On May 12, 2015, the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, the West Asia Council, and the U.S.-GCC Corporate Cooperation Committee are hosting a public affairs briefing titled “After a Nuclear Agreement: Whither Arab-Iranian and U.S.-GCC Relations?“ Featured specialists include:

• Dr. John Duke Anthony, Founding President and CEO, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations; Member, U.S. Department of State Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and Subcommittee on Sanctions; Author, “Strategic Dynamics of Iran-GCC Relations”;
• Dr. Christian Koch, Director, Gulf Research Center Foundation (Geneva, Switzerland); former Director of International Studies, Gulf Research Center (Dubai, UAE);
• Dr. Sara Vakhshouri, President, SVB Energy International; Author, The Marketing and Sale of Iranian Export Crude Oil Since the Islamic Revolution;
• Dr. Thomas Mattair, Executive Director, Middle East Policy Council; Author,The Three Occupied UAE Islands: The Tunbs and Abu Musa and Global Security Watch – Iran: A Reference Handbook;
• Dr. Alidad Mafinezam, President, West Asia Council; Author, Iran and Its Place Among Nations; and
• Dr. Imad Harb, Distinguished International Affairs Fellow, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations; former Senior Researcher in Strategic Studies, Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
  

Mr. John Pratt, Member, Board of Directors, and Distinguished International Affairs Fellow, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, and former Chairman, Middle East Council of the American Chambers of Commerce, will serve as moderator.

DATE & TIME:

May 12, 2015
8:30 – 9:00 a.m. – Coffee & Tea / Networking
9:00 – 11:00 a.m. – Remarks / Q&A

LOCATION:

Rayburn House Office Building
Room B-369
45 Independence Ave SW
Washington, DC 20515

REGISTRATION:

The event is free but R.S.V.P. (acceptances only) online: http://conta.cc/1ce4j5x or via email to rsvp@ncusar.org is required.

Please note: seating capacity is limited. Include the following information when you R.S.V.P.:
Name:
Company:
Title:
Phone:
Email:

If you have any questions you can call the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations at (202) 293-6466.

SPONSORS:

SPECIALISTS:

Dr. John Duke Anthony Dr. John Duke Anthony is the Founding President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. On June 22, 2000, on his first official state visit to the United States, H.M. King Muhammad VI of Morocco knighted Dr. Anthony, bestowing upon him Morocco’s highest award for excellence. During much of his earlier career, Dr. Anthony, in addition to being and remaining an Arabist, specialized in Iran, where he headed an educational exchange program prior to the Iranian Revolution. To this day he has continued to lecture, write, and brief officials on issues and challenges in matters pertaining to Iranian-Arab as well as Iranian-U.S. relations, with his ongoing interest in the latter stemming partly from his serving on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and the Committee’s Subcommittee on Sanctions. Dr. Anthony is the only American to have been invited to each of the Gulf Cooperation Council’s Ministerial and Heads of State Summits since the GCC’s inception in 1981.

Dr. Christian Koch Dr. Christian Koch is the Director of the Gulf Research Center (GRC) Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland, and previously served as Director of International Studies at the GRC in Dubai, UAE. Prior to joining the GRC, he worked as Head of the Strategic Studies Section at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Dr. Koch has written extensively on matters pertaining to Iran’s positions and policies regarding issues of importance to Arabia and the Gulf more broadly in addition to the GCC countries specifically. He is a regular contributor to regional newspapers and media, including Jane’s Sentinel Publications on Gulf issues.

Dr. Sara Vakhshouri Dr. Sara Vakhshouri is President of SVB Energy International, a global strategic energy consulting firm. She has worked on North America’s unconventional resources and Middle Eastern – particularity Iran’s – energy markets. Dr. Vakhshouri has published articles in journals including The Economist, Middle East Economic Survey, and Oil and Gas Journal. She has been quoted and appeared on Bloomberg, the BBC, the Financial Times, Reuters, Aljazeera, Energy Intelligence, Platts Energy TV, and Voice of America. Dr. Vakhshouri is the author of The Marketing and Sale of Iranian Export Crude Oil Since the Islamic Revolution.

Dr. Thomas Mattair Dr. Thomas Mattair is Executive Director of the Middle East Policy Council. From 1997 until 2003, he was a Research Scholar at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research in Abu Dhabi, UAE, where he authored the definitive work on Iran’s claims to the UAE islands of Abu Musa and the two Tunbs, The Three Occupied UAE Islands: The Tunbs and Abu Musa. His most recent book is Global Security Watch — Iran: A Reference Handbook (2008), a study of Iran’s foreign relations. Dr. Mattair has taught at Kent State University, the University of Southern California, the University of California at Riverside, and Cornell University. He also served as Director of Research at the Middle East Policy Council from 1992 to 1995.

Dr. Alidad Mafinezam Dr. Alidad Mafinezam is President of the West Asia Council, co-founder of the Mosaic Institute in Toronto, and co-founder and former board member of the Iranian Canadian Congress. He is the lead author of Iran and Its Place Among Nations, and has been published in the Toronto Star, The Mark, the Philadelphia Inquirer, PBS’s Tehran Bureau, the Literary Review of Canada, and other outlets. In the late 1990s, Dr. Mafinezam was the founding coordinator and fundraiser of the Columbia Caspian Project at Columbia University in New York, which examined the geopolitical transformation of the energy-rich Caspian region. In that decade, he was also the founding coordinator of the Project on US-Iran Relations at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC.

Dr. Imad Harb Dr. Imad Harb is a Distinguished International Affairs Fellow with the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations and founder of Quest for Middle East Analysis, a research, consultancy, and advocacy firm on Middle East issues. He recently returned to Washington, DC, after working as a researcher and analyst at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research in Abu Dhabi, UAE, where he focused on the GCC region, Iran, Iraq, and related international issues and developments. Dr. Harb previously worked to help rehabilitate the Iraqi higher education sector as a Senior Program Officer for Education at the United States Institute of Peace. Since earning his PhD from the University of Utah, Dr. Harb has been an Adjunct Professor at San Francisco State University, the University of Utah, Georgetown University, George Washington University, the University of Maryland, and the Middle East Institute.

Mr. John Pratt Mr. John Pratt has spent over 45 years in the Middle East and North Africa, and recently joined the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations as a Board Member and Distinguished International Affairs Fellow. Prior to joining the National Council, Mr. Pratt concluded a 35-year career with Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest integrated oil company, where he witnessed Iranian challenges to Saudi Arabian offshore boundaries as well as Iranian complicity in the Khobar Towers bombing in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, in 1996, in which 19 U.S. service members were killed and over 500 individuals were wounded. Mr. Pratt was an active member of the American Business Association of the Eastern Province, serving as Vice President for External Affairs and Chairman of the Issues Committee. He is a former Chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce regional organization in the Arabian Gulf, the Middle East Council of the American Chambers of Commerce, and a past member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s International Policy Committee.