GEO-POLITICAL DYNAMICS: SYRIA, LEBANON, IRAQ, AND IRAN
Chair:
Dr. John Iskander – Chair, Near East and North Africa Area Studies, Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State.
Speakers:
Dr. Trita Parsi – Founder and President, National Iranian American Council; author A Single Roll of the Dice – Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran and Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States.
Dr. Judith Yaphe – Distinguished Research Fellow for the Middle East, Institute for National Strategic Studies; Adjunct Professor in the Elliott School, George Washington University; former senior analyst in the office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA.
Dr. Bassam Haddad – Director, Middle East Studies Program and Assistant Professor, Department of Public and International Affairs, George Mason University; Co-Founder/Editor, Jadaliyya Ezine; Visiting Professor, Georgetown University; author, Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience.
Dr. David Lesch – Professor of Middle East History, Trinity University; author, The Fall of the House of Assad, The Arab – Israeli Conflict: A History, and The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar al-Asad and Modern Syria.
Dr. Michael C. Hudson – Director, Middle East Institute and Professor of Political Science at National University of Singapore; former Director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Professor of International Relations, and Seif Ghobash Professor of Arab Studies, Georgetown University.