About the Discussion

About the Panelists

Dr. Mahmood Sariolghalam is Professor of International Relations at the National University of Iran in Tehran (Shahid Beheshti). This academic year, he is a Visiting Professor in International Relations at the University of Southern California, where he earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in international relations. Sariolghalam specializes in politics of the Middle East, U.S.-Iranian relations, Iranian foreign policy and political culture. He has written extensively in Farsi, Arabic and English and spoken in 114 countries. Recent publications include Sources of Continuity In Iran’s Foreign Policy, in [Persian] Gulf Politics and Economics in a Changing World, Rationality and Iran’s National Development; Iranian Authoritarianism During the Qajar Period and Transition in the Middle East: New Arab Realities and Iran, in Middle East Policy. Sariolghalam is a member of the International Studies Association (U.S.), Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum (Switzerland) and a Non-Resident Scholar at ASERI (Italy). He has been a Visiting Professor at the Brookings Institution and Kuwait University, among other institutions.

Dr. Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar, Ph.D., is the fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute. His research focuses on U.S.-Iran relations and the politics of religion. Tabaar is an assistant professor in international affairs at Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government and Public Service. He has previously taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Georgetown University, George Mason University, and George Washington University. A former BBC reporter, he has been a visiting scholar at George Washington, Cambridge, Harvard, and Columbia Universities. Tabaar received his Ph.D. in comparative politics and international relations from Georgetown University, an M.A. in international relations from the University of Chicago, an M.A. in sociology from the New School for Social Research in New York City, and a B.A. in social sciences from the University of Tehran. He is also a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C.

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