EIPA Press Briefing, 15 March 2021
‘Iran’s nuclear program and its regional policies in the spotlight: challenges and opportunities’
With:
Sima Shine
A Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Israel’s leading think tank.
Until 2016 she was the Deputy Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, responsible, inter alia, for the Iranian file.
Before joining the Ministry, Shine served as Deputy Head for Strategic Affairs of Israel’s National Security Council.
Prior to that position, Shine served for most of her career in the Israeli Intelligence Community where her last position was Head of Research & Evaluation Division in the Mossad. In this capacity, she was in charge of the production of both daily and periodical evaluations on Middle Eastern and international issues.
Kasra Aarabi
An analyst in the Extremism Policy Unit at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, where he specialises in Iran and Shia Islamist extremism. He is also a Non-Resident Scholar on the Iran Programme at the Middle East Institute. A native Farsi speaker, his expertise covers Iran’s military and security forces, with a focus on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij, the role of Iran and Shia militias across the Middle East as well as Europe-US-Iran ties. He previously worked as a researcher and coordinator for the UK House of Commons All Party Parliamentary Group on Iran, and as a foreign policy researcher for former UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw where he focused on issues relating to the Middle East.
Patrick Clawson
is Morningstar senior fellow and director of research at the Washington Institute, where he directs the Viterbi Program on Iran and U.S. Policy. Widely consulted as an analyst and media commentator, he has authored more than 150 articles about the Middle East and edited eighteen books or studies on Iran. Dr. Clawson appears frequently on television and radio, and has published op-ed articles in major newspapers including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. He has also served as an expert witness in more than thirty federal cases against Iran. He was a senior research professor at the National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies and a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.