Former Executive Vice President
Ambassador Stephen A. Seche is the former executive vice president of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
He spent 35 years as a career U.S. Foreign Service officer. From 2011-13, Seche served as deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the Department of State, with responsibility for U.S. relations with the Gulf Arab states and Yemen. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Yemen from 2007-10.
During the 2006-07 academic year, Seche was a visiting fellow at the University of Southern California, where he taught public diplomacy in the master’s degree program. On his return from Yemen, he spent a year at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, leading a graduate seminar in the School of Foreign Service.
From February 2005 to August 2006, Seche served as charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, Syria; he was deputy of chief of mission for the six months prior. This was his second tour in Damascus. From 1999 to 2002, Seche was the counselor for public affairs and the director of the American Cultural Center. He spent the two years between his Damascus assignments as director of the Office for Egypt and Levant Affairs at the Department of State in Washington, DC.
Seche spent the first seven years of his Foreign Service career in public diplomacy positions in Guatemala, Peru, and Bolivia. Other overseas assignments have included Ottawa, Canada and New Delhi, India. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and spent four years as a journalist before entering the Foreign Service.
He is married to Susan Canning; the couple has three daughters.
Critics worry that the Trump administration’s threat to designate the Houthis as terrorists would also undermine humanitarian efforts, while President-elect Biden is expected to return to more robust diplomacy.
The specter of a Saudi withdrawal from Yemen is prompting parties to the conflict to shore up their positions, further destabilizing the country.
A precipitous withdrawal risks greater instability and further disintegration of the war-torn country.
AGSIW experts explain what regional trends they’ll be following most closely as the year unfolds.
Ambassador Stephen A. Seche assesses the prospects for an end to the conflict in Yemen, in light of U.S.-Iranian tensions.
As Iran contemplates its response to the killing of Major General Qassim Suleimani, it will likely look to an asymmetric response employing resources in the region, such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Ambassador Stephen A. Seche sat down with Mohammed Abulahoum from Yemen's Justice and Building Party to discuss the potential for a resolution to the conflict and a unified Yemeni state.
With its decision to withdraw from Yemen, the UAE has fundamentally changed the strategic context in Yemen.
The ongoing conflict in Yemen is inching toward the center of important debates for the United States, but international attention is unlikely to have any material impact on the conduct of the war.
The U.N. special envoy to Yemen announced that the principal parties to the conflict are now prepared to implement key provisions of the Stockholm Agreement. Is this a done deal, or just one more false start for a process that is now the object of growing skepticism?
