An NIF Zoom event discussing the foreign policy priorities and prospects under the new Biden-Harris administration.

Speakers

Dr. Abdullah Al-Shayji, Kuwait University

Bob Baer, Former CIA officer

Dr. Annelle Sheline, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

Dr. Shibley Telhami, University of Maryland and Brookings Institution

Moderator

Khaled Saffuri, President, National Interest Foundation

About our Speakers:

Dr. Abdullah Al-Shayji is a professor as well as the former chairman and director of the graduate program of the political science department at Kuwait University. He is an expert in U.S. politics, Gulf Cooperation Council security, and political development, and has published extensively on these issues. From 2007-09, Alshayji was the head of the American studies unit at Kuwait University. He later served as a special advisor to the speaker of the Kuwaiti Parliament, the foreign relations committee, the committee investigating the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the committee for Kuwaiti prisoners of war and hostages in Iraq. From 2008-09, he was a member of the advisory board of the committee in charge of drafting a comprehensive national security strategy at the Kuwaiti government’s Bureau of National Security. From 2001-04, Alshayji served as counselor and head of the Kuwaiti Information and Media Bureau at the Kuwaiti Embassy in Lebanon. He received his bachelor’s and master’s in political science from Oklahoma State University and his PhD in political science from the University of Texas at Austin.

Bob Baer is one of the most accomplished agents in CIA history. Over several decades he served everywhere from Iraq to New Delhi and was awarded the Career Intelligence Medal for his efforts. Baer is the author of four New York Times bestsellers. His most recent book, The Perfect Kill: 21 Laws for Assassins (2014) is a personal history of modern assassination. He also co-authored The Company We Keep (2012), which he wrote with his wife, Dayna, which tells the story of a real-life “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” saga; Sleeping with the Devil (2004), about the Saudi royal family and its relationship with the United States; See No Evil (2003), which recounts Baer’s years as a top CIA operative, and The Devil We Know (2009). See No Evil was the basis for the acclaimed film Syriana, which earned George Clooney an Academy Award for his portrayal of Baer. He is considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Middle East and frequently appears on all major news outlets. Baer has contributed to TIME, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.

Dr. Annelle Sheline is a Research Fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute and an expert on religious and political authority in the Middle East and North Africa. Sheline is completing a book manuscript on the strategic use of religious authority in the Arab monarchies since 9/11, focusing on the cases of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, and Oman. She has received fellowships from the U.S. government including a Boren Fellowship and a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship, as well as fellowships from the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS), the Loeb Institute for Religious Freedom, and the Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance. Sheline was previously the Zwan Postdoctoral Fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Prior to beginning her PhD, she worked as a journalist in Egypt and Yemen. In addition to academic writing, she was written for The Washington Post, The Nation, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, and The Globe Post, and her analysis has been published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Arab Gulf States Institute of Washington, Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, and the Baker Institute. Sheline received her doctorate from George Washington University’s department of political science and is a non-resident fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. She has done field research in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, the U.A.E., Jordan, Morocco, and Egypt, and has advanced proficiency in Arabic, French, and Spanish.

Dr. Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development and Director of the Critical Issues Poll at the University of Maryland. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Before coming to the University of Maryland, he taught at several universities, including Cornell University, the Ohio State University, the University of Southern California, Princeton University, Columbia University, Swarthmore College, and the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his doctorate in political science. Professor Telhami has also been active in the foreign policy arena, advising every U.S. administration from George H. W. Bush to Barack Obama. He has contributed to The Washington Post, The New York Times, and regularly appears on national and international radio and television. Among his publications are his best-selling book, The Stakes: America and the Middle East (2003); Power and Leadership in International Bargaining: The Path to the Camp David Accords (1990); The Peace Puzzle: America’s Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, 1989-2011, co-authored with Dan Kurtzer, et al. (2013); and The World Through Arab Eyes: Arab Public Opinion and the Reshaping of the Middle East (2013). He is the winner of a number of awards including being selected by the Carnegie Corporation of New York with The New York Times as one of the “Great Immigrants” for 2013 and being selected as a University of Maryland 2018-2019 Distinguished Scholar-Teacher.

Disclaimer: please note that when registering for any of our events, all required fields must be properly filled out. We reserve the right to deny entry for those who fail to do so, i.e. inputting NA in the “organization” or “job title” section. NIF events are by email invitation only and are non-transferable.

Note: additional speakers may be announced later.