Mark Parris is a senior public policy advisor at Baker Donelson. He served as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Turkey from 1997-2000. From 1995-1997, he served as special assistant to President Clinton and senior director for the Near East and South Asia at the National Security Council. Mr. Parris served as principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs before joining the NSC staff. He served as deputy chief of mission in the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel (1989-1992) during the Gulf War and the Madrid Middle East Peace Conference. Mr. Parris served as director of the Office of the Soviet Union Affairs from 1985-1988, playing a key role in the organization of President Reagan’s four summit meetings with Mikhail Gorbachev. He was a political counselor in Moscow from 1982-1985.

Richard Perle is a resident fellow at AEI and cochairman of Hollinger Digital. He has codirected the Commission on Future Defenses, a group organized to explore the use of advanced technology to increase the productivity of the armed forces. Mr. Perle is a member of the Defense Policy Board and a consultant to the secretary of defense. He was the assistant secretary of defense for international security policy and the chairman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization High Level Defense Group from 1981 to 1987. Mr. Perle writes frequently for the op-ed pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Daily Telegraph, and other publications. He is the editor of Reshaping Western Security (1991) and the author of Hard Line (1992), a political novel.

Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI. Her research areas include the Middle East, South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan), terrorism, and weapons proliferation. Before coming to AEI, she was a senior professional staff member for the Near East and South Asia on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1992 to 2002. Ms. Pletka also served as a staff writer for Insight Magazine, as well as an editorial assistant for the Los Angeles Times and Reuters in Jerusalem.

Sabri Sayari is the executive director of the Institute of Turkish Studies (ITS). He also teaches at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and serves as the chairperson of Turkish Area Studies at the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute. Mr. Sayari was previously a senior staff member at the National Academy of Science’s National Research Council (1992-1994), a consultant at RAND (1985-92), and professor of political science at Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey (1974-1984). He has taught at Rutgers University and held appointments at several institutions including Columbia University, University of California (Irvine), and Aarhus University in Denmark. He is the coeditor of Turkey’s New World: Changing Dynamics in Turkish Foreign Policy (2000); Politics, Parties and Elections in Turkey (2002); and Political Leaders and Democracy in Turkey (2002).