WASHINGTON, July 16, 2018 – The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington is pleased to announce that Ali Alfoneh has joined the institute as a visiting scholar, and Ambassador Feisal Amin Rasoul al-Istrabadi is its newest non-resident fellow.
Ali Alfoneh is the author of Iran Unveiled: How the Revolutionary Guards are Transforming Iran from Theocracy into Military Dictatorship, published by AEI Press in April 2013. Alfoneh grew up in Tehran but moved to Denmark in 1988. He served as an elected member of the Herlev City Council from 1994-98 (Social Democrats). His professional experience includes various positions at the Press and Information Office of Federation of Danish Industries, the parliamentary group of the Social Democratic Party of Denmark, a lectureship in political economy at the University of Southern Denmark, and a research fellowship at the Institute for Strategy at the Royal Danish Defence College. Alfoneh has worked as a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and as a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Since 2016, Alfoneh has worked as the main Iran analyst for The Arab Weekly, and is a nonresident senior fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center at the Atlantic Council. Alfoneh is a political scientist by training and holds a BA and an MA from the University of Copenhagen.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to contribute to AGSIW’s Iran research program, aiming at providing a better understanding of political dynamics in the Islamic Republic and their impact on regional developments in the Middle East,” said Alfoneh.
Ambassador Feisal Amin Rasoul al-Istrabadi is the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East, a National Resource Center, at Indiana University Bloomington, where he is also professor of the practice of international law and diplomacy at the Maurer School of Law and the School of Global and International Studies. He recently co-edited The Future of ISIS: Regional and International Implications with Sumit Ganguly. From 2004-10 Istrabadi served as ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary and deputy permanent representative of Iraq to the United Nations (on leave after 2007). Prior to his diplomatic appointment, he served as a legal advisor to the Iraqi minister for foreign affairs during the negotiations for U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546 of June 8, 2004, which recognized the reassertion by Iraq of its sovereignty.
“I am pleased to affiliate with AGSIW,” Istrabadi said. “I have had the pleasure of knowing several of their scholars over the years, and am delighted to join them as a non-resident fellow. AGSIW events and publications have always gained the attention of audiences with deep expertise on the Middle East, and Gulf issues in particular, and I look forward to adding an Iraqi perspective to those deliberations.”
Welcoming both to AGSIW, Executive Vice President Stephen A. Seche said, “Being able to draw upon the expertise Ali Alfoneh brings regarding Iran and Ambassador Istrabadi offers on Iraq will enable us to provide crucial depth to our analysis of the Gulf Arab states, particularly the critical geostrategic dynamics at play among the countries that ring the Gulf.”
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The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW), launched in 2015, is an independent, nonprofit institution dedicated to providing expert research and analysis of the social, economic, and political dimensions of the Gulf Arab states and how they impact domestic and foreign policy. AGSIW focuses on issues ranging from politics and security to economics, trade, and business; from social dynamics to civil society and culture. Through programs, publications, and scholarly exchanges the institute seeks to encourage thoughtful debate and inform the U.S. policy community regarding this critical geostrategic region.
