Hillary Mann Leverett is CEO of STRATEGA. She has more than 20 years of academic, legal, business, diplomatic, and policy experience working on Middle Eastern, Central Asian, and African issues.
In the Bush Administration, Leverett worked as the Director for Iran, Afghanistan and Persian Gulf Affairs at the National Security Council, Middle East specialist on the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff, and as Political Advisor for Middle East, Central Asian and African issues for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. From 2001-2003, she was one of a small number of U.S. diplomats authorized to negotiate with the Iranians over Afghanistan, al-Qaida and Iraq. In the Clinton Administration, Leverett also served as Political Advisor for Middle East, Central Asian and African issues for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Associate Director for Near Eastern Affairs at the National Security Council, and as Special Assistant to the Ambassador at the U.S. embassy in Cairo. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and a Watson Fellowship, and from 1990-1991 worked in the U.S. embassies in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt and Israel.
Leverett has published Op Eds on Middle Eastern and South Asian issues in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, al Hayat, The National Interest, and Salon, and has appeared on news and public affairs programs on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and al Jazeera. Along with her husband, Flynt Leverett, she was profiled in a feature story in the November 2007 issue of Esquire magazine. She has provided expert testimony to the U.S. House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. Leverett is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Brandeis University. She also studied at the American University in Cairo and Tel Aviv University.
The Islamic Republic is not on the verge of collapse, repeat: The Islamic Republic is not on the verge of collapse. There is no evidence that those who came out on the streets of Tehran and, intermittently, a small number of other Iranian cities after the June 12 election represent a majority of the Iranian population. Demonstrations against the election outcome were not, in any meaningful sense, a nationwide phenomenon. Protests were overwhelmingly concentrated in the city of Tehran, where the official results show that Mir Hossein Mousavi clearly beat incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Once Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei… Read more
What if “nonpolarity” wins? Foreign Policy ran this excellent answer, co-authored by Flynt Leverett (full disclosure, the love of my life), entitled, “The Age of Disorganization”: As states large and small struggle to cope with and find a way out of the current economic crisis, it is not too early to begin thinking about how the "Great Recession" will alter the world's politics. Countries that have the economic fundamentals and resilience to emerge relatively early from the crisis -- China, some Gulf states, Brazil, and India -- are also likely to emerge stronger politically. But will the rise of new… Read more
Having served on the NSC staff during the first terms of both President Clinton and President George W. Bush, I am convinced that the most fundamental deficit in the current NSC system is the inability of that system to come up with big, strategic ideas around which the President can structure his foreign policy. President Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, conceived and implemented major and long-lasting changes in American foreign policy--but they did so almost entirely on their own, with little input or support from the broader bureaucracy. Similarly, President George H.W. Bush and his national security… Read more
Think big; thinking small about U.S.-Iranian relations won’t work and could make things worse. From my own experience as a U.S. official negotiating with Iranian officials over Afghanistan and al-Qaeda for almost two years during 2001-2003, it is clear to me that trying to proceed incrementally with Tehran—by picking one or two issues on which U.S. and Iranian interests seem to overlap, hoping that productive interaction on those issues will build “confidence” enabling the parties to deal with more contentious issues later on—is doomed to fail. Our talks over Afghanistan were productive but structurally flawed. Because there was no comprehensive,… Read more
If I understand him correctly, Gordon Adams argues against the United States taking ownership of the Middle East peace process, suggesting instead that humble mediation is the best that Washington can do. He supports his argument with a claim that “multiple presidents” have tried to take ownership of the issue and that no president tried harder to do so than Bill Clinton. I read the historical record differently. Indeed, few presidents have tried to take ownership of the peace process; by my definition of taking ownership, only two presidents – Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush—took serious steps in that direction. These are the… Read more
A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has never drawn the support of more than a narrow majority of either Israelis or Palestinians-and, much of the time, not even that. Such a solution only meets the minimum needs of each side-and nothing more. As such, a two-state outcome will never win truly broad and deep political support among Israelis or Palestinians. The proper analogy here is not with Northern Ireland -- now much in vogue, given Senator Mitchell's appointment as President Obama's Middle East envoy. The more appropriate comparison is with the Balkans -- where the international community, led by… Read more
I'll focus on the impending crisis that Obama's advisers will bring us closer to the brink of conflict with Iran by failing to seek genuine strategic rapprochement with the Islamic Republic. Obama's public call for talks with Iran has again heightened expectations in Tehran that strategic change is possible with a new U.S. administration. But Obama's initial, and apparently strategic, call for engagement with Iran has been walked back by his advisers towards the already tried and failed "carrots and sticks" tactical approach taken by both the Bush and Clinton Administrations late in their second terms. The basic flaw in this approach is the idea that economic goodies and increased sanctions are going to simultaneously… Read more
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