2022 has been a long year in international affairs, starting with the return of war and nuclear threats to Europe and ending with the return of the air of revolution to the streets of Tehran. 2022 brought new economic, military and political challenges and very few, if any, resolutions. While the threat of COVID seems to be finally behind us, the world seems to be more anxious than ever with soaring inflation, an anticipated financial crisis, a prolonged crisis in Ukraine, an increasingly belligerent China, and questions about U.S. foreign policy.


The most significant world event in 2022 was Russia’s war in Ukraine, dominating international news and conversations in Washington and leading to serious consequences in the energy markets and the global economy.

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As we write these words, every single one of Iran’s 33 provinces and over 100 of the Islamic Republic’s cities has seen their streets roiling over in protests against their repressively brutal tyranny. Approximately 18,000 Iranian dissidents have been rounded up and imprisoned, and approximately 500 have been randomly shot or otherwise killed in the streets during the protests, including 58 children 16 years of age and below. Two people have already been hung, and the regime is planning to execute several more.

Yet, these courageous protesters are not discouraged. The regime’s venality has not deterred them, one iota, but has had a paradoxical effect and they have somehow summoned up the courage to keep continuing in their valiant struggle for freedom from this suffocating theocracy.

What’s propelling them to continue on in the face of the possibility that they might be shot on the spot, rounded up to be tortured or raped in a notorious Iranian prison, or even face execution by hanging? Will the momentum continue? Does this signal the beginning of the end of the Islamic Republic? Here to answer these questions and more is Navid Mohebbi, who himself was imprisoned and beaten up by the Iranian thugs.

About the Speaker: Navid Mohebbi is NUFDI’s Advocacy Director and a long-time democracy advocate and a former political prisoner in Iran. He has written extensively on Iran’s political and social affairs both in Persian and English and worked with many civil society organizations in Iran on a range of political, human rights, and women’s rights issues.

Navid is responsible for designing and implementing strategies to advance NUFDI’s mission and policy goals and is tasked with building relationships with key policymakers and grassroots organizations. He also leads NUFDI’s strategic growth initiatives while contributing to the overall policy.

Navid was born and raised in Iran. He holds a BA in international relations and Middle Eastern studies from George Washington University, and an MA in Security Studies from the University of Massachusetts.

Navid regularly advises the U.S. government on Iran policy and is a regular contributor to Persian and English language media outlets. His articles have appeared in Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, Radio Free Europe, etc. Before joining NUFDI, Navid worked as a media analyst for the U.S. State Department. He also completed a DOD-funded program where he researched the impact of climate change on political stability in Iran for the Federal Division of the Library of Congress.

January 4, 2023 - 12 PM ET

Foreign policy expert, Dr. Jonathan Schanzer published an insightful report on the state of Israeli/Jordanian relations entitled, Neither Here Nor There: Jordan and the Abraham Accords, in which he summarized, “For the two decades that followed [the 1994 peace agreement between Israel and Jordan], observers referred to Jordanian-Israeli ties as the “warm peace,” particularly compared to the frosty ties Israel maintained with Egypt and the collapse of Oslo. However, since 2020, if not before then, the Jordanian peace has turned decidedly cold. It is especially frigid now compared to the rapidly growing ties between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco. Even relations between Israel and Egypt have improved. With rhetoric that increasingly echoes the sentiments of rejectionist Arab nationalists or even Islamists, Jordan’s current policies appear to run counter to the current trendlines of the Middle East…. All of this should come as unwelcome news to the United States and to America’s Middle East allies. In anticipation of intensifying great power competition with China, and perhaps to a lesser extent Russia, it is crucial for Washington to project unity among allies in the Middle East.” Join us to hear an in-depth discussion with Dr. Schanzer on these critically important issues including strategies for both the U.S. and Jordan to employ in order to maintain and strengthen the decades-long peace between Israel and Jordan

About the Speaker: Dr. Jonathan Schanzer is senior vice president for research at FDD, where he oversees the work of the organization’s experts and scholars. He is also on the leadership team of FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power, a project on the use of financial and economic power as a tool of statecraft.

Jonathan previously worked as a terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he played an integral role in the designation of numerous terrorist financiers. He has held previous think tank research positions at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Middle East Forum.

Jonathan has written hundreds of articles on the Middle East, along with more than a dozen monographs and chapters for edited volumes. His new book, Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War (FDD Press 2021), challenges and corrects some of the wildly inaccurate news reported during the conflict. It is the first book published on the war. His three other books have made unique contributions to the field. State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State (Palgrave Macmillan 2013) argues the main roadblock to Palestinian statehood is the Palestinian Authority’s political dysfunction and mismanagement. Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine (Palgrave Macmillan 2008) is still the only book on the market that analyzes the ongoing Palestinian civil war. Al-Qaeda’s Armies: Middle East Affiliate Groups and the Next Generation of Terror (Washington Institute for Near East Policy 2004) was the first to explore the al-Qaeda franchises of the Middle East. 

Jonathan testifies often before Congress and publishes widely in the American and international media. He has appeared on American television channels such as Fox News and CNN, and Arabic language television channels such as Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera.