Details

When

October 29, 2007, 9:00 am - March 29, 2024, 9:41 am

Where

1761 N Street NW
Washington, 20036 (Map)

Middle East Institute 61st Annual Conference
"The Middle East in 2010"

Banquet

Introduction, October 29

Ambassador Wyche Fowler, Jr., Chairman of the Board of the Middle East Institute

Ambassador Wyche Fowler, Chairman of the Board, Middle East Institute

Ambassador Wyche Fowler has served as Chairman of MEI’s Board of Governors since 2001. Prior to his position at MEI, he served as US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for five years. Ambassador Fowler represented the state of Georgia for 16 years, both in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Transcript

Banquet Address

John Burns, New York Times London Bureau Chief

John Burns, New York Times London Bureau Chief

John Burns has worked for more than 30 years at posts in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe, making him the longest-serving correspondent in the history of the New York Times. Before assuming his London posting, he spent five years reporting from Iraq.

Transcript I Summary

Conference

Introduction, October 30

Wendy Chamberlin, President of the Middle East Institute

Wendy Chamberlin, President, Middle East Institute

Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin has been President of the Middle East Institute since March 2007. Before leading MEI, she served as Deputy High Commissioner for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and as Assistant Administrator in the Asia-Near East Bureau for USAID. In addition to being US Ambassador to Pakistan and to the Laos People’s Democratic Republic, her assignments have included Deputy in the Bureau of International Counter-Narcotics and Law Programs, Director of Press and Public Affairs for the Near East Bureau, and Director of Global Affairs and Counter-Terrorism at the National Security Council. Wendy Chamberlin holds degrees from Northwestern and Boston University.

Transcript

Keynote Address

Richard Clarke, former Assistant to the President on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism

Richard Clarke, former Assistant to the President on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism

Richard Clarke is the former Advisor to the President on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. Clarke served as Chair of the Counterterrorism Security Group in the US National Security Council from 1992 - 2003. He is the author of "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror - What Really Happened in 2004."

Transcript I Summary

Panel I: Radicalization and Survival for Palestinian Refugees

Mustafa Barghouthi, Director of the Health Development Information and Policy Institute and the Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative

Benny Morris, Ben Gurion University

Richard Cook, Director of UNRWA, Lebanon

Moderator: Wegger Chr. Strommen, Ambasssador of Norway to the US    

Panelists

Mustafa Barghouthi is founder of the National Palestinian Initiative and the Health, Development, Information and Policy Institute in Ramallah.

Richard Cook is Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Lebanon. He joined UNRWA in 1985 and has served as Deputy Director of Operations in Gaza and the Wet Bank.

Benny Morris is a professor of history at Ben-Gurion University. He is best known for his work on the history of Palestinian refugees.

 Moderator: Wegger Chr. Strommen, Ambasssador of Norway to the US

Transcript I Summary

Luncheon Address

Frances Fragos Townsend, Advisor to the President on Homeland Security

Frances Fragos Townsend, Advisor to the President on Homeland Security

Frances Fragos Townsend is advisor to the President on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. She previously served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism. Townsend came to the White House from the US Coast Guard, where she had served as Assistant Commandant for Intelligence. Prior to that, Ms. Townsend spent 13 years at the US Department of Justice in a variety of senior positions, her last assignment as Counsel to the Attorney General for Intelligence Policy.

Transcript I Summary

Panel II: America in the Middle East: What Comes Next?

Tariq Ramadan, Oxford University, Research Fellow

Philip Gordon, Brookings Institution, Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies

Robert Satloff, Executive Director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP)

Moderator: David Ignatius, Associate Editor and Columnist, Washington Post       

 

Panelists

Philip Gordon is a Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. Previously, he served as Director of European Affairs at the National Security Council and also has written books and articles on national security and the Middle East.

David Ignatius is an Associate Editor and columnist for the Washington Post. He also co-moderates PostGlobal, an online discussion among top reporters of international issues at Washingtonpost.com, along with Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria.

Tariq Ramadan is a Research Fellow at the European Studies Center and the Middle East Center at the University of Oxford in England. He also serves as President of the European Muslim Network in Brussels.

Robert Satloff has been Executive Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy since 1993. An expert on Arab and Islamic politics, as well as US Middle East policy, Satloff has written extensively on the Middle East and related issues, most recently "Among the Righteous: Lost Stories of the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands."

Transcript I Summary

Panel III: Post Iraq War Jihadists: Where Next?

Fawaz Gerges, Sarah Lawrence College, Christian A. Johnson Chair in International Affairs and Arab and Muslim Politics

H.E. General Ehsan ul Haq, former Chief of Pakistani ISI

Michael Ware, CNN Correspondent Baghdad

Moderator: Paul Pillar, Georgetown University, Security Studies Program

 

Panelists

Fawas Gerges is the Christian A. Johnson Chair in International Affairs and Arab and Muslim Politics at Sarah Lawrence College and the author of the recently published book, "Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy and the Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global."

General Ehsan ul Haq is the Chairman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Pakistan military and former Chief of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence.

Michael Ware is a correspondent in CNN's Baghdad Bureau. Preior to joining the network in 2006, Ware reported for Time magazine from AFghanistan during the 2001 invasion and from Iraq as an embedded reporter with US forces.

Paul Pillar is a Visiting Professor in Security Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. He has 28 years of experience in the US intelligence community.

Transcript I Summary

Closing Remarks

Ambassador David Mack, Vice President, Middle East Institute

Ambassador David Mack, Vice President, Middle East Institute

Ambassador David Mack served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs from 1990 to 1993, and as US Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates from 1986 to 1989. His diplomatic assignments included Iraq, Jordan, Jerusalem, Lebanon, Libya and Tunisia. Ambassador Mack has also been a consultant for numerous private US and Arab companies and has extensive experience and knowledge on Iraq and Libya, particularly the Iraqi Reconstruction effort and US-Libyan relations.

His Excellency Abdullah Alireza, Minister of State, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abdullah Alireza, Minister of State, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abdullah Alireza, Minister of State, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a member of the Supreme Economic Council and the Saudi Arabian Council of Ministers. He chairs both the Saudi Services & Operating Company and the Saudi Energy Services Company. Additionally, he has served as co-chair of the National US Arab Chamber of Commerce since 1999.

Transcript I Summary