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Jacob Abadi is a Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic History at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He obtained his B.A. degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from New York University. In addition to numerous articles and book reviews, which he had written on contemporary Middle Eastern and Islamic affairs, Professor Abadi is the author of Britain’s Withdrawal from the Middle East 1941-1971: The Economic and Strategic Imperatives; Israel’s Leadership: From Utopia to Crisis; Israel’s Quest for Acceptance and Recognition in Asia; and Tunisia since the Arab Conquest: The Saga of a Westernized Muslim State.

Dr. Norman Cigar retired as Director of Regional Studies at the U.S. Marine Corps University, and previously also taught at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College and at the Marine Corps School of Advanced Warfighting. In an earlier assignment in the Pentagon, he was the senior intelligence officer responsible for the Middle East in the Office of the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence and represented the Army on national-level issues in the interagency intelligence community. He is the author of numerous works on politics and security issues dealing with the Middle East, and his writings include Saudi Arabia and Nuclear Weapons: How Do Countries Think about the Bomb?; Saddam Hussein's Nuclear Vision: An Atomic Shield and Sword for Conquest; and Saudi Arabia’s Strategic Rocket Force: The Silent Service. Dr. Cigar holds a DPhil from Oxford (St Antony’s College); an M.I.A. from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University; and an M.S. from the U.S. Defense Intelligence College (Concentration on the Soviet Union). He has studied and traveled widely in the Middle East.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian is a Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy specialist at the Program on Science and Global Security in Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. He previously served as Iranian ambassador to Germany (1990-97) and Iran’s spokesman to the nuclear negotiations with the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency (2003-05). From 2005 to 2007, he served as foreign policy advisor to Ali Larijani, then secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and chief nuclear negotiator. Mousavian was head of the Foreign Relations Committee of Iran’s National Security Council from 1997 to 2005 and served as the vice president of the Center for Strategic Research for International Affairs between 2005 and 2009 and as general director of Foreign Ministry for West Europe between 1987 and 1990. He is the author of The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir, Iran-Europe Relations: Challenges and Opportunities, and his forthcoming book, Iran and the United States: An Insider’s View on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace.

Dr. Gawdat Bahgat is a professor of political science at the National Defense University. Born and raised in Cairo, he earned degrees at Cairo University and American University in Cairo, and his Ph.D. is from Florida State University. Bahgat has published numerous works on various subjects, including oil politics, nuclear proliferation, the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea region.

Farooq Ahmad Dar, Ph.D. is Professor of History at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. He has been a visiting fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. His fields of interest are Jinnah studies, Indian nationalism, and political and constitutional history of Pakistan. He published several articles in national and international journals. Among his books are Jinnah’s Pakistan: Formation and Challenges of a State (Oxford University Press, 2014) and Communal Riots in the Punjab, 1947 (NIHCR 2003). Farooq is a motivational speaker and is involved in inspirational activities for the physically challenged people.

Dr. Robert M. Hathaway is a Global Fellow and Asia Program director emeritus at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC.