Speaker biographies

Patrick Clawson is deputy director for research of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His previous positions include five years as senior research professor at the National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies and four years each as senior economist at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Clawson has published op-ed articles in newspapers including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. In addition to his frequent appearances on television and radio, he has authored more than thirty scholarly articles on the Middle East in such journals as Foreign Affairs, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Middle East Journal, and Les Cahiers de l’Orient (France). He has also testified before Congressional committees more than a dozen times. Currently serving as senior editor of Middle East Quarterly, he was previously editor of Orbis, a quarterly review of foreign affairs.

Omeed Jafari is research associate in foreign and defense policy studies at AEI. His research areas include American foreign policy, Iran, energy, and global investment activity in terror-sponsoring states. Mr. Jafari has been with AEI since August 2006.

Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI. Her research areas include the Middle East (including Iran, Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), south Asia (India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan), terrorism, and weapons proliferation. While at AEI, Ms. Pletka has developed a conference series on rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq, a project on democracy for the Arab world, a roundtable of experts to discuss global energy security, and a project to develop bilateral relations between India and the United States. She recently served as a member of the congressionally mandated Task Force on the United Nations, established by the United States Institute of Peace. Before coming to AEI, she served for ten years as a senior professional staff member for the Near East and South Asia on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Ms. Pletka has also been a journalist based in Washington, D.C., and the Middle East.

A. William Samii is currently an adjunct research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses. He is also a regional analysis coordinator with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Online, and editor of the “RFE/RL Iran Report.” His research articles have appeared in the Middle East Journal, Middle East Policy, and the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. He has contributed to several books about the Middle East.

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