With Israel intent on neutralizing Hezbollah in Lebanon, the balance of power in the Middle East is beginning to shift, which will have long-term implications for regional security, stability, and US interests. But Iran is doing what it can to preserve and expand the bases of power and control it had built up in various key Middle Eastern countries, which, besides Lebanon, include Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and the Palestinian territories. To successfully navigate the changing geostrategic equilibrium and help shape a new, less conflict-prone security architecture for the region, the United States will need to advance a fundamentally reconceptualized strategy — one that works with local allies to address the network of Tehran’s regional proxies as well as implement a multi-faceted policy response to the various political, economic, and informational levers of influence that Iran uses to destabilize its neighborhood. The upcoming panel will explore Iran’s role and influence in the region as well as examine options for a calibrated US and regional response that can more effectively deconflict and stabilize a Middle East in flux.
The assembled scholars will address the following questions and more: What can the United States do to work with partners in Lebanon to address the role Iran and Hezbollah play inside the country? How can the United States advance a new multilateral Syria strategy that addresses Iranian power and influence over Bashar al-Assad’s regime? How can Washington help resolve the Yemeni civil war in a way that eliminates the threat posed by the Tehran- backed Houthis? What are the areas of cooperation between the US and Iraq that could help reduce the various Iraqi dependencies on Iran?
Speakers
Nadwa Al-Dawsari
Non-Resident Scholar, Middle East Institute
Robert S. Ford
Senior Fellow, Middle East Institute
Charles Lister
Senior Fellow, Director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism Program, Middle East Institute
Paul Salem
Vice President for International Engagement, Middle East Institute
Patricia Karam (Moderator)
Non-Resident Scholar, Senior Advisor, Middle East Institute
Extended Speaker Biographies
Nadwa Al-Dawsari is a veteran researcher, conflict analyst, and policy advisor with 20 years of field experience in Yemen and the broader Middle East. Currently, she serves as a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute (MEI) and a fellow at the Center on Armed Groups. She has provided advisory services to policymakers, US and European donors, regional actors, UN agencies, and humanitarian organizations. Nadwa is regularly featured as a guest speaker on panel discussions about Yemen and the broader Middle East and her work has been widely published by the top think tanks in the United States and Europe. In her previous roles, Nadwa served as a senior conflict advisor to the World Food Program, a Yemen country director at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, the founding director at Partners Yemen, a MENA advisor at Partners Global, and a senior program manager at the National Democratic Institute. Nadwa’s research focuses on conflict in Yemen, drawing connections to broader geopolitical dynamics in the Middle East. She examines the impact of US foreign policy, internationally-led peace efforts, counterterrorism, and aid on stability and security amid the rise of non-state armed actors and the evolving proxy warfare landscape in the region.
Amb. (ret.) Robert S. Ford is currently a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington where he writes about developments in the Levant and North Africa. Amb. Ford retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2014 after serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014. In this role, Amb. Ford was the State Department lead on Syria, proposing and implementing policy and developing common strategies with European and Middle Eastern allies to try to resolve the Syria conflict. Prior to this, Amb. Ford was the deputy U.S. Ambassador to Iraq from 2008 to 2010, and also served from 2006 until 2008 as the U.S. Ambassador to Algeria, where he boosted bilateral education and rule of law cooperation. Amb. Ford served as deputy chief of mission in Bahrain from 2001 until 2004, and political counselor to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from 2004 until 2006 during the tumultuous establishment of the new, permanent Iraqi government. In 2014 he received the Secretary’s Service Award, the U.S. State Department’s highest honor. He also received in April 2012 from the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston the annual Profile in Courage Award for his stout defense of human rights in Syria. He has appeared on CNN, PBS, Fox, MSNBC, NPR, the BBC and Arabic news networks as well as in The New York Times and Foreign Policy.
Charles Lister is a senior fellow and the Director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs at the Middle East Institute. His work focuses on all-things Syria and on issues of terrorism and insurgency across the Levant. Within MEI, Lister currently directs two major international initiatives focused on Syria; Resolving the Detainee Crisis is a joint initiative with the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization (ICSR), which seeks to help the international community resolve the unprecedented challenges associated with the detention of 9,000 terrorist fighters and 45,000 associated family members in northeast Syria. So far, more than 40 governments and INGOs have engaged in high-level multilateral policy talks in London, Washington D.C, Vienna and Malta, resulting in decisive policy progress. In collaboration with the Atlantic Council and the European Institute of Peace, the Syria Strategy Project is coordinating discussions involving more than 80 subject matter experts and 25 governments and Syrian governance entities aimed at developing a holistic and realistic multilateral approach to resolving Syria’s long-running crisis. Lister’s critically acclaimed book, The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency, was published in February 2016 by Oxford University Press. He has also published The Islamic State: A Brief Introduction (Brookings Press, 2015) and Winning the Battle, Losing the War: Addressing the Drivers of Non-State Armed Actors and Extremist Groups (ed.) (MEI, 2019). He is now working on a fourth book on Syria, commissioned by Oxford University Press.
Paul Salem is the Vice President for International Engagement. He served previously as MEI’s President and CEO. He is currently based in the Middle East and works on building partnerships throughout the region. His research focuses on issues of political change, transition, and conflict as well as the regional and international relations of the Middle East. Salem is a frequent commentator on US and international media, and is the author and editor of a number of books and reports including Escaping the Conflict Trap: Toward Ending Civil Wars in the Middle East (ed. with Ross Harrison, MEI 2019); Winning the Battle, Losing the War: Addressing the Conditions that Fuel Armed Non State Actors (ed. with Charles Lister, MEI 2019); From Chaos to Cooperation: Toward Regional Order in the Middle East (ed. with Ross Harrison, MEI 2017), Broken Orders: The Causes and Consequences of the Arab Uprisings (In Arabic, 2013), "Thinking Arab Futures: Drivers, scenarios, and strategic choices for the Arab World", The Cairo Review Spring 2019; Bitter Legacy: Ideology and Politics in the Arab World (1994), and Conflict Resolution in the Arab World (ed., 1997). Prior to joining MEI, Salem was the founding director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, Lebanon between 2006 and 2013. From 1999 to 2006, he was director of the Fares Foundation and in 1989-1999 founded and directed the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, Lebanon's leading public policy think tank. Salem is also a musician and composer of Arabic-Brazilian jazz. His music can be found on iTunes.
Patricia Karam is currently Senior Policy Advisor on Iran at Freedom House, where she plays a leading role in crafting its policy agenda and advocacy strategy for promoting democracy and human rights in Iran. She also serves as Senior Advisor to the American Task For Lebanon, where she supports strategic/policy engagement and business development, and is a non-resident fellow at the Arab Center Washington, DC. She was, most recently, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Director at the International Republican Institute (IRI), where she oversaw a multi-million-dollar portfolio of programs focused on citizen-responsive governance, political party development, legislative strengthening, and civil society strengthening in the Levant, Afghanistan, the Gulf, and North Africa. Prior to that, as MENA director at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, Karam was responsible for research, advocacy, grant-making, and technical assistance projects aimed at improving natural resource governance, administered through country offices she established in Lebanon, Iraq, Tunisia, and Libya. Before that, as deputy director at the International Center for Transitional Justice, Karam oversaw educational transitional justice programs in three languages in Spain, Morocco, and South Africa, and spearheaded the expansion of a Documentation Affinity Group, a global network of action-oriented grassroots human rights documentation-focused groups.
(Photo by AFP via Getty Images)