2022 World Affairs Council of the Year
Network of Independent World Affairs Councils of America
The Middle East is at a hinge moment. The old order is collapsing, and a new one has yet to emerge. While the region’s tectonic shifts predate Hamas’s terror attack on Oct. 7, the ensuing conflict in Gaza and its reverberations across the region are the crucible in which the new contours of the Middle East will take shape. USIP’s Mona Yacoubian will provide insights on the regional flashpoints that have erupted in the wake of the Gaza conflict as well as the broader implications for a region in a state of enormous flux.
Mona Yacoubian is vice president of the Middle East and North Africa center at USIP. She brings more than 30 years of experience working on the Middle East and North Africa. Her work has centered on conflict analysis, governance and stabilization challenges, and conflict prevention.
Since returning to USIP as a senior advisor in 2017, her work has focused on Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Additional research interests include Russia’s role in the Middle East and violent extremism. In 2019, she served as executive director of the Congressionally-appointed Syria Study Group, which USIP was mandated to facilitate.
Yacoubian joined the U.S. Institute of Peace after serving as deputy assistant administrator in the Middle East Bureau at USAID from 2014 to 2017, where she had responsibility for Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Prior to joining USAID, Yacoubian was a senior advisor at the Stimson Center focusing on the Arab uprisings with an emphasis on Syria. Prior to joining the Stimson Center, she served as a special advisor on the Middle East at the U.S. Institute of Peace, where her work focused on Lebanon and Syria as well as broader issues related to democratization in the Arab world. From 1990 to 1998, Yacoubian served as the North Africa analyst in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
Yacoubian was a Fulbright scholar in Syria where she studied Arabic at the University of Damascus from 1985 to 1986. She has held an international affairs fellowship with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and is currently a CFR member. She earned a master’s in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s in public policy from Duke University.
Lt.Cmdr. Patrick Ryan is President Emeritus and founder of the Tennessee World Affairs Council. He served in the U.S. Navy for over 26 years as a Submariner and Intelligence Officer. He was a specialist in Middle East affairs, residing in the Persian Gulf and working as an analyst at the Joint Staff in the Pentagon, the Center for Naval Analyses and the U.S. Central Command, as well as numerous ship deployments to the region. In his post-military career Ryan founded and managed a publishing business focused on Middle East issues for 15 years.
THE MISSION of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Tennessee World Affairs Council is to promote international awareness, understanding and connections to enhance the region’s global stature and to prepare Tennesseans to thrive in our increasingly complex and connected world.
THE VISION of the Tennessee World Affairs Council is a well-informed community that thinks critically about the world and the impact of global events.
