The Arab Gulf States Institute and the Middle East Institute will co-host a discussion in honor of the late Aziz Alghashian, a distinguished Saudi researcher and valued voice in Gulf affairs. Alghashian was known for his rigorous scholarship, his intellectual curiosity, and his commitment to dialogue. In that spirit, panelists will assess the state of the Gulf: how the region is navigating the shocks of the Iran war, shifting security dynamics, and evolving relationships with the United States and other global powers, as well as the future of Saudi Arabia’s regional role. The event will honor Alghashian’s enduring contributions to understanding Saudi foreign policy and carry forward the nuanced conversations that defined his work.
Speaker Biographies:
Ambassador Douglas A. Silliman is president of the Arab Gulf States Institute. He previously served as US ambassador to Iraq from 2016-19 and US ambassador to Kuwait from 2014-16.
Hesham Alghannam is a Saudi political scientist and former Fulbright Fellow at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, where he received a master’s degree in international policy studies. Alghannam holds a PhD from the University of Exeter.
Kristin Smith Diwan is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute. Her current projects concern generational change, nationalism, and the evolution of Islamism in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute. He is a former columnist for The National (UAE) and Bloomberg, regular contributor to The Atlantic and The Daily Beast, and frequent contributor to many other US and Middle Eastern publications.
Brian Katulis is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, specializing in US foreign policy and national security. He authors the column Making Sense: A Regular Take on US Foreign Policy and hosts the podcast “Taking the Edge Off the Middle East.”
Monica Marks is a scholar of Islamist movements, gender, and politics in the Middle East and North Africa. Her research focuses on broad topics across the region and beyond but especially on the tensions between pluralism and state power in the two countries where she’s lived longest: Tunisia and Turkey.
Kenneth M. Pollack, PhD, (Moderator), is Vice President for Policy at the Middle East Institute. Previously he was a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he worked on Middle Eastern political-military affairs, focusing in particular on Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf countries.
