Israel, Iran, Syria - and the Shifting Geopolitics of the Middle East

Join the World Affairs Council network for a conversation with two leading experts on the changing Middle East and what to expect next
About this Event

The World Affairs Council of Miami, in partnership with the World Affairs Council of Atlanta, World Affairs Council of San Antonio, World Affairs Council of Jacksonville, World Affairs Council of Seattle, Tennessee World Affairs Council, World Affairs Council of Western Michigan, and WorldBoston, invite you to a virtual Distinguished Speaker conversation on Israel, Iran, Syria, and the Shifting Geopolitics of the Middle East.

ATTENDEES MUST REGISTER IN ADVANCE VIA ZOOM TO JOIN THE CONVERSATION. Eventbrite page for reference only.

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SPEAKER PROFILES

Dr. Nimrod Goren - President, The Mitvim Institute; Co-Founder, Diplomeds

Alex Vatanka - Senior Fellow & Founding Director, Iran Program, Middle East Institute

Full speaker bios can be found below.

Speaker Profile:

Nimrod Goren
President and Founder, Mitvim – Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies

Dr. Nimrod Goren is President and Founder of Mitvim – The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, Co-Founder of Diplomeds – The Council for Mediterranean Diplomacy, and Senior Fellow for Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute. Nimrod is also Co-Chair of a regional initiative at President Isaac Herzog’s Israeli Climate Forum. He holds a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was a Hubert Humphrey Fellow at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

He was a Teaching Fellow on Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University, a visiting fellow at J Street and has also worked at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies and the Nehemia Levtzion Center for Islamic Studies. Nimrod is a past recipient of the Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East and the Centennial Medal of the Institute of International Education, and was selected as a Vamik Volkan Scholar by the International Dialogue Initiative. He serves on the steering committees of the Geneva Initiative and the Turkish-Israeli Civil Society Forum, on the board of the Center for Enterprising Citizens, and is a member of the Global Diplomacy Lab.

His areas of expertise include diplomacy, regional cooperation and peacemaking, with a focus on Israel’s foreign policy and regional relations, the Middle East peace process, and Turkey’s foreign policy.
Speaker Profile:

Alex Vatanka
Senior Fellow, Founding Director of Iran Program, Middle East Institute

Alex Vatanka is the founding Director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute. He specializes in Middle Eastern regional security affairs with a particular focus on Iran. He was formerly a Senior Analyst at Jane’s Information Group in London. Alex is also a Senior Fellow in Middle East Studies at the US Air Force Special Operations School (USAFSOS) at Hurlburt Field and teaches as an Adjunct Professor at DISAS at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He has testified before the US Congress and lectured widely for both governmental and commercial audiences, including the US Departments of State and Defense, US intelligence agencies, and a list of international corporations.

Born in Tehran, he holds a BA in Political Science (Sheffield University, UK), and an MA in International Relations (Essex University, UK), and is fluent in Farsi and Danish. He is the author of two books: The Battle of the Ayatollahs in Iran: The United States, Foreign Policy and Political Rivalry Since 1979 (2021) and Iran and Pakistan: Security, Diplomacy, and American Influence (2015).

He has also written chapters for a number of books, including Authoritarianism Goes Global (2016); Handbook on Contemporary Pakistan (2017); Russia in the Middle East (2018), Winning the Battle, Losing the War: Addressing the Drivers Fueling Armed Non-state Actors and Extremist Groups (2020); Global, Regional and Local Dynamics in the Yemen Crisis (2020); Routledge Handbook of Counterterrorism and Irregular Warfare Operations (2021); and Understanding New Proxy Wars (2022). He is presently working on his third book, Iran’s Arab Strategy: Defending the Homeland or Exporting Khomeinism?