Good afternoon and welcome to is newly renovated headquarters. I am the Senior Vice President at the middle east institute. I am pleased to welcome you to todays important and timely commsby examining cent approach to the middle east. We will explore prospects for an effective u. S. Military role in the region, especially given current news from northeast syria. Great panel of experts to discuss this with you today. Ken pollock, we are also pleased to welcome back senior fellow and director of the defense and Security Program after a oneyear fellowship at the department of defense. We are happy to have him back and look forward to hearing his insights from his upcoming article in the 2019 fall issue quarterlyhington entitled broken partnerships can washington get security . Eric schmidtht is a writer for the new york times. Since 2007, he has reported on terrorism issues with assignments to pakistan, afghanistan, Southeast Asia among others. Is a coauthor of counterstrike the untold st
Current news from northeast syria. We have great panel of experts to discuss this with you today. Ken pollack, dana stroul and were also pleased to welcome back in the eye senior fellow and director of the defense and Security Program bilal saab after a oneyear fellowship in the department of defense. We are happy to have him back and look forward to hearing his insights from his upcoming article in the 2019 fall issue of the washington quarterly entitled broken partnerships can washington get Security Cooperation right . Moderating todays panel of the six experts is eric schmitt. Eric is a writer covering terrorism and National Security for the new york times. Since 2007 he has reported on terrorism issues with assignments to pakistan, afghanistan, north africa, southeast asia, among others. He is a coauthor of counterstrike, the untold story of americas secret campaign against alqaeda. Published in 2011. Before joining the times, eric was an education reporter at the tricity herald i