The following is an agenda for the Iran 360˚ Conference held at the Airlie Conference Center in Warrenton, VA on April 1-2, 2008

2:00-5:00 p.m.
Arrival, East Room

5:30-6:15 p.m.
Cocktails

6:15-6:30 p.m.
Welcome by ICFJ President Joyce Barnathan

6:30-7:30 p.m. -- The Soul of Iran: The Nexus of Society, Politics and Culture

Journalist and scholar Afshin Molavi will explore the nexus between Iranian politics, society and culture in a discussion that will range from the elections in today's Islamic Republic to pop culture and cinema, and the challenges journalists face reporting on these complexities.

Afshin Molavi, fellow at the New America Foundation, has reported from Iran for The Washington Post, Business Week and others, and has traveled widely across the country. His book, The Soul of Iran, was called by Foreign Affairs “a brilliant tableau of today's Iran.” Born in Iran, Molavi holds an MA in Middle East history and international economics from the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

7:30-8:15 p.m.
Dinner

8:15-9:15 p.m. -- Why They Want Nukes: How the Islamic Regime Shapes Iranian Public Opinion on This Controversial Issue

University of Hawaii professor Farideh Farhi will examine the dynamic between public opinion and nuclear decision-making in Iran. She’ll discuss how the Iranian government has made a concerted, successful effort to shape domestic public opinion in favor of the nuclear program and what that means for Iran’s nuclear ambitions and more broadly, relations between the government and the people.

Farideh Farhi is the author of States and Urban-Based Revolutions: Iran and Nicaragua and writes frequently on contemporary Iranian politics. She lived and worked in Iran between 1991 and 1998. She is an independent scholar and an affiliate member of the graduate faculty of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

NIGHT OF APRIL 1: LODGING AT AIRLIE CONFERENCE CENTER

Wednesday, April 2

Today’s events, unless otherwise noted, will take place in the Federal Room.

7:00-8:00 a.m.
Breakfast in Airlie Dining Room

8:00-10:00 a.m. The Iranian Political Pyramid: The Real Powerbrokers

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has become the face of power in Iran. But as the recent parliamentary elections have shown, there are divisions within the conservative camp. Simultaneously, other forces and groups are jockeying for position. This session will explore Iran’s numerous and complex power centers.

Speakers:
Mehrzad Boroujerdi is associate professor of political science at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs where he also serves as the founding director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program and co-director of the Religion, Media and International Relations Program.

Nikahang Kowsar is an Iranian cartoonist, journalist, and blogger living in Toronto. He was a reformist candidate for the city council of Tehran in 2003. He studied geology in the University of Tehran, and joined Gol-Agha, an Iranian political satire magazine as a cartoonist in 1991. He worked for Hamshahri ID from 1992 to 1998, and subsequently worked for a number of newspapers which were later banned.

Ambassador John Limbert left the Foreign Service in 2006 and is currently Distinguished Professor of International Affairs at the U.S. Naval Academy. He has more than forty years of experience in Iranian affairs, including teaching in Iranian universities and secondary schools and earning a PhD in history and Middle Eastern studies from Harvard University. He was a political officer at the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and became one of the hostages held at that embassy from November 1979 to January 1981. His publications include Iran: At War with History and Shiraz in the Age of Hafez.

Moderator: Geneive Abdo, an author and analyst, is a fellow at The Century Foundation. She is the author of Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America After 9/11 and No God but God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam. Before joining The Century Foundation, she was a liaison for the United Nation’s Alliance of Civilizations, a project created by the U.N. Secretary General to improve relations between Western and Islamic societies. From 1998 to 2001, she was the Iran correspondent for the British newspaper, the Guardian, and a regular contributor to The Economist. She was the first American journalist to be based in Tehran since the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

10:00-10:15 a.m.
Break

10:15-12:15 p.m. -- Oil and Sanctions: How Healthy is the Iranian economy?

With oil prices sky high, Iran’s oil wealth has created an emerging middle class. Thanks to sanctions, the thriving black market economy has also contributed to the rise of this new middle class. At the same time, the gap between rich and poor is growing. This panel will explore the state of Iran’s economy, from the effect of the sanctions and weak dollar to rising unemployment and new oil prosperity.

Speakers:
Kaveh Ehsani is a research scholar at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He is on the editorial board of Middle East Report and an editor of Goftegu Quarterly in Tehran. He is the author of “Iran: The Populist Threat to Democracy,” Middle East Report; “Neo-Conservatives, Hardline Clerics and the Bomb,” with Chris Toensing, Middle East Report; and “Social Engineering and the Contradictions of Modernization in Khuzestan's Company Town,” International Review of Social History.

Barbara Slavin is a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace. She is on leave from USA Today, where she has been senior diplomatic reporter since 1996. In 2006, she was a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where she completed her first book, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S. and the Twisted Path to Confrontation. Slavin holds a BA in Russian language and literature from Harvard University.

Babak Yektafar is editor-in-chief of Washington Prism, a weekly online journal of culture, politics and public affairs in Persian, dedicated to bringing news and views from the United States and beyond to Persian-speaking countries and communities. From 1999 to 2005, he was a producer with C-SPAN’s national live morning program, Washington Journal. Prior to that, he worked at a local public station as a producer and as the station’s vice president for operations. He has been in the United States since 1977 and is a graduate of Farleigh Dickinson University.

Moderator: Deborah Campbell is an award-winning writer and journalist who has worked in Iran, Syria, Dubai, Egypt, Cuba, Russia and Israel-Palestine. Her writing has appeared in Harper’s, The Economist, New Scientist, the Guardian, Adbusters, Utne, Asia Times, Ms., Modern Painters and in anthologies, essay collections and scholarly journals in Europe, Asia and North America. Her book, This Heated Place, is a literary journey inside the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her reporting on Iran won two Canadian National Magazine Awards in 2007. She is an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia.

12:15-1:15 p.m.
Lunch in Airlie Dining Room

1:15-2:15 p.m. -- Smashing Stereotypes: Countering Biases in Iran Reporting

James Breckenridge, professor of psychology at Stanford University, will explore how unconscious biases affect perceptions, and how this influences media coverage of Iran.

James Breckenridge, PhD, is associate director of Stanford University's Center for Interdisciplinary Policy, Education, and Research on Terrorism. CIPERT is committed to the scientific understanding of the causes and consequences of political violence, especially terrorism, and to the translation of this understanding into effective policy, education, and research. Breckenridge is the principal investigator on a variety of funded research projects investigating psychological aspects of terrorism and homeland security, including a grant from the National Science Foundation to evaluate psychological measures for detecting deception and improving national security evaluations.

2:15-4:15 p.m. -- The Changing Fabric of Iran: A society in Flux

A deeply religious society, Iran is still coping with some very contemporary issues. For example, a growing women’s movement is using the Internet to gain traction. Bloggers are playing an increasingly important role in society. HIV is on the rise, and so is drug trafficking. This session will discuss these trends, and how Iran is dealing with them.

Speakers:
Kamiar Alaei, MD/MPH, is co-author of Iran's National and International Strategic Plans for the Control of HIV/IDU/TB. He was a key player in putting together Iran's proposal to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS/TB/Malaria, which was awarded $16 million. He and his brother, Arash, were the main contributors in the establishment of the first counseling and care center for HIV-positive patients in Iran, which was recently documented as one of the "Best Practice[s]" by the World Health Organization in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Sanam Dolatshahi is one of the first women to write a blog in Iran. She was the editor of Iran's first e-zine, Cappuccino, and editor of the English section of Women in Iran, the first news Web site for women in Iran. She is also collaborating with the non-profit Center of Women of Iran to develop an online network for women in different provinces of Iran. Following the arrest of 33 women's rights activists in Tehran in 2007, she helped start a number of feminist campaigns in Iran. She is a research assistant at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Omid Memarian is a progressive Iranian journalist and social activist. He was awarded the Golden Pen at the National Press Festival in Iran at 2001. He has been blogging since 2002 in English and Persian. He also writes for Inter Press Service news agency and the Huffington Post and has published op-ed pieces in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The San Francisco Chronicle. Previously, he worked with several daily newspapers in Iran, and was detained for his writings for several months in Iran in 2004. In 2005, he received Human Rights Watch's highest honor, the Human Rights Defender Award. He was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism from 2005-2006 and is currently a Peace Fellow at the Journalism School.

Moderator: Joyce Barnathan has been president of ICFJ since July 2006. Previously, she was executive editor-global franchise at Business Week, where she helped create new editorial extensions and alliances. As assistant managing editor, she supervised nearly every department at the magazine. She worked as Asia regional editor, helping to launch the Asia edition. From 1979 until 1988, she held a number of posts at Newsweek, including Moscow bureau chief, special national political correspondent and State Department correspondent. For her work, she has received five Overseas Press Club Awards and one National Headliner Award, among other honors.

4:15-5:00 p.m.
Wrap up led by Joyce Barnathan

5:30-6:00 p.m.
Transportation to Dulles and Union Station departs

**For those spending the night of April 2nd at Airlie, dinner will be provided, as well as breakfast and return transportation the following morning.

This event is supported by the United States Institute of Peace.

Return to the Iran 360˚ Conference page.