Westminster Institute Talks

Read the transcript: https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-effect-of-us-sanctions-on-irans-economy/ Dr. Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior Iran and financial economics advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, specializing in Iran’s economy and financial markets, sanctions and illicit finance.  Born and raised in Iran, Saeed earned his Ph.D. in finance from the City University of New York where he analyzed the effect of U.S. sanctions on Iran’s financial markets as part of his dissertation. He teaches finance at Baruch College of New York. Saeed has a BS in engineering from the University of Tehran and an MS in engineering from Ecole Speciale des Travaux Publics in Paris.  Saeed’s work has been published in The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Fox News, Foreign Policy, Business Insider, The Weekly Standard, The National Interest, National Post (Canada), Hurriyet (Turkey), Arab News, and The Jerusalem Post.  He has also been quoted and interviewed by The New York Times, The Washington

Chen Guangcheng is a blind Chinese civil rights activist, known internationally as “the barefoot lawyer.” Blind since infancy, illiterate until his late teens, he taught himself law and became a fierce advocate for his country’s voiceless poor. For his trouble, he spent more than four years in prison on charges of “disturbing public order” and was then held under strict house arrest in his heavily guarded home in Shandong province from 2010 to 2012. In a daring escape that captured worldwide headlines, he fled to the U.S. embassy in Beijing. After high-level negotiations between the U.S. and China, Mr. Chen was allowed to leave for America. Since 2013, he has been a senior research fellow at Catholic University of America, the Witherspoon Institute, and the Lantos Foundation. Chen has written a riveting memoir and a revealing portrait of modern China, titled The Barefoot Lawyer: A Blind Man’s Fight for Justice and Freedom in China. The Atlantic Monthly said, “This exceptional book will join the ranks of class

Transcript: https://www.westminster-institute.org/events/gorka/ Dr. Sebastian Gorka is former Deputy Assistant and Strategist to the President (2017) and author of the best-selling book, Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War. His new book is Why We Fight: Recovering America’s Will to Win. Former Kokkalis Fellow at Harvard, he has taught at Georgetown, was Associate Dean at National Defense University and held the distinguished chair of Military Theory at the Marine Corps University. Sebastian was born in the UK to parents who escaped Communism during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. He is an internationally recognized authority on issues of national security, irregular warfare, terrorism and democratization, having worked in government and the private and NGO sectors in Europe and the United States. After September the 11th 2001, he spent four years on the faculty of the Program on Terrorism and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall Center in Germany and has been involved in the training and

Joseph M. Humire is the Executive Director of the Center for a Secure Free Society. As a global security expert specializing in asymmetric warfare, Mr. Humire has produced leading research and investigations on Islamic extremism and Iran’s influence in the Western Hemisphere, as well as other topics. His work is frequently sought after by various entities within the U.S. Department of Defense and intelligence community, as well as prominent think tanks and universities throughout the Americas. Moreover, Mr. Humire is an eight-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps having served combat tours in Iraq and Liberia, as well as taking part in the multinational training exercise in Latin America and the Caribbean: UNITAS 45-04. Iran is the most ardent state sponsor of terror in the world. The Western Hemisphere has been victim of Iranian terror in the past, and these attacks paved the way for the growing presence of radical Islamists and Iranian revolutionary guards in Latin America. In the past five ye

Read his transcript here: https://www.westminster-institute.org/events/armies-of-sand-the-past-present-and-future-of-arab-military-effectiveness/

Read his transcript here: https://www.westminster-institute.org/events/shmuel-bar-demise-of-the-arab-state-re-tribalization-and-the-emergence-of-jihadistans-in-the-next-five-years/

Read his transcript here: https://www.westminster-institute.org/events/tadros-sorrows-of-egypt-revisited/

Dr. Mary Habeck lectures on al-Qaeda and ISIS, as well as on military strategy and history, at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Georgetown University, and American University. Her recent monograph for the Heritage Foundation is titled The U.S. Must Identify Jihadi-Salafists through Their Ideology, Practices, and Methodology-and Isolate Them. She is the author of Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (Yale, 2005) and three forthcoming sequels, Attacking America: Al-Qa’ida’s Grand Strategy; Managing Savagery: Al-Qa’ida’s Military and Political Strategies; and Fighting the Enemy: The U.S. and its War against al-Qa’ida. She is also a Senior Fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute. From 2005-2013 she was an Associate Professor in Strategic Studies at SAIS, teaching courses on extremism, military history, and strategic thought. Before moving to SAIS, Dr. Habecktaught American and European military history in

Some of the principles of warfare are ancient, others are new, but all described in The New Rules of War will permanently shape war now and in the future. By following them Sean McFate argues, we can prevail. But if we do not, terrorists, rogue states, and others who do not fight conventionally will succeed—and rule the world.

Robert R. Reilly is Director of the Westminster Institute. He has been on the board since its founding. In his 25 years of government service, he has taught at National Defense University (2007), and served in the Office of The Secretary of Defense, where he was Senior Advisor for Information Strategy (2002-2006). He participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 as Senior Advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of information. Before that, he was director of the Voice of America, where he had worked the prior decade. Mr. Reilly served in the White House as a Special Assistant to the President (1983-1985), and in the U.S. Information Agency both in D.C. and abroad. In the private sector, he spent more than seven years with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, as both national director and then president. He was on active duty as an armored cavalry officer for two years, and attended Georgetown University and the Claremont Graduate University. He has published widely on foreign policy, the “war of ideas”,

Dr. Tawfik Hamid is a thinker and reformer who was at one time an Islamic extremist. While still in medical school, he was recruited as a member of al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, the most violent Jihadi group in Egypt. There he became acquainted with Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahri, who later served as second in command to Osama bin Laden. Zawahri is now the leader of Al-Qaeda. After being radicalized Dr. Hamid experienced an awakening of conscience, recognized the threat of Radical Islam, and started to teach modern peaceful interpretations of classical Islamic core texts. In a seminal article, “The Development of a Jihadist’s Mind,” he described the process of his recruitment and explained how the appeal of jihadi ideas works. In 2015, Dr. Hamid published a book on how to defeat these ideas: Inside Jihad: How Radical Islam Works; Why It Should Terrify Us; How to Defeat It. Ayaan Hirsi Ali remarked that, “Reformers such as Tawfik Hamid … must be supported and protected. They should be as well known as Solzhenit

James Clad is Senior Fellow for Asia at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington DC. He is also a senior adviser for Asia at the CNA Corporation in Arlington, Virginia. During 2002-10, he served as U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia (including Australasia and the Pacific islands) and as Senior Counselor at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. From 1995-2002, he was professor of Asian Studies at Georgetown University and Director/Asia-Pacific Energy at Cambridge Energy Research Associates. Trained as a New Zealand lawyer, James Clad’s career has focused on Asian diplomatic, energy and security issues – broadening after 2002 to include the Middle East. During the 1980s-90s, he held Far Eastern Economic Review staff positions in various Asian capitals, and held fellowships at Harvard University and St. Antony’s College/Oxford. In 1991, he joined the Carnegie Endowment in Washington DC as senior associate for Asia. In the early 1980s, Mr. Clad belonged to the

Harun Maruf is a reporter and writer at VOA Africa Division with an extensive experience in working in conflict zones. He also covers security, extremism, piracy, human rights, politics and other current affairs issues. He secured the first radio interview with the late American jihadist Omar Hammami. Maruf has also reported on the emergence of pro-Islamic State militants in Somalia; the travels of Somali youth from Minnesota to Syria to fight alongside ISIS and has presented hundreds of original radio documentaries about Al-Shabab, extremism, corruption, piracy, and human rights. In addition, Maruf is the author of hundreds of articles, papers and scholarly works about Somalia and the Horn of Africa and he’s frequently invited to speak on these subjects at international events, conferences, round-table discussions and town halls. Prior to VOA, Maruf worked for BBC and Associated Press as a reporter in Somalia, and as a researcher for Human Rights Watch. He holds a Master of Arts in international journalism f

Dr. Aykan Erdemir is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is a former member of the Turkish Parliament (2011-2015) who served in the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, EU Harmonization Committee, and the Ad Hoc Parliamentary Committee on the IT Sector and the Internet. Dr. Erdemir is an outspoken defender of pluralism, minority rights, and religious freedoms in the Middle East. Dr. Erdemir has been at the forefront of the struggle against religious persecution, hate crimes, and hate speech in Turkey. He is a founding member of the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief, and a drafter of and signatory to the Oslo Charter for Freedom of Religion or Belief (2014) as well as a signatory legislator to the London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism. On April 27, 2016, Dr. Erdemir was awarded the Stefanus Prize for Religious Freedom in recognition of his advocacy for minority rights and religious freedoms. After completing his BA in Internat

Dr. Jeff Moore is CEO of Muir Analytics, a private threat intelligence company. Dr. Moore was a professor of Counter Terror and Counterinsurgency at National Defense University’s College of International Security Affairs. He is the author of “The Thai Way of Counterinsurgency” and “Spies for Nimitz: Joint Military Intelligence in the Pacific War.”

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of eighteen books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (Regnery Publishing) and The Truth About Muhammad (Regnery Publishing).

Read his transcript here: https://www.westminster-institute.org/events/daniel-brubaker/

Read his transcript here: https://www.westminster-institute.org/events/mansour-al-hadj/

Read his transcript here: https://www.westminster-institute.org/events/alberto-fernandez/

Read his transcript here: https://www.westminster-institute.org/events/wael-farouq/