Defense, Diplomacy, and Strategic Convergence: Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Pakistan, and Egypt in the New Middle East

Featured Speakers: Ambassador Patrick Theros, Dr. Aziz Alghashian, (Ret.) Brigadier Feroz Hassan Khan, Dr. Murat Aslan, and Mirette F. Mabrouk.

Ambassador Patrick Theros (moderator)

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.

Dr. Aziz Alghashian

Senior Non-Resident Fellow, Gulf International Forum

Dr. Aziz Alghashian is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at Gulf International Forum. He is a researcher from Saudi Arabia who focuses on the kingdom’s foreign policy strategies. He is the geopolitics senior research fellow and Director of Research with ORF Middle East in Dubai. He is known, in particular, as a specialist for Saudi-Israeli as well as for Arab-Israeli relations. Aziz joined the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where he underwent Officer Training before obtaining his undergraduate degree in International Relations and Global Security at Nottingham Trent University, followed by an MA in Diplomacy and International Relations.

(Ret.) Brigadier Feroz Hassan Khan

Professor in the Institute of Regional and International Security Studies, U.S. Navy Postgraduate School 

Feroz Hassan Khan is a research professor in the Institute of Regional and International Security of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, since 2003. He previously served in the Pakistan Army for 30 years, with his last assignment was Director in Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, the secretariat of Pakistan National Command Authority, where he represented Pakistan in multilateral negotiations on arms control and international security issues He has held a series of visiting fellowships at Stanford University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Brookings Institution in Washington D.C and has wide experience in participating in international seminars. He holds an M.A. in International Relations from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC. He has published widely, most notably his two books Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb ( Stanford University Press, 2012) and Subcontinent Adrift: Strategic Futures of South Asia ( Cambria Press, 2022).

Dr. Murat Aslan

Associate Professor, Hasan Kalyoncu University; Senior Researcher, SETA

His studies are primarily in security and defence studies, conflict resolution, and foreign policy. He had been commissioned to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Bosnia as a member of the Turkish Armed Forces. The primary region he has been interested in is the Middle East, though he has monitored the vicinity of Turkiye’s geographical proximity to conduct comprehensive scholarly assessments. He is currently an Associate Professor at Hasan Kalyoncu University and a SETA senior researcher.

He is the author of the books Security Sector Reform for Libya: A Cruical Step Towards State Building and Intelligence and Propaganda in the Cases of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Afghanistan. He co-edited the books Yüzyıllık Kriz: Afganistan (The Crisis of the Hundred Years: Afghanistan) and Turkiye’s Counter Terrorism: Concept, Procedure, Method. He has numerous book chapters and articles, in addition to his think tank activities.

Dr. Aslan has also established Murat Aslan Consultany, under the Technopark of the Hasan Kalyoncu University and provides consultancy to multinational companies and foreign policy departments.

Mirette F. Mabrouk

Senior Fellow and Founding Director of the Egypt Studies Program, MEI

Mirette F. Mabrouk is a Senior Fellow and Founding Director of the Egypt Studies program at the Middle East Institute (MEI), where she focuses on economic development, regional security, and sustainable development issues in the Middle East and North Africa.

Prior to joining MEI, Ms. Mabrouk served as the deputy director and director for research and programs at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council. She was also a fellow at the Project for US Relations with the Middle East at the Brookings Institution and was based in Cairo, where she was the director of communications for the Economic Research Forum (ERF).

Ms. Mabrouk comes from a long career in journalism, including over 20 years in print and television. She is the founding publisher of The Daily Star Egypt (now The Daily News Egypt), the country’s only independent English-language daily newspaper at the time. She also served as the publishing director for IBA Media, which produces the region’s leading English-language magazines.

Her work has appeared in prominent publications such as Foreign Policy, The Hill, and HuffPost, and she has been quoted or appeared on major media outlets including the BBC, VOA, Sky News, and The Wall Street Journal. She is the author of the book chapter “And Now for Something Completely Different: Arab Media’s Own Little Revolution” from Reconstructing the Middle East (Routledge, 2017), as well as the editor of the report Rethinking Egypt’s Economy (Middle East Institute, 2020).

She holds an MA in Broadcast Journalism and a BA in Mass Communication from the American University in Cairo.