Visiting Professor, George Washington University
Judith Yaphe is visiting professor of international affairs in the Institute for Middle East Studies at the George Washington University, Washington, DC. She specializes in Iraq, Iran, and Arabian/Persian Gulf history, politics, and security issues, and teaches courses on the making of U.S. foreign and security policy in the Middle East and seminars on Iraq, Iran, and Peninsula history, political culture and U.S. policy. Yaphe served as a senior analyst on Near East-Persian Gulf issues in the Directorate of Intelligence at the CIA from 1975 to 1995 and as a distinguished research fellow for the Middle East/Persian Gulf in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University from 1995 to 2013. She received the Intelligence Medal of Commendation and other awards for her role as senior political analyst on Iraq and the Gulf. In June 2014 she was awarded the Department of Defense’s highest civilian award, the Distinguished Civilian Service Medal. Yaphe’s current research is focused on Iraq, Iran, and the strategic environment in the Persian Gulf region. Yaphe received a BA with Honors in History from Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and a PhD in Middle Eastern History from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. She received NDEA and NDFL fellowships and wrote her doctoral dissertation on The Arab Revolt in Iraq, 1916-1920. She is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the Middle East Studies Association, and a non-resident fellow of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
Her recent publications include: Iraq, Iran and the U.S.: Looking Beyond ISI, Paper prepared for the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington’s opening issue, October (2014).
The succession of power in Saudi Arabia from the late King Abdallah to his designated successor and half-brother Salman bin Abd al-Aziz Al Sa`ud will have little impact on the Kingdom’s foreign, security and oil policies.
From 2003-14, Iraq walked a fine line between the demands of the United States to democratize, liberalize, share power and accept its version of checks and balances and accountable governance, and demands from Iran to create a government more in keeping with its version of a Shia-dominated Islamic state.
