December 20, 2005
Please join the Center for American Progress for a panel discussion on:
The Next Steps in Iraq’s Political Transition
Iraq’s historic elections for a new national assembly on December 15 mark the end of Iraq’s transitional government and the start of a precarious process of establishing a permanent Iraqi government. Iraqis face many challenges ahead as they work to create a new national government and resolve many questions left unanswered by the constitution passed in Iraq’s constitutional referendum. Please the join the Center and its expert guests for a panel discussion on the parliamentary elections and the next steps in supporting Iraq’s political transition.
Video:
• Introduction: Brian Katulis
• Panel
Note: All video provided in QuickTime (MPEG-4) format.
• Transcript
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Lunch will be served at 12 noon.
Program: 12:30 p.m.- 2:00 p.m.
Admission is free.
To RSVP:
Please visit us at center-for-american-progress.vipdev.lndo.site/iraqielectreg
Or call 202.741.6246
Center for American Progress
1333 H Street N.W., 10th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20005
Nearest Metro: Blue/Orange Line to McPherson Square or Red Line to Metro Center
Biographies
Featuring:
Rend Al-Rahim, Executive Director, The Iraq Foundation
Jon B. Alterman, Director, Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Leslie Campbell, Senior Associate and Regional Director, Middle East and North Africa Programs at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs
Marina S. Ottaway, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Moderated by:
Brian Katulis, Director, Democracy and Public Diplomacy, Center for American Progress
Ms. Rend Al-Rahim is the Executive Director of the Iraq Foundation. From November 2003 to December 2004 she served as Iraq’s Representative to the United States and the Iraqi Chief of Mission. She is a native of Iraq and a co-founder, in 1991, of the Iraq Foundation. Ms. Al-Rahim has represented the Foundation with government and international institutions worldwide. She has contributed to numerous reports and books on Iraq, and written policy papers and reports for the Iraq Foundation. She has built partnerships and cooperative relations with several non-governmental and research institutions. Ms. Al-Rahim has also testified on Iraq before the U.S. Congress, most recently in June 2004. She is the co-author of The Arab Shi’a: Forgotten Muslims, published in 2000 by St. Martin’s Press. She holds degrees from Cambridge University and the University of the Sorbonne.
Jon B. Alterman is the Director of the CSIS Middle East Program. Prior to joining CSIS, he served as a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State and as a Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. Before entering government, he was a scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace and at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 1993 to 1997, Alterman was an award-winning teacher at Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. in history. He also worked as a legislative aide to Senator Daniel P. Moynihan (D-N.Y.), responsible for foreign policy and defense. Alterman has lectured in more than 20 countries on subjects related to the Middle East and U.S. policy toward the region. He is the author of Egypt and American Foreign Assistance, 1952-1956: Hopes Dashed, New Media, New Politics? From Satellite Television to the Internet in the Arab World , and the editor of Sadat and His Legacy: Egypt and the World, 1977-1997.
Leslie Campbell is a Senior Associate at the Washington, D.C.-based National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) where he has directed the Institute’s democratic development programs in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) since 1996. Mr. Campbell has played a key role promoting democratic practices in the MENA region, conceptualizing and organizing events such as the Congress of Democrats from the Islamic World, conducted in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2004; and the Emerging Democracies Forum, held in Sana’a, Yemen in 1999. He has overseen the expansion of NDI’s programs in the Middle East with the establishment of nine permanent offices, which furnish assistance with political, civic and governance development throughout the Arab world. In addition, Mr. Campbell has organized election observation missions around the region, and provided training in the skills necessary for political candidates, government officials and voters to participate in democratic life. Before joining NDI in 1994, Mr. Campbell was Chief of Staff to the leader of the New Democratic Party in the Canadian House of Commons. Mr. Campbell holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University.
Brian Katulis is the Director of Democracy and Public Diplomacy on the National Security Team at the Center for American Progress. He has served in the Clinton administration with the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State and the Near East and South Asian Directorate of the National Security Council. Katulis also serves as a Senior Analyst and consultant on the Middle East at Freedom House. Katulis has lived and worked for human rights and democracy promotion organizations in several countries in the Middle East, including Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, and the Palestinian territories. He has published articles in The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The Christian Science Monitor, among other publications. Katulis received a graduate degree from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs.
Marina S. Ottaway is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Ms. Ottaway specializes in democracy and post-conflict reconstruction issues. She is a Senior Associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Project, a research endeavor that analyzes the state of democracy around the world and the efforts by the United States and other countries to promote democracy. Her newest book, Uncharted Journey: Democracy Promotion in the Middle East (co-edited with Thomas Carothers), was published in January 2005. Her current works focus on political transformation in the Middle East and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. She is also a lecturer in African Studies at the Nitze School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Ottaway carried out research in Africa and in the Middle East and taught at the University of Addis Ababa, the University of Zambia, the American University in Cairo, and the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.