Can Regional Dialogue and Diplomacy succeed where maximum pressure has failed?

This Webinar focuses on the implications for US policy in the Middle East of previously unthinkable agreements among the countries and stakeholders in the Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean which have been under discussion and are now being implemented in late 2023. The failure of punitive American maximum pressure policies has necessitated new approaches.

The recent arrangement that resulted in repatriation of American and Iranian prisoners and unfreezing of $6B in previously impounded Iranian oil revenue emerged from the good offices, mutual respect and trust nurtured through Arab intermediaries.  Circumventing domestic hardline opposition in both DC and Tehran was critical to success. Is this arrangement a new opening for more direct regional dialogue is it a one-off?  Could constructive openings lead to ending western maximum pressure and sanctions policies and in turn improved Iranian government treatment of women and their supporters?

As if these hardened Iran-phobic 45 years without diplomatic relations were not enough of a challenge, climate change driven environmental and economic crises portend declines of regional oil-based economies.   They should also be incentives for new non-military-based relationships. Extreme heat and water shortages are shared existential threats that may either replace or exacerbate regional religious tensions and political power struggles.  The strategies for pursuing peace and even survival may be about to change.

The webinar will be convened by Thomas Huf of MAPA, moderated by Paul Barker of PCIA and will
feature distinguished speakers Assal Rad of the Eurasia Group Foundation, Dylan Williams of J Street,
and John Limbert, Former Ambassador in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other countries in Islamic Africa and the
Middle East.

Paul Barker – Moderator

Paul Barker served as an English teacher for the Peace Corps in Iran from 1971-76. After earning an MA in Islamic Studies from UCLA he and his wife, Nora, worked after their years in the Peace Corps in Iran for 33 years in international relief and development in a dozen countries in the Near East and East Africa.  After retiring to Oregon in 2014, Paul became the editor of the Advocacy Bulletin for the Peace Corps Iran Association, and currently serves on the board of the Peace Corps Iran Association.

Assal Rad – Presenter

Dr. Assal Rad works on research and writing related to contemporary Iran, U.S. foreign policy issues, and U.S.-Iran
relations. Rad is a Nonresident Fellow at the Eurasia Group Foundation. Her writing can be seen in Newsweek, The
National Interest, The Independent, Foreign Policy and more, and she has appeared as a commentator on BBC World, Al Jazeera, CNN, and NPR. She completed a PhD in Middle Eastern History from the University of California, Irvine in 2018 and is the author of The State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and
Identity in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Dylan Williams – Presenter

Named one of The Hill‘s “Top Lobbyists” seven years in a row, Dylan has served as J Street’s Washington, DC-based chief lobbyist responsible for developing and executing the organization’s strategy for securing pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy US policies in the Middle East. In this capacity Dylan is a leader in the advocacy efforts of peace-focused organizations to contain Iran’s nuclear program and to avoid military confrontation with the country. Dylan joined J Street in 2009 after serving as Counsel for Foreign Relations, Trade, and Immigration to U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe.

John Limbert – Presenter

Ambassador (retired) Foreign Service Officer, Academic, Novelist

John served for 34 years in the US Foreign Service and for twelve years as the Class of 1995 professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the US Naval Academy. During his time in the Foreign Service se served mostly in the Middle East and Islamic Africa including Iran Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Algeria, Guinea, and Sudan. He was among the last Americans to serve in the US Embassy in Tehran (1979-81). As a graduate of Harvard University in History and Middle Eastern Studies, he served in the Peace Corps in iran and an instructor at Palavi University in Shiraz Iran. He has written numerous books and articles on Middle Eastern subjects and on Iran and co-authored with Marc Grossmann an espionage novel Believers set in Iran and Washington from the 1980s to the present. 

Thomas Huf – Convener

Mr. Huf works on higher education facilities planning for Universities.  At the University of Massachusetts Amherst for 20 years and he is currently focused on sustainable zero Carbon campus development. He is a graduate of Harvard School of Design in Planning.  He served in the Peace Corps in Iran for more than three years and subsequently worked for Harvard University and the Ministry of Higher Education of Iran for three years to manage planning of a new research university in Northern Iran including the production center for chidren’s educational television programming.

Sponsored by MAPA’s Middle East/ Endless Wars Working Group.   Register to attend.