RAND Experts Available to Discuss Unrest in Middle East and North Africa

RAND experts are available to discuss the latest unrest in the Middle East and North Africa.

Among the points they can address:

• Does the spread of protests in Iran, Bahrain and Yemen indicate the Middle East is on the verge of democratization? And could there be more to come?
• Do the protests in Iran indicate that the "Green Movement" is still a viable opposition group?
• The 2009 Iranian protests may have had some inspirational effect on the Egyptian revolution. Have the Iranian demonstrators been inspired by Mubarak's overthrow?
• Are Iran's circumstances unique? Are today's demonstrators influenced by the experience of the 1979 Islamic Revolution?
• If Egypt becomes more democratic, how will it influence its relations with the United States, Israel and other countries in the region?
• Are the protests in Yemen gaining traction? Or are they a relatively common occurrence?
• Is Bahrain especially vulnerable because it is a regime based on the rule of a strategic minority (Sunni Muslims) over an overwhelmingly Shi'a population?

Amb. David Aaron is a senior fellow and former director of the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy. He served as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Carter, acting as an emissary to Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia, setting up the negotiations for the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978.

Amb. Charlie Ries is director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at RAND, and most recently served as the Minister for Economic Affairs and Coordinator for Economic Transition in Iraq.

Amb. Robert Hunter is a RAND senior advisor who served as director of Middle East Affairs on the National Security Council during the Carter administration, and was a principal author of the Carter Doctrine for the Persian Gulf.

Dalia Dassa Kaye is a RAND senior political scientist focusing on U.S. Middle East policy and Middle East regional security. She is the lead author of "More Freedom, Less Terror? Liberalization and Political Violence in the Arab World."

Julie Taylor is a RAND political scientist focusing on Egypt and the Middle East. Taylor lived in Egypt for five years. She formerly taught courses on political development in the Middle East at Princeton University and has written about regime stability in Egypt and Iran.

Fred Wehrey is a senior policy analyst focusing on the Middle East, and in February returned from a research assignment in Yemen. He is the author of "In Bahrain, Democracy in Action or Just Divide and Rule?"

Audra Grant is a RAND political scientist focusing on dynamics of political Islam, democratization and reform, Muslim public opinion and post-conflict societies/societies in transition.

Lorenzo Vidino is a visiting fellow at RAND and an academic and security expert who specializes in Islamism and political violence in Europe and North America. His latest book, The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West, was published by Columbia University Press in 2010.

Jeffrey Martini is a project associate at RAND where he specializes in Middle East political and security issues. He lived in Cairo from 2007 to 2008.