Defeating ISIS and
Solving the Political Crisis in Syria
Thursday, September 18, 2014
1:00 to 3:00 p.m.
National Press Club
529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, Zenger Room
Washington DC 20045
A light lunch will be available between 1:00 and 1:15 p.m. on a first-come first-served basis
Speakers:
Radwan Ziadeh
Executive Director, Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies
Mohamed Ghanem
Senior Political Advisor, Syrian American Council
Oubai Shahbandar
Strategic Communications Advisor, Syria Opposition Coalition
Moderator:
Dr. William Lawrence
Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy
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As the international community rallies to confront ISIS (the so-called Islamic State also referred to as ISIL and recently renamed IS), new international action in Iraq and Syria has already begun with discussion of how to achieve inclusive politics in Iraq, but little debate on how to achieve the same objective in Syria. Virtually all analysts agree that concerted international military engagements in Syria will fail without robust humanitarian and political intervention on behalf of all 22 million Syrians, including the 9 million displaced by the civil war. Any political solution must address political grievances and core concerns of all Syrians.
To address these issues, the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) has organized a panel of Syrian experts and activists to address the political crisis and offer policy recommendations regarding Syria.
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES:
Radwan Ziadeh is co-founder and executive director of the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Washington, D.C. He is also head of the Syrian Commission for Transitional Justice, established on November 14, 2013 by the Syrian Interim Government, and founder and director of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies in Syria. Ziadeh was a Visiting Scholar at Lehigh University, Fellow at the Institute for Social Policy, Visiting Scholar for the Dubai Initiative at Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University, Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Middle East Studies (IMES) in the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University, Prins Global Fellow at Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University, Visiting Scholar at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS) at Georgetown University, Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in Washington D,C and Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University in New York City. He has written ten books; his most recent book is Power and Policy in Syria: Intelligence Services, Foreign Relations and Democracy in the Modern Middle East (I.B. Tauris, 2011).
Mohammed Alaa Ghanem is the Senior Political Adviser, Government Relations Director, and Strategist for the Syrian American Council in Washington D.C. Ghanem is also a fellow with the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies and a board member of the Coalition for a Democratic Syria. He was a professor at the University of Damascus, and has been involved in the Syrian revolution since its early days. He advises local administrative councils in liberated areas across Syria on international relations. In early 2013, he participated in monitoring the elections of the first democratically elected government in Aleppo. Ghanem is frequently quoted in the media, and his op-eds have appeared, among others, in the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, the Hill, and the New York Post. He has appeared on CNN, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, HuffPost, RT, and CCTV America. He holds a master's degree in Peacebuilding and conflict transformation.
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