Middle East Policy Council

RICHARD J. SCHMIERER:  Good morning, everyone.  And welcome.  Thank you for joining us this morning for what I’m sure will be a very, very interesting discussion on a very timely topic.  My name is Richard Schmierer.  I’m the chairman of the board of the Middle East Policy Council.  Today we are holding our 99th Capitol Hill Conference.  And as you know, the topic today is U.S.-Iranian Confrontation:  Domestic, Regional and Global Implications.  We have a full house.  There are a few seats – those in the back, there are a few seats still here if you want to try to find one over there, a couple.  But we do have a full house, so I apologize for those who aren’t able to find a seat....

Let me now briefly introduce our panelists.  We will begin the program with Dr. Suzanne Maloney, the deputy director for foreign policy and a senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy, Energy Security, and Climate Initiative at the Brookings Institution.  Next we will have Ambassador Doug Silliman, who is the president of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington and a former ambassador to Iraq and Kuwait.  After Ambassador Silliman, will come Ms. Joyce Karam, the Washington correspondent for the UAE newspaper The National, and an adjunct professor at George Washington University.  And finally, we will have Ambassador John Limbert, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Iran and a former Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.  I’d like to thank all four of you for joining us today >>>