Middle East Issues Speakers

Anthony Shadid

He is the Beirut bureau chief for The New York Times. Since 9/11, he has reported from most of the countries in the Middle East, from Egypt to Syria to Israel and Palestine, where he was wounded in the back while covering fighting in 2002 in the West Bank.

Shirin Ebadi

An extraordinary woman of many firsts, Iranian lawyer and activist Ebadi has made history as the first Muslim to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her courageous defense of human rights in Iran. One of the most intelligent, passionate, and respected voices of dissent from within this complex nation, she speaks to the world ...

Nicholas Kristof

A Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times, Kristof is an extraordinary thinker, human rights advocate, and astute chronicler of humanity. As a seasoned journalist who has traveled China, Africa, India, and South Asia, he offers a compassionate glimpse into such issues as global health, poverty and ...

Anne-Marie Slaughter

As Director of Policy Planning for the US State Department, Anne-Marie Slaughter touched on nearly every foreign policy issue. She was named a Top 100 Global Thinker by Foreign Policy.

James Zogby

James J. Zogby is founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington, DC-based organization which serves as the political and policy research arm of the Arab American community. Since 1985, Zogby and AAI have led Arab American efforts to secure political empowerment in the US. Through voter ...

Munir Akram

Following a long and distinguished diplomatic career as the former Permanent Representative to the United Nations from Pakistan, Ambassador Munir Akram is now ready to step out from behind the diplomatic curtain and tell what he knows and offer his perspective on what the goals of the United States should be in Pakistan ...

Jared Cohen

Political transcendent Jared Cohen was originally brought in by Condoleezza Rice as the youngest member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff, where he continued to serve under Secretary Hillary Clinton. In this capacity, the technology and Middle East specialist focused on such issues as ...

Parag Khanna

Parag Khanna is the leading next-generation voice on the future of global affairs. Named one of Esquire magazine's 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century, Khanna was a foreign policy advisor to President Barack Obama during his historic presidential campaign. He is currently a senior fellow at the New ...

Mariane Pearl

Pearl is a unique and versatile award-winning journalist who has written A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl, a gripping and profound narrative of her experience and the pursuit of those who captured and killed her husband, Daniel Pearl, the South Asia bureau chief for The Wall ...

Roya Hakakian

A celebrated poet and filmmaker, Hakakian’s recent film, Armed and Innocent, takes a close look at the involvement of underage children in wars around the world. Speaking on the Middle East and the importance of human rights, Hakakian is passionate about raising awareness of current happenings that many either ...

John Zogby

Chairman of the Board and Chief Insights Officer of IBOPE Zogby International (IZI) and author of The Way We’ll Be, John Zogby remains by all accounts the hottest and most accurate pollster and trendspotter in the United States today. No one can tell you more about what’s happening—from politics to social ...

Asra Nomani

The author of the critically-acclaimed Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam, she is a former Wall Street Journal correspondent, and friend of Daniel Pearl. Her character figures prominently in A Mighty Heart, the film based on the life and death of Pearl at the ...

Rami George Khouri

Khouri knows the Middle East like few other journalists. As the Editor-at-Large of The Daily Star in Beirut, Lebanon, he reports from ground zero of the conflict as it unfolds. A Palestinian-Jordanian, educated in both the Middle East and the US, he is a widely respected international political columnist. He ...

Chris Hedges

A graduate of Harvard Divinity School and a foreign correspondent for nearly two decades in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans, he writes and speaks extensively on war, religion and the conflict in the Middle East. He is the author of the bestseller War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, a book ...

Tom Ricks

Seasoned by reporting on global military conflict for decades, Washington Post Pentagon Correspondent Ricks spent five tours of duty in Iraq to get to the nitty gritty in his New York Times bestseller Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. Ricks has also been recognized as a Pulitzer Prize winner ...

Stephen Kinzer

Kinzer is an award-winning correspondent who has reported from more than 50 countries on four continents. His book, Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, is an account of the fourteen times the United States has overthrown foreign governments.

Bob Simon

As one of the most honored journalists in international reporting, Bob Simon has chronicled the most important events of the past 30 years for CBS News. The network's chief Middle East correspondent since 1987, he has been a regular contributor to 60 Minutes for over 15 years.

Jehan Sadat

Beautiful, dignified, courageous, controversial, and known as The First Lady of the World, Madame Jehan Sadat has played a key role in many history-making events of today's Middle East. Madame Sadat, widow of the late President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, was born in Cairo, Egypt. Her autobiography is entitled A Woman of ...

Maajid Nawaz

Maajid Nawaz is a former member of the Islamic political group Hizb ut-Tahrir, and the co-founder and executive director of Quilliam, the world's first counter-extremism think tank. He is also the co-founder of Khudi, a counter-extremism social movement working towards the promotion of social democratic change in Pakistan.

Josh Rushing

Rushing has gone from US Marine Corps Captain conducting daily press briefings in Iraq to celebrated military correspondent and analyst for Al Jazeera English to author of Mission Al Jazeera: Build a Bridge, Seek the Truth, Change the World. He delivers news from a unique prism of experience, providing accurate and ...