Aslı Bâli

Aslı Bâli is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Quincy Institute and Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law, where she served as the founding Faculty Director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights and the Director of the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies. Bâli’s research focuses on two broad areas: public international law—including human rights law and the law of the international security order—and comparative constitutional law, with a focus on the Middle East. 

Joshua Landis

Joshua Landis is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Quincy Institute and Sandra Mackey Chair and Professor of Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma in the College of International Studies and Director of the Center for Middle East Studies. Dr. Landis publishes frequently in policy journals such as Foreign Affairs, Middle East Policy, and Foreign Policy. He is the author of Syria at Independence: Nationalism, the Fight for Leadership, and Failure of Republicanism (2020). 

Paul Pillar 

Paul R. Pillar is a Non-Resident Fellow of the Quincy Institute and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Studies of Georgetown University. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Geneva Center for Security Policy. He retired in 2005 from a 28-year career in the U.S. intelligence community, after which he was visiting professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. His senior government positions included National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, Deputy Chief of the DCI Counterterrorist Center, and Executive Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence. He is a Vietnam War veteran and a retired officer in the U.S. Army Reserve.

Trita Parsi (Moderator)

Trita Parsi, PhD, is an award-winning author and the 2010 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. He is an expert on U.S.-Iranian relations, Iranian foreign politics, and the geopolitics of the Middle East. He has authored three books on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Iran and Israel. He is the co-founder and former President of the National Iranian American Council. He received his PhD in foreign policy at Johns Hopkins’ School for Advanced International Studies, a Master's Degree in International Relations from Uppsala University, and a Master's Degree in Economics from the Stockholm School of Economics.