Dr. Banuazizi is the Past President of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and of the International Society for Iranian Studies. He served as the Editor of journal of Iranian Studies from 1968 to 1982. A leading expert on Iran and the Middle East Politics, he was a member of the Council of Foreign Relations' Task Force on Public Diplomacy.

Juan Cole commands Arabic, Persian and Urdu, and has lived in various places in the Muslim world for extended periods of time. He also brings three decades of experience in studying and writing about contemporary Islamic movements and the relationship of the West and the Muslim world. His most recent book, Engaging the Muslim World, will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in March 2009. He has a regular column at Salon.com, and is a frequent guest commentator on national radio and television news shows.

Nonproliferation Analyst, Arms Control Association

Peter Crail is a nonproliferation analyst at the Washington D.C.-based Arms Control Association. His work focuses on nuclear and missile proliferation in the Middle East, South Asia, and Northeast Asia, as well as strategic export controls and efforts to prevent terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction. He previously served as a consultant for the United Nations Department for Disarmament Affairs and a research assistant for the Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

Rola el-Husseini specializes in Lebanon and Shi'a political thought. She is finishing a book on elite politics in postwar Lebanon, along with a comparative study of the impact of Iran on Iraqi and Lebanese Shi`a political thought. At the Bush School, she teaches courses on Middle East Politics, Political Islam, and Authoritarianism in the Arab World.

Farideh Farhi is the author of States and Urban-Based Revolutions in Iran and Nicaragua along with numerous articles and book chapters on contemporary Iranian politics and foreign policy. She also authored the Asia Society's report on Iran's 2001 elections; the International Crisis Group's report on the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran; and, a soon to be published World Bank study -- Contested Governance and the Need for Reform: The Case of the Islamic Republic of Iran. She has taught at the University of Colorado, Boulder; University of Hawai'i; University of Tehran and Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran. Her research sponsors include the United States Institute of Peace, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars where she was recently a Public Policy Scholar. She travels widely and lectures regularly on Iranian politics and foreign relations at research institutions in Washington, D.C. and around the country.

Senior Research Policy Scientist, Program on Science and Global Security, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and Int’l  Affairs (WWS), Princeton University

Dr. Feiveson's principal research interests are in the fields of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy policy.  He has taught numerous courses, policy task forces, and graduate workshops relating to nuclear weapons, energy, and national and global environmental issues. Feiveson's recent publications relating to nuclear weapons policy discuss measures to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation regime, including a universal ban on the production of weapons-useable material and on nuclear weapons testing.  His research relating to nuclear energy policy has focused on measures, such as a ban on the reprocessing of nuclear reactor fuel, which could strengthen the separation between nuclear weapons and civilian nuclear energy activities. Along with Professor von Hippel, he was the co-founder of the Program on Science and Global Security and co-director until July 2006.  He is the Editor and one of the founders of the international journal, Science & Global Security.

US Air Force (retired)

Col. Gardiner has taught and written about strategy for over 20 years. He has taught strategy at the National War College, Air War College, and Naval War College. He has participated in strategy reviews for the Department of State. In addition, he designs and facilitates war games for the think tanks, industry, academic institutions, the media, and government agencies. He has written extensively on the military options for Iran. His most recent paper, Dangerous and Getting More Dangerous: The Delicate Situation Between the U.S. and Iran, was published by the Century Foundation in October. His combat decorations include the Bronze Star, and his other decorations include the Legion of Merit.

Philip Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served eighteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain, where he was Chief of Base in Barcelona from 1989 to 1992. As a recognized authority on international security and counterterrorism issues he has appeared often on radio and TV, including "Good Morning America," "60 Minutes," MSNBC, NPR, BBC World News, FOX News, Polish National Television, Croatian National Television, al-Jazeera, and al-Arabiya. Currently, he is President of San Marco International, a consulting firm that specializes in international security management and risk assessment, and also a partner in Cannistraro Associates, a security consultancy located in McLean Virginia.

As a leading scholar on issues of the Middle East, Dr. Kazemi is a member of the Advisory Group for Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim World, appointed in 2003. He is also President of the Middle Eastern Studies Association, former President of the Society for Iranian Studies, and a leading member of such organizations as the American Political Science Association, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Atlantic Council.

Stephen Kinzer is an award-winning foreign correspondent who has covered more than 50 countries on five continents - primarily for the New York Times, where he worked for more than 20 years. He is the author of numerous books and articles focusing on Iran and the Middle East, including All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror and Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. He now teaches journalism and political science at Northwestern University, contributes articles to the New York Review of Books and other periodicals, and writes a world affairs column for The Guardian.

Professor of Politics and Chair of the Department of Government and International Affairs at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida.

Mohsen Milani has served as a research fellow at Harvard University, Oxford University’s St. Antony’s College, and the Foscari University in Venice, Italy.

He has written more than fifty academic articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries about the Persian Gulf, Iran’s revolution, and Iran’s foreign and security policies. His book, The Making of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, has been used as required reading in many universities in the U.S., Europe, Japan, Canada, and Iran. His most recent publications include “Tehran’s Take” (Foreign Affairs), “Iran’s Persian Gulf Policy” (in Contemporary Iran, Oxford University Press), "Iran's policy toward Afghanistan" (Middle East Journal), "Iran-Iraq Relations during the Pahlavi Era, 1921-79" (Encyclopedia Iranica), “The Tehran Hostage Crisis 1979” (Encyclopedia Iranica). He is currently working on a book project about Iran's regional policies.

Professor Milani is a frequent speaker at international and national conferences on Iran and the Persian Gulf. His expertise regarding Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan, and the Persian Gulf has been solicited by private and governmental entities. He is the Book Series Editor on "Governance and International Relations in the Middle East" for the University of Florida Press.

During his fifteen years of service at the CIA, Dr. Emile A. Nakhleh held a variety of key positions, including Director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program in the Directorate of Intelligence and Chief of the Regional Analysis Unit in the Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis. Dr. Nakhleh was a founding member of the Senior Analytic Service and chaired the first SAS Council. He was awarded several senior intelligence commendation medals, including the Intelligence Commendation Medal (1997), the William Langer Award (2004), the Director's Medal (2004), and the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal (2006). His research has focused on political Islam in the Middle East and the rest of the Muslim world as well as on political and educational reform, regime stability, and governance in the greater Middle East.

Professor of both International Relations and Anthropology at Boston University

A. Richard Norton served as an advisor to the Iraq Study Group (Baker-Hamilton Commission), and he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His research experience in the Middle East spans near three decades, including residences in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and Lebanon. His current research interests include inter-sectarian relations in the Middle East, reformist Muslim thought, and strategies of political reform and opposition in authoritarian states. In the 1990s he headed a widely-cited three-year project funded by the Ford Foundation that examined the state-society relations in the Middle East and the question of civil society in the region. He is also a co-founder of the Boston Forum on the Middle East and the Conference Group on the Middle East

Founder and Executive Director, American Foreign Policy Project
Professor, University of Connecticut Law School

Richard W. Parker is a professor at University of Connecticut School of Law and Founder and Executive Director of the new American Foreign Policy Project (AFPP). AFPP convenes large, inter-disciplinary teams of top experts to collaboratively develop sound policy and effective messages on the toughest national security and foreign policy issues of the day, beginning with Iran. Dr. Parker has formerly served as Assistant General Counsel at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, as Special Counsel to the Deputy Administrator of EPA, and a reserve officer in the U.S. Army (Military Intelligence). He holds a B.A. in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University, a J.D. from Yale Law School, and a D.Phil. in International Relations from Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar.

Trita Parsi is the author of Treacherous Alliance - The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States, which won the 2008 Silver Medal Recipient of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award. Fluent in Persian/Farsi, Dr. Parsi is regularly consulted by Western, Middle Eastern and Asian governments on Middle East affairs, and he is a co-founder and current President of the National Iranian American Council, a non-partisan, non-profit organization promoting Iranian-American participation in American civic life. His articles on Middle East affairs have been published in the Financial Times, Jane's Intelligence Review, the Nation, The Wall Street Journal, The American Conservative, the Jerusalem Post, and elsewhere. He is also a frequent commentator on Middle Eastern affairs and has appeared on BBC World News, PBS NewsHour, CNN, Al Jazeera, and NPR, to name a few. He has also worked for the Swedish Permanent Mission to the UN, serving in the Security Council handling the affairs of Afghanistan, Iraq, Tajikistan and Western Sahara, and the General Assembly's Third Committee addressing human rights in Iran, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Iraq. Dr. Parsi was born in Iran and grew up in Sweden.

Ambassador Pickering has had a career spanning five decades as a U.S. diplomat, serving as under secretary of state for political affairs, ambassador to the United Nations, ambassador to Russia, India, Israel, Nigeria, Jordan and El Salvador. He also served on assignments in Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He holds the personal rank of Career Ambassador, the highest in the U.S. Foreign Service. He has held numerous other positions at the State Department, including executive secretary and special assistant to Secretaries Rogers and Kissinger and assistant secretary for the bureau of oceans, environmental and scientific affairs. He is currently vice-chairman of Hills & Company, an international consulting firm providing advice to U.S. businesses on investment, trade, and risk assessment issues abroad, particularly in emerging market economies. He is based in Washington, DC.

Paul R. Pillar is Visiting Professor and Director of Studies of the Security Studies Program in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.  He retired in 2005 from a 28-year career in the U.S. intelligence community.  His senior positions included National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, Deputy Chief of the DCI Counterterrorist Center, and Executive Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence. He is a retired officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, and is the author of Negotiating Peace (1983) and Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy (2001).

Barnett Rubin has written numerous books and articles on conflict prevention, state formation, and human rights. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, International Affairs, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New York Review of Books, and elsewhere. In late 2001, he served as special advisor to the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan during the negotiations that produced the Bonn Agreement, and he also advised the United Nations on the drafting of the constitution of Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Compact, and the Afghanistan National Development Strategy. He has served as the Director of the Center for Preventive Action, and Director, Peace and Conflict Studies, at the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as the Director of the Center for the Study of Central Asia at Columbia University. Currently, he is Director of Studies and Senior Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation of New York University, where he directs the program on the Reconstruction of Afghanistan.

Professor Sick served on the National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. He was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis. 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 also a member of the board of Human Rights Watch in New York and the chairman of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch/Middle East. Gary Sick received his BA from Kansas University in 1957 and a Master of Science from George Washington University in 1970. In 1973 he earned a PhD from Columbia.

Tirman is the author or co-author and editor of ten books on international affairs and U.S. foreign policy, including Terror, Insurgency, and States (2007), The Maze of Fear: Security & Migration After 9/11 (2004) and By the Crusader's Sword: The Human Toll of American Wars (forthcoming). His articles on Iran have appeared in a wide variety of periodicals, including the Boston Globe, Strategic Insights, and AlterNet, as well as reports published my MIT. He has organized projects on Iran, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and MIT, as well as a major historical research effort on the history of the U.S.-Iran relationship in partnership with The National Security Archive and Brown University's Watson Institute.

Dr. Walsh's research and writings focus on international security, and in particular, topics involving weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. Dr. Walsh has testified before the United States Senate on the issue of nuclear terrorism and chaired the Harvard University International Working Group on Radiological Terrorism. Among his current projects are two series of dialogues on nuclear issues, one with representatives from North Korea and one with leading figures in Iran. He has traveled to both countries and has testified before the Senate on Iran's nuclear program. Since 2001, Dr. Walsh has given some 700 media interviews, including more than 300 appearances on CNN. His most recent publications include "Iran's Nuclear Program: Motivations, Consequences, and Options" in Terrorist Attacks and Nuclear Proliferation: Strategies for Overlapping Dangers (Academy of Political Science, 2007), "The Nuclear Weapons Danger" in A Muslim-Christian Study and Action Guide to the Nuclear Weapons Danger (Islamic Society of North America and the Churches' Center for Theology and Public Policy, 2007), "Learning from Past Success: The NPT and the Future of Non-proliferation" for the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission chaired by Hans Blix (2006). Before coming to MIT, Dr. Walsh was Executive Director of the Managing the Atom Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Walsh received his Ph.D from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.