The Ukrainian government has issued a new request for an Action Plan leading to NATO membership, even as the situation on the ground between Ukrainian and Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine has deteriorated badly, as have U.S.-Russian relations. This panel will examine the wisdom of further NATO expansion, ask what should be the correct role of NATO in defending U.S. and European security, and whether NATO ambitions and America’s military role in Europe need to be scaled back. 

The discussion will feature former U.S. Ambassador Jack Matlock, former British Ambassador Sir Rodric Quentin Braithwaite, and author and former U.S. Air Force Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski. Quincy Institute Senior Research Fellow Anatol Lieven will moderate.

 

 

With only weeks left until Iran’s June 18 Presidential elections, campaigning will begin in earnest the last week of May. Elections in the Islamic Republic are neither free nor fair, but they are consequential.  Today, opinion polls indicate that the Iranian public’s enthusiasm for the elections is at an all-time low. Yet, the elections will likely have a profound impact on Iran’s future engagement – or lack thereof – with the United States and the West, on the durability of the nuclear deal, as well as on the internal struggle to move Iran into a more open and democratic direction.

Will Iran’s next President be a conservative or can the centrists and reformists unite once more to retain the presidency? What implications will a conservative victory have for U.S.-Iran relations, nascent regional diplomacy with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and Iran’s embattled civil society? Join us for us for a discussion with Human Rights Watch’s Tara Sepehri Far, Tehran-based journalist and documentary film-maker Reza Sayah, and prominent Iranian economist and political analyst Bijan Khajehpour. Trita Parsi, Quincy Institute’s Executive Vice President, will moderate the conversation.