On May 30, 2013, the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center released a new issue brief, “The Kaleidoscope Turns Again in a Crisis-Challenged Iran” with a discussion of Iran’s upcoming presidential elections.

A discussion with

Yasmin Alem
Independent expert on Iranian elections and domestic politics

Suzanne Maloney
Senior Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
Brookings Institution

Moderated by

Barbara Slavin
Senior Fellow, South Asia Center
Atlantic Council

Yasmin Alem is an expert on Iranian elections and domestic politics. She is the author of Duality by Design: the Iranian Electoral System. Alem has served as a consultant to international organizations and nongovernmental organizations, including the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, United States Institute of Peace, and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems.

Suzanne Maloney is a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, where her research focuses on Iran and Persian Gulf energy. She is the editor of Iran@Saban, a blog on politics, economics, and foreign policy issues related to Iran, author of the 2008 monograph Iran’s Long Reach, as well as a forthcoming book on Iran’s political economy since the revolution. Maloney previously served as an external advisor to senior US State Department officials on long-term issues related to Iran. Before joining the Saban Center, she served on the secretary of state’s Policy Planning Staff and directed the 2004 Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on US Policy toward Iran, chaired by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Barbara Slavin is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and Washington correspondent for Al-Monitor.com, a website devoted to news from and about the Middle East. The author of a 2007 book, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the US and the Twisted Path to Confrontation, she is a regular commentator on US foreign policy and Iran on NPR, PBS, and C-SPAN. A career journalist, Slavin previously served as assistant managing editor for world and national security of The Washington Times, senior diplomatic reporter for USA TODAY, Cairo correspondent for The Economist,and as an editor at The New York Times Week in Review.

The Iran Task Force is supported by the Ploughshares Fund.

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