1991, the Iraq Foundation runs training programs addressing a range of needs inside Iraq – from teaching literacy to empowering widows. Ms. Francke is also a Senior Fellow in the United States Institute for Peace’s Jennings Randolph Program for International Peace. From November 2003 to December 2004, she served as Iraq’s Representative to the United States and as the Iraqi Chief of Mission. Francke has conducted extensive research on Iraq, authoring numerous papers, articles and op-eds on the country. She also co-authored The Arab Shi’a: Forgotten Muslims, published in 1999 by St. Martin’s Press.
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Emile Hokayem, Political Editor, The National
 |
Emile Hokayem is the Political Editor of The National, an Abu Dhabi-based English-language newspaper. He writes a weekly column on Middle Eastern and Arab strategic and political affairs, with a specific focus on the Gulf region. He is also a non-resident Research Fellow with the Southwest Asia/Gulf Program at the Stimson Center where he has written extensively on Gulf security. Hokayem’s areas of expertise include the politics and security of the GCC states and Iran, Lebanese and Syrian affairs, Arab political reform and Islamist politics. Previously he was editor-in-chief of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs and conducted research at the Middle East Institute. |
Robert Hunter, Senior Advisor, RAND Corporation
 |
Robert Hunter is a Senior Advisor at the RAND Corporation and Chairman of the Council for a Community of Democracies. He was US Ambassador to NATO under President Clinton and US representative to the Western European Union. He was also the principal architect of the "New NATO," leading the North Atlantic Council in implementing decisions of the 1994 and 1997 NATO Summits and in obtaining air-strike decisions that halted the Bosnia war. Under President Carter, Hunter was Director of West European Affairs and later Director of Middle East Affairs on the National Security Council. He is the two-time recipient of the Pentagon's highest civilian award, Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. |
Murhaf Jouejati, Adjunct Scholar, Middle East Institute
Professor, National Defense University
 |
Murhaf Jouejati is a Professor of Middle East Studies at the National Defense University's Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies and a Professorial Lecturer in International Affairs and Political Science at the George Washington University. He has also lectured at Columbia University, Yale University, and Harvard University. From 1993-2000, Jouejati advised the EU and the UN in their negotiations with the Syrian government on development issues. Jouejati was an advisor to the Syrian delegation during Middle East peace talks throughout the 1990s, and is an authority on Syrian domestic and foreign politics. |
Daniel Kurtzer, Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Egypt
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Daniel Kurtzer holds the S. Daniel Abraham Chair in Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Prior to this, he served as US Ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005 and as US Ambassador to Egypt from 1997 to 2001. During his 29-year Foreign Service career, Kurtzer held a number of senior policy and diplomatic positions, including Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research. Since leaving government, he has consulted and advised on the Middle East, including serving as an advisor to the Iraq Study Group. He co-authored, with Scott Lasensky, Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East.
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Ellen Laipson, President and CEO, the Henry L. Stimson Center
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Ellen Laipson is currently the president and CEO of The Henry L. Stimson Center, where she directs the Southwest Asia project, which focuses on security issues in the Gulf region. Prior to joining Stimson, her key positions included Vice Chair of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) from 1997 to 2002 and Special Assistant to the US Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1995 to 1997. Ms. Laipson also focused on analysis and policymaking on Middle East and South Asian issues as a member of the State Department’s policy planning staff, a National Intelligence Officer, and then as the Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs for the National Security Council.
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Daniel Levy, Senior Fellow, New America Foundation
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Daniel Levy is the Director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation and directs the Prospects for Peace Initiative at The Century Foundation. Prior to this, he worked in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's administration as special advisor and head of Jerusalem Affairs. He later worked as senior policy advisor to then Israeli Minister of Justice Yossi Beilin. Levy was a member of the official Israeli delegation to the Taba negotiations with the Palestinians in January 2001, and served on the Israeli negotiating team to the "Oslo B" Agreement from May to September 1995 under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He also served as the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative, a joint Israeli-Palestinian effort that suggested a model for a peace agreement. |
Karim Sadjadpour, Associate,
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
 |
Karim Sadjadpour is an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He previously acted as the chief Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group for four years, where he was based in Tehran and Washington, DC. A leading researcher on Iran, Sadjadpour has conducted hundreds of interviews with senior Iranian officials, intellectuals, clerics, dissidents, businessmen, students, and activists. He authored the 2008 Carnegie report, Reading Khamenei: The World View of Iran’s Most Powerful Leader, an in-depth look at Iran’s Supreme Leader based on three decades of his speeches and writings. Sadjadpour was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in Davos. |
Khalil Shikaki, Director, Palestinian Center for
Policy and Survey Research
 |
Khalil Shikaki is an Associate Professor of Political Science, and a senior fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. He is also the Director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah which has conducted more than 100 polls among Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since 1993. He also has worked extensively on Palestinian institution building, co-authoring the Council on Foreign Relations’ report Strengthening Palestinian Public Institutions. He has continued to work with the report’s authors, The Independent Task Force on Strengthening Palestinian Public Institutions, advising the group on Palestinian reform and annually updating the report. |
Toni Verstandig, Director of Middle East Programs at the Aspen Institute
 |
Toni G. Verstandig is the director of the Middle East Programs at the Aspen Institute and senior policy advisor at the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation. Ms. Verstandig has also served as deputy assistant secretary of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department, where she directed and coordinated US bilateral relations and overall policy developments concerning Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority, as well as US economic and commercial policies in the Middle East. As a member of the Peace Team, she worked with the Secretary of State and the Special Middle East Coordinator in bilateral and multilateral Middle East peace negotiations.
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James Woolsey, Former Director of the CIA
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R. James Woolsey has served in many distinguished capacities in both Republican and Democratic administrations over the past 30 years. He headed the CIA from 1993 to 1995 under the Clinton administration. He served as Ambassador to the Negotiation on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) from 1989-1991 and was Undersecretary of the Navy from 1977-1979, among other positions. He is currently very active in the DC-area policy community, serving on the National Commission on Energy Policy and co-chairing the Committee on the Present Danger with former Secretary of State George Shultz. He is also on the board of United Against a Nuclear Iran, and is currently a Venture Partner with VantagePoint Venture Partners. |
Robin Wright, Senior Fellow, United States Institute of Peace
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Robin Wright is a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and an award-winning journalist, foreign affairs analyst, and author. She has reported for The Washingting Post, The Sunday Times of London, The Los Angeles Times, CBS News, and The Christian Science Monitor. She is the recipient of the Arthur Ross Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis on Foreign Affairs, the UN Correspondents Association Gold Medal for analysis and coverage of international affairs, the National Press Club Award and the Weintal Prize for diplomatic reporting, and the National Magazine Award for reportage from Iran in The New Yorker. Her most recent book is Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East.
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CONFERENCE HOSTS
Wendy J. Chamberlin, President, Middle East Institute
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Wendy Chamberlin has been President of the Middle East Institute since March 2007. A 29-year veteran of the US Foreign Service, she was US Ambassador to Pakistan from 2001 to 2002. Chamberlin also served as Director of Global Affairs and Counter-Terrorism at the National Security Council (1991-1993), Deputy in the Bureau of International Counter-Narcotics and Law Programs (1999-2001), and as Assistant Administrator in the Asia-Near East Bureau for USAID (2002-2004). She also served as US Ambassador to the Laos People’s Democratic Republic (1996-1999). Prior to joining MEI, Chamberlin served as Deputy High Commissioner for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (2004-2006).
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Wyche Fowler, Jr., Chairman of the Board, Middle East Institute
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Wyche Fowler currently serves as the Chairman of the Board of Governors at the Middle East Institute. Before assuming this position, he served as US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from 1996 to 2001. Senator Fowler represented the state of Georgia for 16 years in the United States. Elected to the Senate in 1986, he served as Assistant Floor Leader, where he helped to mold bipartisan consensus for major public issues. Prior to that, Mr. Fowler was a member of the US House of Representatives from 1977-1987. Before his election to Congress, Fowler practiced law in Atlanta for eight years.
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*Registration for the Conference and Banquet is now closed*
The Middle East Institute's 63rd Annual Conference
Rewriting the Middle East Agenda
November 9 & 10, 2009
Banquet: November 9
Conference: November 10
The National Press Club
529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor
Washington, DC 20045
*Registration for the Conference and Banquet is now closed*
See the Full Agenda
BANQUET SPEAKERS
Conference Banquet
November 9
Keynote Banquet Speaker
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad
|
|
Zalmay Khalilzad, Ph.D., served as US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and most recently the United Nations, before stepping down in January 2009. Prior to those positions, he served as Special Presidential Envoy to Afghanistan (2001-2003) and at the National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President for Islamic Outreach and Southwest Asia Initiatives, an as Special Assistant for Southwest Asia, Near East, and North African Affairs. Mr. Khalilzad is currently President and CEO of Khalilzad Associates, LLC.
|
Award Recipient
Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish
|
Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish is a Palestinian obstetrician who lost three of his daughters and a niece during Israeli military operations in Gaza last January. A longtime peace activist who has spoken out against violence, Dr. Abuelaish advocates Israelis and Palestinians working together to steer their leaders toward reconciliation. He turned his personal tragedy into a message of peace and has become for Israelis and Palestinians alike an icon of hope for reconciliation. In 2009 he was a finalist for the Sakharov Prize from the European Union. |
CONFERENCE SPEAKERS
Conference
November 10
Keynote Conference Speaker
Under Secretary for Political Affairs William J. Burns
|
William Burns holds the highest rank in the Foreign Service, Career Ambassador, and became Under Secretary for Political Affairs, the highest career position in the State Department, in May 2008. Ambassador Burns served from 2005 until 2008 as Ambassador to Russia. He was Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from 2001 until 2005, and Ambassador to Jordan from 1998 until 2001. Ambassador Burns has also served in a number of other posts since entering the Foreign Service in 1982, including Executive Secretary of the State Department and Special Assistant to Secretaries Christopher and Albright; Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs at the US Embassy in Moscow; and Acting Director and Principal Deputy Director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff. |
CONFERENCE PANELS TO INCLUDE
|
Assessing the Iranian Nuclear Challenge
Toward an Enhanced Gulf Security Framework
Iraq in 2020
Arab-Israeli Peace and the Domestic Politcal Obstacles
|
CONFERENCE SPEAKERS
Sami Alfaraj, President, Kuwait Centre for Strategic Studies
|
Sami Alfaraj is the head of the Kuwait Centre for Strategic Studies, which he established in 1997 as the first private consulting center on strategic issues in the Gulf region. He serves as an advisor to the GCC and is a consultant to the Kuwaiti government and to parliamentary organizations, private corporations, and government agencies throughout the Gulf region. He has advised Kuwait's Office of the Prime Minister, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the National Security Bureau on crisis management issues. Alfaraj currently participates in Kuwait’s contingency planning for the Iranian nuclear crisis and the situation in Iraq, and also contributes to the quarterly strategic assessment of Kuwait.
|
Ali Allawi, Former Minister of Defense,
Interim Iraqi Governing Council
|
Ali Allawi is a Senior Visiting Fellow at Kennedy School of Government’s Carr Center at Harvard University. Under the Interim Iraq Governing Council, Allawi was appointed Minister of Trade in 2003 and Minister of Defense in 2004. He subsequently served as Minister of Finance in the Iraqi Transitional Government between 2005 and 2006. Before being appointed by the Iraqi Governing Council, he served in various finance positions outside Iraq, including at the World Bank, and was co-founder of Arab International Finance, a merchant bank based in London. He is the author of The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace and The Crisis of Islamic Civilization, which was awarded The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Silver Prize in their 2009 Book Prize competition.
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Deborah Amos, NPR News; Member, Council on Foreign Relations
|
Deborah Amos covers Iraq for NPR News and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She returned to work with NPR after a decade in television news, including stints with ABC's Nightline, World News Tonight and the PBS programs NOW with Bill Moyers and Frontline. Prior to her work with ABC News, Amos spent 16 years with NPR, where she last served as the London Bureau Chief. Previously she was based in Amman, Jordan, as an NPR foreign correspondent. She has won several awards for her news coverage and documentaries, including widespread recognition for her coverage of the Gulf War in 1991. She is the author of Lines in the Sand: Desert Storm and the Remaking of the Arab World (1992) and The Eclipse of the Sunnis: Exile, Power and the Transformation of the Middle East, due out in March, 2010.
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Hans Blix, Former IAEA Director General and Chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission
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Hans Blix heads the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission established by the Swedish government in 2003 to reduce the dangers of weapons of mass destruction. Blix has a long history working in the field of nuclear and weapons proliferation. He was Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1981 until 1997 and in 2000 was appointed Executive Chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) for Iraq by the UN Secretary-General. He began his career with the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1963 and in 1978 was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs. He has been awarded many prizes for his efforts to combat proliferation, including the Gold Medal for distinguished service in the field of nuclear affairs by the World Nuclear Association.
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Michael Corbin, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
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Michael Corbin, a career Senior Foreign Service Officer, is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs for Iraq issues, a position he assumed in July 2009. Prior to this assignment, Mr. Corbin served as Minister-Counselor for Political-Military Affairs at the US Embassy in Baghdad. He was previously assigned as Charge d’Affaires in Damascus, Syria from 2006 to 2008. He also served as the Minister Counselor for Economic and Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo from August 2003 to June 2006 after serving as the Deputy Director of the State Department’s Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs from 2001 to 2003. Mr. Corbin has also served in Kenya, Kuwait and Tunisia and has received several Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards for his service. |
Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff (ret.) Former Commander NAVCENT
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Vice Admiral Kevin J. Cosgriff is Vice President of Business Development and Strategy in the Washington Operations office of ATK Corporation, a premier aerospace and defense company. He served 37 years in the US Navy, becoming Commander of US Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT). As Vice Admiral, he oversaw all naval combat, combat support, and maritime security operations throughout the Middle East and Southwest Asia. He simultaneously commanded the US Fifth Fleet and the Combined Maritime Forces. He also served as Deputy Commander of Fleet Forces Command and with the National Security Council. Earlier in his career he was the Director of the White House Situation Room and Director of Systems and Technical Planning for the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton. |
James Dobbins, Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center, RAND Corporation
|
James Dobbins is director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at RAND. A veteran diplomat who has held senior White House and State Department positions under four presidents, he most recently served as the Bush administration's special envoy for Afghanistan, where he raised the flag over the newly reopened US Embassy in 2001. He also served as Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Special Adviser to the President and Secretary of State for the Balkans, and Ambassador to the European Community. Dobbins has had numerous crisis management and diplomatic troubleshooting assignments as special envoy for Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia. He is also an Iraq specialist and testified before Congress in 2007 on US policy options in Iraq. |
Robert J. Einhorn, Special Advisor for Nonproliferation
And Arms Control, State Department
|
Robert J. Einhorn is the Special Advisor for Nonproliferation and Arms Control at the US State Department. Before returning to the State Department, where he had earlier served for over 29 years, he was a Senior Adviser at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies from 2001 to 2009. From 1972 until 1986, Mr. Einhorn held a wide range of arms control and nonproliferation positions at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, including as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the Soviet Union. He joined the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff in 1986 and left it in 1992 to become a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. From 1999 to 2001 he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation.
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Rend al-Rahim Francke, Iraq Foundation
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A native of Iraq, Ms. Francke is Executive Director (and one of the principal co-founders) of the Iraq Foundation, a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting democracy, human rights and civil society in Iraq. Established in 1991, the Iraq Foundation runs training programs addressing a range of needs inside Iraq – from teaching literacy to empowering widows. Ms. Francke is also a Senior Fellow in the United States Institute for Peace’s Jennings Randolph Program for International Peace. From November 2003 to December 2004, she served as Iraq’s Representative to the United States and as the Iraqi Chief of Mission. Francke has conducted extensive research on Iraq, authoring numerous papers, articles and op-eds on the country. She also co-authored The Arab Shi’a: Forgotten Muslims, published in 1999 by St. Martin’s Press.
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Emile Hokayem, Political Editor, The National
|
Emile Hokayem is the Political Editor of The National, an Abu Dhabi-based English-language newspaper. He writes a weekly column on Middle Eastern and Arab strategic and political affairs, with a specific focus on the Gulf region. He is also a non-resident Research Fellow with the Southwest Asia/Gulf Program at the Stimson Center where he has written extensively on Gulf security. Hokayem’s areas of expertise include the politics and security of the GCC states and Iran, Lebanese and Syrian affairs, Arab political reform and Islamist politics. Previously he was editor-in-chief of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs and conducted research at the Middle East Institute. |
Robert Hunter, Senior Advisor, RAND Corporation
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Robert Hunter is a Senior Advisor at the RAND Corporation and Chairman of the Council for a Community of Democracies. He was US Ambassador to NATO under President Clinton and US representative to the Western European Union. He was also the principal architect of the "New NATO," leading the North Atlantic Council in implementing decisions of the 1994 and 1997 NATO Summits and in obtaining air-strike decisions that halted the Bosnia war. Under President Carter, Hunter was Director of West European Affairs and later Director of Middle East Affairs on the National Security Council. He is the two-time recipient of the Pentagon's highest civilian award, Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. |
Murhaf Jouejati, Adjunct Scholar, Middle East Institute
Professor, National Defense University
|
Murhaf Jouejati is a Professor of Middle East Studies at the National Defense University's Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies and a Professorial Lecturer in International Affairs and Political Science at the George Washington University. He has also lectured at Columbia University, Yale University, and Harvard University. From 1993-2000, Jouejati advised the EU and the UN in their negotiations with the Syrian government on development issues. Jouejati was an advisor to the Syrian delegation during Middle East peace talks throughout the 1990s, and is an authority on Syrian domestic and foreign politics. |
Daniel Kurtzer, Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Egypt
|
Daniel Kurtzer holds the S. Daniel Abraham Chair in Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Prior to this, he served as US Ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005 and as US Ambassador to Egypt from 1997 to 2001. During his 29-year Foreign Service career, Kurtzer held a number of senior policy and diplomatic positions, including Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research. Since leaving government, he has consulted and advised on the Middle East, including serving as an advisor to the Iraq Study Group. He co-authored, with Scott Lasensky, Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East.
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Ellen Laipson, President and CEO, the Henry L. Stimson Center
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Ellen Laipson is currently the president and CEO of The Henry L. Stimson Center, where she directs the Southwest Asia project, which focuses on security issues in the Gulf region. Prior to joining Stimson, her key positions included Vice Chair of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) from 1997 to 2002 and Special Assistant to the US Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1995 to 1997. Ms. Laipson also focused on analysis and policymaking on Middle East and South Asian issues as a member of the State Department’s policy planning staff, a National Intelligence Officer, and then as the Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs for the National Security Council.
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Daniel Levy, Senior Fellow, New America Foundation
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Daniel Levy is the Director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation and directs the Prospects for Peace Initiative at The Century Foundation. Prior to this, he worked in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's administration as special advisor and head of Jerusalem Affairs. He later worked as senior policy advisor to then Israeli Minister of Justice Yossi Beilin. Levy was a member of the official Israeli delegation to the Taba negotiations with the Palestinians in January 2001, and served on the Israeli negotiating team to the "Oslo B" Agreement from May to September 1995 under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He also served as the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative, a joint Israeli-Palestinian effort that suggested a model for a peace agreement. |
Karim Sadjadpour, Associate,
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
| |
Karim Sadjadpour is an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He previously acted as the chief Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group for four years, where he was based in Tehran and Washington, DC. A leading researcher on Iran, Sadjadpour has conducted hundreds of interviews with senior Iranian officials, intellectuals, clerics, dissidents, businessmen, students, and activists. He authored the 2008 Carnegie report, Reading Khamenei: The World View of Iran’s Most Powerful Leader, an in-depth look at Iran’s Supreme Leader based on three decades of his speeches and writings. Sadjadpour was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in Davos. |
Khalil Shikaki, Director, Palestinian Center for
Policy and Survey Research
|
Khalil Shikaki is an Associate Professor of Political Science, and a senior fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. He is also the Director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah which has conducted more than 100 polls among Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since 1993. He also has worked extensively on Palestinian institution building, co-authoring the Council on Foreign Relations’ report Strengthening Palestinian Public Institutions. He has continued to work with the report’s authors, The Independent Task Force on Strengthening Palestinian Public Institutions, advising the group on Palestinian reform and annually updating the report. |
Toni Verstandig, Director of Middle East Programs at the Aspen Institute
|
Toni G. Verstandig is the director of the Middle East Programs at the Aspen Institute and senior policy advisor at the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation. Ms. Verstandig has also served as deputy assistant secretary of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department, where she directed and coordinated US bilateral relations and overall policy developments concerning Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority, as well as US economic and commercial policies in the Middle East. As a member of the Peace Team, she worked with the Secretary of State and the Special Middle East Coordinator in bilateral and multilateral Middle East peace negotiations.
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James Woolsey, Former Director of the CIA
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R. James Woolsey has served in many distinguished capacities in both Republican and Democratic administrations over the past 30 years. He headed the CIA from 1993 to 1995 under the Clinton administration. He served as Ambassador to the Negotiation on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) from 1989-1991 and was Undersecretary of the Navy from 1977-1979, among other positions. He is currently very active in the DC-area policy community, serving on the National Commission on Energy Policy and co-chairing the Committee on the Present Danger with former Secretary of State George Shultz. He is also on the board of United Against a Nuclear Iran, and is currently a Venture Partner with VantagePoint Venture Partners. |
Robin Wright, Senior Fellow, United States Institute of Peace
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Robin Wright is a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and an award-winning journalist, foreign affairs analyst, and author. She has reported for The Washingting Post, The Sunday Times of London, The Los Angeles Times, CBS News, and The Christian Science Monitor. She is the recipient of the Arthur Ross Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis on Foreign Affairs, the UN Correspondents Association Gold Medal for analysis and coverage of international affairs, the National Press Club Award and the Weintal Prize for diplomatic reporting, and the National Magazine Award for reportage from Iran in The New Yorker. Her most recent book is Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East.
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CONFERENCE HOSTS
Wendy J. Chamberlin, President, Middle East Institute
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Wendy Chamberlin has been President of the Middle East Institute since March 2007. A 29-year veteran of the US Foreign Service, she was US Ambassador to Pakistan from 2001 to 2002. Chamberlin also served as Director of Global Affairs and Counter-Terrorism at the National Security Council (1991-1993), Deputy in the Bureau of International Counter-Narcotics and Law Programs (1999-2001), and as Assistant Administrator in the Asia-Near East Bureau for USAID (2002-2004). She also served as US Ambassador to the Laos People’s Democratic Republic (1996-1999). Prior to joining MEI, Chamberlin served as Deputy High Commissioner for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (2004-2006).
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Wyche Fowler, Jr., Chairman of the Board, Middle East Institute
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Wyche Fowler currently serves as the Chairman of the Board of Governors at the Middle East Institute. Before assuming this position, he served as US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from 1996 to 2001. Senator Fowler represented the state of Georgia for 16 years in the United States. Elected to the Senate in 1986, he served as Assistant Floor Leader, where he helped to mold bipartisan consensus for major public issues. Prior to that, Mr. Fowler was a member of the US House of Representatives from 1977-1987. Before his election to Congress, Fowler practiced law in Atlanta for eight years.
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*Registration for the Conference and Banquet is now closed*
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