Todd Feinburg Home

Interviews on Middle East issues are posted shortly after the show each Sunday and can be replayed here.

A Note From Todd:
Dear Friends - I have retired from weekend radio to cut down on my workload and get more time with family, but I can still be heard weekday mornings on WRKO in Boston. Thanks so much for your support over the past 6 years. I will greatly miss our weekly get-togethers.
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Thanks... Todd 3/1/09

Please visit Todd's blog at RealClearThinker.com.

February 1

We take a tour of Middle East issues with Samar Dahmash-Jarrah, a Kuwait-born Palestinian-American speaker, journalist, and educator who is the author of Arab Voices Speak to American Hearts. We'll explore issues such as whether attitudes toward America have been changed by the end of the Bush years, and whether prospects for a solution to the Israel/Palestinian conflict been altered. Her perspective is unique, as Samar has lived in Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt. She has worked as a Political Science instructor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, a contributor to CNN World Report, a news editor and reporter for Jordan Television and a reporter and editor for Jordan Weekly.

Is America falling down on the job with regard to Iran and nuclear weapons? We ask Gary Sick, Senior Research Scholar and adjunct professor of international affairs at Columbia University, and author of All Fall Down: America's Tragic Encounter With Iran. Gary served on the National Security Council staff under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan. He was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis. His other book on those events is October Surprise: America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan.

January 25

Can President Obama make a difference in the Israel/Palestinian conflict? We hear the ideas of Aaron David Miller, author and Middle East Analyst, in excerpts from a recent podcast with Jake Tapper of ABC News. Miller is a Public Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center and author of the recently released The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace. He has been an adviser to six Secretaries of State on Arab-Israeli Negotiations over the past thirty years.

With the success of the "surge," over the past two years, Iraq is a much calmer place than it was when President Obama, then a candidate, promised to systematically draw down U.S. troops over a fixed, 16 month period. Would this be a good idea if it was still the President's plan? We ask John Arquilla, a professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School (where he has taught in the special operations curriculum since 1993). Arquilla recommends drawing down two-thirds of our troops immediately, leaving the remainder there with no timetable for withdrawal. Arquilla's teaching interests revolve around the history of irregular warfare, terrorism, and the implications of the information age for society and security. His books include Worst Enemy: The Reluctant Transformation of the American Military, which is about military reform.

January 18

For fresh details on what is happening on the ground in Gaza we visit with Bill Corcoran, President and CEO of ANERA, a non-profit that provides development, health, education and employment programs to Palestinians and impoverished families throughout the Middle East. ANERA is non-political and is one of the largest American non-profits working solely in the Middle East for 40 years. During the 1990s, Bill directed the Pontifical Mission for Palestine based in Jordan with projects there and in Iraq.

How are politics in the Arab world being affected by the fighting in Gaza? We get answers from Kamran Bokhari, Director of Middle East Analysis for the intelligence firm Stratfor. We'll explore how the governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others view the fighting: are they upset with Israel, or pleased at the potential for a weaker Hamas? Bokhari is the author of a soon to be released book on radical Islamist thought entitled Voices of Jihad: New Writings on Radical Islam.

January 11

Few have spent as much time on the ground in Gaza as has Steve Sosebee, President and CEO of the Palestine Childrens Relief Fund, an American charity set up to provide medical care to Palestinian children injured in the fighting in the Middle East. Sosebee, a native of Ohio with no Palestinian background, formed PCRF after visiting the West Bank while on a student trip. The charity often sends American doctors to the region to provide care to Palestinian children. Just back in the states, we talk with Sosebee about his perspective on the fighting.

We attempt again to get a direct report from someone living in Gaza as we reach out to Najwa Sheikh Ahmed, a Palestine refugee who lives in Nuseirat camp with her husband and their three children. She works for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which provides food and other basic needs to Gaza. Najwa also writes extensively about her experiences. She was born in the Khan Younis Refugee Camp in the southern Gaza Strip.

January 4, 2009

Is the Arab world moving toward reform, or away from it? We talk with Amr Hamzaway, a Senior Associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an Egyptian political scientist. He has a Ph.D. from the Free University of Berlin, where he was an Assistant Professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He previously taught at Cairo University. His research interests include the changing dynamics of political participation in the Arab world and the role of Islamist movements in Arab politics. He is the author of Civil Society in the Middle East, and, more recently, is co-editor, with Anthony Chase, of Human Rights in the Arab World: Independent Voices.

December 28, 2008

As Israel steps up retaliatory attacks on Hamas in Gaza, we get analysis from two activists. First, Jennifer Loewenstein, Associate Director of the Middle East Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A longtime human rights advocate focusing on abuses in the Middle East, she has studied classical and modern Arabic, Islam, and modern Middle Eastern history. Jennifer taught English in the Palestinian refugee camps of South Beirut, Lebanon, where she lived for two summers, and has lived in both Israel and the Occupied Territories. She is a member of the board of the Israeli Coalition against House Demolitions-USA branch and founder of the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project. She is also a freelance journalist.

Next, we talk with Greta Berlin, co-founder of the Free Gaza movement, a group committed to breaking Israel's embargo of Gaza. Over the last few months they have started sending boats into Gaza from Cyprus with a goal of bringing supplies, as well as journalists and political figures, which otherwise would not have a route in. Their goal is to create a permanent sea lane making such excursions routine.

December 21

Is the government of Iraq a functional, independent entity, or just a figurehead regime doing the bidding of others? We ask Babak Rahimi, a professor of Iranian and Islamic Studies at the University of California, San Diego. His area of study has been state and society throughout Islamic history, in particular the formation of Islamic public spheres. He was a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace from 2005-2006, where he conducted research on Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and Shiite politics in post-Baathist Iraq.

December 7, 2008

Is the war in Iraq won? We ask Sam Bahour, a Palestinian-American businessman living in the Palestinian City of Al-Bireh/Ramallah in the West Bank. He is the co-author of HOMELAND: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians. Bahour was born in Ohio in 1964 to a Palestinian father and Lebanese-American mother. He graduated from Youngstown State University in 1989 with a degree in computer technology, and subsequently worked for several American software firms, before moving to the West Bank in 1995.

Is the solution to the economic disaster linked to solving the conflict between Israel and the Palesinians? We're joined by Mazin Qumsiyeh, president of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and a professor at Bethlehem University. He previously taught at the University of Tennessee, as well as Duke and Yale Universities. Mazin is a Palestinian activist who has served on the board/steering/executive committees of a number of groups including Peace Action Education Fund, the US Campaign to End the Occupation, the Palestinian American Congress, Association for One Democratic State in Israel/Palestine, and BoycottIsraeliGoods.org.

November 16

How are the results of the U.S. elections being viewed in the Middle East? We ask Rania Masri, an assistant professor at the University of Balamand in Lebanon. Rania is an Arab-American who lived for twenty years in the U.S. before moving to Lebanon five years ago. She received her doctorate at North Carolina State University and then worked with the Institute for Southern Studies in Durham.

We address the American political scene further, with observations on our policies towards Israel, in a conversation with Ramzy Baroud, a Palestinian-American journalist who was born and raised in a refugee camp in Gaza. He is the editor of Palestine Chronicle, a leading Palestinian online publication. He received the excellence in journalism award from the US National Arab and Muslim Journalists Association in 2002. Baroud resides in Washington State.

November 2

What is the status of the Status of Forces Agreement - the document being negotiated to authorize the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq once the UN resolutions expire? For one, the Iraq government wants the title of the agreement changed to the "agreement on comlete US withdrawal from Iraq." We learn more from Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi blogger and activist who lives in the United States. Raised in Baghdad, Jarrar is half Iraqi and half Palestinian. He received a degree in architecture from the University of Jordan, but is best known for the blogging he did during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He appears frequently in the media to discuss Iraqi issues.

October 26, 2008

The price of a barrel of oil has dropped more than 50% since hitting a high in July. How does this effect the governments of the oil producers in the Middle East, and how does it alter our relationships with them? Jean-Francois Seznec offers an explanation. Jean-Francois teaches the political economy of the Persian Gulf at Georgetown University. He lived and worked in the Gulf for more than a decade and has traveled frequently to the region. He is focusing on the industrialization of the Gulf and in particular the growth of the energy based industries such as petrochemicals, aluminum or steel. He is Visiting Associate Professor at Georgetown University after twenty years being Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, and is Senior Advisor to PFC Energy in Washington.

October 19

We explore blogging in the Middle East today, turning first to Saudi Arabia and Ahmed Al-Omran, who, at age 24, is one of the leading bloggers in his country. We'll ask him about the impact of blogging, is it widely accepted, and how his country changed by the exchange of ideas online. His blog, Saudi Jeans, is one the most popular and long-standing blogs in the Middle East. He has been widely quoted in international media and his writings have appeared in major local and regional publications.

Barack Obama's middle name has, at times, been a campaign issue. We'll get reaction and analysis on the impact of "Hussein" on American voters from Ali-Asad Somjee, a 22 year old graduate of the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Born in the UK and raised in Oman and Kenya, Ali-Asad is a citizen of Pakistan. He is founder and editor of Jus' the Tip - a blog that explores a diverse range of issues from politics and personal development to religion and finance. We'll also talk about his recent post entitled Understanding Sunni-Shia.

October 12

As Iran stuggles with falling oil prices and the failed launch of a VAT (sales tax) amid continued talk of a possible Israeli strike against its nuclear program, we talk with Ervand Abrahamian, a professor of history at the CUNY Graduate Center, Baruch College. As an Armenian born in Iran and raised in England, Abrahamian is well qualified by education and experience to teach world and Middle East history. His latest book, released in July, is A History of Modern Iran, and he is working on The CIA Coup in Iran. He previously taught at Princeton, New York University, and Oxford University.

October 5

Is oil the reason for the Russian invasion of Georgia over the summer? How is Russia changing the power of other oil producing nations. We hear the ideas of Rajan Menon, a professor of International Relations at Lehigh University and a Fellow at the New America Foundation. He served as an Academic Fellow and Senior Advisor at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), of which he is a member, and Director for Eurasia Policy Studies at the National Bureau for Asian Research. Menon's most recent book was The End of Alliances. His next will be Hubris: The Anatomy of Military Disasters.

How are countries in the Arabian Peninsula, such as Saudi Arabia, doing in their battle against Islamic extremists? We talk with J.E. Peterson, an historian and political analyst specializing in the Arabian Peninsula and Gulf. He received his Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced Interntional Studies, and has worked at the Library of Congress and taught at Bowdoin College, the College of William and Mary, the University of Pennsylvania, and Portland State University. He is affiliated with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona and served as the 2004 Sir William Luce Fellow at the University of Durham. His most recent book is Oman's Insurgencies : The Sultanate's Struggle for Supremacy.

September 28, 2008

Just back from visits to Egypt and Lebanon, we talk with Juan Campo about current events and culture in the Middle East. Campo is co-Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he specializes in the comparative study of Islam, particularly in the Middle East and South Asia. His research has taken him to Egypt, where he lived for more than five years. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Turkey, Singapore, and Thailand are other countries where he has conducted research.

September 21

In advance of the Iranian president's visit to the U.N. this week, we catch up on Iran, the condition of the Iranian government and the popularity of Ahmadinejad with Alex Vatanka, Senior Middle East Analystan at Janes Information Group, where he is editor of Jane's Sentinel Russia & CIS Security Assessment. Vatanka lived the first ten years of his life in Iran before commencing a series of migrations that brought him to the U.S. three years ago. He also is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute. Prior to joining Janes, he was an Adjunct lecturer at the US Air Force Special Operations School.

September 14, 2008

With oil prices dropping as quickly as they bubbled up a few months ago, we talk energy and international affairs with Molly Williamson, an Adjunct Scholar at the Middle East Institute. Williamson is an energy expert who served as Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the Secretary of Energy ffom 2005 to 2008, and was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for the Middle East, South Asia, Oceania and Africa for five years ending in 2004. Williamson held numerous postings in the Middle East and the United Nations, achieving the rank of Career Minister in the Foreign Service.

We dive into politics of the U.S. and Middle East with Palestinian-American pundit Ray Hanania, who writes an award winning syndicated column analyzing Middle East events, is an author of several books, and is a humorist, stand-up comedian and radio talk host who launched his public comedy performances after September 11th to help break through the growing hatred and animosity. He is also a founder of Yalla, Salam! (Palestinians for Peace Now) which seeks to express a Palestinian voice of peace in today's bitter conflict. His most recent book is The Moral Jihad.

August 31

How can the U.S. better strategize its relations with Middle East nations? Answers come today from John Maszka, a foreign affairs analyst whose most recent book is Terrorism and the Bush Doctrine. Maszka is horrified by suggestions that the U.S. should escalate the war in Afghanistan, and believes that following this course of action represents a repeat of mistakes we've made in Iraq. John’s interest is American foreign policy and its impact on global terrorism.

How might things have been different if Pervez Musharref had performed better in Pakistan? We discuss his failures, and their repercutions, with Reihan Salam, an associate editor at The Atlantic and a fellow at the New America Foundation. Salam has worked for the New Republic, the Council on Foreign Relations, the New York Times, and NBC News. He says that his interests include "the history of ideas, urban and regional planning, 5GW, technology and society, social policy, demography, normative political theory, youth culture, bad movies, bad fiction, and good music.

August 24

In Saudi Arabia, they're working to convince potential young radicals that it's okay to be radical, but it's not okay to resort to violence. We discuss the Saudi war against terror with Sherifa Zuhur, who is a Professor of Islamic and Regional Studies at the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College. She is also the Director, Institute of Middle Eastern, Islamic, and Diasporic Studies. Dr. Zuhur just returned from a Middle East trip that included visits to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel. She has lectured and held faculty positions in three countries. These included positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA, and the American University in Cairo.

What are the implications of recent political changes in Pakistan? We visit with Kamran Ali, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas in Austin. Professor Ali has conducted long term field work in Egypt and in Pakistan and has frequently contributed to the media on recent Pakistani politics. He is on the editorial committee of the Middle East Report and co-coordinates the Shehr Network, which is an academic initiative that seeks to further a critical understanding of urban practices in the Middle East and South Asia.

August 17

Understanding the way that clan and village loyalties interact with cultural, religious and national ones in the Middle East is a challenge. We get clarification from author and commentator Sandra Mackey. This widely respected journalist has covered the Middle East since the oil boom of the 1970s. Her books focus on the Arab world, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq (The Reckoning) and Saudi Arabia (The Saudis.) Ms. Mackey lived for four years in Saudi Arabia, and wrote extensively on life and culture there.

We discuss the nature of Zionism and the psychological obstacles to peace with Moises Salinas, a professor of psychology at Central Connecticut State University. A lifelong Zionist who moved to Israel and went to college there, Salinas says the Palestinians have as much of a right to their own country as do Israelis. He is the author of books such as Planting hatred, sowing pain: the psychology of the Israeli Palestinian conflict.Salinas was born in Mexico City.

August 10

What challenges will face the next President in the Middle East? Just back from an extended period in the region is Professor Fawaz Gerges, who holds the Christian Johnson Chair in International Affairs and Arab and Muslim Politics at Sarah Lawrence, New York. Educated at Oxford University and the London School of Economics, Professor Gerges has taught at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and Oxford. His special interests include Islam and the political process, Arab and Muslim politics and American foreign policy towards the Muslim world. His recent books include Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy, and The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global.

Final details of a status of forces agreement between the U.S. and Iraq remain unresolved. We discuss the challenges with Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. He is a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs and an active blogger on topics from the region, as well as American politics. He has published several books on the Middle East, and has translated several works by Kahlil Gibran. Cole's bid for tenure at Yale is said to have been rejected as a result of his political outspokeness. His latest book is Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East.

August 3

Let's find out what they really do think about us, and talk with a professor who runs polls of the Middle East. He is John Esposito, the Director of the Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, where he holds the distinguished position of University Professor and teaches as both a Professor of Religion and International Affairs and Professor of Islamic Studies. Esposito also works as a Senior Scientist at the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, where he co-authored Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think.

July 27

We take a tour of Middle East issues and problems with Thomas Lippman, an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington. Lippman spent many years reporting on the region for the Washington Post in the paper's Middle East bureau, as its oil and energy reporter, and as the newspaper's national security and diplomatic correspondent. He is the author of books such as Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia and Madeleine Albright and the New American Diplomacy.

Barack Obama was in Israel during his Middle East tour, and he promised to refocus America on finding peace in the region if elected. We discuss the prospects for such a peace with Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. Before going to Maryland, he taught at several universities, including Cornell, Ohio State, and the University of Southern California. In addition, Telhami has been active in the foreign policy arena. He has served as Advisor to the US Mission to the UN, as advisor to former Congressman Lee Hamilton, and as a member of the US delegation to the Trilateral US-Israeli-Palestinian Anti-Incitement Committee, which was mandated by the Wye River Agreements.

July 20

How has Saudi Arabia changed since September 11, and what is the condition of relations between that country and the U.S? We talk with Saudi businessman Amr Khashoggi, Chairman and CEO of the Amkest Group. Having been educated in the U.S., and having sent his children to school here as well, Khashoggi has strong feelings about the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, as well as changes that need to take place in both countries. He is active in the Saudi Chambers of Commerce, having served as chairman of the International Relations Committee, and he is an active member of the national Committee of International Trade. He obtained his MBA from Yale University.

Has oil become too expensive too fast, or is it playing a slow game of catch-up that is just beginning? You'll enjoy hearing the opinions of Matt Simmons, chairman and CEO of Simmons & Company International. He is a prominent oil-industry analyst and one of the world's leading experts on the topic of peak oil. Simmons is an advisor to the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre. He is a member of the National Petroleum Council and the Council on Foreign Relations. Simmons is the author of the book Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy.

July 13

With a goal of gaining a better understanding on what is driving up the cost of oil, whether the current price levels are permanent, and the role of key players in the Middle East, we are joined by two guests. First, Amy Jaffe, the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and associate director of the Rice University energy program. Jaffe’s research focuses on the subject of oil geopolitics, strategic energy policy including energy science policy, and energy economics.

Next, we talk with John Kilduff, VP and co-hed of MF Global, a futures brokerage. Before joining MF Global, Kilduff was Serior VP of Energy Rish Management Group at Fimat USA, where he did market research and managed energy price hedging. He also does energy analysis for CNBC.

July 6, 2008

Why does the Iranian government seem determined to stoke tensions with Israel and the U.S.? In order to understand this and other matters regarding Iran, we explore issues such as whether the Iranian government is controlled by religious ideologues or pragmatists, and whether conservatives or reformers are in power, with Mehran Tamadonfar, author of The Islamic Polity and Political Leadership: Fundamentalism Sectarianism, and Pragmatism. Tamadonfar teaches at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he is the chairman of the political science department.

July 6

June 29

How have the policies of the Bush administration damaged the reputation of the United States in the Middle East? What are the implications of this damage, and what will the remedy be? We ask Chas Freeman, President of the Middle East Policy Council since 1997, and Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during Gulf War I. In addition, he served as Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d'Affaires in the American embassies at both Bangkok (1984-1986) and Beijing (1981-1984). Freeman was Director for Chinese Affairs at the U.S. Department of State from 1979-1981 and was the principal American interpreter during the late President Nixon's path-breaking visit to China in 1972. He is the author of Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy, U.S. Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D.C., 1997.

June 22

In the age of terror, we discuss perceptions, and realities, of Islam in America today with Omid Safi, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Safi specializes on Islamic mysticism (Sufism), contemporary Islamic thought, and medieval Islamic history. He previously taught at Colgate University, and did his doctoral studies at Duke University. Safi is the Chair for the Study of Islam at the American Academy of Religion. He is also a member of the advisory board of the Pluralism Project at Harvard University. Safi is the author of The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam, dealing with medieval Islamic history and politics, and is the editor of Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism, a work that reflects Safi’s involvement with the progressive Muslim movement. He was a co-founder of the Progressive Muslim Union, from which he resigned in 2005.

We explore how language hinders understanding and affects lives with Harold Maio, who is a linguistic ethicist – he studies how our attitudes and perceptions of reality are influenced by language. Maio’s career has had many phases – first he was an art teacher, then, struck by the power of the German language, he shifted his focus and taught German at the high school and college level. Maio describes himself – “Born 1937, raised a 50's boy, lived flower power, matured through marriage, kids, college degrees, conflicts and happinesses.” Regarding his work as a linguistic ethicist, Maio says, “Word can lead to the back of the bus, or beyond. Word can reflect, repeat, repair, renew, alter reality completely.”

June 15

How do we leave Iraq without a meltdown ensuing? We're joined by a man who has the answer - an answer, thusfar, that has not been adopted by either candidate for president. Our guest is John Arquilla, professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School, where he has taught in the special operations curriculum since 1993. Arquilla advised against going into Iraq, but now feels strongly that we must stay while transitioning from the surge to a new, post-surge strategy. He details the plan for us. Arquilla's teaching interests revolve around the history of irregular warfare, terrorism, and the implications of the information age for society and security. His books include The Reagan Imprint: Ideas in American Foreign Policy from the Collapse of Communism to the War on Terror, and his latest study, Worst Enemy: The Reluctant Transformation of the American Military, which is about military reform.

We'll discuss Iran and their drive to become the leading power in the Middle East with someone who knows the country, and the region, well. He is Iason Athanasiadis, who has worked as a journalist since 1999, mostly covering the Middle East, Central Asia and the southeast Mediterranean. A writer, photographer and television producer, he studied Arabic and Modern Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford University as well as Persian and Contemporary Iranian Studies at Tehran's School of International Studies. He lived in Damascus and Cairo for a year each, as well as four months in Qatar, and he has reported from many countries, including Afghanistan, Turkey and Yemen for publications such as the Financial Times, al-Ahram Weekly, the Beirut Daily Star and al-Jazeera. He is fluent in Arabic and Farsi.

June 8, 2008
These interviews repeat from April 4.

How could the U.S. handle relations in the Middle East better? We ask Zachary Lockman, professor of modern Middle East history and director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University. He is a contributing editor of Middle East Report and is the author of Contending Visions of The Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism.

We know how the cost of oil impacts our daily lives. But how does the extra income effect the countries collecting the windfall? We pose this question for Paul Sullivan, a professor of economics at the National Defense University and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. He previously taught and researched at the American University in Cairo, and has traveled widely in the Middle East and North Africa. Dr. Sullivan is also a member of the College of Fellows of the International Association of Middle Eastern Studies and serves on the advisory board of the US-Egyptian Friendship Society.

June 1

Is Barack Obama's 'balanced' view toward Israel leading to a shift in American dialogue on Middle East peace? Is world opinion shifting against Israel? We pose these questions to Gad Barzilai, an international expert on comparative politics and law who has also written extensively on Israel in Middle East context and comparative political context. He is a Professor at the Law, Societies, and Justice Program in the Comparative, Law and Society Studies Center at University of Washington. Before joining UW in 2005, he was a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Law School at Tel Aviv University, where he was co-Founder and co-Director of the Law, Politics & Society Graduate Program.

May 25

If the U.S. is in Iraq, at least in part, to make sure the flow of oil from the region is protected, would that make the war immoral? We ask this and other morality questions of Daniel Chirot, a professor at the Henry Jackson School of International Relations at the University of Washington, and co-author, with Clark McCauley, of Why Not Kill Them All? The Logic and Prevention of Mass Political Murder. Specializing in ethnic conflict, social change, and tyranny, he became director of the international studies program and founded an institute on conflict resolution at the university in 2001. He is the author of Modern Tyrants: The Power and Prevalence of Evil in Our Age, a book that is also relevant to our discussions on the Middle East.

Lebanese leaders hammered out an agreement that could end the 18 months of fighting between government forces and Hezbollah. We look for prespective on events there with Hussein Ibish, Executive Director of the Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for Arab-American Leadership and Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine. From 1998-2004, Ibish served as Communications Director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the largest Arab-American membership organization in the United States. He has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

May 18

How are Barack Obama's familial ties to Islam portrayed in the media? Has he responded appropriately? We talk to Jack Shaheen, Professor Emeritus of Mass Communications at Southern Illinois University. A former CBS News consultant on the Middle East, Shaheen is a leading scholar of Arab representations in US popular culture. He is author of the recently released Guilty: Hollywood's verdict on Arabs after 9/11, and Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, a comprehensive review of Arab screen images.

We analyze the expected party nominees for president and their plans for handling the war in Iraq with Tareq Ismael, professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary, Canada. He is the Secretary General of the International Association of Middle Eastern Studies and is Editor of the International Journal of International Iraqi Studies. Ismael has published extensively on the Middle East, Iraq and international studies. His most recent book, released this year, is The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Iraq.

May 11

With a new leader and a growing al Qaeda presence, Pakistan remains a problem ally in the terror war. Just back from two weeks there is Rick Barton, Senior Advisor & Co-Director of the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. CSIS is a bipartisan non-profit that advises government officials on international affairs.

Is it good policy to talk tough against Iran as Hillary Clinton did recently, or are we better served by less volatile rhetoric? We ask Gary Sick, an adjunct professor of International Affairs at Columbia's School of International & Public Affairs, and a senior research scholar at SIPA's Middle East Institute. He is an analyst of Middle East affairs, with special expertise on Iran, who served on the U.S. National Security Council under three presidents. Sick is the author of All Fall Down: America's Tragic Encounter With Iran, and October Surprise: America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan.

May 4

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is in Israel this weekend to check in on the 'peace process.' We are joined by Scott Lasensky, an adjunct assistant professor of government at Georgetown University and co-author of the just released Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East. We'll discuss the current status of talks and whether it's realistic to hope for progress this late in the administration's tenure, or whether U.S. involvement is even a necessary component. Scott is also acting vice president and senior research associate in the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the U.S. Institute of Peace, a thinktank funded by Congress. He focuses on issues relating to the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy toward the region. He has lectured and written extensively on the Arab-Israeli conflict and America’s role in the Middle East. Scott is also the director of the Institute’s Iraq and Its Neighbors project.

More than 4 million Iraqis are estimated to have fled to other countries in the region as a result of the war. Where have they gone and what has become of them? Kelly Hayes-Raitt visited Iraq before the war began and again a few months after the U.S. invasion, and she'll be returning to the region this month. Kelly join us to talk about the lives of Iraqi refugees as she prepares to take part in two delegations to explore the on-the-ground programs in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon that assist them. The delegations are coordinated by the non-profit Middle East Fellowship.

April 27, 2008

During the most recent debate of the democratic presidential candidates, both promised to follow a troop withdrawal schedule in Iraq regardless of developments on the ground. Is this realistic? We talk with Judith Yaphe, Distinguished Research Professor at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, the National Defense University, Washington D.C., Judith is a specialist in Middle Eastern political analysis, with a focus on Iraq, Persian Gulf, Arab, Islamic and regional issues. Prior to joining the INSS in 1995, Dr. Yaphe served with the Directorate of Intelligence, Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis at the Central Intelligence Agency. Considered to be one of the most respected authorities on Iraq in the U.S., Judith received the Intelligence Medal of Commendation for her work on the 1990-1991 Iraq/Persian Gulf war. Yaphe co-authored the book Strategic Implications of a Nuclear-Armed Iran and wrote and edited The Middle East in 2015: the Impact of Regional Trends in U.S. Security Planning.

What is life like for women living in muslim countries? Is there a range in lifestyles, and are women living in more permissive societies doing better than others? We challenge our assumptions with Nelly van Doorn-Harder, a professor of world religions at Valparaiso University, and an expert in Islam. Before coming to Valparaiso University in January 1999, she taught Islamic Studies at a university in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and helped initiate an Institute for the Study of Religion and Interfaith. She also spent four years in Cairo, Egypt, working as the director of a refugee agency.

April 20

First hour today we'll talk some politics with Rick Moran, who blogs at Right Wing Nuthouse. A freelance writer with more than 15 years experience in grass roots political action, Moran has worked for a number of business trade associations running programs that teach local businessmen how to become active in the political process. Moran grew up in Mount Prospect, IL and attended Drake University where he graduated in 1976 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree. He has 9 brothers and sisters, all of whom are much more liberal than he is which makes for interesting family reunions. His brother Terry hosts the ABC news show Nightline while his brother Greg is a reporter for the San Diego Union.

More Analysis of presidential politics and the Pennsylvania primary is on tap with former Congressman Mickey Edwards. Mickey spent 16 years in Congress where he was a senior member of the House Republican leadership. He was one of the three founding trustees of the Heritage Foundation. After leaving the Congress, he taught at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government for 11 years (where he was voted the school's outstanding teacher) and was a visiting lecturer at Harvard Law School and a visiting professor at Georgetown. Edwards now teaches at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Moqtada al-Sadr has given a "final ultimatum" to the Iraqi government and the U.S. to stop their attempts to destroy his al-Mahdi army. Clarification will come from Shale Horowitz, Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Horowitz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science. His research focuses on international and ethnic conflict, and on the politics of international economic policy.

Syria will be critical to Iraq's future when U.S. troops exit says Scott Davis, author of The Road from Damascus: A Journey Through Syria. But the future of Syria itself is unclear, thus knowing how it will influence events down the road is a challenge. Scott has traveled extensively in the region over the past 20 years, and, as the founder of Cune Press, has acquired and edited books by some of the most important Syrian political analysts.

April 6, 2008

March 30

We take a look at Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's visit to Isral, as well as the sharp increase in violence in Iraq with Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, professor of international relations and Middle Eastern Studies at New York University and The New School. A noted journalist and author, Ben-Meir has served as an advisor to both the Israeli and Syrian governments. He writes a weekly syndicated column for United Press International, which appears regularly in U.S. and international newspapers such as Al Ahram, Al Quds, Jerusalem Post, The Washington Times, and Yediot Achronot.

We flesh out the neocon perspective on the war against terrorism with John Wohlstetter, Senior Fellow of Technology and Democracy at the Discovery Institute. which describes itself as a think tank that “discovers and promotes ideas in the common sense tradition of representative government, the free market and individual liberty.” Wohlstetter writes the Institute's newsletter on telecommunications, Bandwidth. Previous work includes long stints at GTE, where he served as Director of Technology Affairs, and Contel Corporation, where his focus was corporate and communications law and strategic assessment. His latest book is The Long War Ahead and The Short War Upon Us.

March 23

We talk about life in the Middle East with Jordan resident Ali Dahmash. We'll also discuss the opinions that he and his fellow bloggers in the region have on the U.S. presidencial race. To visit Ali's blog on daily life as a 35 year old tech worker and Palestinian living in Amman, click here.

March 16

Some American Muslims are unhappy with Barack Obama. In defending himself against claims that he's a Muslim, they wish Obama would use the opportunity to offer comments on why being a Muslim should not be problematic. We explore this disappointment with Omar Sacirbey, a Boston-based journalist writing about religion, politics and culture for the Religion News Service, Boston Globe and others. As an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellow in 2005, Sacirbey did groundbreaking work writing about Muslims in America. Before becoming a journalist, Sacirbey was an advisor with the Bosnian Mission to the United Nations in New York and also served in Sarajevo and The Hague, working on human rights, refugee and war crimes issues.

March 9

In the wake of the murder of 8 students at an Israeli religious school by a Palestinian attacker, we discuss the situation in Gaza and beyond with James Wall, Senior Contributing Editor of The Christian Century Magazine, which he edited and published for 27 years. Since 1973 Wall has traveled as a journalist to the Middle East and to other overseas assignments. He frequently writes on the issues of peace and justice, with a special concern for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Wall is an ordained United Methodist clergyman. Earlier in his career he served pastorates in Georgia and Illinois. He has also been active in politics, having served 6 times as a delegate to a Democratic National Nominating Convention.

Is Islamist rule either by election or force inevitable across the Arab world? We welcome Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, who is spearheading an international movement to rehabilitate Islam. His main focus is how to ensure the institutional separation of Shari’a and the state, despite the strong interaction between Islam and politics. His latest book is Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari’a. An-Na’im, who is from Sudan, and taught law at the University of Khartoum before leaving in the mid-80s for political reasons, is a Professor of law, human rights and Islamic law at Emory University.

The role of the U.S. military in the world today is the topic as we welcome Major General Jerry Curry. Curry, author of From Private to General: An African American Soldier Rises Through the Ranks, started his military career as a private serving in Viet Nam. He is a decorated combat veteran, Army Aviator, Paratrooper and Ranger who has served his country both in the military and as a Presidential appointee in three administrations. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Carter Administration, as Press Secretary to the Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration, and as Administrator of NHTSA in the first Bush Administration.

March 2, 2008

With the Iranian President making a first ever visit to Iraq, we explore the implications with Afshin Molavi, author of The Soul of Iran. Born in Iran, but raised and educated in the U.S, Molavi has written widely on the Middle East, the Muslim world and the United States – and the links between the three -- as a journalist and scholar for more than ten years, with postings in Riyadh, Dubai, Jeddah, Washington and Tehran, and assignments across the region. He has covered Iran and the Persian Gulf region for Reuters and the Washington Post. Molavi is currently a fellow at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan, Washington-based think tank devoted to finding solutions to global problems.

February 24

Many Americans question the source of Israel's strong political influence in this country. An answer, at least in part, may be offered in Grant Smith's new book, Foreign Agents - The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fullbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal. A criminal trial against two AIPAC agents will commence this spring, and Smith suggests that Americans will learn more as it unfolds about how Middle East agents work around the Foreign Agents Registration Act in their attempts to influence American foreign policy.

February 17

How are people elsewhere viewing the Presidential elections in this country? We'll start a series on this topic with Samar Dahmash-Jarrah, author of Arab Voices Speak to American Hearts. She is a Kuwait-born Palestinian-American speaker, journalist, and educator who has lived in Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and America. Her professional accomplishments include being a contributor to CNN World Report; news editor and reporter for Jordan Television; editor and reporter for Jordan Weekly; and a Political Science instructor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida.

We discuss events in Iran and Pakistan with Ruhi Ramazani, Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia's Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics. He is the author of The United States and Iran: The Patterns of Influence, among other books, and is the author of more than 100 articles. He has been a consultant on the Persian Gulf and Iran to the White House, the departments of State, Defense and Treasury and the United Nations Secretariat General and the foreign minisries of Israel, Britian, Spain, Iran, Turkey and Pakistan.

February 3

Its time to learn more about terrorists and their goals, so we check in with award winning journalist and sometime radio host Aaron Klein, author of the recently released Schmoozing with Terrorists. Klein toured the Middle East meeting with radical clerics, the families of martyrs and leaders of the world's most dangerous terrorist organizations. He shares what he learned as seen through what Klein describes as the eyes of a "Talmud-studying modern day orthodox Jew." Klein has a weekly column for the Jewish Press and is the Jerusalem bureau chief for the internet news site Worldnet Daily.

We get an update on the world of oil from Raymond Learsy, author of the just revised Over a Barrel: Breaking Oil's Grip On Our Future. We'll ask him to assess current conditions and what to expect over the next several months and years. As the U.S. asks Opec for an increase in production, we'll also explore whether the big producers, such as Saudi Arabia, have the ability to provide the relief that the U.S. seeks. Learsy is a member of the Wilson Council at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. A graduate of the Wharton School, he made his life in the fast-paced, risk-filled world of commodities trading, beginning in 1959. In 1963, he started his own firm and spent over twenty years trading in an array of bulk raw materials and commodities with customers worldwide.

January 27

About a year ago, we asked Beau Grosscup onto the show to talk about plans for the surge in Iraq. Now, in the wake of dramatic changes there, we discuss the surge once again with Grosscup, a professor of international relations at California State University in Chico. Is the Bush strategy the reason for the improved results, or are other factors responsible? Grosscup is author of Strategic Terror: The Politics and Ethics of Aerial Bombardment. He has been researching, teaching and lecturing about terrorism for the media and in print for over 20 years.

Events in Gaza made headlines this week around the world as desperate Palestinians broke through the border wall for a shopping incursion into Egypt. Are the Israelis justified in keeping Gaza in a stranglehold, or is it time for the world to demand improved conditions for the 800,000 residents surviving on handouts from the world community? We pose that question to Ray Hanania, who writes an award winning syndicated column analyzing Middle East events, and is founder of Yalla, Salam! (Palestinians for Peace Now) which seeks to express a Palestinian voice in the conflict. His most recent book is The Moral Jihad, which explores reasons for the violence in the Middle East.

January 20

We get further clarification on events in Pakistan from Kamran Ali, an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas in Austin. Professor Ali has conducted long term field work in Egypt and in Pakistan and has frequently contributed to the media on recent Pakistani politics. He is on the editorial committee of the Middle East Report and co-coordinates the Shehr Network, which is an academic initiative that seeks to further a critical understanding of urban practices in the Middle East and South Asia.

The radicalization of Europe is the topic as we're joined by Julianne Smith, director of the Europe Program and the Initiative for a Renewed Transatlantic Partnership (RTP) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She has authored or contributed to a number of CSIS books and reports, including Muslim Integration: Challenging Conventional Wisdom in Europe and the United States. Ms. Smith co-directs the Transatlantic Dialogue on Terrorism, which examines European and American disagreements over the root causes of terrorism. She is also coauthor of America and the World in the Age of Terror.

January 13

What role have the Saudis played in calming Sunni violence in Iraq? We talk with Toby Jones, an assistant professor of history at Rutgers University. Jones has lived and worked extensively in the Middle East, including several years in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain. His main research interests focus on the history of state-building, politics, and Shia-Sunni relations in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Jones teaches courses on the history of the modern Middle East, Iran and Iraq in the 20th century, the history of oil, and Islam and politics. Jones worked as the Persian Gulf Analyst for the International Crisis Group from 2004-2006, where he wrote about reform and sectarianism in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

We discuss turmoil in Pakistan and the war in Afghanistan with Akbar Ahmed, the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain and current Professor of International Relations at American University. Dr. Ahmed has advised Prince Charles and met with President George W. Bush on Islam. He is an anthropologist, writer, and filmmaker. His work to bring understanding between Islam and the West has included three appearances on Oprah. He is co-author of After Terror: Promoting Dialogue Among Civilizations.

December 30, 2007

We discuss Pakistan after this week's assassination with Marvin Weinbaum, a Pakistan expert, and a scholar-in-residence at the Public Policy Center of the Middle East Institute in Washington. He is a former Afghanistan and Pakistan analyst at the Bureau of Intelligence Research at the US State Department. Weinbaum explores the implications for Pakistan and the region of the Bhutto assassination.

We also get perspective on this week's events from Greg Myre, an adjunct scholar with the Middle East Institute. A graduate of Yale University, Greg reported from Jerusalem for the New York Times until February of this year. During the 1990's, he was the Islamabad bureau chief for the Associated Press.

December 23

What are the implications as the U.S. moves aggressively toward gaining energy independence? We are joined by Robert Zubrin, whose new book is "Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil." Dr. Zubrin is a world renowned scientist who defends biofuels and answers both the security concerns of the right and the environmental concerns of the left when it comes to oil and our future. We'll disuss the ramifications for OPEC and world affairs as the U.S. movers away from oil.

December 9, 2007

We relate the rising cost of oil to the politics of the Middle East with Jean-Francois Seznec, who teaches the political economy of the Persian Gulf at Georgetown University. He lived and worked in the Gulf for more than a decade and has traveled frequently to the region. He lectures often about international financial markets and Middle East affairs in Europe and in the United States, and has 25 years experience in international banking and finance, ten years of which were spent in the Middle East, including six years in Bahrain. Dr. Seznec has published a book and numerous articles on the financial markets of the Gulf and on oil and Islamic banking.

June 23

We discuss the fight for control of Gaza with Edward L. Peck, president of Foreign Services International, a consulting firm that works with governments, businesses and educational institutions across the world. He met with high Hamas officials while observing the Palestinian elections in 2006 and has been monitoring the situation closely since. Peck, a retired career United States diplomat who served thirty-two-years in the U.S. Foreign Service, served as Chief of Mission in Baghdad (Iraq 1977 to 1980) and later held senior posts in Washington and abroad. He also served as a Foreign Service Officer in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt, and as Ambassador in Mauritania. At the State Department he served as Deputy Director of Covert Intelligence Programs, Director of the Office of Egyptian Affairs and as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs. He served as deputy director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism in the Reagan Administration.

Is Afghanistan being dragged into Iraqi style violence, and is Iran behind the development? We discuss the situation with Alexis Debat, who directs The Nixon Center's program on Terrorism and National Security. Dr. Debat is a political scientist and a former counter-terrorism official in the French government. He also has experience with non-governmental organizations in the Middle East and is a contributing editor of The National Interest, and is a consultant to ABC News. Dr. Debat holds a PhD from La Sorbonne in Paris.

June 16

Are things getting better or worse in the Iraq war? Perhaps both? There is talk of an "Awakening," reports that U.S. troops are working with tribal leaders who have turned against al Qaeda. There is also the drumbeat of media coverage which indicates that insurgents remain as vigorous and successful as ever. We discuss events with Jeff Emanuel, a special ops Iraq vet who was recently back in Iraq as an embed with a frontline combat unit. Jeff is a contributing editor for RedState.com and is a columnist for the Athens Georgia Banner-Herald. He is also a leadership fellow with the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia.

Should Americans be more suspicious of what we hear from our government. Do our elected officials have an agenda that is quite different from the one they present to us? We discuss this issue with Norman Solomon, the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a national consortium of policy researchers and analysts. Solomon discusses a new film based on his latest book, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, which exposes a 50-year pattern of deception that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq.

June 2

We discuss the recent conflict in Lebanon with John Quigley, a professor of international law at Ohio State University, and author of The Case for Palestine: An International Law Perspective. Professor Quigley is active in international human rights work. His numerous publications include books and articles on human rights, the United Nations, war and peace, east European law, African law, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

May 19, 2007

We are fighting a war against Iran right now says Michael Evans, author of The Final Move Beyond Iraq. We talk about the threat that Iran represents, and about how Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is kicking off an arms race in the region. Evans is a Middle East expert, award-winning journalist and NewYork Times best-selling author who has served as a confidant to leaders in the Middle East for more than two decades. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Times, Jerusalem Post, and newspapers worldwide.

How are Saudi Arabia and Egypt responding to the war in Iraq and Iran’s pursuit of nukes? We ask Toby Jones, an assistant professor of history at Rutgers University. Jones has lived and worked extensively in the Middle East, including several years in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain. His main research interests focus on the history of state-building, politics, and Shia-Sunni relations in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Jones teaches courses on the history of the modern Middle East, Iran and Iraq in the 20th century, the history of oil, and Islam and politics. Jones worked as the Persian Gulf Analyst for the International Crisis Group from 2004-2006, where he wrote about reform and sectarianism in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

April 28

Is Iraq in civil war? No, says Iraqi Raed Jarrar. Why is the U.S. supporting separatist leaders in Iraq. We ask Raed. Jarrar, who works with the American Friends Service Committee, maintains his own popular web- log that includes political analysis and news summary. He has been featured as an Iraq expert on several media outlets including CNN, CNNi, Aljazeera, Al-Alam and the BBC.

We get an update on Afghanistan from Mark Schneider is Vice President and Special Adviser on Latin America for the International Crisis Group. He directs the Washington advocacy office, conveying Crisis Group analyses and recommendations to the White House, the State Department, the Department of Defense, and Congress, as well as the World Bank and other international organizations. Among his areas of expertise are post-conflict reconstruction and nation-building and U.S. foreign policy in the 21st century.

April 21

Does the U.S. lack the understanding to effectively deal with the Middle East? We ask Michael Oren, a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem research and educational institute. A graduate of Princeton and Columbia universities, Oren received international recognition in 2002 for his best seller Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. His most recent book is Faith, Power and Fantasy. Oren immigrated to Israel in 1979, achieved the rank of major in the IDF and has served as an advisor to the late Prime Minister, Yitzchak Rabin.

April 14

We discuss Europe’s role in the Middle East with Helena Cobban, a writer and internationally syndicated columnist on global affairs. Since 1990, she has contributed a regular column on global affairs to The Christian Science Monitor. She has maintained a weblog called "Just World News" since 2003 - www.justworldnews.org. Her most recent book is Amnesty after Atrocity: Healing Nations after Genocide and War Crimes.

As the six Imams removed from a flight out of Minneapolis last November file suit against US Airways, we examine the story with Clay Waters, director of Times Watch, a project of the Media Research Center, which monitors the political agenda of the New York Times.

April 7

Did Iran accomplish anything with the hostage grab, or simply embarrass itself on the world stage? We ask that question of Carah Ong. Carah is a Policy Analyst for the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. In June 2004, following the US lifting decades-long sanctions, Ong was a member of the first delegation of twelve Americans to visit Libya in order to establish relations with the government and civil society. Ong serves on the National Advisory Board of Washington and Lee University’s Alsos Digital Library on Nuclear Issues. She is co-editor of the books A Maginot Line in the Sky: International Perspectives on Ballistic Missile Defense, and Hold Hope, Wage Peace. Ong is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara.

As oil and gas prices increase, we visit with Jean Francois Seznec for his take on current events and their impact on world oil markets. Seznec is a Visiting Associate Professor at Georgetown University. His research centers on the influence of the Arab-Persian Gulf political and social variables on the financial and oil markets in the region. He is focusing on the industrialization of the Gulf and in particular the growth of the petrochemical industry. He has published and lectured extensively and is interviewed regularly.

March 31, 2007

Saudi Arabia is again working on peace between Israel and the Palestinians, bringing back its proposal from a few years ago. We explore the problems and possibilities with Alex Safian, Associate Director and Research Director of Camera, a media watchdog group that is pro-Israel.

With the capture and holding of 15 British sailors, Iran seems deliberately to be polarizing the world community in opposition. But why? We talk with Reese Erlich, a freelance foreign correspondent who’s covered the Middle East for over 20 years. He reports regularly outlets such as NPR, CBC, ABC (Australia). He was a contract correspondent for Common Ground Radio, a weekly public radio show covering international affairs. Reese co-authored the book Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You with Norman Solomon. He has produced many radio documentary series, including Perspectives in Jazz, The Iran Project and The Russia Project. Erlich discusses the captured Brits, the UN vote and the general escalation with Iran.

March 24

As new plans for Middle East Peace are floated, we talk with Michael Oren, a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem research and educational institute. And since he is the author of the best-selling Six Days of War: June 1967, we might as well ask him to contrast Israel's war capabilites then with its controversial fight in Lebanon last summer. Oren is also the author of Making of the Modern Middle East, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Award, as well as dozens of scholarly and popular articles on history and the politics of the Middle East.

With the U.S. continuing to add troops in Baghdad, David Enders joins us to discuss how Iraqis view the surge. Enders is author of the book Baghdad Bulletin. He is a freelance correspondent who spent 18 months in Iraq, focusing especially on America's Shiite "allies."

March 17

Is U.S. foreign policy run the way it should be? We discuss the principles of international relations with Robert Naiman, Senior Policy Analyst and National Coordinator of Just Foreign Policy. He has worked as a policy analyst, researcher, union organizer, and teacher of economics and mathematics. He has worked and studied in the Middle East, and has a basic knowledge of spoken and written Arabic and Hebrew. Naiman produces the Just Foreign Policy daily news summary and podcast. He has masters degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Illinois. He is co-author, with Mark Weisbrot, of a blog on Huffington Post.

Why did Bill Clinton let pass opportunities to deal with bin Laden in the 1990’s? What made it possible for the CIA and other intelligence agencies to fail to share information that might have lead to the preemption of 9/11? We talk with Michael Scheuer, a 22 year veteran of the CIA who served as the Chief of the bin Laden Unit at the Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999. He is the once anonymous author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America. Dr. Scheuer is a Senior Fellow with The Jamestown Foundation.

March 3

After years of refusing to join Iran and Syria in discussing the future of the region, the U.S. is now going to meet with them in Baghdad. We discuss this with Mark Gasiorowski, Director of the International Studies Program at Louisiana State University. Gasiorowski specializes in Middle East politics and comparative and international political economy. He is the author of U.S. Foreign Policy and the Shah: Building a Client State in Iran. He has traveled to Iran many times to teach and conduct research.

We discuss the war in Iraq with Ann Wright, a former State Department diplomat and retired Army Colonel. Wright was most recently the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Ms. Wright served in Grenada, Panama, Greece, the Netherlands, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. She was on the small team that reopened the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, in December 2001. She resigned from the US diplomatic corps in March 2003 in opposition to the Iraq war.

February 24

In his book, One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palesitnian Impass, Ali Abunimah argues that the best idea for middle east peace lies in a one state solution. Israel should encompass the current Palestinian territories, and Israel should grant total equality to all non-Jewish citizens. We discuss this concept with Abunimah, a writer and commentator on Middle East and Arab-American affairs. Abunimah travels often to the Middle East and is a full-time researcher in social policy at the University of Chicago.

Pressuring Iran into giving up on its nuclear ambitions, or even toppling the current regime, would be relatively easy if the world could agree on strategy. So argues Olivier Guitta, a DC based foreign affairs consultant. Mr. Guitta has broad expertise in Israel, the Arab world , Europe and terrorism. He is a consultant on the Middle East, Europe and terrorism. His clients include prestigious think tanks, lobbying firms and law firms needing assistance on terrorism cases. He is a contributing expert along with Steve Emerson, Evan Kohlmann and other eminent analysts to the prestigious Counterterrorism blog (www.counterterrorismblog.org), always ranked in the top 100 blogs in the world.

February 17

We discuss the Palestinian unity deal, and other current topics from the region, with Les Janka, Chairman of the Council for American-Saudi Dialog and former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Near Eastern Affairs. Janka served in the White House under three presidents—as a senior staff member of the National Security Council and Special Assistant to Henry Kissinger under Presidents Nixon and Ford, and as deputy press secretary for Foreign Affairs under President Reagan. He also served in the Pentagon as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Near Eastern Affairs.

Is U.S. intelligence as bad in general as we’re lead to believe by the bad information on Saddam? We’re joined by Richard Russell, author of Sharpening Strategic Intelligence: Why the CIA Gets It Wrong and What Needs to be Done to Get It Right. Russell is a Professor of National Security Affairs at the National Defense University’s Near East-South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. He also holds appointments as Adjunct Associate Professor in the Security Studies Program and Research Associate in the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He served seventeen years as a political-military analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, where Russell analyzed security issues in the Middle East and Europe.

February 10

The troop surge is underway in Iraq even as Congress considers whether to oppose the idea. We check in with Beau Grosscup on what's developing in attempts to turn Iraq around. Grosscup is a professor of international relations at California State University, Chico and author of Strategic Terror: The Politics and Ethics of Aerial Bombardment. He has been researching, teaching and lecturing about terrorism for the media and in print for over 20 years.

Iran and potential responses to its move towards nukes continue to dominate the news. We discuss the hazards with Kaveh Afrasiabi, a political scientist and a former adviser to Iran's nuclear negotiation team (2004-2005). He is the director of an NGO, Global Interfaith Peace. Dr. Afrasiabi is the author of several books and numerous articles including: Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts versus Fiction (forthcoming). Afrasiabi has taught at Tehran University and is a former consultant to UN's program of Dialogue Among Civilizations and a consultant to CBS' 60 Minutes.

January 27

It was a tough week in Lebanon, as Hezbollah supporters try to force the government out of power. We get analysis from Geoff Porter from Eurasia Group’s Middle East and Africa practice. He is primarily responsible for analyzing North Africa – covering Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco and Mauritania. In addition, Dr. Porter covers and coordinates the practice's research on Middle East issues including the eastern Mediterranean and the Arabian peninsula. Prior to joining Eurasia Group, Dr. Porter was an Assistant Professor of International Studies and Middle Eastern History at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. During the course of his academic career he lived and worked in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia.

The U.S. relationship with Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia are on the table as we’re joined by Flynt Leverett, a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Geopolitics of Energy Initiative of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. Most recently, Dr. Leverett was a Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy. He has had a distinguished career in government, serving as senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, Middle East expert on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, and Senior Analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. Dr. Leverett is the author of Inheriting Syria: Bashar’s Trial by Fire. He has appeared on TV news shows from the BBC’s The Doha Debates TV The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

January 20

Secretary of State Condi Rice was in the Middle East this week. We discuss the reasons and results of her trip with Bahman Baktiari, Director of the International Affairs program and Professor of Political Science at the University of Maine. He received his Ph.D. from the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia. His most recent publications are Dilemmas of Reform and Democracy in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Voices of Muslim Tolerance. Professor Baktiari has traveled and taught in most Middle Eastern countries.

January 13

We discuss the U.S. attack on terrorists in Somalia with Khalid Medani, an assistant professor of political science and Islamic studies at McGill University. Medani was an assistant professor of politics at Oberlin College from 2003-2005. He has also worked as a researcher at the Brookings Institution and served as a research consultant on humanitarian issues for a number of United Nations agencies in the Horn of Africa. Last summer he conducted an evaluation of U.N. and nongovernmental organizations' humanitarian relief efforts in Northern and Western Darfur, Sudan. Medani wrote a piece titled "Financing Terrorism or Survival? Informal Finance, State Collapse in Somalia and the U.S. War on Terrorism."

We often hear the question, “Is Saudia Arabia our friend?” Let’s turn that question around with Afshin Molavi, the author of the critically acclaimed book Persian Pilgrimages: Journeys Across Iran, published in paperback as The Soul of Iran, and discuss how the Saudis view the U.S. Born in Iran, but raised and educated in the U.S, Molavi has written widely on the Middle East, the Muslim world and the United States – and the links between the three -- as a journalist and scholar for more than ten years, with postings in Riyadh, Dubai, Jeddah, Washington and Tehran, and assignments across the region. He has covered Iran and the Persian Gulf region for Reuters and the Washington Post. Molavi is currently a fellow at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan, Washington-based think tank devoted to pragmatic solutions to global problems.

January 6, 2007

We discuss the President’s latest plan for the war in Iraq with Daniel Serwer, vice president of the Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations and the Centers of Innovation at the United States Institute of Peace. He coordinates USIP’s efforts in societies emerging from conflict, especially Afghanistan, the Balkans, Haiti, Iraq, and Sudan. He served as the executive director of the Iraq Study Group and led its Political Development Expert Working Group. He also leads USIP's innovative programs in rule of law, religion and peacemaking, economics of peace and conflict, media and conflict, and diaspora contributions to peace and conflict. Serwer has worked on preventing interethnic and interreligious conflict in Iraq, and has been deeply engaged in facilitating dialogue between Serbs and Albanians. Serwer is co-author of USIP publications on Iraq as well as Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia.

We get a different perspective on the Palestinian/Israeli conflict with Nonie Darwish, an American of Arab/Moslem origin. A freelance writer and public speaker, she runs the website www.ArabsForIsrael.com. Darwish discusses her latest book, Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and The War On Terror.

December 23, 2006

We discuss the Palestinian civil war with Ray Hanania, who writes an award winning syndicated column analyzing Middle East events, is an author of several books, and is a humorist, satirist and professional stand-up comedian who launched his public comedy performances after September 11th to help break through the growing hatred and animosity. Hanania is the only Palestinian-American to write a regular nationally and internationally syndicated column. He is also a founder of Yalla, Salam! (Palestinians for Peace Now) which seeks to express a Palestinian voice of peace in today's bitter conflict. His most recent book is The Moral Jihad, which explores why Arabs and Muslims must face the growing extremism from within and denounce violence and injustices committed in their name.

Iranians went to the polls last week. While they weren’t voting for President, the elections have significant repercussions for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We analyze the results with Mehran Kamrava, Chair of the Department of Political Science at California State University, Northridge. He is the author of many books, including Politics and Society in the Developing World and The Political History of Modern Iran From Tribalism to Theocracy.

December 16

We examine Iran and its pursuit of a dramatic increase in power with Raymond Tanter, a professor of political science at Georgetown University and an adjunct scholar of The Washington Institute, researching U.S. policy options toward Iran. Tanter’s most recent book is What Makes Tehran Tick: Islamist Ideology and Hegemonic Interests. From 1981 to 1982, Dr. Tanter served on the National Security Council staff and was personal representative of the secretary of defense to the 1983-1984 arms control talks held in Madrid, Helsinki, Stockholm, and Vienna. Currently, he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The new Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. resigned suddenly this week. We discuss the development with Fahad Nazer, a native of Saudi Arabia who currently resides in the Washington, DC area. He is the resident fellow at the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington DC. In addition, he is contributing to a monograph to be published by the American Enterprise Institute in the spring of 2006. Nazer is a former employee of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, DC, where he was a political analyst at the Department of Political Affairs and a media analyst at the Information Office. He is currently a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Catholic University of America.

December 9

One of the critical problems for the United States in the Middle East is the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. This point is noted in the Iraq Study Group report, which suggests tackling the problem as part of a resolution of the war in Iraq. We analyze this suggestion with Daniel Levy, a senior Fellow at the New America Foundation and the Century Foundation who directs their respective Middle East and Peace initiatives. Levy formerly worked as an adviser in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and as an official Israeli negotiator at Oslo under Rabin and at Taba under Barak. He was the lead Israeli drafter of the unofficial Geneva Initiative detailed peace plan.

We breakdown the Iraq Study Group report with Robert Zelnick, Chairman of the Department of Journalism at Boston University and a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Before joining Boston University, Zelnick spent 21 years with ABC News. Bob is in the process of completing a book on the Israeli-Palestinian situation.

December 2, 2006

President Bush traveled over 4,000 miles this week for diplomacy talks. We discuss his meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Amman with James Petras, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. Petras is author of numerous books about world affairs including Empire or Republic? American Global Power and Domestic Decay and most recently The Power of Israel in the United States.

If the U.S. leaves Iraq, some say that Saudi Arabia will insert itself into the vacuum in order to head off Iranian control there. We explore Saudi concerns and possible actions with Thomas Lippman, an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington. He spent four years as the Washington Post's Middle East bureau chief, three years as the Post's oil and energy reporter and a decade as the newspaper's national security and diplomatic correspondent. He is the author of books such as Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia and Madeleine Albright and the New American Diplomacy.

November 18

Will the nuclear stalemate with Iran lead to an attack on Iranian nuke development sites? Should the U.S., or Israel, attack? We talk with Kenneth Timmerman, a reporter who has spent 20 years covering Europe and the Middle East. His latest book is Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran.

General John Abizaid spoke at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government yesterday, telling a forum on the Middle East that "We have not failed yet" in Iraq. We discuss his remarks with Dr. Ivan Eland, Drector of the Center on Peace and Liberty at the Independent Institute and Assistant Editor of The Independent Review. He is the author of The Empire Has No Clothes.

November 11

Eblan Farris is communications coordinator for the World Council for the Cedars Revolution, an organization working to bring about an end to terrorism in Lebanon. Farris discusses Hamas’ recent call for retaliation after the accidental Israeli strike.

We discuss the implications of Saddam’s guilty verdict and death sentence with Richard Falk, professor emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University, and a distinguished visiting profess at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is a founding member of IALANA and of the World Order Models Project, WOMP. Falk discusses the Saddam verdict.

November 4, 2006

Has Europe been lax on immigration leading to a “muslim problem?” We discuss the question with British commentator David Pryce-Jones, author of Betrayal: France, the Arabs and the Jews. Pryce-Jones, a senior editor of National Review, is the author of several books and contributes regularly to The New Criterion and Commentary. He has appeared on Milt Rosenberg’s “Extension 720” show. He often writes about the contemporary events and the history of the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and intelligence matters. .

We discuss Middle East events with Caroline Glick, Deputy Managing Editor of the Jerusalem Post. Born in the United States, Glick made aliyah to Israel immediately after graduating from Columbia University. After finishing in the IDF, Glick worked her way up to have a key position in the Oslo Negotiations under former Prime Minister Rabin. After retiring from the political sphere, Glick entered journalism, and now has a weekly column on the front page of the Jerusalem Post. During the recent Iraqi War, Glick was embedded with US Troops, joining the infantry unit that was first to reach Baghdad.

October 28

In a change of strategy just before the mid-term elections, President Bush has begun acknowledging frustration with the direction of events in Iraq. We discuss this adjustment with Professor Henri J. Barkey, Chairman of the International Relations Department at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. He served as a member of the U.S. State Department Policy Planning Staff (1998-2000) working primarily on issues related to the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean. His areas of expertise are the international relations and domestic politics of the Middle East (especially Turkey and the Kurds); U.S. policy toward the Middle East; and international political economy.

Terror groups allied with Hamas in the Gaza Strip are reportedly planning a series of large-scale attacks against Israeli positions near Gaza "within the coming days." We discuss this development with Aaron Klein, Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the popular news website WorldNetDaily. He served as a co-host of ABC Radio's national "The John Batchelor Show," and he writes a weekly for The Jewish Press, the largest weekly Jewish newspaper. Klein is known for his regular interviews with notorious Middle East "Bad Guys," including the leaders of every major Palestinian terror organization.

October 21

Beau Grosscup joins us to discuss civilian deaths in Iraq. A recent report estimates 650,000 Iraqis have been killed since the start of the war, a figure that must be considered, Grosscup argues, in estimating the war?s success and morality. Grosscup is a professor of international relations at California State University, Chico and author of Strategic Terror: The Politics and Ethics of Aerial Bombardment. He has been researching, teaching and lecturing about terrorism for the media and in print for over 20 years.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad warned the west this week that they ?could get hurt? by a wave of anger if their support of Israel continues. With this as a backdrop, we take a look at current events in the middle east with Robert Satloff, Executive Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. An expert on Arab and Islamic politics as well as U.S. Middle East policy, Dr. Satloff has written and spoken widely on the Arab-Israeli peace process, the Islamist challenge to the growth of democracy in the region, and the need for bold and innovative public diplomacy to Arabs and Muslims. Dr. Satloff is the creator and host of Dakhil Washington (Inside Washington), a weekly news and interview program on al-Hurra, the U.S. government-supported Arabic satellite television channel that beams throughout the Middle East and Europe. He is the only non-Arab to host a program on an Arab satellite channel.

October 14

We get an update on the status of Lebanon/Hezzbollah and the UN from Tom Harb, the Secretary General of the International Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, the resolution mandating the disarmament of Hezbollah. He is also the Chairman of the Commission on International Relations for the World Lebanese Cultural Union. The WLCU is the legitimate representative of the Lebanese Diaspora of 12 million people.

"Frontline" Producer Michael Kirk discusses his latest film, "The Lost Year in Iraq," which airs Tuesday, Oct 17 and looks at the critical decisions made after the fall of Saddam Hussein and how those decisions impact Iraq today. He recently won an Emmy Award for his documentary on detainee abuse, “The Torture Question.” “The Lost Year in Iraq” is his eighth documentary about the War on Terror. Kirk has won every major award in broadcast journalism, including the Peabody Award, The DuPont Columbia Award, and eight Emmys. He frequently discusses his work on television and radio, including numerous appearances on the Today Show, The O’Reilly Factor and CNN.

September 23

The Pope’s recent comments about Islam are seen by some as an attempt to create a divide between religions. Some say the U.S. is fighting a war between cultures. Geneive Abdo, author of Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America After 9/11, helps provide perspective. She is the Liaison for the United Nations’ Alliance of Civilizations, a project created by the UN Secretary General to improve relations between Western and Islamic societies. Her 20-year journalism career centered upon coverage of the Middle East and the Islamic world. She was the first American journalist to be based in Tehran since the United States cut off ties with Iran in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Her stories prompted published threats of imprisonment by the government. Ms. Abdo was forced to flee the country in 2001, and is not allowed to return.

Are there really terror cells in the U.S? We talk with Harvey Kushner, author of "Holy War on the Home Front: The Secret Islamic Terror Network in the United States.” Dr. Kushner is a well-known authority on terrorism, consultant to the FBI, the FAA, the INS, and other government agencies. Dr. Kushner appears regularly on Fox News Network, CNN, and MSNBC. He also wrote the expert's report in the civil litigation investigating the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Kushner also discusses the Pope’s recent comments that have sparked harsh and violent reaction in the Muslim world.

September 9

Brigitte Gabriel founded ACT, "American Congress For Truth," in 2002 to provide information about the Middle East conflict. Gabriel discusses her new book, Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America. She began her career as the News Anchor for "World News," the evening news broadcast for Middle East. Gabriel is the former Production Coordinator for ARD (German Television) in South Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. She is also the former Satellite Video Distribution Coordinator for METV/WTN (Worldwide Television News) studios in London for daily Eurovision Satellite Distribution to networks worldwide. She relocated to the United States in 1989 where she founded an entertainment company providing services to national and international media clients.

As the former President of Iran tours America, some are questioning the appropriateness of his being welcomed at institutions such as Harvard and Columbia, and the timing of his visit, which overlaps with the fifth anniversary of September 11. We talk with Arang Keshavarzian, an assistant professor of government at Connecticut College and an editor of Middle East Report. His research and writing focuses on Iranian politics, economic development and structures of markets, clergy-state relations and democratization. His book, Bazaar and State in Iran: The Politics of the Tehran Marketplace, is a study of the Tehran bazaar under the Pahlavi monarchy and the Islamic Republic.

September 2

How different is the Middle East after the events of this summer? We ask Uri Dromi, the former spokesperson for Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres who currently is the Director of International Outreach for the Israel Democracy Institute, a non-partisan independent think-tank working to promote democratic values in Israel.

Iran is working to gain more influence throughout the Middle East. A key component of their strategy is the pursuit of nuclear weapons. We explore how to fight Iran's nuclear ambitions with Muhammad Sahimi, professor and chairman of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Southern California. He co-wrote, with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, the op-ed "Defusing Iran with Democracy."

August 26

Did Israel lose its war with Hezbollah, or just the PR war? We flesh out the real results with Alon Ben-Meir, a professor of at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University. He is the author of several books and many essays and writes a weekly syndicated column on the Arab-Israeli conflict, international terrorism and U.S. foreign policy. A frequent traveler to the Middle East, Dr. Ben Meir maintains extensive contact with high officials and offers policy decisions on current events.

Has the U.S. invasion of Iraq destroyed that country for the foreseeable future? We talk with Peter Galbraith about his new book The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End. Galbraith is the Senior Diplomatic Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and principal of a Vermont based firm that specializes in international negotiations. He served as the first U.S. Ambassador to Croatia where he was co-mediator and principal architect of the 1995 Erdut Agreement that ended the war in Croatia by providing for peaceful reintegration of Serb-held Eastern Slavonia into Croatia.. He has followed Iraq for the twenty-six years, mostly in different roles for the US government.

August 19

As Americans struggle to understand the nature of Islam and how the differences between our cultures can lead to trouble, we consult Steven Simon, the Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the coauthor of The Age of Sacred Terror and The Next Attack, and former Director for Global Issues and Senior Director for Transnational Threats at the National Security Council. His current work examines the consequences of the American intervention in Iraq, Muslim/non-Muslim relations, and the role of religion in U.S. foreign policy.

Whatever happened to peace in the Middle East? We talk with Dr. Mitchell Bard, the Executive Director of the nonprofit American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE) and a foreign policy analyst who lectures frequently on U.S.-Middle East policy. Dr. Bard is also the director of the Jewish Virtual Library, the world’s most comprehensive online encyclopedia of Jewish history and culture. For three years he was the editor of the Near East Report, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) weekly newsletter on U.S. Middle East policy. Prior to working at AIPAC, Dr. Bard served as a senior analyst in the polling division of the 1988 Bush campaign. He is the author/editor of 17 books.

August 12

As the Middle East considers a peace proposal, we talk with Habib Malik on the nature of that proposal and the prospects for peace. Malik is a professor of history and cultural studies at the Lebanese American University (Byblos campus), and is the author of Between Damascus and Jerusalem: Lebanon and Middle East Peace. He is the American-born son of the late Lebanese diplomat Charles Malik. He is a graduate of the American University of Beirut with a B.A. in history (1977), and from Harvard University with an M.A. in European history (1979) and a Ph.D. in modern European intellectual history (1985).

We pick apart the details of the terror plot uncovered this week with Olivier Guitta, a Washington based foreign affairs consultant. Mr. Guitta has broad expertise in Israel, the Arab world , Europe and terrorism. His clients include think tanks, lobbying firms and law firms needing assistance on terrorism cases. He has written in depth studies on Hezbollah for the Brookings Institution, on France's Arab policy for the "Middle East Quarterly", on Euro-US cooperation on terrorism for the American Legislative Exchange Council. He is a contributing expert to the prestigious Counterterrorism blog (www.counterterrorismblog.org).

August 5, 2006

Today we discuss the Syria connection to the fighting in the Middle East with Scott Davis, an independent scholar and the founder of CUNE Press. What exactly is Syria’s role in the relationship with Iran and Hezbollah? Having traveled to Syria and Lebanon since 1987, Davis has met high officials in both countries, including members of the Hariri entourage, and he has acquired and edited books by some of the most important Syrian political analysts. Davis is author of The Road from Damascus.

Whenever there is conflict in the Middle East, we are reminded of a laundry list of U.N. resolutions, mostly ignored, that each side claims in support of the legitimacy of its actions. We review international law and its relevance to the fighting with Lisa Hajjar, an associate professor in the Law and Society Program at the University of California-Santa Barbara. She is the author of Courting Conflict: The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza. Hajjar is a member of the editorial committee of Middle East Report.

July 29

As the fighting in Lebanon continues, Syria's role there, and its support of Hezbollah, are receiving more focus. We discuss this with Bassam Haddad, who teaches political science at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia and is scholar-in-residence at the University of Pennsylvania. Haddad was in Lebanon for the start of the bombing. He is author of "The Formation and Development of Economic Networks in Syria: Implications for Economic and Fiscal Reforms, 1986-2000," in Networks of Privilege: The Politics of Economic Reform in the Middle East. He is currently working on his first book on Syria's political economy. Haddad is co-producer and director of the award-winning documentary film, "About Baghdad," and the director and executive producer of the documentary series "Arabs and Terrorism."

If you were an advisor on U.S. foreign policy, what would you recommend for the situation in Lebanon? We ask that question to Firas Maksad, an Associate in the Middle East and Africa Practice Group at Eurasia Group. Prior to joining Eurasia Group, Maksad was a consultant on Middle East Affairs in Washington D.C. and a Research Associate to former Middle East Presidential envoy Ambassador Dennis Ross. He has worked for the House International Relations Committee on Capitol Hill and at the United Nations Development Program in Beirut, Lebanon. Firas holds a Masters of Science in Foreign Service degree and an honors certificate in International Business from Georgetown University. He completed his undergraduate degree in Political Science with distinction at the American University of Beirut.

July 22

We have heard much over the past couple of weeks about where Hezbollah's base of support lies. Are they really funded and controlled by Iran and Syria? We explore the source of their power, and that of Hamas, with Pierre Rehov, a French/Israeli documentary filmmaker. He’s filmed six documentaries on the intifada by going undercover in the Palestinian areas. Rehov discusses his latest work, From the River to the Sea, which paints a graphic picture of the worldwide forces that have empowered the Hamas and Hezbollah terror organizations.

What is U.S. foreign policy regarding Lebanon, Hezbollah and the Arab/Israeli conflict in general? We talk with Charles Smith, a specialist in modern Middle East history at the University of Arizona, Department of Near Eastern Studies. He has been a visiting professor at a number of academic institutions and has lectured at various military institutes including the Marine War College. He is long-time member of the Board of Directors of the American Research Center in Egypt. Dr. Smith is the author of Islam and the Search for Social Order in Modern Egypt and Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, along with numerous articles and reviews.

Not all Arab states stand in support of Hezbollah in the current conflict with Israel. We discuss why with Ussama Makdisi, an Associate Professor of History and the first holder of the Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair of Arab Studies at Rice University. He is the author of The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon. He is also the author of Anti-Americanism in the ArabWorld: An Interpretation of Brief History, which appeared in the Journal of American History. His current research focuses on American missionaries in the Middle East.

July 15

Israel is at war with Hezballah, which means its also at war with Lebanon and, perhaps, indirectly with other countries. At a very dangerous moment in Middle East affairs, we speak with Dr. Ariel Cohen, Senior Research Fellow at the Davis Institute for International Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

What is happening with the Israeli invasion of Gaza now that Israel has engaged Hezballah? We talk with Dr. Mona El-Farra, a physician, community and human rights activist, Vice President for the Palestine Red Crescent Society, and MECA (Middle East Children’s Alliance) Projects Director for Gaza. Dr. El-Farra was at the hospital that received many of the victims of the June 9 bombing. El-Farra runs the blog From Gaza With Love.

July 8

In March 2004, the United States launched the Arabic language satellite network Alhurra, the biggest news media project aimed at the Middle East since “Voice of America” was first launched in 1942. Predictions for its impact were very optimistic, but some, such as our guest today, Magdi Khalil, say the network has been a failure. Khalil is a political analyst, researcher, author and Executive Editor of the Egyptian weekly Watani International. He is also a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, London, a free-lance writer for several Arabic language newspapers, and a frequent contributor to Middle East broadcast news TV.

The recent kidnapping of an Israeli soldier lead to an Israeli incursion into Gaza. We take a look at the politics behind the violence with Zachary Lockman, professor of modern Middle East history and director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University. He is a contributing editor of Middle East Report. His most recent book is Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism.

July 1

Women have voted for the first time in Kuwait, taking part in elections for parliament. Although none of the women running for Parliament was elected, political upheaval is taking place. We talk with Jennifer McElhinny, managing editor of The Middle East Journal, the premier peer-reviewed journal focusing exclusively on the contemporary Middle East. Ms. McElhinny has written on women’s rights and political reform in Kuwait. She spent two years serving as a teacher in southern Jordan with the U.S. Peace Corps.

Ann Coulter is the bombastic conservative commentator who rode a huge wave of publicity last month over the release of her latest book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism. Our goal today will be to find out if Ann is as outrageous as she seems. Other Colter books include four New York Times bestsellers — How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)(October, 2004), Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (June 2003); Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right (June 2002); and High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton (August 1998).

18 years ago, a U.S. passenger jet was shot down over Lockerbie, Scotland. The victims’ families are still struggling to collect restitution from Libya, even as the Bush administration prepares to remove the nation from the list of terrorist regimes. We discuss the normalization of relations with Libya with Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, professor of political science at the University of New England. He is the author of several books, including Forgotten Voices: Power and Agency in Colonial and Postcolonial Libya.

June 24

The Arab-Israeli conflict and Egypts role in the Bush administration's approach to the Middle East are on the table as we talk with Joel Beinen, who has taught Middle East history at Stanford since 1983, including a broad range of courses from the rise of Islam to the present. Since 1965 he has lived and worked for extended periods in Israel and Egypt and traveled broadly throughout the Middle East and North Africa. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1982, his A.M. from Harvard University in 1974, and his A.B. from Princeton University in 1970. He is a past president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (2001-02) and an editor of Middle East Report, published by the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP).

We discuss Iranian relations and the war in Iraq with Gareth Porter, an independent scholar and journalist and news analyst for Inter Press Service on the war in Iraq and U.S.-Iran conflict. Dr. Porter has just published the first full account, in The American Prospect magazine of the 2003 Secret Iranian negotiating proposal to the United States for a "Grand Bargain" settling all major issues between the two countries. He wrote the first detailed analysis of and proposal for a negotiated peace settlement in Iraq published in Middle East Policy Journal. He is also the author of Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam. Porter wrote the article "Iran Proposal to U.S. Offered Peace with Israel," and several other pieces over the last several months on the offer from Iran.

June 17

Congress debated a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq this week. Had they decided on such a measure, the question would become what does withdrawal involve and how difficult would it be to do. We are joined by Chris Toensing, editor of Middle East Report and director of the Middle East Research and Information Project. Toensing has written for the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Progressive and other US newspapers and magazines, and has appeared hundreds of times on radio and TV programs to discuss Middle East politics. He holds an MA in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. Chris speaks Arabic and lived in Egypt for three years.

We talk current events with Bernard Goldberg, the television news reporter and author of Bias, a New York Times number one bestseller about how the media distort the news. He has covered stories all over the world for CBS News and won six Emmy awards for his work at that network. His second book is Arrogance, another New York Times bestseller about the media. Goldberg’s third book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America -- And Al Franken is #37, is now out in paperback.

June 10

Pundits argue that the death of Zarqawi will result in everything from no change to a dramatically tamed insurgency in Iraq. We do our own assessment with Christopher Preble, the director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. Preble was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy and is a veteran of the Gulf War, having served onboard USS Ticonderoga (CG-47) from 1990 to 1993. He is the author of John F. Kennedy and the Missile Gap, a book discussing the political and economic roots of national security strategy in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

After September 11, Saudi Arabia was accused of having an education system that helped breed terrorists. The Saudis acknowledged some of the problems, and today we check to see how reforms are going with Ali Al-Ahmed, the director of the Institute of Gulf Affairs. Al-Ahmed is a Saudi scholar and expert on Saudi political affairs including terrorism, Wahhabi Islam and the history of the ruling family. As a journalist, he exposed major news stories such as the Pentagon's botched translation of the 9-11 Bin Laden tape and the video of Daniel Pearl's murder. He is a frequent consultant to major world media outlets such as CBS News, CNN, PBS, Fox News and the Washington Post.

June 3

How do democratic principles jibe with Islamic principles? Does our inability to understand Islamic culture lead us to bad conclusions in dealing with situations such as Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons? Abdeslam Maghraoui helps us with these questions. He is Associate Director of Research and Studies for the Muslim World Initiative at the United States Institute of Pearce. His research focuses on political power, authority, and legitimacy in contemporary Muslim societies. Prior to joining the Institute, Maghraoui was visiting lecturer and resident scholar at Princeton University's Department of Politics and the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. Previously, he was director of Al-Madina, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting accountable governance in the Arab world.

Is it time for a U.S. exit strategy from Iraq? Such a plan was independently proposed recently with the help of Mounzer Sleiman, who joins us today, a vice president and founding member of the National Council of Arab Americans. He is an independent political-military analyst with expertise in U.S. national security affairs, the subject of his doctorate dissertation. In addition, he is an independent media consultant with more than twenty five years of experience in Middle East diplomacy and media relations. He is a frequent commentator and guest analyst on radio and television broadcasts. Sleiman was consulted the recently proposed 21-point plan, which was developed by the director of the Center for Arab Unity Studies, Iraqi native Dr. Kheir deen Haseeb. This was done in consultation with groups in Iraq, including members of the non-terrorist resistance.

May 27

Will the terror group Hamas, now the elected Palestinian leaders, transition into an entity that respects the right of Israel to exist? We speak with Khaled Hroub, director of the Cambridge Arab Media Project, a neutral and unbiased organization that is affiliated with the Centre of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge. He is author of Hamas: Political Thought and Practice and the soon to be released Hamas: A Beginner's Guide.

The Iranians are good at talking tough, but are they really as dangerous as they sound? We are joined once again by Thomas Lippman, an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington. He spent four years as the Washington Post's Middle East bureau chief, three years as the Post's oil and energy reporter and a decade as the newspaper's national security and diplomatic correspondent. He is the author of books such as Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia and Madeleine Albright and the New American Diplomacy.

May 20

How did London become a haven for Islamic fanatic foot soldiers? We visit with Melanie Phillips, a British journalist and author. She is best known for her controversial column about political and social issues which currently appears in the Daily Mail. Awarded the Orwell Prize for journalism in 1996, she is the author of All Must Have Prizes, an acclaimed study of Britain's educational and moral crisis. Phillips discusses her soon to be published book, Londonistan.

The power of the insurgency in Iraq is our topic with Nir Rosen, a journalist who has written extensively on the American presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr. Rosen spent more than a year in post-war Iraq reporting on the American occupation, the relationship between Americans and Iraqis, the development of post-war Iraqi religious and political movements, and inter-ethnic and sectarian relations. He also focused his reporting and research on the origins and development of Islamist resistance, insurgence, and terror organizations. While in Afghanistan, Mr. Rosen covered the elections and studied the differences between the American presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr. Rosen has been published in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper’s and The New Republic. Rosen discusses his book on Iraq, In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq.

May 13

A Western embargo of the Palestinians since Hamas took power is leading to economic and humanitarian crisis. We talk about the situation with Leila Farsakh, assistant professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She has worked with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute in Ramallah. She has published articles and studies on the Palestinian economy and the Oslo Process, international migration and regional integration. She is author of Palestinian Labor Migration.

President Bush got a letter this week from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We examine its implications with Lionel Beehner, a staff writer for the Council on Foreign Relations, covering a variety of international subjects, including Iraq, Europe, and former Soviet Union. He has written for the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, Foreign Policy, Russia Journal, Seed, and Worth Magazine. His commentary has appeared on CNN International, CNBC, C-SPAN's Washington Journal, and Voice of America. He is the recipient of a German Marshall Fund journalism fellowship for a research project on post-Soviet youth movements in Ukraine and Belarus.

May 6

What is the future of Iraq? Will it melt down into civil war and splinter? We sort things out with Peter Sluglett, a professor of history at the University of Utah and a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He is one of the world's leading historians of modern Iraq and is the author (with the late Marion Farouk-Sluglett) of Iraq since 1958: from Revolution to Dictatorship.

We explore relations with two key middle east allies, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, with David Dumke, a principal of MidAmr Group, an organization that works to facilitate understanding of US and Arab policy making for decision-makers in Washington and the Arab world. He previously served in a variety of capacities in Congress, including serving as legislative director for Representative John D. Dingell (D-Michigan), the longest serving member of the House of Representatives.

April 29

Iran continues to insist that its nuclear ambitions are peaceful as the world becomes more sure that they are not. We discuss the latest developments with someone who has been there recently, Dr. David Smith, an associate professor of geography in the Department of History and Political Science at Ohio Northern University. Dr. Smith recently returned from Iran where he was part of a UN General Assembly’s World Summit. “Do we trust them at their word not to produce nuclear weapons? No one does,” says Smith. “Do they have a legitimate excuse to create nuclear power plants? Yes, I think they do. This is what makes a solution to this problem more difficult." Smith served in Army Intelligence in the late 1970s and has lived and worked in the Soviet Union.

As congress considers a supplemental spending bill for the Iraq war, we discuss progress there, particularly now that a new Prime Minister is in place. We are joined by Erik Leaver, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and Policy Outreach Director for the Foreign Policy In Focus project. His current work includes conducting education and Congressional outreach on Iraq and multilateral institutions.

April 22

With the third anniversary of the Iraq liberation behind us, we discuss the future of Iraq and the region with Walid Phares, an expert in terrorism, senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a professor of Conflict and Middle East Studies at Florida Atlantic University. Phares argues that while the final outcome cannot be known in Iraq, the ripple effects have been far reaching – and often beneficial. Phares is the Terrorism Expert with the Family Security Matters based in New York. Phares served as an Expert on Jihadism and Terrorism for the US Department of Justice and for the Dutch Government in 2002-2003. He has produced a master video presentation for US security agencies on "Profile of the Terrorists" in 2001. He is a Terrorism Analyst with NBC-MSNBC, and appears on Fox News, CNN, BBC, al Hurra, al Jazeera and other networks.

Has the U.S. strained its relationships with other countries in recent years? And if so, can the situation be corrected, particularly in the Arab world. We cover these questions with Don De Marino, chairman of the National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce. De Marino served in the Bush Administration as deputy assistant secretary of Commerce for Africa, the Near East and South Asia, and in the Reagan Administration as director of the US-Saudi Arabian Joint Economic Commission. He frequently represented the US in trade talks, concluded bilateral commerce agreements and success- fully resolved major commercial disputes on behalf of American companies. He is also a businessman and advisor to several corporations.

April 15

Pakistan is a mess of a country but still a critical ally to the U.S. We tackle whether the relationship is a constructive one with Anita Weiss, Professor of International Studies at the University of Oregon. Her current research is analyzing the social reform agenda of the MMA (the conservative party that now rules the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan)in the NWFP (Northwest Frontier Province) in Pakistan. She has published four books on social development and gender issues in Pakistan, and has also authored numerous articles on culture, women and development in Pakistan. She is chair of the South Asia Council of the Association of Asian Studies.

Iran continues to play hardball with a world concerned about its drive for nuclear weapons. Is an embargo next? Is that the best next step? We are joined by Dr. Muhammad Sahimi, a professor and chairman of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Southern California. He co-wrote, with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, the op-ed "Defusing Iran with Democracy."

April 8

We talk about Presidential honesty with Howard Zinn an historian, playwright, and social activist who is best known for A People's History of the United States, which presents American history through the eyes of those he feels are outside of the political and economic establishment. He is also the co-author, with Anthony Arnove, of Voices of a People’s History of the United States.

We find out why the U.S. was attacked by terrorists from Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, executive director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development in England, and the bestselling author of The War on Freedom: How & Why America was Attacked: September 11, 2001. He has a first-class Masters degree in Contemporary War and Peace Studies from the University of Sussex, where he is currently a PhD candidate in International Relations. A regular political commentator on BBC Southern Counties Radio, Ahmed has been named a Global Expert on War, Peace and International Affairs by The Freedom Network of the International Society for Individual Liberty in California. A hmed discusses his latest books, Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq and The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism.

April 1

We discuss the situation in Iraq with Aaron Glantz, author of How America Lost Iraq. A reporter for Pacifica Radio and other media outlets, Glantz has visited Iraq three times during the U.S. occupation: for a month immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein; from February to May 2004; and during the elections in January of 2005. His work from Iraq has also been syndicated to newspapers around the world by Inter Press News Service. Glantz is a founding producer of Pacifica Radio’s national newscast, Free Speech Radio News.

Our relationship with Saudi Arabia is the topic with Rachel Bronson, author of the just released Thicker Than Oil: America’s Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia. Bronson is senior fellow and director of Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Her expertise lies in U.S. national security and foreign policy toward the Middle East, Middle East politics and strategy, particularly in the Persian Gulf; and Iraq.

March 11

The deal is dead, but the argument continues about whether Dubai Ports World should have been allowed to take over port operations here. We are joined by William Rugh, who was U.S. Ambassador to the UAE from 1992-1995. Rugh is an adjunct scholar in the Public Policy Center at the Middle East Institute. He was a United States Foreign Service officer for 31 years, from 1964 to 1995. He served in Washington, and at seven Middle Eastern diplomatic posts – two of those assignments, to Yemen and to the United Arab Emirates, were as the US ambassador. He has taught as an adjunct professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University (1987-89). He is the author of the book The Arab Press, and several journal articles and op-ed pieces on Middle Eastern subjects.

Are Americans biased against Arabs? If so, is it possible that this bias has its roots in the way Arabs have been portrayed historically in American cinema? We discuss the issue, and its possible relevance to the Dubai Ports World issue with Jack Shaheen, Professor Emeritus of Mass Communications at Southern Illinois University. A former CBS News consultant on the Middle East, Shaheen is a leading scholar of Arab representations in US popular culture. He is author of the groundbreaking study The TV Arab and, most recently, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, the most comprehensive review of Arab screen images ever published.

March 4, 2006

Iran continues to toy with the West, claiming today an eagerness to talk about the nuke crisis but showing no signs of compromise. We seek clarity from Michael Rubin, just back from several months in Iran doing research. Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and editor of the Middle East Quarterly and a former Iran-watcher at the Pentagon. Rubin studies domestic politics in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey; Kurdish society; and Arab democracy. He most recently co-authored Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos.

She’s been on assignment there six times, so let’s learn more about Iraq from Hadani Ditmars, an international journalist based in Canada whose work has been published by major news sources around the world. Her Ms. Magazine essay on Iraqi women has been adopted for many university courses. Ditmars, who has been reporting from the middle east since 1992, discusses her book Dancing in the No Fly Zone: A Woman’s Journey Through Iraq and the civil war in Iraq.

February 25

Is Dubai a friend or a foe? We get an education on the United Arab Emirates from David Andelman, Executive Editor of Forbes.com, who is on assignment there. He joined Forbes.com from The New York Daily News, where he had served as business editor since 2001. Previously, he was editor in chief of a global business and financial news Web site, Smallcapcenter.com, and before that he served as news editor at Bloomberg News for four and a half years. David's work has taken him across the globe covering world events and the people behind them. For 12 years, he served as both a foreign and domestic correspondent for the New York Times, and was also Paris correspondent for CBS News and Washington correspondent for CNBC.

Terrorists attempted an attack on a major Saudi oil processing plant this week. We discuss this, and other events in the war on terror, with Ambassador Paul Bremer, the career diplomat who was the Presidential Envoy to Iraq from May 2003 to June 2004. During his twenty-three years at the State Department, he served on the personal staffs of six secretaries of state and on four continents. In the 1980s, he was President Reagan's Ambassador at Large for Counter Terrorism. After leaving government, he was Managing Director of Kissinger Associates. He also served as Chairman of the bipartisan National Commission on Terrorism (1999-2000). In December 2004, George W. Bush awarded Bremer the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his service in Iraq. Bremer discusses his book, My Year in Iraq, and the immense stakes involved in the war in Iraq and this troubled region.

February 18

Is it possible that the United States might defeat the jihadis by using their own ideology against them? We take a look inside the mind of al Qaeda with Mary Habeck, a professor at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, one of the world’s foremost foreign policy institutions. Professor Habeck’s most recent book is Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror, the first book to present the inner logic of al-Qaeda and like-minded extremist groups by which they justify September 11 and other terrorist attacks. She is recognized internationally as an authority on American defense policy; Islamic jihadism and irregular warfare; as well as Russian and western European military and political affairs.

What impact will Saudi Arabia have on Iraq as the post-Saddam era develops? We explore the changes in Iraq from the Saudi perspective with Joseph McMillan, a senior research fellow at the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies, focusing on issues related to terrorism, the greater Middle East, and South Asia. Prior to joining NDU, Mr. McMillan served in a series of civilian positions in the Department of Defense. He has more than 15 years of experience dealing with regional defense and security issues affecting the Persian Gulf, Levant, South Asia, North Africa, and the former Soviet Union. McMillan recently wrote a report on Saudi Arabia for the USIP (United States Institute of Peace) series of special reports on “Iraq and Its Neighbors.”

February 11

We explore the Danish Cartoon Crisis and the idea of a Clash of Civilizations with Charles Kurzman, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Associate Director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Trained at Harvard and Berkeley, he specializes in cross-cultural studies of anti-authoritarian movements. He has written extensively on the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and is currently writing a book on constitutional revolutions.

Iran’s play for nuclear weapons continues to concern the world. We discuss the latest events with Bahman Baktiari, Director of the International Affairs program and Professor of Political Science at the University of Maine. He received his Ph.D. from the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia. His most recent publications are Dilemmas of Reform and Democracy in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Voices of Muslim Tolerance. Professor Baktiari has traveled and taught in most Middle Eastern countries.

February 4

NSA eavesdropping on international phone calls with a domestic participant continues to be the rage in Beltway debate. We seek clarity from Jeffrey Addicott, an Assistant Professor of Law and the Director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio Texas. He is the senior Government consultant for the military commissions trials in Cuba. His latest book (2003) is entitled: Winning the War on Terror: Legal and Policy Lessons from the Past.

Iran – Nukes. That’s the big story. Again. We talk with Wayne White, an Adjunct Scholar at Washington’s Middle East Institute on the nuclear fallout in Iran. Mr. White retired last year as Deputy Director of the Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia in the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR/NESA). He served as editor of the “Arab-Israeli Situation Report,” Analyst for Iraq, Deputy Director of the Arab-Israeli Division, and Chief of the North Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Iran Division before becoming NESA’s Deputy Director in 2002.

January 28

Julianne Smith joins us in a discussion of US relations with Europe. She is a fellow and Deputy Director of the Center Strategic International Studies' International Security Program. In addition to overseeing the management of 30+ security related projects, she focuses on a range of European security issues, including European defense integration and EU-U.S. counterterrorism cooperation. Ms. Smith co- directs the Transatlantic Dialogue on Terrorism, which examines European and American disagreements over the root causes. Most recently, she coauthored America and the World in the Age of Terror

Big changes in Middle East politics this week. We get up to date with Ambassador Edward Peck, who is currently in Amman on a delegation observing the Palestinian election. Peck is a former U.S. chief of mission to Iraq and was deputy director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism in the Reagan administration. He is a Middle East television commentator, and a lecturer and consultant in the U.S. and overseas; Woodrow Wilson Foundation Visiting Fellow; Distinguished Visitor at the National War College; member, Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, Americans for Middle East Understanding, and CNI (Council for the National Interest).

January 21

Vice President Dick Cheney was in the Middle East this week, touring Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. What was he working on? We turn to Les Janka, Chairman of the Council for American-Saudi Dialog and former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Near Eastern Affairs. Janka served in the White House under three presidents—as a senior staff member of the National Security Council and Special Assistant to Henry Kissinger under Presidents Nixon and Ford, and as deputy press secretary for Foreign Affairs under President Reagan. He also served in the Pentagon as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Near Eastern Affairs.

Saudi Arabia is gained admission to the World Trade Organization last fall. We explore what this means for us and for them with Fahad Nazer, a native of Saudi Arabia who currently resides in the Washington, DC area. He is the resident fellow at the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington DC. In addition, he is contributing to a monograph to be published by the American Enterprise Institute in the spring of 2006. Nazer is a former employee of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, DC, where he was a political analyst at the Department of Political Affairs and a media analyst at the Information Office, and is currently a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Catholic University of America.

January 14, 2006

The fifth richest man in the world is Saudi Prince Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, the largest single foreign investor in the United States. He has built a $24 billion empire around brands such as Citigroup and Disney to Apple Computers and the Four Seasons Hotels. We discuss why Prince Alwaleed is viewed as a twenty-first-century ambassador who could be the ultimate bridge to connect the Middle East and the West with his biographer, Riz Khan, author of Alwaleed: Businessman, Billionaire, Prince. Khan is a well-known independent broadcaster and journalist. He worked at CNN International for eight years, where he hosted the flagship program "Q&A with Riz Khan."

How is the balance of power in the Middle East and the world altered by the end of Ariel Sharon's political career? We refelct with Peretz Kidron, a freelance journalist and translator living in Jerusalem. Kidron is an activist in the peace movement, and recently published Refusenik! ? a book about soldiers and reservists who refuse to serve the occupation.

As Iran continues its march to become one of the world's nuclear powers, the world community wonders how best to respond. We analyze the situation with Judith Kipper, director of the Middle East Forum at the Council on Foreign Relations. She also serves as a consultant to ABC News and, in the early 1990's, she negotiated interviews for Peter Jennings with Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Russia's President Mikhail Gorbachev. Kipper briefs us on US policy priorities in the region and re-establishing US credibility and confidence. Kipper discusses Iran?s warning that it will block UN inspectors' access to its nuclear facilities if the UN imposes sanctions.

January 7, 2006

The fight for stability in Iraq became more intense this week, as more than 100 people were killed in attacks on Thursday. We examine affairs there with Loretta Napoleoni, a former Fulbright scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and Rotary Scholar at the London School of Economics. She is an expert on international terrorism who has worked as an economist and foreign correspondent for Italy’s financial papers. As chairwoman of the countering terrorism financing group for the Club de Madrid, Loretta Napoleoni brought heads of state from around the world together to create a new strategy for combating the financing of terror networks. She was one of the few people to interview the Red Brigades in Italy after three decades of silence. She is the author of numerous books, including Terror, Incorporated and Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks.

As congress prepares for hearings on President Bush's latest Supreme Court nominee, we discuss Judge Alito with Bruce Shapiro, investigative reporter, political analyst and a National Magazine Award finalist for essays and criticism. Shapiro has reported for The Nation since 1981 on subjects ranging from the psychopolitics of cults to the privatization of public schools, and dissected national events from the Gulf War to the impeachment of President Clinton. He is also national correspondent for the internet magazine Salon.com.

With Ariel Sharon critically ill, Israel begins to face the idea of new leadership, and the world wonders what changes are in store for the region. Analysis is provided by Robert Blecher, director of scenario planning at Strategic Assessments Initiative, where he directs a team of Israeli and Palestinian scholars investigating unorthodox solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He is a member of the editorial committee of Middle East Report, and is a visiting scholar this year at the University of Iowa's Center for Human Rights, where his research examines the histories of partition and integration in Palestine and Israel.

December 17

Plamegate, Flight 800, Sandy Berger’s stolen documents, the deaths of Terry Schiavo and Pope John Paul II,the Kansas City Bombings… is there a connection between these events and September 11? We explore the question with Jack Cashill, an independent writer and TV producer for PBS and national cable channels, and the Executive Editor of Ingram’s Magazine, Kansas City’s premier business magazine. He is the author of the soon to be released Sucker Punch: The Left Hook that Dazed Ali and Killed King's Dream. Cashill discusses his blog book in progress, What Sandy Knew, an untold story of the 9/11 breakdown.

Elections in Iraq are said to have gone remarkably well this week. Does this represent a turning point? Richard Falk, author of books such as “Crimes of War,” and “On Human Governance,” joins us for analysis. He is a founding member of IALANA and of the World Order Models Project, WOMP.

Why did Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently make such inflammatory statements as those describing the Holocaust as a "myth” and calling for Israel to be “wiped off” the map? We are offered guidance by Lawrence Davidson, Professor of History at West Chester University with a specialization in Middle East history and American relations with the Middle East. He is the author of two recent works: America’s Palestine – Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood and Islamic Fundamentalism. He travels frequently in the region and was in Iran in September 2005.

December 10

A report on the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is expected next week. We talk about the significance of the investigation and the forthcoming report with John Loftus, host of “The Loftus Report,” which can be heard on the John Batchelor Show on ABC National Radio. As a former Justice Department prosecutor, John Loftus once held some of the highest security clearances in the world, with special access to NATO Cosmic, CIA codeword, and Top Secret Nuclear files. As a private attorney, he works without charge to help hundreds of intelligence agents obtain lawful permission to declassify and publish the hidden secrets of our times. He is the author of four history books, three of which have been made into films, two were international best sellers, and one was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Is Iran pressing its luck by ignoring world concerns about its nuclear program? How about with its involvement with Iraqi rebels? We discuss these questions with Vali Nasr, Professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and an expert on the politics of the Middle East and South Asia, political Islam and comparative political theory. He joined NPS in 1993 after teaching at the University of San Diego, University of California, San Diego, and Tufts University. He is the author of many books including Democracy in Iran (Oxford University Press, 2006) and The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam will Shape the Future (W.W. Norton, 2006).

Elections are happening concurrently for Palestinians and Israelis this year for the first time. We talk politics in the region with Lori Allen, a postdoctoral fellow at the Pembroke Center at Brown University. She is an anthropologist whose research focuses on Palestine. Her dissertation is an ethnography of the second intifada. Her main goal is to understand why victimization and certain iconic forms of violence have become central to Palestinian national identity and moral-political discourse. She also seeks to explain how these elements affect the way the current uprising is being played out. Allen also serves on the editorial committee of Middle East Report.

December 3

History was made in Saudi Arabia this week when two women were elected to the board of directors of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce. While this doesn’t sound revolutionary to Americans, it represents social change in Saudi Arabia. We discuss its significance with Dr. Gerd Nonneman, professor of International Relations and Middle East Politics at Lancaster University and co-editor of Saudi Arabia in the Balance: Political Economy, Society, Foreign Affairs. Nonneman also just published a book called Analyzing Middle East Foreign Policies. He has written for the Economist Intelligence Unit and acted as a consultant to a range of government bodies, organizations and companies, including the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the European Commission. He served as the Executive Director of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) from 1998-2002.

Are the Palestinians in the process of gaining political sovereignty, or are current events just more of the same. That’s our topic with Samar Assad, executive director of The Palestine Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that analyzes U.S. policy toward the Middle East and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Known for her informative research on Palestinian politics and the Arab-Israeli conflict, Assad served as communications advisor to the Palestinian Negotiations Support Unit in the West Bank from 2000-2001 before joining the Palestine Center in Washington, D.C. Assad was based in Jerusalem from October 1996 through June 2000, covering Palestine and Israel for the Associated Press prior to her work with the NSU. Before joining AP, Assad worked at the Jerusalem Bureau of the Los Angeles Times.

Getting out of Iraq on a timetable is the popular political topic these days. We consider the wisdom of this and other options with Dr. Ivan Eland, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute and Assistant Editor of The Independent Review. He has been Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, Principal Defense Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, and Investigator for the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Dr. Eland is the author of The Efficacy of Economic Sanctions as a Foreign Policy Tool, a contributor to numerous volumes, and the author of forty-five in-depth studies on national security issues.

November 19

With the volatile price of oil this year, Americans are facing higher prices for transportation and heat. What will the long term impact be? What policy changes do we need? We discuss these issues with Peter de Krassel, author of Custom Maid for a New World Disorder. Mr. de Krassel is the former CEO of a strategic consultancy firm. He has a law degree from the University of California and specialized in banking and secure transactions. He has been professionally involved in representing American and Chinese corporate business interests in their efforts to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western cultures.

The role of Iran and Syria in assisting the Iraqi insurgency is frequently mentioned, but not often explained. We discuss Iran’s role with Peter Khalil, an analyst in Eurasia Group’s Middle East & Africa practice. He has been a Research Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and has served as an Assistant Director for Iraq Policy at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, in Canberra, Australia. Khalil was a Director of National Security Policy at the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad. Khalil has testified before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Strategies for Shaping US policy in Iraq and the Middle East and the House Subcommittee on National Security and Emerging Threats on Building Iraqi Security Forces. Eurasia Group is a consulting firm that focuses on global political risk.

Secretary of State Rice stepped up U.S. pressure for Middle East peace this week. We discuss developments with Michael Herzog, a brigadier general in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and a visiting military fellow at The Washington Institute. From 2001 to July 2004, General Herzog served as military secretary to the Israeli minister of defense. In that capacity, he acted as the liaison between the defense minister and the IDF, prime minister's office, intelligence community, and Israeli defense establishment.

November 12

Vicious attacks against American hotels in Jordan this week by Al Qaeda in Iraq mark a new strategy for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. We discuss his move beyond Iraq with Steven Simon, co-author of The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting It Right. He is former assistant director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and is now teaching at Georgetown University. He served on the National Security Council staff for five years following a career at the U.S. Department of State in Middle Eastern security affairs. Mr. Simon holds degrees from Columbia, Harvard, and Princeton and was an international affairs fellow at Oxford. He discusses how the terrorist threat is evolving.

Things are getting better in France, but the rage continues. What were the forces that lead to the remarkable explosion of civil unrest? We cover the topic first with Paul Silverstein, associate professor of anthropology at Reed College and member of the editorial committee of Middle East Report, followed by Geoff D. Porter, an analyst in Eurasia Group’s Middle East & Africa practice.

Dr. Siverstein’s research interests include North African immigration, religion and politics in France. He is author of Algeria in France: Transpolitics, Race, and Nation.
Dr. Porter is primarily responsible for analyzing North Africa for Eurasia Group – covering Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco and Mauritania. In addition, Dr. Porter covers and coordinates the practice's research on Middle East issues including the eastern Mediterranean and the Arabian peninsula. Prior to joining Eurasia Group, Dr. Porter was an Assistant Professor of International Studies and Middle Eastern History at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. During the course of his academic career he lived and worked in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia. Eurasia Group is a consulting firm on global political risk.

November 5

There is no question that Iran has been moving to become a nuclear power for over 20 years. That’s the word from Kenneth Timmerman, an investigative reporter and author who has spent twenty years reporting on Europe and the Middle East. Since 1995, he has served as Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, and he’s also the president of Middle East Data Project Inc. His latest book, Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, was published this summer. Timmerman discusses the danger in not referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council where further steps can be taken to compel compliance with its nonproliferation obligations.

No one was surprised when Egypt’s President Mubarak was easily re-elected this fall. With parliamentary elections being held in November, some hope that there will be more signs of democracy in the process. We talk with Amr Hamzawy about politics in Egypt. He is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A noted Egyptian political scientist who previously taught at Cairo University and the Free University of Berlin, Hamzawy has a deep knowledge of Middle East politics and specific expertise on European efforts toward political reform in the region. His research interests include the changing dynamics of political participation in the Arab world, including the role of Islamist opposition groups, with special attention both to Egypt and the Gulf countries.

A Syrian judicial committee investigating the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister called yesterday for the public’s help, urging anyone with information related to the February 14 bombing to come forth, Syria’s official news agency said. We discuss the investigation with Farid Ghadry, co-founder and current president of the Reform Party of Syria (RPS), a US-based Syrian opposition party that has emerged as a result of 9/11. It is governed by secular, peace-committed American-Syrians, Euro-Syrians, and native Syrians who are determined to see that a "New Syria" is reborn that embraces real democratic and economic reforms.

October 29

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad caused an uproar this week when he said that Israel should be wiped off the map. What's he up to? We discuss his remarks with Abbas Milani, Director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University and a visiting professor in the department of political science. Dr. Milani is also a research fellow and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution. His expertise is U.S./Iran relations, Iranian cultural, political, and security issues.

A key Israeli leader said this week that peace was not possible with the current Palestinian leadership. As the West Bank emerges as a militant focus, we visit with Geoffrey Aronson, Director of Research and Publications at the Foundation for Middle East Peace in Washington, DC. He is the Editor of the Foundation's bimonthly Report on Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Territories. Aronson is the author of From Sideshow to Center Stage: US Policy towards Egypt and Israel, Palestinians, and the Occupied Territories: Creating Facts in the West Bank.

October 22

What is life, and politics, like inside of Saudi Arabia. For two and a half years (including September 11) John Bradley, a British national and foreign correspondent, served on the editorial staff for Arab News and had the unique opportunity to be a permanently-based, fully accredited local reporter living in Saudi Arabia. Out of that experience came his book, SAUDI ARABIA EXPOSED: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis. Mr. Bradley has written for publications such as The New Republic, Salon, the Independent, the London Telegraph and the London Sunday Times.

Sadaam on Trial: We get an update from Bagdad from Quil Lawrence, who reports for the PRI/BBC radio news program "The World," dividing his time between Washington, Afghanistan and Iraq. He joined the British Broadcasting Service (BBC) World Service staff in 2000 as a Latin America correspondent, following free lance reporting in Cuba, Morocco and Sudan. Prior to 2000, he was based in Colombia where he reported as a freelance journalist from 1996 to 1999 for National Public Radio, the BBC, The Los Angeles Times and the Christian Science Monitor, among others. We’ll also discuss last week’s vote.

President Bush met with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas this week. We discuss the Abbas visit and other issues in the region with Robert Blecher, Director of Scenario Planning at Strategic Assessments Initiative, where he directs a team of Israeli and Palestinian scholars investigating unorthodox solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. A visiting scholar this year at the University of Iowa's Center for Human Rights, his current research examines the histories of partition and integration in Palestine and Israel. He is also a member of the editorial committee of Middle East Report.

October 15

Today was voting day for Iraq’s new constitution. We discuss the day’s significance with Dr. Isam al-Khafaji, a former member of the Iraqi reconstruction council and a professor of politics at the University of Amsterdam who is author of the book Tormented Births: Passages to Modernity in Europe and the Middle East. Al-Khafaji was a member of the Democratic Principles Working Group convened by the U.S. state department to discuss the future of Iraqi governance. He discusses his current role as an advisor to the Iraqi constitution writing process in which he supports a bicameral legislative system and Saturday’s Iraq constitution vote.

Does the earthquake that devastated Pakistan this month change the nature of politics in the region? We’re joined by Marvin Weinbaum, a scholar-in-residence at the Public Policy Center of the Middle East Institute in Washington. He is a former Afghanistan and Pakistan analyst at the Bureau of Intelligence Research at the US State Department. Weinbaum focuses on the future of Pakistan and Pakistan-US relations.

October 8, 2005

Iran is sending signals that its ready to play hardball in order to resist interference with its nuclear ambitions. We discuss the latest with Ruhi Ramazani, Chaired Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Virginia. He is former Vice President of the American Institute of Iranian Studies, and an Emeritus Member of the Board of Governors at the Middle East Institute. Ramazani has been Academic Consultant to: President Jimmy Carter, US Departments of State, Defense, Treasury, Secretariat General of the United Nations, and the foreign ministries of Britain, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Spain and Turkey; International Center for Jefferson Studies, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Is Saudi Arabia a friend or foe? This question continues to fuel debate, so we tackle the issue with Laurent Murawiec, author of Princes of Darkness, which claims that Saudi Arabia is an outlaw pseudo-state waging war against the Western world. Murawiec is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington D.C., and was a senior international policy analyst with the RAND Corporation until 2002. His main research areas concern the application of anthropology to strategy, the “Revolution in Military Affairs,” and information warfare. Murawiec was also an adviser to the French Ministry of Defense.

September 24

The newly elected President of Iran made his first appearance at the United Nations last week. Why should this matter to Americans? We receive the answer to this question from Afshin Molavi, author of the critically acclaimed book “Persian Pilgrimages: Journeys Across Iran,” published in paperback as "The Soul of Iran." Born in Iran, but raised and educated in the U.S, Molavi has written widely on the Middle East, the Muslim world and the United States – and the links between the three -- as a journalist and scholar for more than ten years, with postings in Riyadh, Dubai, Jeddah, Washington and Tehran, and assignments across the region. He has covered Iran and the Persian Gulf region for Reuters and the Washington Post. Molavi is currently a fellow at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan, Washington-based think tank devoted to pragmatic solutions to global problems.

Has Afghanistan become the neglected sibling as American foreign policy focuses its resources on Iraq? Were last weeks elections a success, or meaningless? We are joined by Morgan Courtney, a researcher with the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and lead author of In The Balance: Measuring Progress in Afghanistan. At CSIS, Ms. Courtney has conducted field research in Afghanistan, and has authored and co-authored several reports and policy briefs on Afghanistan and Iraq, including Capturing Iraqi Voices (July 2004), The Road Ahead: Issues for Consideration at the Berlin Donor Conference for Afghanistan (April 2004), and “Miles to Go in Afghanistan” (April 2004). She has also contributed to several other reports on Iraq and Sudan.

What does America look like to a citizen of Saudi Arabia who is studying in this country? And what can we learn about Saudi Arabia from a citizen who is also fluent in American culture? We talk with Hashim, a graduate of Princeton who is studying for his MBA at Harvard. In between his studies, Hashim spent four years working for Saudi Aramco, the national oil company. Born and raised in Saudi Arabia, Hashim talks about culture shock and misconceptions.

September 17, 2005

One of the byproducts of the response to Katrina has been a renewed focus on the nation’s preparedness for another terror attack. We discuss this issue with Annie Jacobsen, author of Terror in the Skies: Why 9-11 Could Happen Again. Jacobsen is a journalist and writer for WomensWallStreet.com. Her work on business, finance, and terrorism has appeared in a variety of national and international magazines and webzines. Jacobsen shares her harrowing first-hand account of her flight with a group of suspected terrorists forces us to ask: Could 9/11 happen again?

Great drama continues in Gaza following the recent Israeli withdrawal, with Palestinian leader Abbas in political danger. We are joined by Ambassador Dennis Ross, author of The Missing Peace - The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace, and the counselor and Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is a Foreign Affairs Analyst for the Fox News Channel in addition to being a frequent commentator in The Washington Post, The Financial Times and U.S. News and World Report. A scholar and diplomat with more than two decades of experience in Soviet and Middle Eastern policy, Ambassador Ross worked closely with Secretaries of State James Baker, Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright. Prior to his service as Special Middle East Coordinator under President Clinton, Ross served as Director of the State Department's Policy Planning office during the Bush administration.

The future of Iraq lies largely in the hands of powerful figures such as Ayatollah Sistani and Moqtada al Sadr. What exactly is their hold on the process toward a new Iraq, and what are their goals? We explore these issues with Professor Babak Rahimi from UC San Diego’s Iranian and Islamic Studies Department. Rahimi was recently a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, Washington DC, where he conducted research on the institutional contribution of Shi’i political organizations in the creation of a vibrant civil society in Iraq. He has published articles on culture, religion and politics in Iranian Studies and Critical Theory and Historical Sociology.

September 10, 2005

Fired last month from his job as a talk host at ABC Radio’s WMAL in Washington, DC for making negative comments on the Muslim religion, Michael Graham is here to talk about what he said, why he said it, and whether he went overboard. Graham is busy even without WMAL. He is a columnist, political consultant, and host of Michael Graham Unleashed on Rightalk Radio. Michael is also a well-known commentator on South Carolina politics. His weekly column, "The Usual Suspects" reaches more than 100,000 readers in every major market. And since July, Michael has been morning talk host for NewsRadio 730 WSC in Charleston, SC. He covered the 2000 GOP presidential primary for National Review magazine, and he has appeared on ABC's Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, The NBC Nightly News, C-SPAN, Talkback on MS/NBC and Hardball with Chris Matthews.

We take a big picture look at the Middle East with Dr. Michael Kraig, the Director of Policy Analysis at The Stanley Foundation. He is currently managing several foundation initiatives on Persian Gulf regional security strategies, US national security strategies, US-Iran and US-Syria relations, and weapons proliferation. Kraig is fresh back from Dubai and will discuss the search for a different US strategy for regional security in the Persian Gulf...a strategy that would cover not just Iranian nuclear proliferation but also the future of Iraq, concerns of Arab states, and other issues. The main goal or advantage of any successful new strategy would be its potential to dramatically lessen the "security burden" of the United States.

An update on changes in Israel and its relationship to the Palestinians comes our way via Donna Rosenthal, author of The Israeli’s. Donna’s articles have appeared in newspapers such as The New York Time and, The Washington Post and she was a news producer at Israel Television, areporter for Israel Radio and The Jerusalem Post, and a lecturer at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She's reported from Iran, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan and was the first journalist to travel to remote mountain villages of Ethiopia and introduce Israeli radio audiences to Jews praying -- in mud hut synagogues -- to go to the Promised Land. A winner of two Lowell Thomas awards (for Best Investigative Reporting and Best Adventure Travel Writing) and author of the award-winning Passport Israel, she's visited more than sixty countries.

September 3

As the constitutional process moves forward in Iraq, we visit the issue of Islamic law with Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl, who has been called the most important and influential Islamic thinker in the modern age. An accomplished Islamic jurist and scholar, he is Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law where he teaches Islamic law, Immigration, Human Rights, International and National Security Law. He is a strong proponent of human rights and serves on the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch. He was also appointed by President George W. Bush as a commissioner on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. El Fadl discusses his most recent book, The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists.

As the U.S. struggles to recover from Hurricane Katrina, Americans ask what our international friends have done to help. Dr. Michael Saba joins us to explain that at least one ally, Saudi Arabia, has provided quiet support. Saba is the executive director of Friends of Saudi Arabia, a non-profit entity dedicated to establishing goodwill and friendship between the people of Saudi Arabia and people of other countries and cultures.

August 27

John Crawford was newly married and two credits away from completing a B.A. in anthropology at Florida State University when he was sent to Iraq. He thought he was finished with his soldiering days after a stint with the Army's famed 101st Airborne Division, and his National Guard service was little more than an afterthought. Crawford and his National Guard unit crossed into Iraq on the first day of the invasion. Baghdad fell more quickly than anyone had planned, and while most of the soldiers involved with the invasion were sent home, Crawford's National Guard unit stayed to patrol the city for more than a year. Crawford discusses Iraq, and his book, THE LAST TRUE STORY I'LL EVER TELL: An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq.

Now that the Gaza withdrawal is complete, we return to the subject of peace between the Israeli's and the Palestinians. Neve Gordon teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University, Israel and is currently a visiting scholar at the Watson Institute for International Relations at Brown University. He is completing a book on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.

August 20

Must the United States remain dependant on foreign oil? Are we undermined any more by OPEC, or are we voluntary victims of our own desire to consume? We talk with Raymond J. Learsy about his new book, Over a Barrel: Breaking the Middle East Oil Cartel. As a commodities trader in the 1960's, Learsy worked to break the hold of the sulfur cartel, which dominated the market at the time, and emerged successful, learning a great deal about cartels, how they harm the economy, and most importantly, how to get around them. Learsy's richly-informed analysis of the international oil trade, OPEC, and its impact on the American and world economy has been featured in National Review Online and the New York Times. He is a member of the Wilson Council at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

We explore Iran’s potential for becoming a nuclear power and what this means with Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr., chairman of the Bipartisan Security Group at the Global Security Institute. A senior U.S. diplomat, he was involved in the negotiation of every major international arms control and nonproliferation agreement of the past 30 years. As President Clinton's Special Representative for Arms Control, Non-proliferation and Disarmament, he led the successful U.S. government effort to indefinitely extend the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty.

Its been a hectic week in the Gaza strip. We cover the Israeli withdrawal with Uri Dromi, the former spokesperson for Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. Dromi is also the Director of International Outreach of the Israel Democracy Institute, a non-partisan independent think-tank working to promote the democratic values in Israel and a Constitution for all Israelis. He discusses his role in speaking with the settlers about the Gaza evacuation plan and offers insight on how the effects of the disengagement and Benjamin Netanyahu’s resignation could have on Israeli politics.

August 13

How is the process of creating a constitution going in Iraq? We get an update from Dr. Isam al-Khafaji, a former member of the Iraqi reconstruction council, is a professor of politics at the University of Amsterdam and author of the book Tormented Births: Passages to Modernity in Europe and the Middle East. He was a member of the Democratic Principles Working Group convened by the U.S. state department to discuss the future of Iraqi governance.

Robert Rabil joins us to discuss the topics covered in his forthcoming book, Syria, the United States, and the War on Terror in the Middle East. He is director of graduate studies and an assistant professor of Middle East studies in Florida Atlantic University’s Department of Political Science. Dr. Rabil taught at Suffolk University in Boston and served as manager of the Iraq Research and Documentation Project in Washington. He also served as chief of emergency with the Red Cross in Lebanon’s Baabda district during that country’s civil war. Currently, he is an academic advisor for the World Lebanese Cultural Union and the American Lebanese Coalition, as well as a board member of the Iraq Institute for Strategic Studies.

Will U.S. troops in Iraq be drawn down or increased over the next year? The answer could be either based on comments this week from the White House. We discuss the matter with Norman Soloman, founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He is a nationally syndicated columnist on media and politics -- his weekly column "Media Beat" has been in national syndication since 1992. Solomon is a longtime associate of the media watch group FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting). He is also senior advisor to the National Radio Project, which produces the weekly public-affairs program “Making Contact.”

August 6, 2005

The death of King Fahd has lead to a changing of the guard in Saudi Arabia. We talk about the Saudi's, and Wahabbism, with Colonel W. Patrick Lang, a retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces (The Green Berets). He served in the Department of Defense and is a highly decorated veteran of several of America?s overseas conflicts including the war in Vietnam. He was trained and educated as a specialist in the Middle East by the U.S. Army and served in that region for many years. Colonel Lang is an analyst consultant for many television and radio broadcasts, among them the Jim Lehrer ?Newshour.?

News this week indicates that Iran is responsible for many of the bombs that are being used by the terrorists in Iraq. We discuss the challenges that Iran represents with Ilan Berman, Vice President for Policy of the Washington-based American Foreign Policy Council, and Adjunct Professor for International Law and Global Security at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. He also serves as a member of the reconstituted Committee on the Present Danger, and as Editor of the Journal of International Security Affairs. He has consulted for both the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Department of Defense, and provided assistance on foreign policy and national security issues to a range of governmental agencies and congressional offices. Berman's new book is Tehran Rising: Iran?s Challenge to the United States.

Saudi Arabia did its best to make sure that the death of King Fahd was followed by a swift appointment of new leadership that provided no surprises. We discuss the future relations between the Saudi's and the U.S. with Tom Lippman, an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington. In four years as the Washington Post's Middle East bureau chief, three years as the Post's oil and energy reporter and a decade as the newspaper's national security and diplomatic correspondent, he traveled extensively to Saudi Arabia. He is the author of Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia.

July 23

Much of the Middle East anger towards the U.S. is tied to our support for Israel. Given the importance that the region holds, we examine opposition to the upcoming Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip with Peretz Kidron, a freelance journalist and translator living in Jerusalem. He is an activist in the peace movement, and recently published Refusenik! – a book about soldiers and reservists who refuse to serve the occupation.

In the wake of renewed terror threats, we discuss security from the perspective of the Middle East with Dr. Nora Bensahel, a Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation, specializing in military strategy and doctrine. We’ll focus on countering the insurgency in Iraq, the regional implications of the conflict in Iraq, and stabilization efforts in Afghanistan. Nora has held fellowships at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, and the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. She previously worked as a research assistant for former Secretary of Defense William Perry. She has authored several studies on multinational military coalitions, NATO’s institutional development, and U.S. interventions in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo.

Are democracy and security incompatible? Dr. Curtis Ryan joins us from Appalachian State University in North Carolina where he teaches political science. He is the author of Jordan in Transition: From Hussein to Abdullah. A Fulbright Scholar to the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan in 1992-93, Dr. Ryan specializes in international relations and the politics of the Middle East. His articles on Middle East politics have appeared in the Southeastern Political Review, the Middle East Journal, Middle East Policy, Democratization, the Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties, and Middle East Report.

July 16

Recent elections in Iran have continued that country’s movement away from the U.S. We examine the military capabilities and goals of Iran with Thomas Mattair, who serves as a consultant to the US government and business firms on security and economic issues in the Gulf with the Middle East Policy Council. He researched and wrote Occupied UAE Islands: Abu Musa and the Tunbs (forthcoming 2005), a study that examines, among other topics, Iranian military capabilities and intentions in the Gulf. Dr. Mattair has published and lectured widely in the US and the Middle East.

Whatever happened to peace between Israel and the Palestinians? We discuss the movement in the region with William B. Quandt, the Edward R. Stettinius Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. He teaches courses on the Middle East and American Foreign Policy. Prior to this appointment, he was a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, where he conducted research on the Middle East, American policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict, and energy policy. Before going to Brookings in 1979, Dr. Quandt served as a staff member on the National Security Council (1972-1974, 1977-1979). He was actively involved in the negotiations that led to the Camp David Accords and the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty.

The recent bombings in London highlight the comprehension gulf for Americans trying to understand Islamic culture. A journalist, lecturer, author, and former Harvard and Woodrow Wilson Fellow, Mohamed Hakki is a highly respected authority on Middle East affairs. He has provided strategic counseling to numerous Fortune 500 companies, and a number of countries throughout the Arab world. Mr. Hakki is former chairman of Egypt’s State Information Service, and served as official spokesman during the administrations of Egyptian Presidents Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, and was President Mubarak’s Press Secretary from 1981-1982. Until 1981, he served seven years as Minister for Press and Information at the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and was a key press liaison for such major events as the Camp David accords, and the assassination of President Sadat.

July 9, 2005

In the wake of this week’s terror attacks in London, we revisit attempts to improve intelligence gathering and sharing in this country. David Rothkopf is the author of Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power. He is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Chairman and CEO of The Rothkopf Group LLC, and he served as Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce during the Clinton Administration. He has also served as Chairman and CEO of Intellibridge Corporation, a provider of international analysis to the national security community, and as Managing Director of Kissinger Associates. David is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the President's Advisory Council of the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Social and economic oppression are said to be the root cause of terrorism. We discuss the conditions of life in the arab world with Paul Sullivan, a professor of economics at the National Defense University since July 1999. For six years previous, he taught and researched at the American University in Cairo. He has traveled widely in the Middle East and North Africa. Dr. Sullivan has published articles on the political economy and economic diplomacy of Egypt, Jordan and Syria, the political economy of Iraq, the economic effects of the Gulf War of 1991, the economics of oil in the Middle East, the economics of the Palestinian territories, economic reforms in Egypt, and other issues. He had a column, "Cairo to Calcutta," in The Middle East Times.

How are events such as this week’s attack in London reported in the Arab media? We’ll explore the topic with Mohamed Elmenshawy, editor-in-chief of Taqrir Washington/The Washington Report. Before joining Taqrir Washington, Mr. Elmenshawy worked as the managing editor for an Arabic-language bimonthly publication Global Issues. He also served as a Washington correspondent for the daily pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Alawsat where he covered the White House, the State Department, and Congress and developed contacts within American think tanks and the US academic and activist communities.

July 2, 2005

President Bush addressed the nation this week in an effort to shore up support for the war in Iraq. We discuss the speech with James Paul, Executive Director of the Global Policy Forum in New York. Paul is founding chair of the NGO Working Group on the UN Security Council, and is author of well over 100 articles and reviews, including Iraq: The Struggle for Oil.

What is a neocon and why should we care? Margaret Warner joins us for a primer on U.S. foreign policy today. Warner is a senior correspondent on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and a co-anchor of America Abroad on Public Radio International. Warner came from an award-winning career in print journalism focusing on foreign affairs and domestic politics. She spent ten years at Newsweek - first as a political and campaign correspondent, then as White House reporter and finally as chief diplomatic correspondent during four tumultuous years that saw the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the first Gulf War..

Ahmed Dewidar, known for his moderation and accessible approach to Islam, is the Imam of the Islamic Society of Mid-Manhattan and a lecturer on Islamic Studies at Manhattanville College. Dewidar stood with President Bush and UN Secretary General Kofi Anan at Ground Zero to speak on behalf of the Muslim community to condemn the September 11 attacks. He is regarded by many as being the face of the next generation of Muslims in America. Dewidar talks about terrorism and the role of Muslim communities in foreign societies.

June 18, 2005

Why do “they” hate us? We explore this oft-spoken cliché with Samar Dahmash-Jarrah, author of Arab Voices Speak to American Hearts. She is a Kuwait-born Palestinian-American speaker, journalist, and educator who has lived in Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and America. Her professional accomplishments include being a contributor to CNN World Report; news editor and reporter for Jordan Television; editor and reporter for Jordan Weekly; and a Political Science instructor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. These experiences have allowed her to see the Middle East conflicts from many different viewpoints.

We explore the nature of the terror networks we seek to destroy with Marc Sageman, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania who, as an authority on terrorism, testified before the 9/11 Commission and consults to various government agencies. As a CIA case officer he spent a year on the Afghan Task Force, then went to Islamabad from 1987 to 1989, where he ran the U.S. unilateral programs with the Afghan Mujahedin. Since 1994, he has been in the private practice of forensic and clinical psychiatry. After 9/11, he started collecting biographical material on about 400 al Qaeda terrorists to test the validity of the conventional wisdom on terrorism. This research has been published as Understanding Terror Networks.

With the votes still being tallied, we discuss yesterday's Iranian election with Dilip Hiro, a leading expert on the Middle East who writes regularly for the New York Times, Observer, Guardian, Washington Post and The Nation, and is a frequent commentator on the BBC, Sky TV, and the major American networks. His 26 books include Iran Under the Ayatollahs, (1985/2000), In the Eye of the Storm (2003); and Secrets and Lies: Operation “Iraqi Freedom” and After.

June 4, 2005

The Art of War? We analyze the surge of violence in Iraq with Retired Major General Edward Atkeson, a former army intelligence officer and a senior fellow at the Institute of Land Warfare at the Association of the U.S. Army. Atkeson is the author of The Final Argument of Kings: Reflections on the Art of War, A Military Assessment of the Middle East, 1991-1996, and The Powder Keg: An Intelligence Officer's Guide to Military Forces in the Middle East.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was recently in Washington meeting with President Bush, very different treatment than what was afforded his predecessor. We discuss this development with Mouin Rabbani, Senior Analyst with the Middle East Program of the International Crisis Group based in Amman, Jordan. Since joining Crisis Group, he has conducted research on Palestinian approaches to reform, the roadmap initiative, Islamic social welfare activism, Hamas, the transformation of the Palestinian power structure since September 2000, and, most recently, the Palestinian debate on governance of the Gaza Strip.

60 years of U.S. / Saudi friendship have revolved around oil. We examine the history of the relationship with Rachel Bronson, senior fellow and director of Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Bronson’s expertise lies in U.S. national security and foreign policy toward the Middle East, Middle East politics and strategy, particularly in the Persian Gulf; and Iraq. She is author of the forthcoming Thicker than Oil: The United States and Saudi Arabia, a History. Dr. Bronson shares her insights on the 60th anniversary of FDR's and Ibn Saud's historic meeting.

May 28

America’s influence on Israel is enormous, but still ineffective in pushing events there toward peace. Yossi Shain is a professor of comparative government and Diaspora politics in the Department of Government at Georgetown University, and the former Head of the Department of Political Science at Tel Aviv University. Shain has written numerous articles in academic and popular journals. His latest book, Marketing the American Creed Abroad: Diasporas in the US and their Homelands received the Best Book of the Year Award from the Israeli Political Science Association. Dr. Shain discusses Sharon's visit to Washington.

What is the 'Clean Break' plan, and why is it important to Americans? We are joined by Grant Smith, an analyst and consultant on US policy formulation toward the Middle East. Smith discusses key findings from the recently published book "Neocon Middle East Policy: the 'Clean Break' Damage Assessment." Research and analysis by Grant Smith, Director of Research for the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy have appeared in the Financial Times of London, New York Times, Associated Press, Gannet, and other mainstream news outlets as well as hundreds of web and specialty publications. A career researcher, Smith has consulted for the World Bank, US investment banks, corporations, chambers of commerce, and numerous interest groups to provide analysis and forecast scenarios on the impact of US policies on bilateral trade and business development. The book "Neocon Middle East Policy" is now available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, as well as the IRmep.org website.

Reports this week indicate that al Qaeda’s lead terrorist in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been injured in fighting there. With this event as a backdrop, it’s a good time to ask how the insurgency is going. We turn to Rick Barton, senior adviser in the Center for Strategic and International Studies International Security Program where he codirects a project on post-conflict reconstruction. Most recently, he was Frederick H. Schultz Professor of Economic Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. Previously, as UN deputy high commissioner for refugees in Geneva (1999-2001), Mr. Barton worked to protect 22 million uprooted people in 130 countries. He was the first director of the Office of Transition Initiatives at the U.S. Agency for International Development in Washington, D.C. (1994-1999), where he helped to start political development programs in over 20 war-torn regions, from the Philippines to Rwanda, from Bosnia to Haiti.

May 21

Saudi Arabia recently held its first municipal elections. We discuss the significance of this event, and what it means to a family run country to start counting votes, with Hassan Al-Husseini, a Saudi businessman and former journalist. An oil industry expert, he worked for Saudi Aramco in Dharan for 25 years.

Iran is working toward becoming a nuclear power, and they have a presidential election approaching. We discuss these developments with Kenneth Pollack, director of research for the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He served as an Iran-Iraq military analyst at the CIA from 1988-95, and was also director for Near East and South Asian Affairs, and director for Persian Gulf Affairs at the National Security Council during the late 1990s. He wrote the influential book The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, and, more recently, The Persian Puzzle, a history of U.S.-Iranian relations and an analysis of contemporary policy options. Pollack covers Iran and their negotiations with the EU over their nuclear program, as well as Iran’s upcoming presidential election.

May 14

Dramatic fighting in Iraq leads us to revisit the war against the insurgents, and to analyze U.S. tactics with Edward Luttwak, a military strategist and consultant and Senior Fellow in Preventive Diplomacy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. An internationally recognized authority, Dr. Luttwak has served as a consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, and the U.S. Department of State. He is a member of the National Security Study Group of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Just back from a week in Saudi Arabia, we check in with Thomas W. Lippman for an update on affairs there. Lippman is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington. In four years as the Washington Post's Middle East bureau chief, three years as the Post's oil and energy reporter and a decade as the newspaper's national security and diplomatic correspondent, he traveled extensively to Saudi Arabia. He is the author of Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia.

We review issues effecting the Persian Gulf with expert Kenneth Katzman, who is a specialist in Middle East affairs for the Congressional Research Service. He provides analysis on Persian Gulf political, military and diplomatic affairs, and on U.S. policy in that region, to members of Congress and their staffs. Dr. Katzman has served in government and the private sector as an analyst in Persian Gulf affairs.

May 7

Darfur is hardly a name on the tongue of the average American, but the crisis in Darfur is something we should know more about. Ali B. Ali-Dinar is president elect of the Sudan Studies Association and outreach director of the African Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania. He founded and maintains the Darfur Information Center, an Internet portal dedicated to explaining the history behind events there. Ali-Dinar discusses the impact of the latest UN resolutions on Darfur.

Lebanon has been big news in the past couple of months as street protests have lead to the departure of Syrian troops. Annia Ciezadlo is a Beirut-based journalist who writes for The Christian Science Monitor and The New Republic. Ciezadlo describes the political, class and religious factors behind the current Lebanese upheavals.

Egypt has been enjoying an undemocratic democracy for decades. With an aging leader, is it possible that now is the time for change? Mona El-Ghobashy teaches political science at Columbia University. El-Ghobashy comments on the Egyptian parliament’s upcoming decision on a constitutional amendment for multi-party presidential elections.

April 30

The last couple of days have brought vigorous attacks from the Iraq terrorists at the same time that progress has finally been made in forming a new government. We’ll talk about both trends with Laurie Mylroie from the American Enterprise Institute, author of Bush vs. the Beltway: the Inside Story over War in Iraq. Dr. Mylroie was an Assistant Professor in Harvard's Political Science Department, before becoming an Associate Professor in the Strategy Department at the U.S. Naval War College. Subsequently, she was a member of the staff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. She also served as advisor on Iraq to the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign and has worked as a consultant on terrorism to the Departments of Defense and Energy; ABC News, the BBC, and Newsweek; as well as several law offices.

Just so you don’t think the only vital issues in the Middle East these days have to do with terror and the role of women, we’ll discuss trade unions in Pakistan today with Kamran Asdar Ali, who teaches anthropology and Middle East studies at the University of Texas, Austin. Ali earned his Ph.D in anthropology at Johns Hopkins University and is the author of Planning the Family in Egypt: New Bodies, New Selves, (University of Texas Press, 2002). He works on issues of health and gender in the Middle East within a political, economic and historical framework. In recent years he has started research projects in Pakistan that deal with labor issues, popular culture and new social movements, with an emerging interest in Muslim movements such as the Tablighi Jamaat. Ali’s new book will address trade unions and communist politics in Pakistan, as well as Pakistan's contemporary politics and the role of the military within it.

April 23

Everything You Could Ever Want to Know About Saudi Arabia… But Didn’t Know Who to Ask. We are joined by Saudi expert David E. Long, a consultant on Middle East and Gulf affairs and international terrorism. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1962 and served in Washington and abroad until 1993, with assignments in the Sudan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. His Washington assignments included Deputy Director of the State Department's Office of Counter Terrorism for Regional Policy, a member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff, and Chief of the Near East Research Division in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research Bureau. A career foreign service officer before retiring to become a consultant on Middle East affairs, he is author of numerous books on the Middle East and his Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is among the definitive texts on the subject. Dr. Long has recently finished Culture and Customs of Saudi Arabia which will be available in June 2005.

Can the U.S. and other western nations be effective in dealing with the Middle East? Tanya C. Hsu is a senior analyst of Middle East political economy at the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy. Ms. Hsu analyzes the role of Western States in mediating between the Arab world, the United States and Europe. For almost two decades she has created and facilitated strong connections between Middle Eastern leaders, diplomats and businessmen and women. As a senior research analyst and consultant, she continues an active role to promote progress, both economic and political, between the region and the United States. She appears on Palestinian, Jordanian and British television and radio as well as within the United States. Hsu discusses her recently released book, Target: Saudi Arabia.

Morocco is doing what many say Arab countries can’t do. Developing a democratic society that is able to balance religion with modernity. Abdeslam Maghraoui, Associate Director of Research and Studies for the Muslim World Initiative at the United States Institute of Pearce, discusses the lessons of Morocco. His research focuses on political power, authority, and legitimacy in contemporary Muslim societies. Prior to joining the Institute, Maghraoui was visiting lecturer and resident scholar at Princeton University's Department of Politics and the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. Previously, he was director of Al-Madina, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting accountable governance in the Arab world.

April 16

Globablization is a movement that much of the world is embracing. Is that a good thing? We talk with Antonia Juhasz, Project Director at the International Forum on Globalization (www.ifg.org) and a Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org) scholar. She is a Project Censored Award recipient and co-author of Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World is Possible, 2nd Ed. Her articles have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Cambridge University Review of International Relations Journal, and the Johannesburg Star. Juhasz comments on the Bush administration's global economic agenda, focusing on the invasion of Iraq.

What is life like for women in Saudi Arabia? What is the workplace like for professional Saudi women? We tackle these and other issues with Samar Hussein Fatany, a radio journalist from Saudi Arabia. Samar is a senior announcer at Radio Jeddah, where she has worked since 1976. She attended the school of communications at Cairo University in Egypt.

What role should the U.S. play in the United Nations? Victor Le Vine, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis, discusses the status of the U.N./U.S. relationship. Professor Le Vine has served as a consultant to the U.S. Peace Corps, State Department and Department of Defense, and he spent the last two years examining the modern constitution-making process as part of an ongoing United Nations and U.S. Institute of Peace conference on "Post-Conflict Constitutional Reconstruction."

Is Middle East peace on the horizon, or will recent changes in the Israeli/Palestinian situation fall short of bringing the new order that some expect. Ilana Feldman is assistant professor and Director of Graduate Studies at New York University's Program in Near Eastern Studies. Her research focus in Middle East anthropology and history includes government and bureaucracy, colonialism, humanitarianism, and the Egyptian administration of Gaza from 1948-1967. She is author of the forthcoming book, Governing Gaza: Bureaucratic Service and the Work of Rule (1917-1967). Dr. Feldman puts the current optimism around Palestine in some perspective.

April 9

Jeff Halper - an Israeli anthropologist and the coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and a Professor of Anthropology at Ben Gurion University. Halper discusses the role of the non-violent, direct-action group originally established to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian houses in the Occupied Territories.

Is the Middle East really heading toward democracy? We talk with Steven Heydemann, Director of the Center for Democracy and the Third Sector at Georgetown University. Heydemann is a political scientist whose research focuses on democratization and economic reform in the Middle East, and on the relationship between institutions and economic development more broadly. He is also the author of articles and book chapters on processes of democratic reform in the Middle East. Heydemann recently completed a multi-year collaborative research project on informal networks and the politics of economic reform in the Middle East, supported by the Mediterranean Program of the European University Institute. The edited volume resulting from this project, Networks of Privilege: The Politics of Economic Reform in the Middle East, was published in early 2004. Heydemann questions whether or not the Middle East is really heading in a more democratic direction.

Michael C. Hudson - Director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and Professor of International Relations and Seif Ghobash Professor of Arab Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. His research interests include political liberalization, politics in divided societies, Lebanese politics, U.S. Middle East policy, Gulf security, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the information revolution in the Arab world.

April 2

Henry Siegman - Senior Fellow and Director of the US/Middle East Project at the Council on Foreign Relations. Siegman is the foremost expert on the Middle East peace process and inter-religious relations, Arab-Israeli relations, and US Middle East policy. He directed the ground-breaking Council independent task force, "Strengthening Palestinian Public Institutions." Siegman discusses what the role of the United States should be in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

A noted journalist and author, Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is Middle East Director of the World Policy Institute at the New School for Social Research, and a professor of International Relations and Middle Eastern studies at New York University and at the New School. Ben-Meir has served as an advisor to both the Israeli and Syrian governments. Ben-Meir discusses the reasons why forming a government in Iraq has been so challenging.

March 26

Saudi businesswoman Nadia Bakhurji has announced she will run for a municipal council seat for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia this spring. Bakhurji is the first woman in Saudi history to run for public office. As part of political reforms it is proposing, the Saudi government announced municipal elections would be held for the first time in 40 years. Bakhurji discusses her recommendations for future social and political decision making.

Quil Lawrence reports for the PRI/BBC radio news program "The World," dividing his time between Washington, Afghanistan and Iraq. He joined the British Broadcasting Service (BBC) World Service staff in 2000 as a Latin America correspondent, following free lance reporting in Cuba, Morocco and Sudan. Prior to 2000, he was based in Colombia where he reported as a freelance journalist from 1996 to 1999 for National Public Radio, the BBC, The Los Angeles Times and the Christian Science Monitor, among others. Lawrence reports on the political tensions sparked by the clash between Kurdish aspirations for autonomy in northern Iraq and Turkish fears of Kurdish separatism in southern Turkey.

Mary Ann Tétreault - Una Chapman Cox Distinguished Professor of International Affairs at Trinity University in San Antonio and the author of Stories of Democracy: Politics and Society in Contemporary Kuwait. Tétreault recently traveled to Kuwait and comments on terrorist violence there.

March 19, 2005

Politcal Economist Paul London makes an argument that the United States is "fighting the wrong wars" on the economy with its fixation on Social Security, Medicaid and taxes. London, author of The Competition Solution: The Bipartisan Secret Behind American Prosperity, served as deputy under secretary of commerce for economics and statistics in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 1997. From 1997 until March of 2000, he served as a senior policy adviser for the Commerce Department and represented the department on the White House Task Force on Medical Errors, the HHS Task Force on Health Care Privacy, and interagency groups focused on health care costs.

The first poet from Saudi Arabia to tour the U.S., Nimah Ismail Nawwab descended from a long line of Makkan scholars. An English writer and poet as well as photographer, her essays and articles on Saudi society, customs, Islam, art, crafts, cuisine and calligraphy have been published in Saudi Arabia and abroad. Nimah shares her unique perspective on Saudi society, especially with regard to its treatment of women.

Asra Nomani is an American muslim who is an activist for the rights of women. She is the author of the critically-acclaimed Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam. A former Wall Street Journal correspondent, Nomani has also written for the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Time magazine on Islam. She covered the war in Afghanistan for Salon, and her work has appeared in such magazines as Cosmo, Sports Illustrated for Women, and People. Nomani discusses her work as a writer-activist dedicated to reclaiming women’s rights and principles of tolerance in the Muslim world.

Democracy seems to be breaking out in the Middle East. We discuss the apparent trend with Doug Savage, Assistant Director of the University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Global Studies. Savage received his Master's degree in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago, specializing in US-Arab commercial relations. He speaks Arabic and has worked and traveled extensively throughout the Middle East. Savage looks at the perceived stirrings of grassroots democracy in the Middle East, and discusses to what extent has American policy fostered this process, and what the challenges are for the Bush administration in encouraging it.

March 12, 2005
This show is a replay of the February 12 program.

Marc Cooper - Why is al Qaeda so fixated on Las Vegas? We discuss the nature of Sin City with the Marc Cooper, author of The Last Honest Town in America and contributing editor to The Nation. Is the city?s image of moral corruption one America can afford in the era of terrorism? Cooper is host and executive producer of the weekly syndicated Radio Nation; he writes a regular politics column for L.A. Weekly where he?s a senior editor; and he frequently contributes commentaries to the Sunday Opinion section of the Los Angeles Times. Cooper teaches journalism at the USC Annenberg School of Communication and also serves as Senior Fellow for Border Justice at Annenberg?s Institute for Justice and Journalism.

Jim Wall - Events seem to be moving Israel towards peace with the Palestinians. How real is this perception? Jim Wall, Senior Contributing Editor of The Christian Century magazine, has some well-informed ideas. Wall was the magazine?s editor from 1972 through 1999, during which time he made frequent trips to Israel-Palestine as a journalist. Wall, an ordained United Methodist clergyman, has returned to the area several times since 1999.

Akbar Ahmed - What should Americans know about the nature of Islam? We talk with Dr. Ahmed, the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain and current Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies and Professor of International Relations at American University. Dr. Ahmed has advised Prince Charles and met with President George W. Bush on Islam. Dr. Ahmed is a distinguished anthropologist, writer, and filmmaker. His work to bring understanding between Islam and the West has included three appearances on Oprah. Dr. Ahmed?s most recent book is Islam Under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor World.

Joost Hiltermann - Middle East Project Director with International Crisis Group. Hiltermann manages a team of analysts based in Amman and Beirut conducting research in the countries of the Middle East and writing policy-focused reports on the factors that increase the risk of and drive armed conflict. The crisis in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are Crisis Group?s two priorities in the region, but research is conducted as well in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

March 5, 2005

Are vaccines safe for your kids? We talk with David Kirby, author of Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy. He has been a professional journalist for over 15 years, and has written extensively for The New York Times for the past seven years. Kirby has worked in politics, medical research and public relations. He worked as a special assistant for healthcare, cultural affairs and civil rights for New York City Council President Carol Bellamy; as a senior staff adviser to Dinkins’ successful 1989 run for Mayor of New York City; and Director of Public Information at the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR). Kirby examines the brewing controversy over mercury exposure in vaccines.

Rowan Scarborough - a Pentagon reporter for the Washington Times. He writes a weekly column about national security issues called “Inside the Ring’ with fellow reporter Bill Gertz, and is author of Rumsfeld’s War: The Untold Story of America’s Anti-Terrorist Commander. Scarborough discusses developments in Iran and Iraq.

How has September 11th effected the arab world? We find out from Louise Cainkar, a sociologist and senior research fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the current recipient of a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation to study the impact of the September 11th attacks on the Arab/Muslim community in Chicago and on transnational migration and communication. She is widely published and regarded as a national expert on Arab immigrants, Arab Americans, and immigrant Muslim communities.

Popular demand for independence from Syria has changed the political landscape in Lebanon since the assassination of its former Prime Minister last month. As Syria offers a partial withdrawal, we turn again to Farid Ghadry, President of the Reform Party of Syria, for analysis of these dramatic developments. Working from the outside, Mr. Ghadry and the co-founders of RPS are hoping to pressure Syria to change into a society based on freedom and democracy.

February 26

Everyone knows who David Oreck is. But we don’t know much about him. American Icon David Oreck founded the Oreck Corporation, which began as a company manufacturing upright vacuum cleaners for the hotel industry in the U.S., and oversees its daily operations in New Orleans, the gulf coast and London. Oreck collects and flies vintage airplanes and rides a Harley! Oreck discusses the success of his vacuum empire, and why at 81, there’s no slowing down for him.

BTK, the 1970’s serial killer from Kansas who eluded authorities and haunted citizens of Kansas, was presumed by many to be dead until his curious reemergence about a year ago. Today, Kansas authorities announced his capture. We talk with Steve McIntosh, News Director at News/Talk 1330 KNSS in Wichita, who has been working in local radio there since 1970, and has spent a great deal of time covering the BTK murder investigation.

Ervand Abrahamian - as an Armenian born in Iran and raised in England, Ervand Abrahamian is well qualified by education and experience to teach world and Middle East history. He teaches at the CUNY Graduate Center, and has taught at Princeton, New York University, and Oxford University. He recently published Inventing the Axis of Evil, and is currently working on two books: one on The CIA Coup in Iran; and another, A History of Modern Iran, for Cambridge University Press. Abrahamian examines the tense relations between the US and Iran--especially the question of whether the US is planning a military attack on Iran.

Rajan Menon - Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University, Menon was an Academic Fellow and Senior Advisor at the Carnegie Corporation of New York for two years, where he played a key role in developing the Corporation’s “Russia Initiative.” Dr. Menon also served as Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and as Director for Eurasia Policy Studies at the Seattle-based National Bureau for Asian Research (NBR). He covers this week’s Bush-Putin summit.

February 19
Joke Waller-Hunter - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Joke Waller-Hunter as Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC in 2002. Ms Waller-Hunter was formerly Director of the Environment Directorate of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development from February 1998-April 2002. From 1994-1998, she was Director of the Division for Sustainable Development, which supports the UN Conference on Sustainable Development. Waller-Hunter will comment on the status of the Kyoto Protocol.

Sami Zubaida - Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck College, University of London, and Research Associate of the Centre for Near and Middle East Studies at School of Oriental and African Studies. He has held visiting research and teaching posts in Cairo, Aix-en-Provence and Istanbul, and at Berkeley, California. His research interests are in religion, ethnicity and nationalism in Middle East culture and politics, and food and culture. Zubaida will elucidate the “who is who” of religious and ethnic groups in the Middle East.

Jeffrey A. VanDenBerg - Associate Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Department of History and Political Science at Drury University. He has published articles and reviews in Security Studies and Arab Studies Quarterly and is currently co-editing a volume on new leadership in the Arab world. VanDenBerg will discuss the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and the resulting anti-Syrian fury.

Louis Cantori - Professor of Political Science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Dr. Cantori is a former distinguished professor at US Military Academy, West Point; US Air force Academy, US Marine Corps University, and a former Marine. He is a founder of The Circle of Tradition and Progress (London and Washington), a group of prominent Western and Muslim intellectuals who share a critical view of modernity; a founding member of the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies; the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy; and the Conference Group on the Middle East. Cantori analyzes the aftermath of Iraq’s election.

February 12

Marc Cooper – Why is al Qaeda so fixated on Las Vegas? We discuss the nature of Sin City with the Marc Cooper, author of The Last Honest Town in America and contributing editor to The Nation. Is the city’s image of moral corruption one America can afford in the era of terrorism? Cooper is host and executive producer of the weekly syndicated Radio Nation; he writes a regular politics column for L.A. Weekly where he’s a senior editor; and he frequently contributes commentaries to the Sunday Opinion section of the Los Angeles Times. Cooper teaches journalism at the USC Annenberg School of Communication and also serves as Senior Fellow for Border Justice at Annenberg’s Institute for Justice and Journalism.

Jim Wall – Events seem to be moving Israel towards peace with the Palestinians. How real is this perception? Jim Wall, Senior Contributing Editor of The Christian Century magazine, has some well-informed ideas. Wall was the magazine’s editor from 1972 through 1999, during which time he made frequent trips to Israel-Palestine as a journalist. Wall, an ordained United Methodist clergyman, has returned to the area several times since 1999.

Akbar Ahmed - What should Americans know about the nature of Islam? We talk with Dr. Ahmed, the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain and current Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies and Professor of International Relations at American University. Dr. Ahmed has advised Prince Charles and met with President George W. Bush on Islam. Dr. Ahmed is a distinguished anthropologist, writer, and filmmaker. His work to bring understanding between Islam and the West has included three appearances on Oprah. Dr. Ahmed’s most recent book is Islam Under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor World.

Joost Hiltermann - Middle East Project Director with International Crisis Group. Hiltermann manages a team of analysts based in Amman and Beirut conducting research in the countries of the Middle East and writing policy-focused reports on the factors that increase the risk of and drive armed conflict. The crisis in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are Crisis Group’s two priorities in the region, but research is conducted as well in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

February 5

John Nichols – What is the state of President Bush’s second term? As Washington correspondent for The Nation, John Nichols has covered progressive politics and activism in the United States and abroad for more than a decade. Formerly a writer and editor for The Toledo Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspapers, he is now editorial page editor for The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. He has covered electoral politics for The Progressive for a number of years. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers. Nichols comments on Bush’s State of the Union Address.

Terry Boullata - Terry is headmistress of a private Palestinian school in Abu Dis, near Jerusalem. She is also an activist working a gainst Israel's "security wall" that cuts through Abu Dis. She participated in the 2003 Geneva Initiative for peace and promoted Arun Gandhi's visit to the West Bank to discuss non-violent struggle. Boullata discusses the Wall.

Conn Hallinan - foreign policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus, and a lecturer in journalism at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Hallinan comments on the Kurds and their future in Iraq and Turkey.

Michael Rubin – The elections have happened in Iraq, but the conversation about their repercutions is just beginning. A resident scholar with the American Enterprise Institute and editor of the Middle East Quarterly, Rubin studies domestic politics in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey; Kurdish society; and Arab democracy. He was formerly a political adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Rubin discusses the impact of the Iraqi elections.

January 29

Craig Shirley – A look back at the Reagan era with Craig Shirley, author of Reagan’s Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign that Started It All, and President of Shirley and Banister Public Affairs, an influential Washington government affairs firm. He is a commentator on national politics, government, cultural trends, and conservatism. Shirley discusses the independent campaigns he ran in support of Reagan, both in 1980 and 1984 and the primary players in Reagan's circles and the national media.

Kevin Rosser – Violence is expected to disrupt elections tomorrow in Iraq, but Iraq is not the only mid-east country struggling against al Qaeda. We discuss the Saudi search for security with Kevin Rosser, lead energy consultant for Control Risks Group, a London-based business and security risk consulting firm. Rosser is responsible for delivering integrated risk management solutions across all service lines to the firm’s oil, gas and power clients worldwide. From 2002 to 2004, Rosser was the senior analyst at Control Risks responsible for coverage of global terrorism trends and their impact on client business operations.

Patrick Basham – We take a look at the Iraqi elections with Patrick Basham, a senior fellow with the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute. Prior to joining Cato, Basham served as the founding director of the Social Affairs Center at the Fraser Institute, Canada's leading free market think tank. Basham has authored and edited books, studies, papers, and articles on a variety of policy issues, and has appeared on Fox News, CNN International, PBS, CBC, CTV, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe. Basham comments on Sunday’s elections in Iraq and US exit strategy.

Farid Ghadry - President of the Reform Party of Syria. Mr. Ghadry and the co-founders of RPS are hoping to return to Syria one day to rebuild the country on the principles of economic and political reforms that will usher democracy, prosperity, freedom of expression, and human rights. They seek lasting peace with open borders with all of Syria’s neighbors, including Israel.

January 22

Andrew Napolitano - A former judge and author of Constitutional Chaos, "Judge" Napolitano is a television legal analyst. In addition to his daily broadcasts on FOX News Channel, the Judge is a sought-after speaker, appears regularly on talk radio programs, and his commentaries have been published in the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, and other national publications. Napolitano discusses his book and the ways it takes readers through an outrageous slew of government abuses.

Graham Usher - a British journalist who writes for the Economist and Middle East International. He is author of Dispatches from Palestine: The Rise and Fall of the Oslo Peace Process (Pluto Press, 1999). Usher covers the Palestinian presidential election.

Jeffrey Addicott - Assistant Professor of Law and the Director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio Texas. He is an internationally recognized expert in national security law and human rights law, and a frequent contributor to news shows including MSNBC, FOX, and the BBC. He is the senior Government consultant for the military commissions trials in Cuba. His latest book (2003) is entitled: Winning the War on Terror: Legal and Policy Lessons from the Past. Addicott discusses the elections in Iraq and the Abu Ghraib trials.

Grant F. Smith - Director of Research at the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) in Washington, DC. Before joining the Institute, Smith served for 3 years as senior analyst and later program manager of international research at The Yankee Group Research, Inc., a Boston based research and consulting firm owned by the Reuters PLC group. Grant focuses on IRmep’s recent research on US-Arab trade relations.

January 15

Angelo Paparelli - founding partner of Paparelli and Partners LLP, law firm, which works exclusively in the field of U.S. immigration and nationality law. Paparelli has more than 25 years of experience in immigration law, and is widely considered one of the nation’s foremost experts in the field. Paparelli discusses the Intelligence Reform Bill and its effect on US immigration policy.

Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr – an expert on Iranian-Lebanese Shiite relations and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. Eisenlohr examines Iran-Hizbullah relations, Hizbullah-run schools, Shiite ties between Iran-Iraq-Lebanon, and the Islamic Republic’s backing of Hizballah in Lebanon.

Clayton E. Swisher - author of The Truth About Camp David, a book that demolishes the “blame it all on Arafat” theory. A former Marine reservist and federal criminal investigator, Swisher is currently studying Law & Economics part-time at George Mason University. Swisher, also an associate for a Middle East consulting firm in Washington, D.C., talks about the peace process in the Middle East and the recent election of Abu Mazen to the presidency of the Palestinian Authority.

January 8

Barry Schwartz - Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College and author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less. Schwartz argues that we would be better off placing voluntary constraints on our freedom of choice. We need to learn to accept things that are “good enough” and to lower our expectations about the results of our decisions.

Harlan Ullman - a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies Program International Security Program, national security analyst for the Washington Times and a frequent commentator in U.S. and international media. Ullman discusses his insightful follow-up to the 9/11 Commission, Finishing Business: 10 Steps to Defeating Global Terror.

Sandra Sufian - Assistant Professor of Medical Humanities and History at the University of Illinois-Chicago College of Medicine and the founder of the Global Network of Researchers on HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa. She is presently completing her first book, Healing the Land and the Nation: Malaria and the Zionist Project in Mandatory Palestine, 1920-1947. Sufian discusses the politics and social issues surrounding HIV/AIDS in the Middle East.

Alan Keiswetter - former deputy secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in the Clinton and Bush administrations and a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington. Keiswetter looks at what’s ahead in the Middle East for 2005 – scheduled Iraqi elections, Arab-Israeli issues in light of January 9 elections, and the Saudi attacks.

January 1, 2005

Benjamin Strong - known as "The Ultimate Diagnostician" by his colleagues at Inland Imaging in Spokane, Strong is one of the country's few physicians with degrees in multiple areas of specialization. He is also the host of a one-hour medical listener call-in show on KSBN in Spokane, WA. Strong discusses his recent Op-Ed piece, Formula Approach to Medicine Leads to Misdiagnoses, as in the case of actor John Ritter’s death.

Scott Harrison - founder of CURE International, a medical humanitarian group that is building teaching hospitals for disabled children in Third World countries. Dr. Harrison talks about the reasons for CURE remaining and expanding in Afghanistan, while such others as Doctors Without Borders and The Red Cross are evacuating.

Christoph Wilcke - an independent consultant on Middle East affairs who has worked with international humanitarian organizations and think tanks. He has repeatedly visited Iraq before and after the recent war and spent nearly two months throughout the country researching local politics in 2004.

Deborah Gerner - professor of political science at the University of Kansas (Lawrence), focusing on Middle East politics (particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict and Palestinian nationalism), U.S. foreign policy, international mediation and conflict resolution, and human rights; she also serves as co-Director of the Center for International Political Analysis. Gerner is co-editor of Understanding the Contemporary Middle East (2000, 2004), and most recently co-author of When the Rain Returns: Toward Justice and Reconciliation in Palestine and Israel (2004). Gerner discusses Palestinian elections and how that is playing out vis a vis the occupation.

December 25

A replay of the November 20 show.

December 18

Rory Kennedy - Award-winning producer, director, and writer, Rory is co-founder of Moxie Firecracker Films. Kennedy has produced and/or directed award-winning documentaries for HBO, Lifetime Television, A&E, Court TV, The Oxygen Network and The Learning Channel, covering a variety of topics including the global AIDS crisis, human rights, domestic abuse, poverty, and drug addiction. Kennedy discusses her latest film Indian Point, an exploration of the risks associated with operating a nuclear power plant post-9/11 in the most densely populated region in the country — a region that has already suffered greatly from the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Bill Kurtis – anchor of the wildly popular true-crime TV series Cold Case Files and American Justice. Kurtis passed the Kansas Bar in 1966, but instead of practicing law he embarked on a thirty-year career as a correspondent and anchorman with CBS Television. In 1985, he formed his own production company, Kurtis Productions, which produces A&E's award-winning Investigative Reports and television's original forensic series, Cold Case Files. Kurtis re-examines his lifelong support of the death penalty.

Judith Kipper - director of the Middle East Forum at the Council on Foreign Relations. She also serves as a consultant to ABC News and, in the early 1990's, she negotiated interviews for Peter Jennings with Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Russia's President Mikhail Gorbachev. Kipper briefs us on US policy priorities in the Middle East and building US credibility and confidence.

Amy Hawthorne - an associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Amy is a Middle East specialist with expertise in domestic Arab politics, human rights, and the possibility of democratic change in the Arab world. She is the editor of Carnegie's Arab Reform Bulletin, a new electronic publication featuring news and analysis about Middle East political reform. Hawthorne covers the elections in Iraq and democracy in the region.

December 11

David Blum - he writes regularly for New York Magazine, Esquire, and the New York Times Magazine, and is the author of Flash in the Pan: The Life and Death of an American Restaurant. He is the television critic for the New York Sun and teaches at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Blum talks about his latest book, Tick…Tick…Tick… The Long Life and Turbulent Times of 60 Minutes.

Alistair Millar - vice president and director of the Washington, D.C. office of the Fourth Freedom Forum. He has written numerous articles and reports on sanctions and incentives, European, Russian and Middle East security and nuclear nonproliferation. Millar is also a part-time Professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University in Washington, DC and he is a Ph.D. researcher at the University of Bradford in the UK. Before joining the Forum in 1998, Millar was a senior analyst at the British American Security Information Council. Millar discusses the Oil-for-Food scandal.

Jean-Francois Seznec - teaches the political economy of the Persian Gulf at Georgetown and Columbia Universities. He lived and worked in the Gulf for more than a decade and visited Saudi Arabia earlier this year. Seznec has shared his insights on Gulf affairs in numerous articles and television and radio appearances, including CNN, C-Span, PBS, and previously on this program. Dr. Seznec provides context to this week’s attack on the US Consulate in Jeddah.

Sheila Carapico – a political science professor at the University of Richmond. A specialist on the Middle East, particularly Yemen, she is author of Civil Society in Yemen: The Political Economy of Activism in Modern Arabia. She has written numerous articles and book chapters on the Middle East, Arab women, and politics and economics in Yemen. As a consultant, she has worked with Human Rights Watch, United Nations Development Program and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, among others. Dr. Carapico discusses the “Forum for the Future” summit in Morocco December 11.

December 4

Antonia Felix - Condoleezza Rice biographer Antonia Felix talks about Condi’s nomination to succeed Colin Powell as Secretary of State. Felix is the author of thirteen non-fiction books including the biographies Laura: America's First Lady, First Mother; Andrea Bocelli: A Celebration; and biographies on Harry Connick, Jr. and Christie Todd Whitman.

Stephen E. Flynn - the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Flynn is a retired U.S. Coast Guard commander and foremost expert on homeland security and border control. He’s also director of the Council’s Hart-Rudman independent task force on homeland security. Flynn discusses Tom Ridge’s resignation.

Christian Parenti - a correspondent for The Nation and also a visiting fellow at the CUNY Graduate School’s Center for Place, Culture, and Politics. He recently authored The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucination in Occupied Iraq. Parenti just came back from Afghanistan where he spent a month chronicling what is really taking place on the ground.

Ilan Berman - vice president for policy at the American Foreign Policy Council, where he directs research and analysis on the Middle East and Central Asia. Berman’s areas of expertise include U.S. Middle East policy, Caspian energy issues, missile defense, terrorism and proliferation. He is the editor of the American Foreign Policy Council's Missile Defense Briefing Report and Eurasia Security Watch. He is currently working on a book about Iran.

November 27

Steve Carney - a workplace and management expert who has published several articles on workplace and leadership issues. Carney discusses the Labor Department’s cracking down on the illegal practice of employers demanding off-clock work.

Steven Vincent - freelance investigative journalist and art critic. His book, In The Red Zone: A Journey into the Soul of Iraq, is an account of Vincent’s daring solo expeditions through post-Saddam Iraq and unforgettable portrayal of the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Vincent’s report is essential for understanding America's enemies and allies in the critical but confusing struggle against radical Islam.

George Azar – a photographer who has covered the Middle East and Arab/Islamic culture for the past 23 years, including the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Iran-Iraq war, the intifada and the Gulf war. He is the subject and co-producer of the CBS Emmy Award winning television feature "Beirut Photographer,” the photographer/author of the critically acclaimed book "Palestine, A Photographic Journey” and the upcoming “Palestine, A Guide.” Azar gives a first-hand account of the Palestinian reaction to Arafat’s death.

Avi Jorisch - a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and author of Beacon of Hatred, Inside Hizballah’s Al-Manar Television. Jorish was a Soref fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy from 2001 to 2003, specializing in Arab and Islamic politics. More recently, he served as an Arab media and terrorism consultant for the Department of Defense. Jorisch discusses al-Manar and what needs to be done to stop it from spreading hatred across the globe.

November 20
Todd is in San Francisco for a conference on the Middle East. Some of the show was live today, broadcast from the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the financial district of San Francisco, but the interviews were replayed from the October 23rd show.
Thanks for tuning in!

November 13

Jeffrey Berry – We’ve just been through another election in which the chance existed for the President chosen by the electoral college to have lost the popular vote. Jeff Berry, professor of political science at Tufts University, discusses why he thinks the EC is an “anachronism” that has to go. (Jeff was a professor of Todd's at Tufts, but we're not sure if Jeff will remember.)

Jonathon Strum – What difference does Arafat’s death make in the search for peace in the Middle East? Jonathan Strum, professor of Israeli Law and Politics at Georgetown University, explains how Arafat’s death will affect the Middle East conflict and how this news makes a big impact here in the U.S. He also discusses Arafat's likely successors and which of these candidates best suits U.S. negotiations for peace.

Imad Khadduri – author of “Iraq’s Nuclear Mirage,” Khadduri worked with the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission from 1968 until 1998. He was able to leave Iraq in late 1998 with his family, and now teaches and works as a network administrator in Toronto.

Clayton E. Swisher - author of The Truth About Camp David, a book that puts a new perspective on the lost opportunity for peace in the Middle East as it attacks the “blame it all on Arafat” theory. A former Marine reservist and federal criminal investigator, Swisher is currently studying Law & Economics part-time at George Mason University. Swisher also works as an associate for a Middle East consulting firm in Washington, D.C.

November 6

Mike McKenna - political pollster and president of MWR Strategies. McKenna has consulted a wide variety of political and corporate clients with respect to opinion research, marketing, message development and communications strategies. In the past two years, he has conducted more than one hundred focus groups across the country on a host of issues. He currently writes a semi-monthly column for The Washington Times. McKenna discusses the election.

Ellis Henican - staff columnist at Newsday and a liberal political contributor on Fox News Channel. Henican is also a daily commentator on the Bloomberg Radio Network. Henican tells us what Democrats are supposed to do now.

Charles D. Smith - professor of Middle East history in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Arizona, and author of Palestine And The Arab-Israeli Conflict, now in its 5th edition (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004). Smith discusses the future without Arafat.

Ammar Abdulhamid - visiting Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He is a novelist, social analyst, and co-director of DarEmar, a publishing house and nongovernmental organization based in Damascus, Syria. He directs DarEmar's Tharwa Project, a regional program addressing the needs of religious and ethnic minorities, and is a founding member of the Euro-Arab Platform for Justice and Democracy. His current research focuses on the challenges facing the new generation of Arab intellectuals.

October 30

Frank Sesno - host of the "Cost of War: Sesno Reports" currently airing nationwide on public television, and former CNN Washington Bureau Chief. Sesno returns and discusses the presidential race, how the new bin Laden videotape may influence the vote, and the candidates’ divergent views on how to handle the war in Iraq and on terror.

Greg Palast - an investigative journalist starring in Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, the controversial BBC documentary. Palast's writings have appeared in The Washington Post, Harper's, and The Nation. He's been a guest on Politically Incorrect, C-SPAN's Washington Journal, and does regular investigative reports for BBC's Newsnight. He discusses the updated documentary.

James A. Paul - Executive Director of the Global Policy Forum in New York. He is founding chair of the NGO Working Group on the UN Security Council. He is author of well over 100 articles and reviews, including Iraq: The Struggle for Oil. Paul discusses the oil situation in Iraq today and in the future.

Naseer Aruri - widely respected as one of the preeminent analysts of the history and politics of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, and Chancellor Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He is author of Dishonest broker: America's Role in Israel and Palestine, and will discuss that book.

October 23

James Quilligan - Director of the Center for Global Negotiations and the Brandt 21 Forum and author of The Brandt Equation: 21st Century Blueprint for a New Global Economy. He has been a policy advisor and consultant to Willy Brandt, Jimmy Carter, Pierre Trudeau, and government agencies in over 25 countries. Currently, he is assisting the Secretariat of the Commission for Africa, a North-South development panel convened in 2004 in the UK.

Waleed Hazbun - assistant professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. Recent publications include "Mapping the Landscape of the 'New Middle East': The Politics of Tourism Development and the Peace Process in Jordan." He is currently researching the impact of terrorism on American tourists abroad.

Husain Haqqani - visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Haqqani is a leading journalist, diplomat, and former advisor to Pakistani prime ministers. He is a syndicated columnist for The Indian Express, Gulf News and The Nation (Pakistan). Haqqani discusses developments in the Muslim world – the war in Iraq and what its impact has been on the world's 1.2 billion Muslims, and the election in Afghanistan – is the US really building democracy in the Arab-Muslim world?

Charles Enderlin - Jerusalem Bureau Chief for France’s two public TV stations and author of Shattered Dreams: the Failure of the Peace Process in the Middle East, a crystalline timeline of the setbacks that have undermined the promise held out by the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993. A resident of Jerusalem since 1968, Enderlin has been granted unparalleled access to leaders and negotiators on all sides. His exclusive interviews formed the basis for a PBS Frontline special, SHATTERED DREAMS OF PEACE.

October 16

Peter Lance - author of Cover Up: What the Government is Still Hiding about the War on Terror and a five-time Emmy-winning investigative reporter. He’s the author of the bestselling 1000 Years for Revenge: International Terrorism and the FBI -- The Untold Story. A former correspondent for ABC News, he has covered hundreds of stories worldwide for 20/20, Nightline, and World News Tonight. Lance discusses his latest book.

Thabit Abdullah - associate professor of history at York University, Toronto. He has also taught at the American University in Cairo and Oklahoma State University. Publications include several articles on Iraq and three books, the most recent of which is “A Short History of Iraq.” Abdullah recently returned to Iraq to work with the al-Amal Association on several development projects and to investigate the possibility of establishing a new university in Baghdad. Abdullah discusses the latest on the insurgents in Iraq.

Nathan J. Brown - professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University and an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. His research focuses on issues of constitutionalism, the rule of law and democracy in the Arab world. In addition to his academic work, he has served as a consultant to the drafting committee for a Palestinian constitution.

October 9

Les T. Csorba - a partner with Heidrick and Struggles, an executive search firm, and author of Trust: The One Thing that Makes or Breaks a Leader. For the last fifteen years, he has recruited leaders in both the private and public sectors, serving two U.S. Presidents, a U.S. senator, a governor, as well as several CEO’s and national religious leaders. Csorba was appointed Special Assistant to the President for presidential Personnel during George H. W. Bush’s administration. Csorba discusses trust as it relates to this year’s presidential campaign.

J. Alexander Thier - Cambell National Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a Visiting Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (SIIS) at Stanford University. Thier was legal advisor to Afghanistan's Constitutional and Judicial Reform Commissions in Kabul in 2003-2004, where he assisted in the development of a new constitution and judicial system. In 2002, he worked in Kabul as a Constitutional and Legal expert to the British Department for International Development, and as Senior Analyst for the International Crisis Group. Topic: what the October 9 elections mean for Afghanistan.

Frank Sesno - Former Washington Bureau Chief for CNN and current host of the "Cost of War: Sesno Reports" program which airs on public television. Sesno covers the impact of the presidential debates, how candidates are faring and their divergent views on how to handle the war in Iraq and on terror.

Thomas Lippman - adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute and author of Inside the Mirage: America’s Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia. Lippman is a former Middle East correspondent of the Washington Post. He discusses the untangling of complex US-Saudi relations.

October 2, 2004

Tobe Berkovitz - associate dean of Boston University’s College of Communication. For the past twenty-five years he has been a political media consultant on campaigns throughout the United States. He has worked for candidates running for president, the senate, the House of Representatives, and for governor. His “Political Media Buying: A Brief Guide” is a primary source of information on political advertising. Berkovitz analyzes Thursday’s presidential debate.

Stephen Zunes - professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He is Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism. Zunes discusses the Bush/Kerry debate from a foreign policy perspective.

Mouin Rabbani - Senior Analyst with the Middle East Program of the International Crisis Group, based in Amman, Jordan. Since joining ICG, he has conducted research on Palestinian approaches to reform, the roadmap initiative, Islamic social welfare activism, Hamas, the transformation of the Palestinian power structure since September 2000, and, most recently, the Palestinian debate on governance of the Gaza Strip. Rabbani covers the escalating conflict in the Gaza Strip in the context of Sharon's 'disengagement' proposal.

David Phillips - Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Center for Preventive Action. Phillips is also a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Center for Middle East Studies, scholar in residence and director of the Program on Conflict Prevention and Peace-building at American University’s Center for Global Peace, a senior fellow at the Preventive Diplomacy Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and an analyst for NBC News. Phillips discusses the transition in Iraq and Iraqi Kurds.

September 25

George Neumayr - executive editor of The American Spectator and media critic for the California Political Review, a 2001 Hoover Institution media fellow, and the former Op-Ed editor of Investor's Business Daily. Neumayr comments on the CBS News "Rathergate" scandal around allegations of forged documents that were used as the foundation for an investigation into President George W. Bush's National Guard service.

Beshara Doumani - associate professor of history at the University of California at Berkeley. Doumani is an Arab-American historian who charges that the media’s representation of the conflict in the Middle East is fundamentally removed from reality. He traveled this summer to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Israel.

James A. Paul - Executive Director of the Global Policy Forum in New York. He is founding chair of the NGO (non-governmental organization) Working Group on the UN Security Council. He is author of well over 100 articles and reviews, including Iraq: The Struggle for Oil.

Gregory Gause - associate professor of political science and director of the Middle East program at the University of Vermont. A leading expert on Saudi politics and society, he authored Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States (1994), and most recently How To Reform Saudi Arabia Without Handing It To Extremists for Foreign Policy magazine.

September 18

Stephen Green - a newsmaker and a news writer, Green has been published in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Nation, The Independent, and numerous journals including the World Policy Journal. He authored the books Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel and Living by the Sword: America and Israel in the Middle East. Green was interviewed in June by the FBI about his expertise on Israeli espionage against the United States. He discusses his groundbreaking essay exposing the relationship of the neo-cons embedded in the Bush administration with the government of Israel.

Mordechai Vanunu - a former technician at an Israeli nuclear reactor, served 18 years in prison for divulging information about Israel's nuclear secrets. He was released in April 2004 after serving an 18-year sentence, most of it in solitary confinement. Vanunu discusses his proposal that "there be a trade-off between the Iranian nuclear program and the ending of the Israeli one."

Mildred Mortillo - a member of Military Families Speak Out, an anti-war organization of more than 16-hundred families with loved ones in the military. Mildred’s son Steven is an infantry soldier with the 1st Infantry Division and has been stationed in Samarra, Iraq for the last 6 months. Samarra is located in the Sunni Triangle about 50 miles north of Baghdad.

September 11

Chris Toensing - executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project and editor of MERIP’s Middle East Report. Toensing discusses the 9/11 Commission Report – National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States – and why it debuted to such widespread acclaim in July 2004.

William A. Niskanen - chairman of the Cato Institute, acting chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan. Niskanen is talking about the many important policy issues that are not likely to be addressed by the major party candidates in this year's presidential campaign.

Tariq Ramadan - author of To Be A European Muslim, a member of Time Magazine’s list of 100 Most Influential People in the World Today. Dr. Ramadan was recently appointed by the University of Notre Dame as Henry R. Luce Professor of Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding at the Kroc Institute. Dr. Ramadan discusses how life has changed for Muslims post September 11.

M. Nazif Shahrani - professor of Anthropology, Central Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Indiana University. Shahrani has spent the last three decades studying Afghan society, culture and politics, has conducted research in the country over the last three summers. He discusses the now three-year old Operation Enduring Freedom, elections, constitution-making, nation-building, and other issues facing Afghanistan.

September 4

John McCaslin - pens the popular "Inside the Beltway" column for the Washington Times and Los Angeles Times Syndicate (Tribune Media Services). He’s a former broadcast news anchor, award-winning correspondent for United Press International, and member of the White House press corps during the Reagan administration. McCaslin talks about his new book, Inside the Beltway: Offbeat Stories, Scoops, and Shenanigans from Around the Nation’s Capital.

Don North - an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist. North was embedded with the First Brigade, 101st Airborne for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and reported to National Public Radio and Canada's CTV News. After the fall of Baghdad, Don became Senior Advisor to the Iraq Media Network in an unsuccessful attempt to establish a democratic radio and TV network for Iraqis. Before leaving Iraq last August, Don produced Remembering Saddam.

Aron Kader - one of a threesome of Arab-American comedians who comprise the Axis of Evil Tour that pokes fun at the peculiarities of a post-September 11 world – with jokes ranging from gay terrorists to the difficulties of flying, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to the perils of dating white women. Kader’s television credits include Comedy Central and The Shield.

Gawdat Bahgat - Director of the Center for Middle Eastern at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and author of American Oil Diplomacy in the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea (2003). He is also author of The Gulf Monarchies: New Economic and Political Realities (1997), The Future of the Gulf (1997), and The Persian Gulf at the Dawn of the New Millennium (1999).

August 28

Meredith O’Brien - a freelance journalist and teacher of media criticism at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She was co-author of the 1996 book The Buying of the President which featured profiles of the major donors to the 1996 presidential candidates. O'Brien discusses her series of recent reports released by the Center for Public Integrity on conventions and the money involved in them.

Ron Kessler - the New York Times best-selling author of A MATTER OF CHARACTER: INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE OF GEORGE W. BUSH. Kessler is a former Wall Street Journal and Washington Post reporter who voted for Gore in 2000, and through writing this book and interviewing his sources experienced a 'conversion' and now supports President Bush. Kessler discusses the RNC, the campaign and President Bush.

Abbas Kadhim - an Iraqi-American originally from the city of Najaf, who joined in the uprising against Saddam Hussein following the 1991 Gulf War. After the US failed to back the Iraqi resistance, Kadhim went to Saudi Arabia, where he was detained in a camp for over a year. He is now teaching at the Universtiy of California at Berkeley and finishing a doctorate in Islamic Studies. He shares his perspective on the US in Najaf.

Maren Milligan - senior analyst and media coordinator at the Middle East Research & Information Project in Washington, DC. Milligan has lengthy experience in Middle East-related advocacy, government relations and public education with such organizations as the World Affairs Council and the Arab American Institute. She has lived in the Palestinian territories, Egypt and Morocco. Milligan comments on the current crisis in the Gaza Strip.

August 21

Ben Ferguson – At age 22, Ben is the youngest nationally syndicated radio talk show host in the country. In his new book, It’s My America Too, this young voice offers the perspective of a new generation on all the issues, from politics to current affairs to popular culture.

Glenn Robinson - associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, currently on leave as a senior political scientist at RAND Corporation. He is the author of Building a Palestinian State: The Incomplete Revolution (Indiana University Press, 1997). Robinson will be commenting on the current crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Susan Dakak – an Iraqi-American who worked in Baghdad as an employee of the Coalition Provisional Authority for 5 months (returning in June) and trained Iraqi women in democracy activism. She's frequently in touch with those on the ground in Iraq; in fact, her husband is there now. She comments on the reconstruction and Iraq's steps toward democracy, as well as the rebel Al-Sadr and the controversy over Ahmed Chalabi.

Nidal Sliman - a Palestinian lawyer from Israel and a JSD candidate at the Center for Civil & Human Rights at Notre Dame University Law School. He discusses his views on how the World Court’s ruling on the Wall influences events in the Middle East.

August 14

Ben Fritz - co-founder and editor of Spinsanity (www.spinsanity.com), the nation’s leading watchdog of manipulative political rhetoric; and co-author of ALL THE PRESIDENT’S SPIN: George W. Bush, the Media, and the Truth. Fritz is a reporter for the entertainment trade paper Variety. He also edits the satirical Website Dateline Hollywood (www.datelinehollywood.com) and was recently named one of the nation’s top 30 business journalists under 30. Fritz will offer his critique of the Bush administration and how it has exploited the press and spun the public.

Scott Long - director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Project at Human Rights Watch in New York. Long is the past program director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and has been an advocate for sexual rights on several continents for over a dozen years. He will discuss his new HRW report, “In a Time of Torture: The Assault on Justice in Egypt's Crackdown on Homosexual Conduct,” launched in Egypt on March 1.

Rachel Bronson - director of Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Bronson’s expertise lies in U.S. national security and foreign policy toward the Middle East, Middle East politics and strategy, particularly in the Persian Gulf; and Iraq. She examines the Saudi relationship with the Bush family and how it effects U.S. Foreign Policy.

Peter Verney - editor of the magazine Sudan Update based in London. Verney worked in Sudan until shortly after the 1989 coup d'etat. He was a staff writer with Sudanow, a publication of the Sudanese Ministry of Culture and Information. Verney discusses his recent article about catastrophe in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, Dafur’s Manmade Disaster.

August 7

David Boaz - Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute and author of Libertarianism: A Primer. He is a leading authority on domestic issues like education choice, drug legalization, the growth of government, and the rise of libertarianism. Boaz looks at what makes liberals and conservatives tick, and finds they have more in common than you might think.

Rashid Khalidi - Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute. Dr. Khalidi will be discussing his new book, Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East (Beacon Press, April 2004). Khalidi paints a chilling scenario of our present situation and yet offers a tangible alternative that can help us find the path to peace rather than Empire.

Hussein Ibish - Washington Correspondent for the Beirut-based Daily Star, the leading English-language newspaper in the Arab world. From 1998-2004, he served as Communications Director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). Ibish addresses the future of U.S./Arab relations in the wake of September 11, the war in Iraq, and the lack of resolution of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.

Ted Swedenburg - Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arkansas. Dr. Swedenburg teaches courses on the Middle East, race and ethnicity, gender, and public culture. Topics include America's Public Diplomacy program, especially Radio Sawa (a US funded pop music station with US oriented news) and other American broadcast media in the Middle East. He has recently been studying the circulation of middle eastern music in the US after 9/11, which paradoxically, sold better than ever before in the 'world music' market. He has explored music in Egypt, Palestine, Morocco and France.

July 31
Meredith O’Brien - a freelance journalist and teacher of media criticism at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She was co-author of the 1996 book The Buying of the President, which featured profiles of the major donors to the 1996 presidential candidates. O'Brien discusses her series of recent reports released by the Center for Public Integrity on conventions and the money involved in them.

Tom Donnelly - a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he specializes in defense and national security. His most recent book, Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment was just released. From 1995 to 1999, Mr. Donnelly was policy group director and a professional staff member for the Committee on National Security (now named the Committee on Armed Services) in the U.S. House of Representatives. Donnelly discusses how American power is now actively engaged in reshaping the political order of the Islamic world.

Arang Keshavarzian - assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University (Montreal) where he teaches courses on Middle East Politics, social movements, and urban politics. He received his PhD from the Department of Politics at Princeton University in November 2003. His PhD thesis was a study of the Tehran Bazaar from 1963-the present and investigated state-bazaar relations under the Pahlavi Monarchy and Islamic Republic. His last visit to Iran was December 2003. Keshavarzian covers social transformation in post-revolutionary Iran, and commerce and commercial networks in the Persian Gulf.

As’Ad AbuKhalil - associate professor of politics at California State University, Stanislaus, and adjunct professor at the Center for Middle East studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Born in Tyre, Lebanon, he is the author of The Battle for Saudi Arabia Royalty, Fundamentalism, and Global Power and Bin Laden, Islam & America's New "War on Terrorism.” AbuKhalil discusses Islamic fundamentalism and U.S. foreign policy, and the way both polarize the world into a "good and evil" "with us or against us" view.

July 24

James Taranto - editor of OpinionJournal.com, the Web site of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page since its inception in 2000. He previously served as deputy editorial features (Op-Ed editor) for the Journal. Discussing the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

Gary Sick - Senior Research Scholar and adjunct professor of international affairs at Columbia University. He served on the National Security Council staff under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan. He was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis and is the author of two books on U.S.-Iranian relations. Dr. Sick discusses U.S. policy toward Iran.

Nadia Hijab - Executive Director of the DC-based Palestine Center. Cambridge University Press published her first book, Womanpower: The Arab debate on women at work. She co-authored Citizens Apart: A Portrait of Palestinians in Israel (I. B. Tauris). She was Editor-in-Chief of the London-based Middle East magazine and was a frequent commentator on the BBC before moving to New York in 1989 to take up an assignment with the United Nations, where she served until 1999. Hijab explains how Israel's attacks in Rafah have repercussions for US interests in the Middle East, and why the U.S. continues to erode its credibility in the region.

July 17

Alon Ben-Meir - professor of international affairs at NYU, director of the World Policy Institute at The New School for Social Research and has served as an advisor to both the Israeli and Syrian governments. According to Ben-Meir, the recent announcement of a likely attack on U.S. soil by al Qaeda in the near future is the result of our government’s failure to implement international and domestic policies that strike at the roots of international terrorism, and that would create long-term solutions to a problem that has been simmering for decades.

Steven Moore – A California political consultant who advised Ambassador Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority on Iraqi public opinion, and worked with Iraq’s emerging political leaders and civil society organizations to help them understand the workings of a democracy. Using facts from public opinion research and colorful personal anecdotes, Mr. Moore provides a view of the situation in Iraq that contrasts with common perceptions in this country.

Haggai Ram - Associate Professor at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, where he teaches the history of the Modern Middle East. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Kevorkian Center at NYU. He is completing a book entitled Reading Iran in Israel, which is a comparative study of Israel and Iran. Dr. Ram discusses Israel/Palestine and the situation with the occupation, Israel's internal political impasse and its geo-political role in the Middle East.

Arjun Makhijani - president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. He has authored and co-authored many articles, reports, and books on nuclear weapons related security, health, and environmental issues. The book Nuclear Wastelands (MIT Press), of which he is principal editor, was nominated for a Pulitzer. Makhijanil provides perspective on IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradai's recent visits to the region and statements regarding a nuclear-free zone.

July 10

John Fund - writes the weekly "Political Diary" column for OpinionJournal.com. Currently on leave as a member of the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, he is working on a book about voter fraud. Fund will be discussing the John Kerry/John Edwards presidential ticket – what he refers to as the Trial Lawyer Ticket that will attract both attention and scrutiny.

Khalid Medani - assistant professor of politics at Oberlin College and a contributing editor to the Middle East Report. He has worked previously at the Brookings Institution and Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. Medani will discuss the civil crisis in Sudan as it relates to Islamic extremism and fundamentalism.

Clifford May - President of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism created immediately following the 9/11 attacks on the United States. May will discuss the Senate Intelligence committee report and the situation in Iraq.

Jamil Dakwar - a Palestinian lawyer and Israeli citizen who is a research fellow with Human Rights Watch Middle East & North Africa division in New York. He has worked for four years as senior staff attorney at Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, where he has focused on the collective rights of Arab Palestinians in Israel. Dakwar provides commentary on the International Court of Justice’s ruling on Israel's wall in the West Bank.

July 3

Micah L. Sifry - senior analyst with Public Campaign, a non-profit, non-partisan organization working on comprehensive campaign finance reform. He is author of the book Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America. Sifry offers perspective on the purpose and direction of Ralph Nader’s 2004 presidential campaign in light of his recent campaign decisions.

Usamah Kurdi - member of the Shoura Council, The Saudi Parliament; as well as a businessman living in Riyadh. He is the former CEO of the Union of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry – the APEC organization of the Saudi business sector. Kurdi will discuss the current situation in Saudia Arabia, as well as general and economic reform in the Kingdom.

Yossef Bodansky - best-selling author of The Secret History of the Iraq War. He offers an astonishing new account of the war and its aftermath -- a war that was doomed from the start, he argues, by the massive and systemic failures of the American intelligence community. Drawing back the curtain of politicized debate, Bodansky -- a longtime expert and director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare -- reveals that nearly every aspect of America's conflict with Iraq has been misunderstood, in both the court of public opinion and the White House itself.

June 26

Ali Alarabi - National Director of the United Arab-American League. He says that terrorists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and others will seize the handover of power as an opportunity to try and destabilize Iraq and bring down the Iraqi government and kill as many American soldiers as possible to show their strength and swell their ranks. Alarabi thinks it will be a very dangerous and critical period for Iraq and the region in general. A li Alarabi is a former reporter and journalist who writes on Arab politics, religion and culture.

Richard Ben Cramer – A bestselling author who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting from the Middle East in 1979, he discusses the disastrous situation Israel finds itself in twenty-five years later, in HOW ISRAEL LOST: The Four Questions. Cramer attempts to get at the fundamental, underlying issues that now define the position of Israel, and the United States, in the Middle East.

Hassan Al-Husseini - a former journalist in the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and current businessman who worked in the University of Petroleum & Minerals and in the Saudi Oil Company in Dhahran for 25 years. Al-Husseini, a resident of Bahrain, brings an unsually savvy perspective to the current situation in Saudi Arabia.

June 19

Harry Braun - Chairman and CEO of Sustainable Partners, Inc. and a presidential candidate in this year’s election. Braun proposes to shift investments from oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear fuels to renewable hydrogen systems that are inexhaustible, pollution-free, and can make the U.S. energy independent. Harry Braun has worked as an energy analyst for the past 20 years, and has documented an alternative strategy that will fundamentally resolve the complex and interrelated global energy and environmental problems.

Paul Roberts - author of The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World. Roberts looks at the implications for the world in terms of the economy, politics and the environment, and what alternatives exist for oil. A longtime observer of both business and environmental issues, Roberts is an expert on the complex interplay of economics, technology, and the environment.

Fareed Mohamedi - Chief Economist for PFC Energy. He is responsible for coordinating all the economic work carried out at PFC Energy with particular emphasis on global structural changes affecting the investment environment in the energy industry. An additional area of focus for Fareed is national oil companies and the challenges they face. He believes that the violence against Westerners in Saudi Arabia could have adverse consequences for the Saudi oil sector and economy over the longer term.

Marjorie Cohn - Professor of Law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, and Executive Vice President of the National Lawyers Guild. Cohn states that the new Security Council resolution legitimizes U.S. military control over Iraq, yet provides U.N. cover to ask other countries to send troops which will serve under U.S. commanders in Iraq. It also provides legitimacy to the new Iraqi government while protecting strategic U.S.-U.K. political, economic and military interests.

June 12

Joel Krieger - author of Blair’s War, one of the first books to critically examine the arguments that were given for going to war with Iraq. Krieger is the Norma Wilentz Hess Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College. Krieger and Coates give a detailed account of the events that took place prior to the war, and analyze exactly what was said and by whom – leading up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. In a ddition they give background on Blair’s New Labour Party and offer a detailed set of proposals designed to return the United Kingdom to what they believe would be an ethical foreign policy.

Sinan Antoon - an Iraqi-born poet and novelist who teaches Arabic literature at Dartmouth College. He is a member of InCounter Productions, a collective that recently produced a documentary about post-Saddam Iraq entitled About Baghdad. Antoon offers perspective on President Reagan’s legacy in Iraq.

Scott C. Davis - founder of CUNE Pres,s which specializes in books by Middle Eastern and American writers who are engaged with the Middle East. Davis is author of The Road from Damascus, and recently led a trip of eight Americans on a two-week tour of Syria. While there he met with both Ali Farzat, the political cartoonist and Sammi Moubayed, the young political commentator, as well as a host of other notable Syrians including Archbishop Matta Roham in al-Hasakah who negotiated a "ceasefire" among warring parties following the March "soccer match" conflict in al-Qamishly.

Najib Ghadbian - Assistant Professor of Political Science and Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas. Ghadbian’s research interests include political currents & media in the Arab world, Islamic movements, Syrian politics, and domestic & international politics in the Arabian/Persian Gulf. Dr. Ghadbian is here to provide background on this week’s G8 meeting in Georgia.

June 5

Bernard-Henri Lévy - author of War, Evil and the End of History, a book based on the world’s forgotten war zones. An esteemed journalist and expert on the Middle East, Levy is one of France's best-selling writers and the country's leading philosopher. Lévy has also held several diplomatic positions with the French government. Most recently, in 2002, he was appointed by French President Jacques Chirac to head a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan in the wake of the war against the Taliban, a war that Lévy supported.

Ray McGovern – On the week that featured the resignation of the Director of the CIA, we talk with Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst for a 27-year career that spanned administrations from John F. Kennedy to George H. W. Bush. "The Senate was just about to come out with a report excoriating Tenet's tenure at the CIA. He's clearly being served up as a sacrificial lamb," says McGovern. McGovern and a handful of intelligence community alumni created Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. VIPS now includes over 35 former professionals from CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Army Intelligence, the FBI, and the National Security Agency. In addition to co-authoring some of VIPS’ issuances, Ray has published some 20 op-eds over the past year on intelligence-related issues. These have appeared in newspapers and journals around the country like The Birmingham News, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Miami Herald.

Susan Wilson Bynam - VP for Marketing Strategy for the Church Pension Group and president of Wilson Consulting which provides strategy and marketing assistance to service businesses and not-for-profit organizations. Prior to starting her business in 1990, her career included working for several of the leading publishers and financial service providers in New York City as well as for non-profit and government health care organizations. A graduate of Harvard Business School and Ohio Wesleyan University, she serves on the board of other non-profits and small businesses.

Shiva Balaghi - Associate Director of the Middle East Center at NYU, where she teaches courses on Modern Middle Eastern History and Women's Studies. She is currently working on a research project on the cultural dimensions of democracy in Iran in the 19th and 20th centuries. She is the co-editor of Picturing Iran: Art, Society and Revolution (I B Tauris, 2002) and Reconstructing Gender in the Middle East (Columbia, 1994). She is on the editorial board of Middle East Report.

May 29

Laura Flanders - host of The Laura Flanders Show heard on Air America Radio. She is also author of BUSHWOMEN: Tales of a Cynical Species, an investigation into the women in George W. Bush’s Cabinet. Flanders writes regularly for Tompaine.com, the Nation, Ms. Magazine and Znet. Her op-ed pieces have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle. Once a regular panelist on the Fox News Channel's "Fox News Watch," and PBS's women's discussion program, "To the Contrary," Flanders' TV appearances include "The O'Reilly Factor," "Hannity and Colmes," and CSPAN's "Washington Journal.

Jayna Davis - author of The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing. Davis worked at KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City as an investigative reporter and covered the story of the Murrah Federal Building bombing from the first moments. In June 2001, she founded Journalists’ Committee for Justice, Inc., a nonprofit organization that has carried on the investigation of the bombing. She has received many awards over the years, including “Best Investigative Report” from the Oklahoma Associated Press in 1994 and the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters in 1995. Her rigorous investigative work has garnered her appearances on a number of broadcasts, including interviews with Bill O’Reilly, Greta Van Susteren, John Gibson, Fox News Live, and CNN’s Lou Dobbs.

Maher Nasser - the New York representative of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). He has been with UNRWA in various capacities since 1987 and has served with the organization in Gaza, West Bank, Vienna and Jordan. Prior to joining UNRWA, he worked with several Development and Human Rights NGOs in Ramallah and Jerusalem.

John Kingston - Director of Oil for Platts, the energy marketing information division of McGraw-Hill. Platts covers all aspects of the world energy industry, including oil, and establishes daily price assessments for thousands of crudes and products that are then used as the basis for billions of dollars in supply contracts. He leads a staff of more than 70 journalists, and has been covering energy markets for more than 19 years.

May 22

Todd is in New York City at the annual convention of talk radio hosts. This show will be a replay of the April 17 program.

May 15

Peter Eisner - Deputy Foreign Editor at The Washington Post, and author of the book THE FREEDOM LINE: The Brave Men and Women Who Rescued Allied Airmen from the Nazis During World War II. He was foreign editor of Newsday from 1985-1989 and served as the paper’s Latin America correspondent from 1989-1994. He has spent considerable time in Spain and the Basque country. Discussion Focus: The history of terrorism in Spain and Europe and its relevance to the recent train bombing in Madrid and other current events.

Rahul Mahajan - author of the book, "Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond," an in-depth analysis of the Bush administration's policies, the plans of the Project for a New American Century, and how the war on Iraq fits. He is also the publisher of the widely read Web log Empire Notes (http://www.empirenotes.org). He is recently returned from Iraq, where he was in Fallujah during the siege. His first book, "The New Crusade: America's War on Terrorism" (April 2002, Monthly Review Press), has been described as "mandatory reading for anyone who wants to get a handle on the war on terrorism."

Beau Grosscup - professor of international relations at California State University, Chico and author of The Newest Explosions of Terrorism. He has been researching, teaching and lecturing about terrorism for the media and in print for over 20 years. Grosscup received his Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Massachusetts.

Vickie Langohr - assistant professor of political science at the College of the Holy Cross. She is a member of the editorial committee of Middle East Report. Langohr has published articles on Islamist political parties in the Arab world, Arab non-governmental organizations and human rights groups, and prospects for Arab democratization. Subject: Democracy in the Middle East.

May 8

Thom Hartmann - the author of We The People: A Call To Take Back America and host of one of the nation's largest nationally syndicated progressive daily radio talk shows, The Thom Hartmann Radio Program. Hartmann is an internationally known speaker on culture and communications, an author, and an innovator in the fields of psychiatry, ecology, and economics. His most recent books are The Edison Gene, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight and Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights.

David Nissen - Director of the Program in International Energy Management and Policy, at the Center for Energy, Marine Transportation and Public Policy in Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). Prior to joining SIPA, Dr. Nissen managed the LNG and the gas strategic consulting practice at Poten and Partners, Inc., a leading commercial and energy consulting firm. He has held senior positions with Exxon's Corporate Planning Department and Chase Manhattan's Corporate Lending Group. Dr. Nissen also served in the U.S. Federal Energy Administration (precursor to the Department of Energy) during the Carter Administration, where he directed the quantitative assessment of the Carter Administration's National Energy Plan.

Lamis Andoni - a Palestinian-American journalist. Andoni has covered the Mideast for various publications for two decades; she has been banned in Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and was blacklisted in Jordan during the 1980s. She is currently a lecturer at the journalism school at the University of California at Berkeley. She has been monitoring the Arab media, including al-Jazeera.

May 1

Alan Elsner - a national correspondent for Reuters News Service and the author of Gates of Injustice: The Crisis in America’s Prisons. Elsner has 25 years' experience in journalism, covering stories ranging from the September 11, 2001 attacks on America and the crisis in the Middle East to the 2000 presidential election and the end of the Cold War.

Dilip Hiro - writer, journalist and commentator. He is the author of 25 books, including Secrets and Lies: Operation Iraqi Freedom and After. He is one of the world's leading experts on the Shias on Iraq. His articles on the Middle East, Islamic affairs, and South and Central Asia have appeared in publications such as the Observer, Guardian, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal The Los Angeles Times and The Nation. He is a frequent commentator on the above subjects on various radio and television channels around the world.

Mohamad Bazzi - Middle East Bureau Chief for Newsday. He recently won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism for writing about the Iraqi insurgency in July 2003 when the U.S. government was claiming it was not facing an organized guerilla campaign. Bazzi also received the first Daniel Pearl Award from the South Asian Journalists Association. A live interview, via telephone, from Baghdad.

April 24

Doug Schmidt - editorial manager with Cook Communications in Colorado Springs. He is an expert on religiously-motivated revenge – from the Muslim terrorist to the Christian clinic bomber. Doug is also the author of The Prayer of Revenge: Forgiveness in the Face of Injustice, a book about "learning to forgive the arrogant & remorseless."

Pete Moore - assistant professor of political science at the University of Miami. Dr. Moore’s research focuses on business-state relations in the Middle East, specializing in Jordan and Kuwait. His book, Doing Business in the Middle East: Politics and Economic Crisis in Jordan and Kuwait, will be published in September 2004.

Jean-Francois Seznec - Adjunct Professor at the Middle East Institute in Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. He lectures often about international financial markets and Middle East affairs in Europe and in the United States, and has 25 years experience in international banking and finance, ten years of which were spent in the Middle East, including six years in Bahrain. Dr. Seznec has published a book and numerous articles on the financial markets of the Gulf and on oil and Islamic banking. A frequent guest and lecturer at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Dr. Seznec serves on the advisory board of Human Rights Watch, the finance committee of the Middle East Studies Association, and the Board of the American Bahrain Friendship Society. Dr. Seznec has traveled extensively in the Middle East, including a trip to Saudi Arabia in March.

April 17

Elinor Burkett - Chairman of the Department of Journalism at the University of Alaska and author of SO MANY ENEMIES, SO LITTLE TIME: An American Woman in All the Wrong Places, Burkett has worked as a newspaper reporter, university professor and magazine writer. She and her husband took their first vacation together in Albania, honeymooned in Havana, and count among their fondest memories the week they eluded the Mauritanian secret police. Longtime residents of the Catskill Mountains of New York, they currently make their home in Fairbanks.

William C. Green - associate professor of Political Science and National Security Studies at California State University at San Bernardino. His areas of expertise include Comparative Politics, International Relations and Eurasian Studies. He has written extensively on the Soviet military. Topics for conversation include the history of the Soviet/Afghan war and its implications on current Middle East affairs.

Shirley Neff - energy consultant and nationally recognized expert in energy policy. She is a senior advisor to Goldwyn International Strategies, Co-Director of the American Bioenergy Association, and an advisor to the National Renewable Energy Lab and the California Wind Energy Association. She also serves on the Advisory Board of the Institute for Energy, Law & Enterprise at the University of Houston, where she is involved in a major project on liquefied natural gas (LNG). She is a regular lecturer at Columbia University and often speaks at international energy conferences. Ms. Neff served as an economist on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources from 1993 until 1996, and again from 1999 until 2003. From 1996 until 1998, Ms. Neff was Governmental Affairs Director with Royal Dutch Shell. She was Director of Legislative Affairs and Public Policy at the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA) from 1989 until 1993.

Robert Huebert - assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Calgary. He is also the Associate Director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies and the editor of the Centre’s E-Journal Journal of Military and Strategic Studies. Dr. Huebert has also taught at Memorial University, Dalhousie University, and the University of Manitoba. His areas of research interests include: international relations, strategic studies, the Law of the Sea and maritime affairs. Discussion to focus on terrorism as a political strategy.

April 10

Morris Reid - a democratic strategist and the managing director of the Washington, DC-based Westin Rinehart Group, a political consulting firm whose list of clients has included Citigroup Inc., Countrywide Credit Industries, and Fannie Mae. Before founding Westin Rinehart, Reid served as a principal with business advocacy group Dewey Square Group, prior to which he served in the Clinton administration with Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown and HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo.

Williamson M. Evers - research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of the Institution's Koret Task Force on K–12 Education. He specializes in research on education policy—especially as it pertains to curriculum, teaching, testing, and accountability from kindergarten through high school. From July to December 2003, he served as senior adviser for education to Administrator L. Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

Richard Murphy - the Hasib J. Sabagh Senior Fellow for the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations. Murphy was Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian Affairs under President R eagan. He is the former U.S. Ambassador to Syria, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and the Philippines; and Former Chairman of the Middle East Institute in Washington (1993-2001).

Michael Heller – Just back from a visit to Saudi Arabia, Heller is the Lawrence A. Wien Professor of Real Estate Law at Columbia Law School. He worked at the World Bank on post-socialist legal transition in land and housing before entering teaching. Heller's research and writing explores property theory, and he has published articles on takings law, corporate governance, and restitution in numerous journals and edited volumes. Before joining Columbia in 2002, Dr. Heller taught for eight years at the University of Michigan Law School, co-directed corporate governance research at the William Davidson Institute of the University of Michigan Business School. During the 1980s, he consulted for the Urban Institute, Ford Foundation, and USAID on urban development issues in Bangladesh and in several Latin American countries.

April 3

Stefan Halper - Senior Fellow at the Centre of International Studies and a Senior Research Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge. His recent book, co-authored with Jonathan Clarke, America Alone: The Neo-conservatives and the Global Order, will be published by the Cambridge University Press and available in July 04. He is Contributing Editor to The American Spectator Magazine. Stefan Halper holds a D. Phil. from Oxford. He has served four American presidents in the White House and Department of State and is an expert on U.S. foreign policy, national security policy, the United Nations and Anglo-American relations. Dr. Halper was Executive Editor and host of "Worldwise," a nationally televised program on foreign and national security affairs from 1996-2000 and "This Week from Washington," a national radio program aired from 1985-2001.

Eleana Gordon - Vice-President of Communications & Democracy Programs at The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Ms. Gordon oversees FDD's communications and public education campaigns, with a focus on promoting pro-democracy, anti-terrorism activists from the Islamic world. She helped establish the Women for a Free Iraq, a campaign by over a hundred Iraqi women to rally support for the liberation of Iraq. She traveled to Iraq in October 2003 with the Women for a Free Iraq, which hosted a four-day conference for women in Hilla on democracy and women's rights. Eleana Gordon works closely with Iraqi women's groups such as the Women's Alliance for the Democratic Iraq and the Iraqi Women's High Council to advocate for a democratic Iraqi government that secures individual freedom and women's rights.

Jillian Schwedler - Assistant Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Schwedler's current research interests include protests and policing, political Islam, social movements, democracy and democratization, identity, political culture, and transnational public spheres. She was on leave from the University of Maryland as Senior Research Fellow of the Arab Archives Institute in Amman, Jordan, and as Visiting Scholar at New York University for 2003-2004. Her book m anuscript, Faith in Moderation: The Dynamics of Islamist Political Parties, is currently under review.

Scott W. Hibbard - Ph.D. Candidate (ABD) in the Political Science Department at Johns Hopkins University. He was formerly a Program Officer in the Special Initiative on Religion, Ethics and Human Rights at the U.S. Institute of Peace (1992 to 1997), and has also worked as a congressional staff member in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate (1985-1992). He holds an M.Sc. in Political Theory from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an M.A. in Liberal \Studies from Georgetown University. He is the author of Islamic Activism and U.S. Foreign Policy (co-authored with David Little and published by the U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1997), and other articles. Areas of specialization include: Religion and Politics in the Middle East and South Asia; U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East; and International Relations Theory.

March 27

Jagdish Bhagwati - Regarded as one of the foremost international trade theorists of his generation, Bhagwati is a Professor of Economics at Columbia University. He is a Director of the National Bureau of Economic Research and was recently advisor to India's Finance Minister on India's economic reforms. He attended Cambridge University, MIT and Oxford. He returned to MIT in 1968, leaving it twelve years later as the Ford International Professor of Economics to join Columbia. Until 2001, he used to be Arthur Lehman Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science at Columbia. Professor Bhagwati has also served as Economic Policy Advisor to Director-General, GATT (1991-1993), as Special Adviser to the UN on Globalization and as External Adviser to the WTO (2002-2003).

David MacMichael - a former CIA analyst who investigated Reagan administration claims that Nicaragua was fomenting regional wars. He is also founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a small group of retired CIA officers that has produced some of the most credible, and critical, analyses of the Bush Administration's handling of intelligence data in the run-up to the March, 2003 invasion of Iraq.

March 6

Michael Tanner - Director of Health and Welfare Studies at the Cato Institute. He directs research on new, market-based approaches to health, welfare and other "entitlements." His approach is based on individual responsibility rather than government control. Under Tanner's direction, Cato launched the Project on Social Security Choice-widely considered the leading impetus for transforming the soon-to-be-bankrupt system into a private savings program. Tanner's writing has been published in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. He has appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, National Public Radio, PBS, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNBC and Voice of America. A prolific author and frequent guest lecturer, Tanner served as director of research of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation before joining Cato in 1993.

Marc Lynch - teaches International Relations and Middle East politics at Williams College. He has written numerous articles on Iraq for Middle East Report, and is currently completing a book forthcoming from Columbia University Press, Iraq and the New Arab Public Sphere. Recently, he’s been researching the Arab media and American public diplomacy in the Arab and Islamic world, which includes al Hurra (the new US Arabic language television station).

Matthew McAllester - Newsday’s United Nations Bureau Chief and a foreign correspondent covering the Middle East. He is the author of BLINDED BY THE SUNLIGHT: Emerging from the Prison of Saddam’s Iraq and BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS OF THE DAMNED: The War Inside Kosovo. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the TWA flight 800 crash.

David Ray Griffin - professor of philosophy of religion and theology at the Claremont School of Theology in California for over 30 years. He is co-director of the Center for Process Studies there and the author or editor of over 20 books. Most recently, he wrote Religion and Scientific Naturalism (Oxford University Press, 1998); and Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion (Cornell University Press, 2001). He has also edited such volumes as Physics and the Ultimate Significance of Time (SUNY, 1986) and Postmodern Politics for a Planet in Crisis (SUNY, 1993). He is currently working on books on the need for global democracy.

February 29
Replay of January 10 show.

February 21

Robert Keough - editor of CommonWealth, a quarterly magazine of politics, ideas, and civic life in Massachusetts. He is also the author of Prisons and Sentencing in Massachusetts, a MassINC investigative report. Mr. Keough has written articles for the Boston Globe Magazine, Teacher Magazine, Education Week, Inc., the Boston Phoenix, and Boston College Law School Magazine, among other publications, and he joins us to discuss the recent Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage, and the political response to that ruling. Mr. Keough was also founding news editor of the Worcester Phoenix, acting news editor of the Providence Phoenix, and state government reporter for the Boston Business Journal.

Bernard Haykel - assistant professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. His major interests are early modern and modern Middle East history, particularly Yemen, Arabia and the Indian Ocean; Islamic law; Islamic reform movements and modern Islamic political thought; pre-industrial political formations. Haykel has written a number of articles on Islamic history and Islamist movements in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and South Asia. These have appeared in the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, the Journal of Islamic Law and Society, etc. He has also advised the British Prime Minister’s office on issues relating to the war on terrorism. His book, "Revival and Reform in Islam" was published by Cambridge University Press, 2003. He’s now working on a modern history of Saudi Arabia’s religious politics, to be published next year.

Philip C. Wilcox, Jr. - President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. Wilcox retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in September 1997 after 31 years of service. In the Department of State, Wilcox has served as Special Assistant to the Undersecretary for Management, Deputy Director for UN Political Affairs in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, and in the Bureau for Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs as Director for Regional Affairs, Director for Israeli and Arab-Israeli Affairs and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs. He also served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research and as Ambassador at Large and Coordinator for Counter Terrorism. He is a graduate of the National War College, and has been awarded the Department of State's Meritorious, Superior, and Presidential Honor Awards. He is a board member of the Middle East Institute and Americans for Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) and a member of The Washington Institute for Foreign Affairs and Dacor-Bacon House.

February 14

Lobna Ismail - founder and executive director of Connecting Cultures, Inc. She is the author of "Doing Business in the Middle East and North Africa" and "Finding Diversity: A Directory of Recruiting Resources." Most recently, she was selected to present at the Arabian Society for Human Resource Management conference in Bahrain and the Society for Human Resources' Workplace Diversity and annual conference as a professional on the cutting edge of emerging religious diversity issues and Islamic awareness. Luby has conducted training for Federal and State agencies, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations and private corporations including AETNA, Walt Disney World, Department of the Army and Navy, Convergys, Department of Justice, Fairfax and Montgomery County Public Schools, Foreign Service Institute, Institute of International Education, ExxonMobil, Marriott International, NIKE, Inc., and DuPont Merck.

Roy Mottahedeh - a Gurney Professor of Islamic History at Harvard University. Professor Mottahedeh's major work is on the pre-modern social and intellectual history of the Islamic Middle East. His publications include Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (1980) and The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran (1985). He is the faculty adviser of a new journal, The Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review. He is currently working on the medieval Middle Eastern literature on "marvels."

Oren Yiftachel - Senior Fellow with the United States Institute for Peace and a professor of geography at Ben Gurion University in Beer-Sheeva, Israel. Prior, he was senior lecturer with the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Curtin University of Technology (Perth, Australia). Yiftachel began his career as a planning officer with the Perth City Council, and he has continued his involvement in planning projects as a consultant for local governments in Israel and Australia. His book, Ethnocracy: The Politics of Judaizing Israel/Palestine, will be published shortly. He is the author of Planning a Mixed Region in Israel: The Political Geography of Arab-Jewish Relations in the Galilee, co-editor of three books, and author of more than 80 journal articles and book chapters on ethnicity, urban planning, and political geography in Israel and Australia. Yiftachel received a joint Ph.D. in geography at the University of Western Australia and in architecture and town planning at the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.

Fareed Mohamedi - Chief Economist for PFC Energy and Senior Director in the Markets and Countries Group. He is responsible for coordinating all the economic work carried out at PFC Energy with particular emphasis on global structural changes affecting the investment environment in the energy industry. An additional area of focus for Fareed is national oil companies and the challenges they face. In the past, Fareed had also worked as an economist at the Institute of International Finance in the Middle East and Asia departments, the World Bank, Wharton Econometrics Forecasting Associates and the Ministry of Finance and National Economy in Bahrain. Fareed holds an M.A. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a B.A. in Economics from Western Michigan University.

February 7

George Saliba - professor of Arabic and Islamic science at Columbia University since 1979. He works on the history of Arabic science with a special emphasis on the development of planetary theories and their transmission to Renaissance Europe. He is the author of Rethinking the Roots of Modern Science: The Role of Arabic Manuscripts in European Libraries; The Origins and Development of Arabic Scientific Thought (Arabic); A History of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary Theories During the Golden Age of Islam; "Arabic Planetary Theories After the Eleventh Century AD" in Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science; "Greek Astronomy and the Arabic Scientific Tradition" in American Scientist (July-August 2002).

Peter Gubser - president of American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) in Washington, D.C. since 1977, and an adjunct professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Prior to joining ANERA, Dr. Gubser was Assistant Representative and Social Science Project Specialist with the Ford Foundation in Beirut, Lebanon, and in Amman, Jordan (1974-77). He has also worked as Associate Research Scientist with the American Institute for Research in Washington, D.C. (1972-1974), and as Research Fellow at the Department of Government of the University of Manchester, England (1970-72). His field research includes a fifteen month project in Zahlah, Lebanon (1970-71), and a twelve month project in al-Karak, Jordan (1968).

Juan Cole - professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. He has written extensively about modern Islamic movements in Egypt, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. His current research concerns include a quest to better understand the origins and role of the "jihadi" or "sacred-war" strain of Muslim radicalism, including al-Qaeda and the Taliban among other groups. Cole is unusual in commanding Arabic, Persian and Urdu and knowing both Middle Eastern and South Asian Islam, and in having lived all over the Muslim world for extended periods of time. He also continues to research Iran and Shi`ite Islam, the subject of his Sacred Space and Holy War (IB Tauris 2002).

Robert Jay Lifton, author of Superpower Syndrome: America's Apocalyptic Confrontation With the World, is a visiting professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Hospital. Dr. Lifton is a former distinguished professor of psychiatry and psychology at the Graduate School University Center and director of The Center on Violence and Human Survival at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at The City University of New York. He had previously held the Foundations' Fund Research Professorship of Psychiatry at Yale University for more than two decades. He has been particularly interested in the relationship between individual psychology and historical change, and in problems surrounding the extreme historical situations of our era. He has taken an active part in the formation of the new field of psychohistory.

January 31

Jeffrey Record - joined the Strategic Studies Institute as a visiting research professor in July 2003. Some of his previous assignments included Professor of Strategy and International Security at the Air War College; Military Commentator, The Sun (Baltimore); Professional Staff Member, Senate Armed Services Committee; Consultant, Lockheed Martin Corporation; and Military Analyst, NBC-TV News (New York). Dr. Record is the author of numerous books including The Wrong War, Why We Lost in Vietnam (Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1998); and numerous articles appearing in New York Times, Defense Week, Atlanta Journal, Baltimore Sun, Armed Forces Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. Dr. Record received a B.A. in Political Science from Occidental College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Steven A. Cook - an expert on Arab and Turkish politics and member of the Council on Foreign Relations as a Next Generation Fellow, where he is finishing a book that evaluates the military's role in the political development of Egypt, Turkey, and Algeria. He will also launch a project that examines the prospects and problems associated with political, economic, and social reform in the Arab world, and will write on issues related to U.S. policy in the Middle East, Turkey's drive for EU membership, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Before joining the Council, Cook was a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he will continue to serve as a member of Brookings's Task Force on U.S. Policy toward the Islamic World. Prior to that, he was a Soref Research Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (1995-1996). Cook's writings have appeared in Middle East Quarterly, Middle East Insight, Insight Turkey, Encyclopedia of U.S. Foreign Relations, SAIS Review, Arab World Geographer, Millennium, and the Christian Science Monitor.

Oren Yiftachel - Senior Fellow with the United States Institute for Peace and a professor of geography at Ben Gurion University in Beer-Sheeva, Israel. Prior, he was senior lecturer with the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Curtin University of Technology (Perth, Australia). Yiftachel began his career as a planning officer with the Perth City Council, and he has continued his involvement in planning projects as a consultant for local governments in Israel and Australia. His book, Ethnocracy: The Politics of Judaizing Israel/Palestine, will be published shortly. Yiftachel received a joint Ph.D. in geography at the University of Western Australia and in architecture and town planning at the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa

Henri J. Barkey - Cohen Professor in International Relations and International Relations Department Chair at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He served as a member of the U.S. State Department Policy Planning Staff (1998-2000) working primarily on issues related to the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean. His areas of expertise are the international relations and domestic politics of the Middle East (especially Turkey and the Kurds); U.S. policy toward the Middle East; and international political economy.

January 24

Daniel Rosenfeld - author of CODE NAME: AMNON. Born in Palestine, Daniel learned about the religion and culture of Arabs while living and going to school with them. As a son of a high British official there, he developed keen political insights. He visited more than 80 countries in his role as a senior international banker. His first novel, What If, dealt with alternative choices Arabs and Jews could have made.

Ervand Abrahamian - a distinguished professor at Baruch College. An Armenian born in Iran and raised in England, Abrahamian is well qualified by education and experience to teach world and Middle East history. He has published Iran Between Two Revolutions, The Iranian Mojahedin, Khomeinism, and Tortured Confessions. He teaches at the CUNY Graduate Center, and has taught at Princeton, New York University, and Oxford University. He is currently working on two books: one on The CIA Coup in Iran; and another, A History of Modern Iran, for Cambridge University Press.

Bob Schieffer - anchor and moderator of Face The Nation, CBS News’ Sunday public affairs broadcast, since May 1991. He also serves as CBS News’ chief Washington correspondent. Schieffer has covered Washington for CBS for more than 30 years and is one of the few broadcast or print journalists to have worked all four major beats in the nation’s capital—the White House, Pentagon, State Department and Capitol Hill. He has been chief Washington correspondent since 1982 and congressional correspondent since 1989. Schieffer has covered every presidential campaign and national political convention since 1972 and has interviewed every President and presidential candidate since the presidency of Richard Nixon.

Bassam Haddad - Adjunt Professor of political science at Georgetown University, editor of the Arab Studies Journal (www.arabstudiesjournal.org). He wrote his dissertation on Syria’s politics and e conomics and currently teaches courses on authoritarianism and reform in the Middle East. He has returned from Iraq this past summer where he participated in filming a documentary on Baghdad.

Michael Doran - Assistant Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He teaches courses on political Islam, Middle Eastern nationalisms, U.S.-Middle East relations, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. From 1997 to 2000, Dr. Doran was an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Central Florida. He is the author of a study of the first Arab-Israeli war, entitled Pan-Arabism Before Nasser: Egyptian Power Politics and the Palestine Question (Oxford University Press, 1999), and is currently working on a book entitled The Trump Card: Israel in the Arab Civil War. After he published an influential article on Osama bin Laden in the January/February 2002 issue of Foreign Affairs, both government and business have frequently invited him to speak on Middle Eastern affairs.

January 17

Phyllis Bennis - Institute for Policy Studies fellow Phyllis Bennis is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. She has been a writer, analyst and activist on Middle East issues, especially Israel-Palestine, for 25 years. Based at the United Nations, she began working on U.S. domination of the UN at the time of the run-up to the Gulf War, and has stayed involved in work on Iraq sanctions, disarmament and U.S. policy towards Iraq. In 1999 Phyllis accompanied a group of congressional aides to Iraq to examine the impact of U.S.-led economic sanctions on the humanitarian conditions there.

Judith Yaphe - Distinguished Research Professor at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, the National Defense University, Washington D.C., Judith is a specialist in Middle Eastern political analysis, with a focus on Iraq, Persian Gulf, Arab, Islamic and regional issues. Prior to joining the INSS in 1995, Dr. Yaphe served with the Directorate of Intelligence, Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis at the Central Intelligence Agency. Considered to be one of the most respected authorities on Iraq in the U.S., Judith received the Intelligence Medal of Commendation for her work on the 1990-1991 Iraq/Persian Gulf war. Professor Yaphe co-authored the book Strategic Implications of a Nuclear-Armed Iran and wrote and edited The Middle East in 2015: the Impact of Regional Trends in U.S. Security Planning. Yaphe has presented numerous papers and has been a regular guest on NPR's All Things Considered and television news programs such as PBS' The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Nightline, and CNN.

Sandra Mackey - a Middle East observer, author and commentator. This widely respected journalist has covered the Middle East since the oil boom of the 1970s. Her books focus on the Arab world, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq (The Reckoning) and Saudi Arabia (The Saudis.) Ms. Mackey has written hundreds of articles for the "New York Times," "Los Angeles Times," "Wall Street Journal," "Chicago Tribune," "Christian Science Monitor," and "Washington Post," and she is a frequent commentator on the Middle East for CNN, "Nightline," "ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings," the BBC, CBS, NPR and Monitor Radio.

Kathy Gannon - Associated Press bureau chief in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. She has worked 14 years in the region and seen the rise and fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. She was the only western journalist in Kabul when the Taliban fell in 2001. She was in Pakistan and Afghanistan during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, saw the death of Pakistani dictator Zia-ul Haq, the torturous attempts at democracy in Pakistan, and the return of military rule there. In Afghanistan she witnessed the violent rule of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in the early 1990s and chartered their return after the collapse of the Taliban.

January 10, 2004

Dr. Warren Haffar - Director of the International Peace and Conflict Resolution program at Arcadia University, Philadelphia PA. Prior, Dr. Haffar served as a program officer at the Project on Ethnic Relations, an NGO that conducts programs of high-level intervention and serves as a neutral mediator to prevent ethnic conflict in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the former Soviet Union. His experience extends to mediation of environmental disputes as well as research and publication on the sources of environmental conflict, sustainable development strategies in post-conflict societies, and research methods in conflict analysis.

Nijyar H. Shemdin - the U.S. Representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil, Iraq since 1997. Shemdin is the liaison person for the Barzani Endowment fund at American University in Washington DC. He has been a featured guest of numerous international and national news programs and has been a speaker at American University, the Indianapolis Council on World Affairs and the World Affairs Council in Portland, Oregon. Shemdin has participated in panels that addressed Iraqi and Kurdish issues at: the Ahmad Foundation for Kurdish Studies, Boston MA, The Watson Institute for International Studies and Brown University, Providence, RI, United Stated Institute for Peace. Shemdin has participated in discussions on developing courses to be taught in Iraqi Kurdistan with the help of a consortium of American Universities and USIP. Shemdin has also been a lecturer at the Al-Hikma University in Baghdad. Mr. Shemdin has lived and done extensive traveling in North America, Europe, the Middle East and the Far East.

Michelle Jeffress - director of International Programs at The Fund for American Studies. Jeffress has been associated with The Fund since 1995 when she attended the Institute on Political Journalism. Since 1998, she has worked with The Fund's international programs, and, in addition to her role as Director of IIPES, she is also working on establishing new Institutes in Asia and Latin America. Before joining the Fund, Michelle worked for both the British House of Commons and the U.S. Senate.

Robert Norberg - an activist on issues involving Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. He serves on the boards of Americans for Middle East Understanding (AMEU) and American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA). From 1964 to 1995, Mr. Norberg worked for the Saudi oil company, Aramco, first in the company’s Public and Government Relations department in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. In 1984 he transferred to the Washington DC office and retired as Director in 1995.

January 3, 2004

Richard A. Falk - the Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice at Princeton University since 1965. He is a visiting professor of Global Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Chair of the Board at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His most recent books are The Great Terror War (2003), Religion and Humane Global Governance (2002), and Human Rights Horizons (2001). He has been on the editorial boards of about ten journals and magazines, including the American Journal of International Law (1961-) and The Nation (1978). Prof. Falk served as Chairman of the Consultative Council, Lawyers' Committee on American Policy Toward Vietnam (1967-75). Prof. Falk has provided expert testimony in many high profile cases and legislative and administrative hearings. He has B.S. (economics), Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (1952); LL.B., Yale Law School (1955); J.S.D., Harvard University (1962).

Catherine Cook - senior analyst and media coordinator at the Middle East Research and Information Project in Washington, DC. She is the former International Advocacy Coordinator for Defence for Children International/Palestine Section. Cook received her MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago in 1997 and was a Fulbright grant recipient in Amman, Jordan from 1997-1998. She has traveled to and from the region since September 1996, and lived in Ramallah from June 1999-2002. She’s just returned from a trip to Ramallah.

Richard Meade / Fran Meade - Mr. Meade’s career in Saudi Arabia spans 3 decades. From 1965 to 1976, he worked for Wilson-Murrow International, a consulting engineering firm that was contracted to the Ministry of Communications (now Transport) on the Highway Program. From 1977 until 1998, Mr. Meade was associated with H.H. Prince Khalid bin Saud bin Mohamed Al Saud and was Vice President of Tanhat Holding Company. He was a member the American Businessmen’s Group of Riyadh (ABGR), and was also the Founding Chairman of the American Business Council of the Gulf Countries (ABCGC). Mr. Meade earned a B.S.C.E. degree in Civil Engineering at the Virginia Military Institute in 1947. He is a member of the Steering Committee that established the Saudi-American Forum.

December 27

Phebe Marr - author of The Modern History of Iraq and a former senior fellow at the National Defense University in Washington. She has lived and worked in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon and has traveled extensively in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and East Asia. Dr. Marr is on the editorial board of the Middle East Journal and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Middle East Institute. Dr. Marr received a B.A. in international relations with honors from Barnard College, an M.A. in Middle East studies from Radcliffe Graduate School, and a Ph.D. in history and Middle East studies from Harvard University (1967). She served as a research analyst for the Arabian American Oil Company (1960–62) in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and as chair of the Near East and North Africa program at the Foreign Service Institute (1963–66). In 1998 and 1999 she was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C.

Michael Tarazi - a Palestinian-American lawyer who is a legal advisor to the Negotiations Affairs Department of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He has recently toured the United States to discuss the current conflict and the breakdown of negotiations. He has recently made numerous appearances on CNN, NBC, ABC and the BBC. Mr. Tarazi was raised in Colorado, attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and earned degrees at Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Prior to taking his current position, Mr. Tarazi practiced securities law in New York and Europe. Mr. Tarazi is a member of the New York State Bar.

Radwan Masmoudi - founder and president of the Center of the Study of Islam & Democracy (CSID), a Washington-based non-profit think tank. He has written and published several papers on the topics of democracy, diversity, human rights, and tolerance in Islam. Dr. Masmoudi was also a Founding Member and President of the Tunisian Scientific Society (TSS). Dr. Masmoudi has a Ph.D. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in robotics, automation, and control. He has worked for eight years as a research engineer, senior research engineer, and advanced control engineer. In 1999, he won the prestigious George Olmsted Award for his research on “Rapid Prediction of Effluent Biological Oxygen Demand for improved environmental control.” Dr. Masmoudi was born in Tunisia in 1963 and immigrated to the United States in 1981.

Ali Abdullatif Ahmida - professor of political science at the University of New England in Maine, and author of The Making of Modern Libya (SUNY Press, 1994) and numerous articles on the post-revolutionary Libyan state. Professor Ahmida was born in Libya and educated in Egyptian and American universities. His specialty is political theory, comparative politics, and historical sociology of power, agency and anti-colonial resistance in North Africa, especially modern Libya. He has published major articles in Critique, Arab Future and International Journal of Islamic and Arabic Studies. Professor Ahmida has received many academic grants and awards, such as the Social Science Research Council National Grant Award, the Shahade Award, and recently the Kenneally Cup Award in 2003 for distinguished academic service at University of New England. His new book, Forgotten Voices: Power and Agency in Colonial and Postcolonial Libya, is forthcoming from Routledge Press.

December 20

Roger Normand - co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), a human rights group that advocates against poverty and economic injustice both at home and abroad. He oversees policy and program and directs projects in the Middle East and Central Asia. In recent years he has led human rights fact-finding missions to Iraq, Israel and Palestine, and Afghanistan. Mr. Normand also teaches human rights at Columbia University. Prior to CESR, he organized the Harvard Study Team missions to Iraq in 1991, the first independent investigations of the impact of war and sanctions on Iraq’s civilian population. He has also worked with Human Rights Watch and Catholic Relief Services on refugee issues in Southeast Asia. A graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard Divinity School, he has written on human rights and refugee issues for a wide range of publications

Joseph Mahon – Worked for 30 years at the Saudi oil company, Aramco, first as Operations Service Engineer and later as a Design Engineer in Ras Tanura. He then transferred to Dhahran where in 1961 he was made Coordinator of Budget and Programs. From 1963 until 1968, he served as Superintendent of Plants and then as District Engineer in Abqaiq. In 1968, Mr. Mahon returned to Dhahran and for the next 14 years served in various managerial positions, eventually becoming Vice President of Project Planning, Engineering and Construction in 1976. Two years later Mr. Mahon was promoted to the position of Senior Vice President, Corporate Services. Mr. Mahon attended Villanova College, receiving a BS in Naval Science (1947) and a BS in Mechanical Engineering (1948). In 1965, he also attended the Carnegie Mellon Graduate School Program for Executives. He has just returned from a two week tour of Saudi Arabia.

Trevor LeGassick - professor of Arabic Literature at the University of Michigan since 1966. He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Digest of Middle East Studies. LeGassick has translated numerous key works from classic and contemporary Arabic, most recently The Secret Life of Saeed by Imil Habibi, a work he co-translated with Salma Jayyusi. He’s done overseas research in London, Cairo, Beirut and Egypt. He holds a Ph.D. in Arabic Studies from the University of London.

December 13

Jim Zogby - founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI). Since 1985, Dr. Zogby and AAI have led Arab American efforts to secure political empowerment in the U.S. A co-founder and chairman of the Palestine Human Rights Campaign in the late 1970s, he later co-founded and served as the Executive Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. In 1982, he co-founded Save Lebanon, Inc., a private non-profit, humanitarian and non-sectarian relief organization which funds health care for Palestinian and Lebanese victims of war, and other social welfare projects in Lebanon. He has authored a number of books including two recent publications, "What Ethnic Americans Really Think" and "What Arabs Think: Values, Beliefs and Concerns."

Isobel Coleman - Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy with the Council on Foreign Relations. She is an expert on the role of women in the Middle East and South West Asia, and director of a Council initiative on women and U.S. foreign policy, focusing on the role of women in the economic and political development of Muslim societies. Coleman was chairman of NursingHands, Inc., a health care services company she founded in 2000. She spent eight years at McKinsey & Co., where she was a partner in the New York office and worked primarily in financial services and on various McKinsey Global Institute initiatives. She was formerly a research fellow at the Brookings Institution and an adjunct professor at American University where she taught on U.S.-Japan relations. She holds a D.Phil. and an M.Phil. from Oxford University; and a B.A. from Princeton University.

Omar Bahlaiwa - Secretary General to the Committee of Development of International Trade at the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce & Industry in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Educated in Saudi Arabia with specialized training from the United States, Mr. Bahlaiwa has worked in factory environments as a plant manager and general manager, and was Vice President of Sales & Marketing for the Saudi Industrial Export Company in Riyadh before joining the Council of Saudi Chambers in 2000. He was interviewed while attending a conference in Washington in September.

Zaid Albanna - a member of the Board of Directors of the Education for Peace Center in Iraq. He was born and raised in Bagdhad, and has just returned from a month-long stay. Zaid encountered widespread unemployment as over half of Iraq’s labor force is out of work or under-employed. He witnessed the toll that years of tyranny, sanctions and war has taken on his homeland, leaving many Iraqis impoverished and completely dependent on food rations.

Lisa Hajjar - an associate professor of Law and Society at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Professor Hajjar's interests include human rights, International law, race, gender, sexuality, nationalism and ethnicity, peace and conflict, and social theory. She is the author of a forthcoming book, Authority, Resistance and the Law: A Study of the Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza. (University of California Press (Forthcoming)). Hajjar chairs the editorial committee of Middle East Report and is a member of the board of the Middle East Research and Information Project. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from American University, an M.A. in Arab Studies from Georgetown University, and a B.A., International Relations from Tufts University.

December 6

William O. Beeman - associate professor of Anthropology and Theatre, Speech and Dance, and the director of Middle East Studies at Brown University. He holds an A.B. from Wesleyan University, and a M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Beeman’s research includes language styles and socio-cultural patterns in Iran; traditional theatre in the Middle East, India and Japan; philosophic anthropology, peasant and nomadic societies: Middle East, particularly Iran and the Persian Gulf region. Recent grants include the Office of Net Assessment, U.S. Department of Defense Conference Grant for Workshop on Middle East Youth Culture February 27-March 1, 2003. He is the author of the forthcoming book "Iraq: State in Search of a Nation."

John Mandaville - director of the Middle East Studies Center at the Portland State University. After obtaining his BA in History at Dartmouth College, he went on for graduate studies first at the University of Edinburgh for a Diploma in Islamic Studies; and then to Princeton, where he obtained his doctorate in History and Near Eastern Studies. His research and publications have focused on the social and legal history of the Middle East since 1500, with special emphasis on the Arab world. Growing up in an oil camp in Saudi Arabia, attending high school in Beirut, he still travels regularly for research throughout the region – most often to Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, Yemen and Syria.

Abbas Milani - visiting professor of political science at Stanford University, and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. Milani lived in Iran until 1986 where he taught at the Faculty of Law and Political Science at Tehran University. Milani is the author of many books including, The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution (Mage, 2000) His latest book is Rethinking Persian Modernity (forthcoming). Milani's articles have been published in journals, magazines, and newspapers including the Encyclopedia Iranica, the Hoover Digest, Iranshenasi, the Journal of the Middle East, Middle East Journal, the New York Review of Books, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Times Literary Supplement. Milani received his BA in political science and economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1970 and his PhD in political science from the University of Hawaii in 1974.

Dr. Anthony Sullivan - an internationally recognized senior scholar who holds an honorary position as Associate at the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies at Michigan. In addition, he serves as Director of Faculty at the International Institute for Political and Economic Studies in Greece (Crete). He taught at International College in Beirut, Lebanon, for five years and is the author of or contributor to five books and some 80 journal articles and academic reviews focusing on the Arab and Islamic world. Currently, he is a Senior Fellow at the Fund for American Studies in Washington, D.C. Dr. Sullivan received his B.A. degree from Yale University, his M.A. from Columbia University, and his Ph.D in European and Middle Eastern history from the University of Michigan. He speaks both French and Arabic and travels frequently to Europe and the Middle East.

November 29

Dr. Hilal Elver - teaches environmental policy as a visiting professor in the Global Studies Program at the University of California - Santa Barbara. She is a member of the editorial committee of Middle East Report. Elver has taught at the Ankara University School of Law in Turkey and was a legal advisor to Turkey's Ministry of Environment. She is currently working on a book dealing with the influence of Turkish politics on the Middle East.

Ms. Lois Wolfrum - spent fourteen years working for Saudi Aramco starting in 1956 when she started work in Dhahran for the Government Relations organization. In 1960, she transferred to the company’s New York office. In 1963, Ms. Wolfrum returned to the Kingdom and rejoined the Arabian Affairs Division of the Government Relations organization in Dhahran. In 1970, she became Secretary to the Director of Management Development, and in 1972 she was promoted to Secretary to the General Manager of Producing and Exploration and then to Secretary to the Vice President of Oil Processing and Movement.
Since returning to the United States in 1973, Ms. Wolfrum has produced and marketed a slide/sound and video presentation entitled An Introduction to Saudi Arabia which has been used by corporations, schools, and libraries in the United States. She is just back from a return visit to Saudi Arabia.

Gary Sick - Senior Research Scholar, adjunct professor of international affairs and former director of the Middle East Institute (2000-2003) at Columbia University. He served on the National Security Council staff under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan. He was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis and is the author of two books on U.S.-Iranian relations. Mr. Sick is a captain (ret.) in the U.S. Navy, with service in the Persian Gulf, North Africa and the Mediterranean. He was the deputy director for International Affairs at the Ford Foundation from 1982 to 1987, where he was responsible for programs relating to U.S. foreign policy. He is a member of the board of Human Rights Watch in New York and co-chairman of the advisory committee of Human Rights Watch/Middle East. He is the executive director of Gulf/2000, an international research project on political, economic and security developments in the Persian Gulf, being conducted at Columbia University with support from the Ford, W. Alton Jones, MacArthur and Rockefeller Foundations and the Open Society Institute.

Steven Goldberg - an attorney in Portland, Oregon and co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild's International Law Committee. Goldberg participated in the Guild’s delegation to the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel in January 2001. He is the co-author (with Zaha Hassan) of a recent National Lawyers Guild report, "Israel's Wall: An Analysis of Its Legal Validity Under US and International Law." http://www.nlg.org/news/articles/wall.htm#_ftn1

November 22

Mr. Timothy J. Barger – a Saudi Aramco ExPat who is just back from a reunion tour of Saudi Arabia. He is the editor and publisher of Out in the Blue: Letters from Arabia 1937-1940. His company, the Selwa Press, also operates the Internet's largest collection of early photographs of the Kingdom at www.outintheblue.com. Barger is the son of former Aramco President & CEO Thomas Barger. Born and raised in Dhahran, Mr. Barger worked at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh from 1974 until 1977, where he produced and directed numerous videos. From 1977 until 1980, Mr. Barger established SAEECO, the Saudi Arabian Electronic Equipment Corporation, to provide technical services for video and cable television systems in the Jeddah area.

Norma Moruzzi - an associate professor of Political Science and Gender and Women’s Studies with the University of Illinois at Chicago. She works on the politics of social identity, especially the intersections of gender and Jewish or Islamic identity. Her book, Speaking Through the Mask: Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Social Identity, was published in 2000 by Cornell University Press. She has collaborated on a documentary video and oral history project on Palestinian-Americans, and has published articles on representations of Islamic women in cinema, on the politics of immigration and veiling in France, and on French feminist theory. She recently returned from a sabbatical in the Middle East, where she was working on a project on the changing roles of secular middle class women in contemporary Iran.

Daniel Thomas - a professor of International Relations and European politics at the University of Pittsburgh. During 2002-2003, he worked in Brussels as a foreign policy advisor to the European Union. His research focuses on European integration, trans-Atlantic relations, and the international politics of human rights. His most recent book, “The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights and the Demise of Communism,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2001.

November 15

Kaveh Ehsani - an Iranian writer and researcher based in Chicago. He is on the editorial board of Goft-o-gu (Dialogue) Journal in Iran and a contributing editor for Middle East Report. In his most recent article, The High Stakes for Iran, Ehsani addresses the post-war chaos in Iraq that has paradoxically prompted the Bush administration to escalate “regime change” rhetoric directed at Tehran. He writes that Iran is engaged in a fragile transition to democracy, and that the greatest threats to this difficult process are the Iranian hardliners and the support they receive from the Bush administration. Ehsani is a former political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He splits his time between Tehran and Chicago.

Diana Buttu - a legal advisor with the Negotiations Affairs Department of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Ms. Buttu lives in Ramallah. She is editor of the Palestine Yearbook of International Law and a member of the Ontario Bar. She previously served as legal council to the Canadian Department of Justice in Ottowa. She received a B.A. and an LL.M from Stanford University; a J.D. from Queen's University in Ontario; and a J.S.M from Stanford University. She is frequently quoted as an authority on the Palestinian perspective in such news sources as MSNBC, CNN and the Washington Post.

William Tracy, Jr. - A Saudi Aramco ExPat. Mr. Tracy was a young boy when he arrived in Saudi Arabia 1946. He attended Aramco schools and later the American Community School in Beirut, Lebanon, earning a BA in English at Duke University and an MS in Political Science at the American University of Beirut. He has worked for Aramco in Ras Tanura and Dhahran, and also for the Aramco Overseas Company (AOC) in Beirut, Lebanon and The Hague. From 1990 to 2000 he served at Aramco Services Company (ASC) in Houston. During his time in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Tracy’s work enabled him to travel extensively throughout the Kingdom and the Arabian Peninsula, interviewing Saudi businessmen and government officials on assignments for the Aramco World magazine. Since returning to the United States, Mr. Tracy has lectured on Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, and Islam throughout the country. He is a regular writer of letters to newspaper editors and op-ed articles on Middle East topics.

Ron Haviv - a co-founding photojournalist of the VII Photo Agency and a contract photographer for Newsweek. Haviv graduated from New York University in 1987. Since the onset of conflict in the Balkans, Ron has continually photographed the ongoing strife in this turbulent region, committed to the necessity of keeping our attention focused on the emotional consequences of these bloody ethnic wars. Throughout his career as a photojournalist he has confronted risk in order to bring attention to our less fortunate neighbors. He has covered conflict in Latin America and the Caribbean, crisis in Africa, the Gulf War, fighting in Russia, anarchy and conflict in the Balkans. His work is widely published by magazines throughout the world including Life, Time, Esquire, German Geo, Stern, Paris Match and the New York Times Magazine. He is the subject of a one-hour National Geographic Explorer documentary, and also participated in a CNN documentary on the Balkans and a French television program on war photographers.

November 8

Daniel Byman - Assistant Professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He has served as a Professional Staff Member with the Joint 9/11 Inquiry Staff of the House and Senate Intelligence Committee. Before joining the Inquiry Staff he was the Research Director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation, and has also served as an analyst on the Middle East for the U.S. government.

Alan Colmes - The liberal counterpart and co-host of Hannity & Colmes on Fox News Channel; as host of a news-driven late-night talk show FOX News Live with Alan Colmes, which is syndicated by the FOX News Channel; and is author of Red, White & Liberal: How Left is Right and Right is Wrong. After a string of successful radio shows on WNBC, WABC and WMCA in New York, Colmes gained a reputation as a hard-hitting liberal known for his electric commentary on the American agenda.

Mrs. Mary Norton - an Aramco ExPat who just returned from a reunion visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in October. Mrs. Norton joined Aramco in 1958 as a single woman, was secretary for Aramco TV, and later prepared a weekly home show for Saudi Arabian women. In 1979, she worked as a writer and editor in Public Affairs. As a member of the Dhahran Outing Group, she led several tours to Afghanistan in the 1970s and to Syria in the 1980s. In February 2003, Mrs. Norton gave a presentation on Saudi Arabia as part of a series, Insights Into Other Cultures, sponsored by Quest. She also contributes articles to Saudi Aramco's retirement publication, Al-Ayyam al-Jamilah, and is a member of the National Council of Americans for Middle East Understanding (AMEU), a New York-based group that seeks to encourage a deeper appreciation of the culture, history, and current events of the Middle East.

Mr. Howard Norton - Also an Aramco ExPat who just returned from Saudi Arabia. Mr. Norton taught math and social science to Saudi Arabian employees of Aramco at the company's Industrial Training Center (ITC) from 1958 to 1968. Many of his students have since become part of the company's Executive Management. From 1969 to 1970, he was Assistant Principal at the ITC. Mr. Norton later moved to Computer Systems at Aramco, where he developed his skills as a computer analyst for seven years, and subsequently transferred to Gas Operations, where he spent two years as Planning and Program Engineer. He worked at Maintenance Systems Support, under the Mechanical Services Organization, until his retirement in January, 1989. Along with his wife, Mary, Mr. Norton has participated in The Aramco History Project, an ongoing effort to capture on tape the memories of Aramco's early employees and their spouses. The project was initiated by Mr. Paul Nance, founder of The Nance Museum. Mr. Norton earned a B.S. in Agriculture at Oklahoma State University and a B.S. in Education at SE Oklahoma State.

Abraham Sofaer - A Senior Fellow at The Hoover Institution based at Stanford Law, Sofaer served as legal adviser to the U.S. Department of State from 1985 to 1990. He was principal negotiator in various interstate matters that were successfully resolved, including the dispute between Egypt and Israel over Taba, the claim against Iraq for its attack on the USS Stark, and the claims against Chile for the assassination of diplomat Orlando Letelier. He received the Distinguished Service Award in 1989, the highest state department award given to a non-civil servant. Earlier, from 1979 to 1985, Sofaer was a U.S. district judge in the Southern District of New York. He handled several high-profile cases, including the libel action against Time magazine by Israeli general Ariel Sharon. A veteran of the U.S. Air Force, Sofaer received an LL.B. degree from New York University School of Law in 1965. Sofaer is a founding trustee of the National Museum of Jazz in Harlem.

November 1

Ian Williams - Freelance Journalist
Ian Williams is a freelance journalist covering the United Nations and world affairs. He has written for newspapers and magazines around the world, including The Independent, the New York Observer, the Village Voice, Newsday, the Financial Times and the Guardian. He is the UN correspondent for the Nation and has appeared on radio and TV shows across the world. On the Middle East, he has contributed to Middle East Report, Middle East International, the Jordan Times, Al Hayat and Al Wasat. In recent months, he has spoken about Iraq on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBC and numerous radio stations.

Gregory J. Dowling
Mr. Gregory J. Dowling spent the majority of his childhood (1954 to 1967) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where his father worked for the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco). After studying in Washington, D.C., Dowling returned to the Kingdom in 1978 as an employee of Aramco's Government Affairs Organization. For most of the period of his employment with Aramco (1978 to 1990), Mr. Dowling was based at the company's administrative headquarters at Dhahran. Subsequent to his leaving Aramco's employ, Mr. Dowling has written on Middle Eastern politics and economics, with particular reference to Saudi Arabia, for the Economist Intelligence Unit and Business Monitor International. He is currently engaged in historical research on Aramco's concessionary relationship with the Kingdom. He has also contributed articles to the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations' recently established web-based information initiative, the Saudi-American Forum.

Dr. Frank Newport - Editor-in-Chief, THE GALLUP POLL/THE GALLUP POLL TUESDAY BRIEFING
Dr. Frank Newport is the Editor-in-Chief of The Gallup Poll and The Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing, and is the featured analyst on CNN’s Gallup Poll segments. Newport became editor in chief of The Gallup Poll in 1990, and has since directed more polling about American public opinion than anyone else in the world. He has answered virtually every question about where America stands on issues, how polling is done and what it means. Newport has an extensive background in broadcasting and media. He worked his way through Baylor University as a radio announcer and as a television sports and news anchor. He majored in broadcasting, but soon became interested in studying his fellow humans and switched to sociology. Newport received his master’s and doctorate degrees in sociology from the University of Michigan.

Zachary Lockman – Director, Center for Near Eastern Studies, New York University. Contributing Editor, Middle East Report
Zachary Lockman is the director of New York University’s Center for Near Eastern Studies, and contributing editor of Middle East Report. Lockman’s main research and teaching field is the socioeconomic, cultural and political history of the modern Middle East, particularly the Mashriq. Under the influence of the "new social history" and "history from below" movements of the 1960s and 1970s, he did his doctoral dissertation on the emergence and evolution of a working class and labor movement in Egypt from the late nineteenth century until the Second World War. It was published in 1987 in a book co-authored with Joel Beinin. Lockman has done a great deal of work on Palestine, manifested in a 1989 edited volume on the Intifada, and a 1996 book on relations between Arab and Jewish workers and labor movements in Palestine during the British mandate period. Along the way he has served as a member of the MESA Board of Directors and of the Social Science Research Council/American Council of Learned Societies Joint Committee on the Near and Middle East.

October 25

Rachel Bronson - Olin Senior Fellow and Director, Middle East and Gulf Studies, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
TOPIC: The recent decision in Saudi Arabia to have municipal elections. Iraq. The Madrid funding conference this week. Arab-Israeli and the Persian Gulf.
Rachel Bronson - Olin Senior Fellow and Director of Middle East and Gulf Studies for the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Bronson’s areas of expertise include U.S. national security and foreign policy; She has worked extensively with issues of regional security and politics, particularly in the Middle East. She is beginning research on her new book “With Us or Against Us: The Making of US Policy toward Saudi Arabia 1945-present.” She also directs the Council’s round table on “Islam and the Middle East,” and is beginning work on a book devoted to U.S.-Saudi relations. In 2000-2001 she directed the Council on Foreign Relation’s study group on “U.S. Security Policy in the Persian Gulf,” which was co-sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

Najib Ghadbian - Assistant Professor of Political Science and Middle East Studies
UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS
TOPIC: Democracy and the Middle East
Dr. Najib Ghadbian - Assistant Professor of Political Science and Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas. He authored Democratization and the Islamists Challenge in the Arab World in 1997. A revised and updated Arabic edition was published in Amman and Beirut in 2002. Prior to joining the University of Arkansas, he worked as a research analyst at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research in Abu Dhabi, where he headed the media unit and served on the administrative board. Ghadbian’s research interests include political currents & media in the Arab world, Islamic movements, Syrian politics, and domestic & international politics in the Arabian/Persian Gulf.

Walter Mears - Pulitzer Prize Winning Associated Press Reporter (retired, 45-year veteran of the AP)
TOPIC: Presidential Politics and the Media
Walter Mears - author of In Deadlines Past: Forty Years of Presidential Campaigning: A Reporter’s Story. Mears was an Associated Press legend, a reporter who was able to observe, process, and write critical political coverage, as another writer put it, "faster than most people can think." He reported on national politics from 1960 to 2001 as one of the "boys on the bus" and was said to be the most influential political writer of his time because his AP stories appeared in virtually every American daily newspaper. He received the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1977 for his coverage of the 1976 presidential campaign and election. He retired after the 2001 presidential inauguration and now lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Charles Hill - Diplomat in Residence and Lecturer in International Studies, Yale University
TOPIC: Iraq ~ What is this War about? What is its Significance?
Charles Hill - diplomat in residence and lecturer in International Studies at Yale University. A career minister in the U.S. Foreign Service, Hill is also a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. Hill was executive aide to former U.S. Secretary Of State George P. Shultz (1985 - 89) and served as special c onsultant on policy to the secretary-general of the United Nations from 1992 to 1996. Hill was co-author with Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali on Unvanquished: A U.S.-U.N. Saga. Their collaboration also produced Egypt's Road to Jerusalem, a memoir of how the Middle East peace process began.

October 18

Hassan Al-Husseini - Director, Media & Communications, Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority
TOPIC: Realities of World Oil Markets.
Born in Damscus, raised in Syria and Rome, Mr. al Husseini has lived around the Middle East and spent five years in Columbus, Ohio as part of his ten year career as a journalist. He is a resident of Dahran, Saudi Arabia, where he worked for 20 years for Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company. This interview was recorded in early September of this year, and we'll play excerpts throughout today's show.

Patrick Clawson - Deputy Director, THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY
TOPIC: How To Build A New Iraq After Saddam
Patrick Clawson is deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and senior editor of Middle East Quarterly. He is the author of more than thirty scholarly articles on the Middle East, which have appeared in, among other scholarly media, Foreign Affairs, International Economy, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics and Middle East Journal. Dr. Clawson has also published op-ed articles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, among other newspapers. From 1993 to 1997, Dr. Clawson was a senior research professor at the Institute for National Strategic Studies of the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., where he was the editor of the Institute's flagship annual publication, Strategic Assessment. From 1981 to 1992, he was a research economist for four years each at the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Foreign Policy Research Institute, where he was also editor of Orbis, a quarterly review of foreign affairs.

October 11

Loretta Napoleoni is an economist, political analyst expert on terrorism. Born and raised in Rome, by the mid 1970s, Loretta Napoleoni became an active member of the feminist movement and a political activist. She was a Fulbright scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC and a Rotary Scholar at the London School of Economics. As an economist she worked for several banks and international organizations in Europe and the US. Ms. Napoleoni is also a journalist and has worked as a foreign correspondent for several Italian financial papers. She was among the few people to interview the Red Brigades in Italy after three decades of silence; this research became the topic of her Ph.D.

Dr. Frank Newport is the Editor-in-Chief of The Gallup Poll and The Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing, and is the featured analyst on CNN’s Gallup Poll segments. Newport became editor in chief of The Gallup Poll in 1990, and has since directed more polling about American public opinion than anyone else in the world. He has answered virtually every question about where America stands on issues, how polling is done and what it means. Newport has an extensive background in broadcasting and media. He worked his way through Baylor University as a radio announcer and as a television sports and news anchor. He majored in broadcasting, but soon became interested in studying his fellow humans and switched to sociology. Newport received his master’s and doctorate degrees in sociology from the University of Michigan.

Michael Oren is a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem based institute for Jewish social thought and public policy that was established in 1994, where he heads the Middle East history project. He is an American who has lived in Israel for over 25 years and has served in the Israeli Defense Forces. He has a Ph.D. from Princeton in the History of the Middle East. He has published many scholarly articles on Modern Middle East History and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. A graduate of Columbia and Princeton, he has received fellowships from the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, and from the British and Canadian governments. In Israel, he has been a Lady Davis Fellow of Hebrew University and a Moshe Dayan Fellow at Tel-Aviv University. In addition, Oren served as an advisor on Interfaith Relations in the government of Yitzhak Rabin and was an advisor to the Israeli Delegation to the United Nations.

October 4

• Les Campbell - Senior Associate and Regional Director Middle East and North Africa Programs of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. Previously, he directed NDI's field offices in Zagreb, Croatia and Sarajevo, Bosnia, where he conducted programs wi th political leaders on issues of democratic development, political party building and electoral reform. Mr. Campbell earlier served as an NDI consultant to the Russian parliament. Mr. Campbell has been involved in election processes and observation in Albania, Algeria, Bosnia, Croatia, Georgia, Russia, and Yemen. Mr. Campbell holds a Master in Public Administration degree from Harvard University.

• Mark Perry – Vice President of Jefferson Waterman International, where he is a military, intelligence, and foreign affairs analyst and writer whose internationally acclaimed works have furthered the public’s understanding of difficult political realities. On a recent trip to the Middle East, Mark visited the West Bank and Gaza, meeting with Yassir Arafat and Israeli officials. He is an active Washington correspondent for the Internet magazine The Palestine Report, and is a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center. A recognized expert in Middle East affairs, he is a regular Middle East analyst for CNN news programs. Mr. Perry received his undergraduate degree from Boston University and took post-graduate studies at Georgetown University.

• Gordon Brown – author, retired diplomat. During his over thirty-five year Foreign Service career, Brown served in a variety of senior management positions. On retirement from the diplomatic service in 1996, he helped to establish and was president of the U.S. – Qatar Business Council. One of his books, “Coalition, Coercion and Compromise,” analyzed the diplomacy of the 1990 Gulf War coalition, a subject familiar to Brown as the result of a long U.S. Foreign Service career focussed on the Middle East.

September 27

• John Weisman - Author of SOAR: A Black Ops Novel. The six-time New York Times best-selling co-author of nine Rogue Warrior books and the author of the acclaimed CIA short story There Are Monsterim, which was selected for Best American Mystery Stories. A former journalist, he has worked in more than three- dozen countries. From 1994-2002 he war-gamed counterterrorist tactical scenarios at the Heckler & Koch International Training Division. His affiliations include the Association of Former Intelligence Officers and the International Defensive Pistol Association.
• Bernard-Henri Levy - Author of Who Killed Daniel Pearl - He is a French philosopher, novelist and essayist. He has held several diplomatic positions with the French government, including being appointed to head a fact-finding mission in Afghanistan in 2002. Mr. Levy started his career as a war reporter for Combat, the underground newspaper founded by Albert Camus during the Nazi occupation of France. His books include “Barbarism With a Human Face,” “Sartre: The Philosopher of the Twentieth Century” and “War, Evil and the End of History.”
• Erik Gustafson - Executive Director of EPIC (Education for Peace in Iraq Center). Erik is a veteran of the Gulf War. In 1990-91 he spent eight months in Saudi Arabia with the 864th Engineer Battalion, building hospitals, roads and POW camps. In 1997, he traveled to Iraq on a humanitarian mission and became a dedicated opponent of the broad-based economic sanctions. In 1998, he founded EPIC and soon became recognized as an expert on Iraq and U.S. policy, testifying at congressional briefings and policy forums and delivering countless lectures across North America. His letters to the editor and opinion pieces have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and a dozen other newspapers.

September 20

• Samar Hussein Fatany - A radio talk host from Saudi Arabia, Samar is a senior announcer at Radio Jeddah. Her insights into the relationship between the Saudi's and America, the role of women in her country, and how the Saudi government is dealing with the problems it faces are unique and wonderfully articulated.
• Brid Beeler - Brid Beeler is the director of a tour company called Worlds Apart. She runs tours to Arabia and Persia, and says her most popular tour is to Saudi Arabia. The passion with which she discusses her love for that country highlights this discussion. Visit www.worldsapart.org.
• Chris Doyle - From the Committee for the Advancement of Arab British Understanding, Chris talks with great honesty about England's role in creating some of the problems in the middle east today, why Tony Blair took the side of the U.S. in the war against Iraq, and what the U.S. is doing wrong in Iraq. Visit caabu.org.
• Sahar al Husseini - born and raised in Saudi Arabia, Sahar has spent the last 6 of her 24 years studying in the United States. With a foot firmly planted in both worlds, Sahar discusses with unusual candor what she'd like to see change in Saudi Arabia, what she'd like to see change here, and what she sees for the future in the middle east.

September 13

• Helena Cobban is a Senior Global Affairs Fellow at University of Virginia?s Institute for Practical Ethics. She is writer and researcher on international affairs. Her articles appear in The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times and The Economist with a focus on peace-building, global governance, and international justice. She has published five books, numerous essays, reviews, and scholarly articles.
• Michael Greenberger is the Director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security (CHHS) at the University of Maryland and a professor at the School of Law. He was previously a United States Deputy Associate Attorney General. Included within his portfolio of responsibilities were several counterterrorism projects concerning both law enforcement and public health policy, including organizing a nationwide counter terrorism war game (?TOPOFF I?). Professor Greenberger writes about, and appears frequently in the media on, counterterrorism and constitutional law issues.
• James F. Goode, Ph.D. is a professor of history at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. He serves as coordinator of the Middle East Studies program and teaches several courses on the history of the Middle East and the Islamic world. His publications have focused on Iran where he lived from 1968 to 1973. He is author of US and Iran: In the Shadow of Musaddiq, and is currently writing a book on archaeology and nationalism in the Middle East, 1919-1939. He recently visited Iran.
• Thomas R. Paradise, Ph.D. is a professor in the department of Geosciences and the Fahd Center for Middle East & Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas. He has a background in geology-architecture-hazards-cartography. He?s worked in the Middle East for nearly twenty years, mostly in issues of cultural and natural resource. He is best known for his research of Petra's fantastic sandstone architecture -- how to conserve it, save it and manage it.
• Elizabeth A. Faier, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. Her research focuses on Palestinian citizens of Israel and specifically, the politics of identity/culture as it factors into things such as NGO activism, urban development, leadership, etc. She has also done research on gender and culture change looking at Palestinian activism and feminism, consumption practices, and violence.

September 6 - "Best Of" Show

• J.E. Campo - Co-Director of the UCSB Center for Middle East Studies. He specializes in the comparative study of Islam, particularly in the Middle East and South Asia. His research has taken him to Egypt, where he has lived for more than five years. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Turkey, Singapore, and Thailand are other countries where he has conducted research. Recorded May 10
• Ann Lesch - Professor of Political Science at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. Courses taught include Middle East International Relations and Comparative Politics of the Arab States, and her writings include Transition to Palestinian Self-Government (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1992) Recorded May 10
• Clyde Prestowitz - Writes for leading publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Foreign Affairs. He is the author of the best-selling book on U.S.-Japan relations, Trading Places. Prestowitz is founder and President of the Economic Strategy Institute, a Washington think-tank influential in the areas of international trade policy and specialized in sectoral economic analysis and the effects of globalization. Recorded May 10
• Khaled al-Maeena - Editor of the Arab News. Visit arabnews.com. Recorded August 3
• Dr. Jerry Lampe - Senior Associate at the National Foreign Language Center (NFLC) in charge of LangNet, an internet-based language learning support system which can be customized to a learner?s needs and goals. Prior to joining the NFLC, Dr. Lampe was Director of Language Studies and professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and served as the Director of the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) and the American Association of Teachers of Arabic (AATA). Recorded March 22 National Foreign Language Center

August 30

• Oliver James - an author and retired executive of an international Fortune 100 corporation. The first eight years of his career were spent in the aerospace and aviation industries. His last 29 years were in petroleum and petrochemicals. Born in Kentucky, he has lived and worked in many places in the United States and abroad - - in England, Belgium, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Mexico. He is author of a book on history of middle east conflict and a novel based on hostage taking of Americans in Lebanon in 1980?s called "Prisoners of Circumstance.?
• Vincent Cornell - Professor of History and Director of the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas. He has published two major books: The Way of Abu Madyan (Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1996) and Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1998). His pre-modern interests cover the entire spectrum of Islamic thought from Sufism to philosophy and Islamic law. He has lived and worked in Morocco for nearly six years, and has spent considerable time both teaching and doing research in Egypt, Tunisia, Malaysia and Indonesia.
• Sheila Carapico - Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science, University of Richmond. Her most recent book on the Middle East is Civil Society in Yemen: The Political Economy of Activism in Modern Arabia (Cambridge University Press, London: 1998).
• Chris Toensing - editor of Middle East Report, the award-winning quarterly magazine of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP). An Arabic speaker, he has appeared in numerous media venues to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and US policy toward the Middle East.

August 23

• Dr Alon Ben-Meir - Dr. Ben-Meir is a professor of International Relations and also of Business Negotiations at New York University and the New School University in New York City. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, he holds a master's degree in philosophy and a doctorate in international relations. Dr. Ben-Meir began his career as a journalist. His fluency in Arabic and Hebrew, combined with his extensive research and writing on Arab-Israeli affairs, affords him unique insights into the Middle East. His most recent book, A War We Must Win is scheduled for publication in summer 2003.
• Amatzia Baram - Between 1984 and 1988 Dr. Baram was a member of a small team advising P.M. (later Foreign Minister) Shimon Peres on Arab and Gulf affairs. Since then he has been advising various Western governments about Iraq and the Gulf. Dr. Baram taught at the Hebrew University between 1976 and 1980, and since then he has been teaching at the Department of Middle Eastern History, the University of Haifa.
• Dr. Louis J. Cantori - He has his PhD from the University of Chicago in political science. He studied Islamic philosophy for one year in the Faculty of Theology, al-Azhar University. He is the author or editor of four books, including Local Politics and Development in the Middle East. He is Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at the US Department of State . He is Adjunct Professor, US Marine Command and Staff College and the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University and Professor of Political Science , University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
• Afshin Molavi - Author of "Persian Pilgrimages: Journeys Across Iran". He covered Iran from 1998-2000 for Reuters news agency and the Washington Post ? and continues to travel regularly to the region. Prior to his posting in Tehran, Mr. Molavi covered the Arab states of the Persian Gulf region as a Dubai and Riyadh-based correspondent.

August 16 - replay from June 21

• Ellen Ratner - Talk Radio News Service, live from Bagdad
• Ambassador Alon Pinkas - Consul General of Israel in New York City
• Ambassador Bill Rugh - President AMIDEAST and former ambassador to Yemen and UAE.
• Ray Sadler - New Mexico State University, co-author The Archaeologist Was A Spy; Sylvanus Morley And The Office Of Naval Intelligence
• Heather Deegan Associate Professor in Comparative Politics Political and International Studies, Middlesex University, Queensway, Enfield

August 9

• Ray Hanania - a nationally syndicated Palestinian columnist and analyst on Middle East affairs. He is the executive director of the National Arab American Journalists Association (NAAJA) and a regular commentator on the Islamic Broadcasting Radio Network program "Roundtable" based in Washington D.C. and is a frequent guest on national radio and television network programs.
• Marvin Zonis - Professor, Graduate School of Business, The University of Chicago. Marvin Zonis is a professor at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago, where he teaches international political economy, leadership and business strategy in the era of e-commerce. He also heads Marvin Zonis & Associates, Political Risk Consultants. He is co-author of a new book coming in October, 2003: "The Kimchi Matters: Global Business and Local Politics in a Crisis-Driven World."
• Steven B. Redd, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Department of Political Science. His specialty is U.S. foreign policy and nationally security policy and nuclear weapons.
• Lisa Hajjar - Professor of Law and Society at the University of California Santa Barbara. Her specialty is in the Israeli military court and prison system and other human rights issues.

August 2

• Caspar Henderson - Globalization editor, OpenDemocracy.net
• Peter Hahn - Associate Professor and Vice Chair Department of History Ohio State University
• Khaled al-Maeena - Editor in Chief, Arab News. Visit www.arabnews.com.
• Michael Keren - Israeli professor of Political Science, University of Calgary. His latest book is "Zichroni v. State of Israel: The Biography of a Civil Rights Lawyer."

July 26

•Tim Crain - University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Department of History and the Center for Jewish Studies. Crain's research interests include Northern Ireland, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the modern Middle East.
• John Kingston - Global Director of oil for Platts, a division of McGraw Hill. Platts is a news service that covers all aspects of the world energy industry, including oil, and establishes daily price assessments for thousands of crudes and products that are then used as the basis for billions of dollars in supply contracts. He leads a staff of more than 70 journalists, and has been covering energy markets for more than 18 years.
• Peter Flint - Professor of Biblical Studies and Director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute at Trinity Western University in British Columbia. Dr. Flint is the author of numerous books and studies on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Old Testament, and Second Temple Judaism, including The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls and the Book of Psalms (1997), The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible (1999), and The Bible at Qumran (2001). His latest book, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, was recently named the best book related to the Old Testament by the Biblical Archaeology Society in Washington, DC.
• Asra Nomani - Journalist and author of ?Tantrika,? a book that tells her story as an American born Muslim searching for spiritual reconciliation on her ancestor?s path of divine love.

July 19

• Mr. Hafez Al-Mirazi - Washington Bureau Chief, Al Jazeera Satellite Channel. He hosts a weekly show, ?From Washington,? which highlights U.S. positions for Arab audiences and hosts top U.S. officials and opinion leaders. Previously he was a correspondent for the BBC Arabic/World Service and a talk-show host for the Arab News Network and Arab Network of America in Washington.
• Ivan Eland - Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute and Assistant Editor of The Independent Review. He has been Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, Principal Defense Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, Evaluator-in-Charge (national security and intelligence) for the U.S. General Accounting Office, and Investigator for the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
• Bruce Cronin - Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin. Specializes in International Organizations and International Law.
• Scott Davis - Author of The Road from Damascus: A Journey Through Syria and founder of Cume Press (cumepress.com)

July 12

• Ramzy Baroud - Ramzy is a Palestinian-American journalist who was born and raised in a refugee camp in Gaza but now resides in Seatte. He is the editor of Palestine Chronicle, a leading Palestinian online publication. He received the excellence in journalism award from the US National Arab and Muslim Journalists Association in 2002.
• Shale Horowitz - Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Has an Israeli perspective on the Israel/Palestinian conflict.
• Joel Beinin - Professor of Middle East History, Stanford University. Joel has been at Stanford since 1983. His reseach has focused on the social history of the modern middle east and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
• Marty Abegg - Trinity Western University Co-Author of The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, Marty is the Director of the MA in Biblical Studies at TWU and Co-Director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute at TWU. He is most famous for blasting open the "scrolls cartel," which was a group of scholars and religious leaders who for many years tried to keep the content of the scrolls secret. He has written numerous books on the subject as well.
• Caroline Seymour Jorn - Instructor, Arabic: Middle East stability, Arab cultural and language at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Caroline specializes on women intellectuals in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. She did ethnographic fieldwork in Egypt on women fiction writers and has spent a great deal of time with journalists in the region.

July 5 - Recorded June 14:
• Les Janka - Chairman of the Council for American Saudi Dialogue, a non-governmental people to people organization founded by concerned Americans in December 2002.
• Nancy V. Baker - Associate Professor, Department of Government, New Mexico State University
• Omid Safi - Author/Editor, Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism. (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003).
• Paul Hilder - Co-founder, openDemocracy.com, co-editor, "Peace Fire: Fragments from the Israel-Palestine Story" which collected over a hundred private testimonies, journalistic pieces and public figures' points of view from all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian equation, telling the complex story of the intifada from Camp David through to the end of 2002 (http://ambassadors.net/reviews2.htm).

June 28

• Jeremi Suri - Professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and author of Power and Protest : global revolution and the rise of détente.
• Alex Safian - Associate Director and Research Director at CAMERA, a media watch organization that works to assure that Israel and U.S. interests are accurately portrayed in the media. Visit www.camera.org.
• Grant Smith - Research Director at the Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy (IRMEP). Grant discussed a recent study indicating the loss of market share for U.S. exports to the Middle East over the past several years. Visit www.irmep.org.
• Claudena Skran - Associate Professor of Government and Department Chair, Lawrence University, Appleton, WI. She discussed the history of refugees and the legal status of Palestinian refugees in particular.
• Congressman Paul Findley - Founder, Chairman Emeritus, Council for the National Interest, Washington D.C., and author of Silent No More: Confronting America?s False Images of Islam, and They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel?s Lobby.

June 21
• Ellen Ratner - Talk Radio News Service, live from Bagdad
• Ambassador Alon Pinkas - Consul General of Israel in New York City
• Ambassador Bill Rugh - President AMIDEAST and former ambassador to Yemen and UAE.
• Ray Sadler - New Mexico State University, co-author The Archaeologist Was A Spy; Sylvanus Morley And The Office Of Naval Intelligence
• Heather Deegan Associate Professor in Comparative Politics Political and International Studies, Middlesex University, Queensway, Enfield

June 14th

• Les Janka - Chairman of the Council for American Saudi Dialogue, a non-governmental people to people organization founded by concerned Americans in December 2002.
• Nancy V. Baker - Associate Professor, Department of Government, New Mexico State University
• Omid Safi - Author/Editor, Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism. (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003).
• Paul Hilder - Co-founder, openDemocracy.com, co-editor, "Peace Fire: Fragments from the Israel-Palestine Story" which collected over a hundred private testimonies, journalistic pieces and public figures' points of view from all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian equation, telling the complex story of the intifada from Camp David through to the end of 2002 (http://ambassadors.net/reviews2.htm).

June 7th

• Jean-Robert Leguey-Feilleux - Professor of Political Science, Saint Louis University. He is working on book on Diplomacy.
• Edmund Hayes - Ed Hayes has most recently been involved in research for a project on a historical comparison of Islamic and Christian Iconography from medieval times to the present day, which he balances with his editorial work for openDemocracy.net.
• Ali R. Abootalebi - He is currently Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. Abootalebi teaches courses in International and Middle Eastern politics, including the Arab-Israeli conflict. His research interest thus far has dealt with the prospects for political development and democratization in developing countries in general and the Middle East in particular
• Nelly van Doorn-Harder - Born,raised and educated in the Netherlands. Teaching World Religions at Valparaiso University since January 1999. She is writing a book on Muslim women religious leaders in Indonesia.
• Jamie Brooks - Webmaster, VTJP.org, Vermonters for a Just Peace for Palestine/Israel

May 31st

• Dr. Akbar Ahmed, author - Islam Under Seige: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor World
• Valerie Hoffman - Associate Professor of Religion at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• Bill Kincade - Associate Professor of International Relations, American University
• Joseph Kechichian - Author, Succession in Saudi Arabia

May 24th:

• Todd May, Professor of Philosophy at Clemson
• Abdulmufsin Alakkas, member of Saudi Shura Council
• Rania Masri, Director, Southern Peace Research and Education Center
• Ellen Ratner, Talk Radio News Service

May 17th, broadcast on remote from New York City:

• Hugh Renfro
• Khaled al Maeena, editor, Arab News
• Radio talk hosts Howard Monroe, Les Kinsolving and Chuck Morse
• J.E. Campo

May 10th

• Ellen Ratner, Talk Radio News Service
• Adam Shapiro, International Solidarity Movement
• Larry Michalak
• J.E. Campo
• Ann Lesch - Villanova
• Clyde Prestowitz