Council Chronicle Vol. 5, No. 3 (Summer – Fall 2011) (.pdf file)
The National Council, in partnership with the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission (SACM) and Saudi Arabian Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), escorted a delegation of Model Arab League students on a cultural immersion study visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, December 28, 2011-January 7, 2012.
Cadet will travel to Saudi Arabia for winter fellowship, The Citadel Newsroom , December 12, 2011
The National Council, in coordination with the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), organized and led a November 18-28, 2011 study visit to the United Arab Emirates for ten Cadets and two faculty members from the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
John Duke Anthony – Saudi Arabian Ambassadors to America in Context: The Diplomatic and Geopolitical Lives of Ambassadors Prince Bandar, Prince Turki, and Adel Al-Jubeir (.pdf)
This essay from Dr. Anthony examines the diplomatic and geopolitical challenges and opportunities for the three most recent Saudi Arabian Ambassadors to the United States: Prince Bandar, Prince Turki, and Adel Al-Jubeir. Dr. Anthony wrote an earlier biography of Adel Al-Jubeir for the Biographical Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East & North Africa in 2007. Centgage Learning, the publisher of that two-volume work, has granted permission to reprint the earlier version and to bring the essay up to date. The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East & North Africa can be purchased here: http://bit.ly/seY6oo.
WHITHER THE ARAB-U.S. RELATIONSHIP IN THE PERIOD AHEAD? POLICY IMPLICATIONS FROM THE LEAGUE OF ARAB STATES
Chair:
Ms. Barbara G. B. Ferguson – Washington Bureau Chief, Arab News; Co-Chair, International Correspondents Committee, The National Press Club, Washington, D.C.; author, “Country Reports” on Bahrain, Morocco, and Kazakhstan for the Washington Times; embedded war correspondent during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in Kuwait in 1990-1991 and in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.
Speaker:
H.E. Ambassador Dr. Hussein Hassouna – Chief Representative of the League of Arab States to the United States.
Commentators:
Mr. Bill Corcoran – President, American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA).
Mr. John Moran – Career Member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service, United States Department of State; Distinguished Diplomat-in-Residence, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations.
GEOPOLITICAL DYNAMICS (V): Iran
Chair:
Dr. John L. Iskander – Chair, Near East and North Africa Area Studies, Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State.
Speakers:
Mr. Afshin Molavi – Senior Fellow, New America Foundation; Senior Middle East Advisor, Oxford Analytica; and author, The Soul of Iran.
Dr. Janne Nolan – Director, Nuclear Security Programs, American Security Project; former Professor of International Affairs and Deputy Director of the Ridgway Center, University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Flynt Leverett – Director, Iran Initiative, and Senior Research Fellow, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation; and author, Dealing with Tehran: Assessing U.S. Diplomatic Options toward Iran and Inheriting Syria: Bashar’s Trial by Fire.
Dr. Kenneth B. Katzman – Specialist in Middle East Affairs in the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.
GEOPOLITICAL DYNAMICS (IV): Palestine
Chair:
Mr. Yousef Munayyer – Executive Director, Palestine Center and the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development.
Speakers:
Ms. Michelle Steinberg – Counterintelligence Editor, Executive Intelligence Review (EIR).
Dr. Ghada Karmi – Co-Director, Centre of Palestine Studies, University of Exeter.
Dr. Norton Mezvinsky – Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Connecticut State University; President, International Council for Middle East Studies.
LIBYA: THE WAY FORWARD
Introduction of Speaker:
Ms. Harriet Fulbright – President, J. William & Harriet Fulbright Center; Founder, Harriet Fulbright College.
Speaker:
H.E. Ambassador Ali Aujali – National Transitional Council of Libya Ambassador to the United States.
KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY HRH PRINCE TURKI AL-FAISAL
HRH Prince Turki Al-Faisal Al Sa’ud – Chairman, King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; former Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United Kingdom and to the United States of America; former Director General, General Intelligence Directorate, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL (GCC) DYNAMICS (III)
Chair:
Dr. John Duke Anthony – Founding President and CEO of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, and author, inter alia, of Arab States of the Lower Gulf: People, Politics, Petroleum and Historical and Cultural Dictionary of the Sultanate of Oman and the Emirates of Eastern Arabia.
Speakers:
Dr. Abdulkhaleq Abdulla – Professor of Political Science, Emirates University (Abu Dhabi); lead author, 2008 Arab Knowledge Report. (UAE)
Dr. Abdulla Al-Shayji – Chairman, Department of Political Science, Kuwait University, and author, Kuwait’s Ceaseless Quest for Survival in a Hostile Environment. (Kuwait)
Mr. Jeremy Jones – Author of Negotiating Change: The New Politics of the Middle East and the forthcoming Oman, Culture and Diplomacy; Senior Associate Member, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies; National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Distinguished International Fellow. (Oman)
Dr. Thomas Mattair – Executive Director, Middle East Policy Council; former Research Scholar, Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research; author,The Three Occupied UAE Islands: The Tunbs and Abu Musa and Global Security Watch — Iran: A Reference Handbook. (Bahrain)
Commentator:
Mr. Robert Lacey – Historian, and author of, inter alia, The Kingdom: Arabia & the House of Sa’ud (1982) and Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia (2009). (Saudi Arabia)
BUSINESS, INVESTMENT, AND FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT DYNAMICS AND PROSPECTS
Chair:
Mr. Michael Markland – Vice President for Private Wealth Management, Morgan Stanley (Dubai).
Speakers:
Ambassador Ford Fraker – Senior Adviser and Chairman for the Middle East and North Africa Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P.; former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
Ambassador Joseph LeBaron – Senior Adviser, Patton Boggs LLP; former U.S. Ambassador to Qatar and Mauritania.
Mr. Danny E. Sebright – President, U.S.-U.A.E. Business Council.
Mr. Lionel C. Johnson – Vice President, Middle East and North Africa Affairs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
A VIEW FROM THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Speaker:
Dr. Tamara Wittes – Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs and Deputy Special Coordinator for Middle East Transitions, U.S. Department of State.
GEOPOLITICAL DYNAMICS (II): Arab North Africa (The Maghreb) / Syria / Yemen
Chair:
Ms. Jennifer Salan – Senior Producer, The Stream, Al Jazeera English.
Speakers:
Dr. Néjib Ayachi – Founder and President, Maghreb Center. (Tunisia)
Dr. Michele Dunne – Director, Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East; former Member, White House National Security Council Staff and the Department of State’s Policy Planning Staff, as well as Bureau of Intelligence and Research; and service as a Diplomat in Cairo and Jerusalem. (Egypt)
Mr. Christopher Blanchard – Middle East Policy Analyst, Congressional Research Service. (Syria / Yemen)
Ms. Randa Fahmy Hudome – President, Fahmy Hudome International; former Associate Deputy Secretary of Energy; Member, Board of Directors, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. (Libya)
Dr. Esam Omeish
GEOPOLITICAL DYNAMICS (I): Iraq
Chair:
Dr. Kenneth B. Katzman – Specialist in Middle East Affairs in the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.
Speakers:
Dr. Eric Davis – Professor of Political Science and former Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Rutgers University; author of Memories of State: Politics, History and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq and the forthcoming Taking Democracy Seriously in Iraq.
Dr. Juan Cole – Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan; author of Engaging the Muslim World and Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East; former President, Middle East Studies Association of North America.
Dr. Paul Sullivan – Professor of Economics, Industrial College of Armed Forces, National Defense University; Adjunct Professor of Security Studies and Science, Technology and International Affairs, Georgetown University.
Ms. Shameem Rassam – Media Expert and Analyst, Alhurra Television-Iraq.
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Speakers:
H.E. Dr. Adnan Ahmed Al-Ansari – Ambassador and Observer, Permanent Mission of the Gulf Cooperation Council to the United Nations; former Director, Research Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sultanate of Oman.
H.E. Nasser Tammimi – Political Counselor to the Ambassador and Observer, Permanent Mission of the Gulf Cooperation Council to the United Nations; formerly, Senior Political Adviser to the Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs, Secretariat General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Introduction:
Dr. John Duke Anthony – Founding President and CEO of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, and author, inter alia, of Arab States of the Lower Gulf: People, Politics, Petroleum and Historical and Cultural Dictionary of the Sultanate of Oman and the Emirates of Eastern Arabia.
Speaker:
H.E. Ambassador Sameh Shoukry – Ambassador of Egypt to the United States.
ENERGY DYNAMICS
Chair:
The Honorable Molly Williamson – Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations; Adjunct Scholar, Middle East Institute; Immediate Past Senior Foreign Policy Adviser to the Secretary of Energy (2005-2008); former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for the Middle East, South Asia, Oceania and Africa (1999-2004); former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia (1993-1995).
Speakers:
Dr. Herman T. Franssen – Executive Director, Energy Intelligence Group; Senior Associate, Energy and National Security Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Mr. Jay Pryor – Vice President for Corporate Business Development, Chevron Corporation.
Ms. Randa Fahmy Hudome – President, Fahmy Hudome International; former Associate Deputy Secretary of Energy; Member, Board of Directors, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations.
DYNAMICS OF DEFENSE COOPERATION
Chair:
Ambassador James Larocco – Director, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University; former U.S. Ambassador to the State of Kuwait.
Speakers:
Dr. Joseph Moynihan – Chairman, Board of Directors, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations; Vice President, Northrop Grumman Electronics Systems.
General Joseph Hoar (USMC, Ret.) – Former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Central Command with planning and operations responsibility for 27 countries in the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, and the Horn of Africa; Chairman, J.P. Hoar & Associates, a consulting firm engaged in business development in the Middle East and Africa.
Commentators:
Col. David Des Roches (USA) – Professor, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University; National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Malone Fellow in Arab and Islamic Studies.
Mr. Bob Sharp – Assistant Professor, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University.
John Duke Anthony – 
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