Experts on Iraq, Terrorism, Join Saban Center for Middle East Policy

Amatzia Baram, a professor of Middle East history at Israel?s University of Haifa, and Daniel L. Byman, an assistant professor at Georgetown University?s National Security Studies program, have joined the Brookings Institution?s Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Baram, a visiting fellow, will focus on political institutions in post-Saddam Iraq, while Byman, a nonresident senior fellow, will provide expertise on Middle Eastern terrorism and international security.

?We are delighted to have two scholars of this caliber joining us at this critical moment for U.S. policy in the Middle East,? said Martin Indyk, director of the Saban Center and the former U.S. ambassador to Israel. ?Amatzia Baram brings a detailed understanding of Iraqi politics and society, which will provide a unique resource to the Washington policy community as the Iraq crisis unfolds. Dan Byman combines a wealth of scholarly expertise and professional experience on terrorism issues, particularly as they relate to the Middle East.?

Before joining Brookings, Dr. Baram was affiliated with the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. He has advised the Israeli and U.S. governments on Iraq, was a senior associate member at St. Antony?s College, Oxford, and has taught at the National Defense College in Israel and at Georgetown University. Dr. Baram has written two books, Culture, History and Ideology in the Formation of Ba?thist Iraq: 1968-1989 and Building Toward Crisis: Saddam Husayn’s Strategy of Survival, and he edited Iraq?s Road to War. He has published some seventy articles on Iraqi politics, society, and military affairs.

Before he began teaching at Georgetown, Dr. Byman served as a professional staff member on the Joint 9/11 Inquiry Staff of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Before that, he was research director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation and a Middle East analyst for the U.S. government. He has written on a wide range of topics related to terrorism, international security, and the Middle East, and is the author of Keeping the Peace: Lasting Solutions to Ethnic Conflict and The Dynamics of Coercion: American Foreign Policy and the Limits of Military Might.