A talk by Trita Parsi

Trita Parsi is the 2010 recipient of the $200,000 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. He is an award-winning author with a focus on US foreign policy in the Middle East. His first book, Treacherous Alliance - The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the US (Yale University Press, 2007) won the Grawemeyer award and Council of Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Award in 2008 (Silver medallion). His second book, A Single Roll of the Dice - Obama's Diplomacy with Iran (Yale University Press, 2012) was selected as The Best Book on The Middle East in 2012 by Foreign Affairs. His latest book - Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy (Yale University Press, 2017) - reveals the behind the scenes story to the historic nuclear deal with Iran. Dr. Parsi is the Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the former President of the largest Iranian-American grassroots organization in the US, the National Iranian American Council. He has taught at Johns Hopkins University, New York University and George Washington University. He currently teaches at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington DC.

Parsi has followed Middle East politics through work in the field and extensive experience on Capitol Hill and at the United Nations. He is frequently consulted by Western and Asian governments on foreign policy matters.  Parsi has worked for the Swedish Permanent Mission to the UN, where he served in the Security Council, handling the affairs of Afghanistan, Iraq, Tajikistan and Western Sahara, and in the General Assembly's Third Committee, addressing human rights in Iran, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Iraq.

Parsi's articles on Middle East affairs have been published in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Financial Times, Jane's Intelligence Review, the Nation, The American Conservative, the Jerusalem Post, The Forward, and others. He is a frequent guest on CNN, PBS’s Newshour with Jim Lehrer, NPR, the BBC, and Al Jazeera.