Ryan Crocker, former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait, and Lebanon, will share his unique perspective on Afghanistan and offer insight into the implications of the 2021 Taliban takeover for the country and the region at large.  

Drawing on themes from her recently published book Black Wave, Kim Ghattas will look back at forty years of rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, unpack the misconceptions that handicap America's dealings with the region, and analyze the inter-play between the Saudi-Iran rivalry and American foreign policy. 

Middle East Initiative (MEI) Senior Fellow Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin will join MEI Faculty Director Tarek Masoud to offer his perspective on the security landscape of the Middle East from his vantage point as a longtime Israeli soldier, national security official, and strategic analyst.   

Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, the first woman to be elected to the highest decision-making body of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its official spokesperson until 2020, will speak about the future of Palestine and the current challenges in negotiating an end to the conflict.

Why is jihadism so difficult to predict, and what, if anything, can social scientists hold on to as reliable indicators and frameworks for estimating its future? In this talk, Dr. Thomas Hegghammer, a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment in Oslo, will review the forty-year history of scholarly prediction attempts, reflect on his own misjudgments, and draw up tentative - and likely wrong - scenarios for the coming years.

At a moment when public policy and public health are becoming increasingly intertwined, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini will share his unique perspective on UNRWA’s past, present, and future strategies for supporting Palestinian refugees. MEI Faculty Director, Tarek Masoud, will moderate this discussion. 

Come meet the MEI staff and fellows, learn about the programming and research opportunities we offer, and enjoy some sweet Middle Eastern treats!

*Harvard ID required*

A seminar with Michael Hoffman, assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, on his new book Faith in Numbers: Religion, Sectarianism, and Democracy from Oxford University Press.

In the wake of the Arab Spring, political elites passed a new constitution, held parliamentary elections, and demonstrated the strength of their democracy with a peaceful transfer of power. Yet in Egypt, unity crumbled due to polarization among elites. Elizabeth Nugent, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science presents a new theory of polarization under authoritarianism in her new book After Repression and reveals how polarization and the legacies of repression led to these substantially divergent political outcomes.

As the initial promise of the Arab uprisings has collapsed and curdled, many have revisited nagging questions posed by political dysfunction in the Arab world. Special guest Michael Hanna, Senior Fellow of The Century Foundation joins MEI to discuss the question of whether or not the Arab uprisings were a failure and what this all means for the new Biden Administration.