Containment, Decapitation, or Regime Change? The U.S. Endgame in Iran

Speakers: Professor Daniel Serwer, Asha Castleberry, Ambassador Patrick Theros, and Jason H. Campbell.

Bios:

Professor Daniel Serwer (Moderator) 

Senior Fellow, SAIS Foreign Policy Institute; Senior Non-Resident Fellow, Gulf International Forum 

Professor Daniel Serwer (Ph.D., Princeton) is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Gulf International Forum. He directs the Conflict Management Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is also a Senior Fellow at its Center for Transatlantic Relations and affiliated as a Scholar with the Middle East Institute. His current interests focus on the civilian instruments needed to protect U.S. national security as well as transition and state-building in the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans. His Righting the Balance: How You Can Help Protect America was published in November 2013 by Potomac Books. Formerly vice president for centers of peacebuilding innovation at the United States Institute of Peace, he led teams there working on rule of law, religion, economics, media, technology, security sector governance and gender. He was also vice president for peace and stability operations at USIP, where he led its peacebuilding work in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and the Balkans and served as Executive Director of the Hamilton/Baker Iraq Study Group. Serwer has worked on preventing interethnic and sectarian conflict in Iraq and has facilitated dialogue between Serbs and Albanians in the Balkans. As a minister-counselor at the U.S. Department of State, Serwer directed the European office of intelligence and research and served as U.S. special envoy and coordinator for the Bosnian Federation, mediating between Croats and Muslims and negotiating the first agreement reached at the Dayton peace talks. From 1990 to 1993, he was deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Rome, leading a major diplomatic mission through the end of the Cold War and the first Gulf War. Serwer holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from Princeton University, an M.S. from the University of Chicago, and a B.A. from Haverford College. He speaks Italian, French and Portuguese, as well as beginning Arabic.

Ambassador Patrick Theros

Strategic Advisor and Senior Fellow, Gulf International Forum

Ambassador Patrick Theros is a Strategic Advisor and Senior Fellow at Gulf International Forum. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to the State of Qatar from 1995-1998. Prior to his appointment, he served as Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism, responsible for the coordination of all U.S. Government counterterrorism activities outside the United States. From 1991-1993, Ambassador Theros served as the Political Advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of Central Command (CENTCOM).

Ambassador Theros joined the Foreign Service in 1963, and served in a variety of positions in Washington D.C., Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Nicaragua and Syria, including charge d’affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. embassies in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. In 1999, His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifah Al-Thani awarded Ambassador Theros the Qatar Order of Merit for his efforts in service of the U.S.-Qatar bilateral relationship. His commitment to national service also earned him the President’s Meritorious Service Award and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service (1992). Ambassador Theros has also earned four Superior Honor Awards, the highest awards for distinguished service given by the Foreign Service. After his retirement from the Foreign Service Ambassador Theros assumed the office of President of the U.S.-Qatar Business Council in March 2000 until his retirement in 2017.

Ambassador Theros’ personal commitment to community and public service earned him the rank of Knight Commander of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem (1999), as well as the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom (2005). In addition to his duties as President of the U.S.-Qatar Business Council, Ambassador Theros is also active in the following organizations: The Middle East Policy Council, Board of Directors; The Council of Foreign Relations, Member; The Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, Member; and The American Academy of Diplomacy, Member.

Ambassador Theros graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in 1963. He has done advanced studies at the American University in Washington, D.C., the Universidad Centroamericana in Nicaragua, the Armed Forces Staff College at Norfolk, Virginia, and the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. He is married to Aspasia (nee Pahigiannis) and has three children. He speaks and reads Spanish, Arabic and Greek professionally.

Asha Castleberry

U.S. National Security Expert & Foreign Policy Executive

Asha Castleberry is a national security and foreign policy expert, a U.S. Army veteran, and author of a memoir titled Why National Security Matters. With over a decade of experience in Middle East policy, she served as a Member of the Senior Executive Service in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the Department of State and held key roles in Kuwait, Iraq, and Jordan. She also worked on Middle East& North Africa Issues at U.S. Mission at the United Nations. Previously, she served as Cyrus Vance Visiting Professor at Mount Holyoke College; she has also taught at Fordham, George Washington, and Baruch College. Asha serves as a foreign & military affairs advisor for the Office of Congressman George Latimer’s Citizen Task Force.  Asha is a Council on Foreign Relations term member, Senior Fellow at the Diplomat Courier, and a recipient of numerous honors, including the Middle East Policy Council 40 Under 40, and serves on the Leadership Council for Women in National Security. A graduate of Hampton University and Columbia University, with studies at Oxford and in China, she is frequently featured in outlets like CNN, MSNOW, CBS News, Fox News Channel, BBC News, and The Washington Post.

Jason H. Campbell

Senior Fellow, Middle East Institute (MEI)

Jason H. Campbell is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute (MEI), where he focuses on international security, geopolitics, and foreign policy. Prior to joining MEI, he was a senior policy researcher at RAND, covering an array of defense and national security issues. From June 2016 through September 2018, he served as country director for Afghanistan in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy. In this role Campbell managed the NATO portfolio in support of the Resolute Support Mission, represented the Department of Defense (DoD) on interagency delegations discussing the prospects of a Taliban peace process with international stakeholders, and helped draft DoD’s contribution to the 2017 South Asia strategy review.

Campbell holds a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London, an MA in International Affairs from Catholic University, and a BA in Political Science from Amherst College.