Bolton’s Book: Trump Administration’s Foreign Policymaking
August 12th, 2020
12:00pm – 1:00pm (EST)
Zoom Webinar
Before entering Trump’s personal orbit, John R. Bolton was most famous for his stint as United States Ambassador to the United Nations, where his views contra the multilateral institution, and promoting American unilateralism were espoused in full view of a global audience. Twelve years after his resignation from the position in 2006, he once again caught the eye of a Republican President eager to attack the status quo in foreign policy, Donald Trump. Over the next whirlwind year of 2018, Bolton was made National Security Advisor where he suggested a more hawkish foreign policy, proposing an invasion of Venezuela to oust the leftist government, or further escalation against Iran in the Middle East. By the time Bolton had finally fallen out of Trump’s favor, he had collected a memoir of his experiences which was released in the form a book in late June 2020. Inside his recollections is an incredible firsthand look at how American Foreign Policy during the Presidency of Donald Trump is made.
The SETA Foundation at Washington DC is pleased to host a webinar discussion on what Bolton’s book tells us about US foreign policymaking.
Speakers
Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President at the Quincy Institute
Mike Doran, Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute
Moderator
Kadir Ustun, Executive Director, The SETA Foundation at Washington DC
Bios
Trita Parsi is an award-winning author and the 2010 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. He is an expert on US-Iranian relations, Iranian foreign politics, and the geopolitics of the Middle East. He has authored three books on US foreign policy in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Iran and Israel. His first book, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States (Yale University Press 2007), won the silver medal winner of the 2008 Arthur Ross Book Award from the Council on Foreign Relations. His second book, A Single Roll of the Dice – Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran (Yale University Press) was released in early 2012 and was selected by Foreign Affairs journal as the Best Book of 2012 on the Middle East. Parsi’s latest book – Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy (Yale University Press, 2017) – reveals the behind the scenes story to the historic nuclear deal with Iran.
Michael Doran is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute. He specializes in Middle East security issues. In the administration of President George W. Bush, Doran served in the White House as a senior director in the National Security Council, where he was responsible for helping to devise and coordinate United States strategies on a variety of Middle East issues, including Arab-Israeli relations and U.S. efforts to contain Iran and Syria. He also served in the Bush administration as a senior advisor in the State Department and a deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Pentagon. Born in Kokomo, Indiana, Doran went to elementary school in Carmel, outside of Indianapolis, before his family moved to Fullerton, California, where he graduated from Sunny Hills High School. He received a B.A. from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. Before coming to Hudson, Doran was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has also held teaching positions at New York University, Princeton University, and the University of Central Florida. His latest book, Ike’s Gamble, was published by Free Press in 2016. He appears frequently on television, and has published extensively in Foreign Affairs, The American Interest, Commentary, Mosaic, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.
Kadir Ustun is the Executive Director at the SETA Foundation at Washington, D.C. Previously, Dr. Ustun was the Research Director at SETA DC and Assistant Editor of Insight Turkey. Dr. Ustun holds a PhD in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies from Columbia University and a Master’s degree in History from Bilkent University. He has contributed to various SETA reports and his writings have appeared in various publications such as Insight Turkey, Al Jazeera English, Hurriyet Daily News, Daily Sabah, Mediterranean Quarterly, and Cairo Review of Global Affairs among others. He is also co-editor of edited volumes History, Politics and Foreign Policy in Turkey, Change and Adaptation in Turkish Foreign Policy, Politics and Foreign Policy in Turkey: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, and Trump’s Jerusalem Move: Making Sense of U.S. Policy on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict.
