CIR News:The community is invited to join Santa Fe Council on International Relations at 4:30 p.m., Jan. 16 at the Hotel Santa Fe, 1501 Paseo De Peralta to hear a panel discussion on the risks and implications of war with Iran.
The panel includes Middle East experts from UNM’s Global & National Security Policy Institute, Dr. Emile Nakhleh and Dr. Todd Greentree and Ambassador Vicki Huddleston.
This discussion on today’s most urgent challenge to the global order and U.S. foreign policy:
- Will there be war with Iran?
- What are the implications and risks of assassinating foreign leaders?
- What are Iran’s strategic options now, including working through their proxies and increasing the naval threat in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz?
- As Iran’s military is a bureaucracy, will the removal of its leader effect any real change to what Sec. Pompeo describes as an “imminent threat”?
- What is and will be the impact on ISIS and the Kurds?
- And how exactly did we get to the brink of war?
Leading the discussion will be Amb. Vicki Huddleston, who brings decades of diplomatic experience and insights to bear on this weighty issue. Joining her Dr. Emile Nakhleh (UNM) and Dr. Todd Greentree each bring a different but complimentary perspective.
Before the talk begins at 5:30 p.m., there will be a cash bar and networking with the three speakers.
Amb. Vicki HuddlestonAmb. Vicki Huddleston is a retired career Senior Foreign Service Officer whose last assignment was as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from June 2009 through December 2011. Before that she was Chargé d’Affaires ad interim to Ethiopia, United States Ambassador to Mali, Principal Officer of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and U.S. Ambassador to Madagascar. She was Chief of United States Interests Section in Havana from 1999–2002 and was earlier the Deputy and then the Coordinator of the Office of Cuban Affairs. Prior to joining the Department of Defense, she was a visiting scholar at Brookings Institution. She was Chief of Party for a USAID-funded capacity building project in Haiti from 2013-2015. She is the author of the recent memoir, Our Woman in Havana: A Diplomat’s Chronicle of America’s Long Struggle with Castro’s Cuba.
Dr. Emile Nakhleh
Dr. Emile Nakhleh is a former Senior Intelligence Service Officer (SIS-3), a Research Professor and Director of the Global and National Security Policy Institute at the University of New Mexico, a National Intelligence Council/IC Associate, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Since retiring from the US Government in 2006, he has consulted on national security issues, particularly Islamic radicalization, terrorism, and the Arab states of the Middle East. He has published frequently on the “Arab Spring” in the Financial Times, the LobeLog blog, and The Cipher Brief.
Dr. Todd Greentree
Dr. Todd Greentree served as an expeditionary diplomat in five wars during his three decades as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer. Currently, Dr. Greentree is a member of the Changing Character of War Centre at Oxford University, teaches in the Global and National Security Program at UNM, and presents Hot Spots: The U.S. in the World Today at the Renesan Institute for Lifelong Learning. He has also taught Strategy and Policy at the U.S. Naval War College and was a Visiting Scholar at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. His most recent article, “Strategic Failure in Afghanistan,” appears in the current issue of The Journal of Strategic Studies, and his current writing project is The Blood of Others, a book about the wars at the end of the Cold War and what they have to do with us today.
Cost of admission is $20 for nonmembers and $15 for CIR members (in advance). For more information on registering, go to the Council’s website at www.sfcir.org or telephone the office at 982-4931, ext. 102.
