U.S.-Iran Strategic Competition

Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been a critical challenge for American policymakers, turning from friend to foe overnight. In the ensuing four decades, nearly every American president has had an Iran-related crisis help define his presidency. Over the course of the seminar, fellows will gain a clear understanding of the history of America’s relationship with Iran and take an in-depth look at the ideological nature of the Iranian regime. They will delve into the challenges the regime presents to the United States, from its nuclear program to its regional ambitions to its oil diplomacy.

Taught by leading scholars in the field, SSS will consist of 15 evening sessions that meet from September-May and will afford participating fellows an opportunity to gain a breadth of knowledge on critical subjects, forge relationships with senior scholars and practitioners, sharpen analytical frameworks through written and oral arguments, and build a cohort with their peers. Through the lens of strategic competition with Iran, fellows will examine:

What are our goals and how do we achieve them?
What does the strategic competition look like? What are we competing over?
What do we need to understand about our adversary in order to achieve our goals?

Images from Official website of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Michael Doran on America, Israel, & the Middle East

Faculty & Speakers

Faculty
Speaker

David Albright

ISIS

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David Albright

ISIS

David Albright, a physicist, is founder and President of the nonprofit Institute for Science and International Security. He has written numerous assessments on secret nuclear weapons programs throughout the world.
Michael Doran

Hudson Institute

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Michael Doran

Hudson Institute

Michael Doran, an expert in U.S. policy toward the Middle East, radical Islam, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute. He has also held a number of senior U.S. government posts related to Middle East policy and strategic communication.

Featured Publication

2016
Ike’s Gamble: America’s Rise to Dominance in the Middle East

Michael Doran
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Mark Dubowitz

FDD

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Mark Dubowitz

FDD

Mark Dubowitz is the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is an expert on Iran’s nuclear program and global threat network, and is widely recognized as one of the key influencers in shaping policies to counter the threats from the regime in Iran.
Reuel Marc Gerecht

FDD

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Reuel Marc Gerecht

FDD

Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies where he focuses on Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, and intelligence. He was previously a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the director of the Middle East Initiative at the Project for the New American Century. Earlier, he served as a Middle Eastern specialist at the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.
Frederick W. Kagan

AEI

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Frederick W. Kagan

AEI

Frederick W. Kagan is a Senior Instructor with the Hertog War Studies Program at the Institute for the Study of War. The author of the 2007 report “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq,” he is one of the intellectual architects of the successful “surge” strategy in Iraq. He is the Director of AEI’s Critical Threats Project.

Featured Publication

2006
The End of the Old Order

Frederick W. Kagan
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Kimberly Kagan

ISW

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Kimberly Kagan

ISW

Kimberly Kagan is a Senior Instructor with the Hertog War Studies Program and founder and president of the Institute for the Study of War. She is a military historian who has taught at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Yale, Georgetown, and American University.

Featured Publication

2017
U.S. Grand Strategy: Destroying ISIS and Al Qaeda

Kimberly Kagan
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Stephen P. Rosen

Harvard University

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Stephen P. Rosen

Harvard University

Stephen Peter Rosen is the Beton Michael Kaneb Professor of National Security and Military Affairs at Harvard University. He was the civilian assistant to the Director of the Office of Net Assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Featured Publication

2004
War and Human Nature

Stephen Peter Rosen
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Michael Singh

WINEP

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Michael Singh

WINEP

Michael Singh is the Lane-Swig Senior Fellow and Managing Director at The Washington Institute and a former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council. During his tenure at the White House from 2005 to 2008, Mr. Singh was responsible for devising and coordinating U.S. national security policy toward the region stretching from Morocco to Iran.
Ray Takeyh

CFR

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Ray Takeyh

CFR

Ray Takeyh is Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). His areas of specialization are Iran, political reform in the Middle East, and Islamist movements and parties. Prior to joining CFR, Takeyh was senior advisor on Iran at the Department of State.

Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session

Session I: Welcome to the Competition

Assigned Reading:

Discussion Questions:

We are in a competition with China, Iran, and Russia. We compete in order to win. What does winning the competition mean?
What do we need to understand about ourselves in order to develop an appropriate strategy for competing with China, Iran, and Russia?
What can we learn from our most recent great power competition with the Soviet Union that is relevant to our current competition?

Session II: The Presidents and the Shah: 1945–1978

Assigned Readings:

Discussion Questions:

How would the crisis have been resolved had the CIA not intervened?
Was 1953 really the hinge year that it is made out to be for the future of Iran, namely did it make the 1979 revolution inevitable?
What were the objectives of the shah’s foreign policy?
Can the shah really be described as an ally of the United States?

Session III: The Islamic Revolution

Assigned Readings:

Discussion Questions:

Why did Iran have a revolution in 1979?
Did the Carter Administration contribute to the chaos?
How could things have turned out differently or was the course of events inevitable?

Session IV: The Islamic Republic: Ideology, Structure, & Power

Assigned Readings:

Discussion Questions:

Why can’t the Islamic Republic politically evolve into a non-revolutionary political system, let alone a democracy?
Why do Westerners always want to see hopeful signs within the theocracy, transforming men who were never ‘moderates’, at least not by a Western definition, into men who want to reach a modus vivendi with the West?
Why did the reform movement behind the election of Mohammad Khatami fail in 1997 so spectacularly?

Session V: Iran's Energy Sector & Strategy

Session VI: Iran's Grand Strategy

Session VII: Systems of Control: Iran’s Counterrevolutionaries & Dissidents, at Home & Abroad

Session VIII: The Iranian Economy: Sanctions & Multilateral Action

Session IX: Iran in Iraq & Afghanistan

Session X: Iran's Regional Ambitions: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen

Session XI: The Military Balance

Session XII: Battlefield Europe: Where do America's Allies stand?

Session XIII: The Iranian Nuclear Program

Session XIV: The/A Nuclear Deal?: The Rise and Fall of the JCPOA

Session XV: Competing to Win

Alumni Spotlight

Alexandra Gutowski

Alexandra (“Zan”) Gutowski has traveled throughout the Middle East, honing her Arabic language skills, by way of scholarships from the Fulbright Program and the Department of Defense. An alumna of the War Studies Program and Advanced Institutes, Zan has worked for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“What keeps bringing me back to Hertog Programs is the remarkable learning environment. Since the nature of the Programs is so intense, you really get to know people quickly. Everyone is willing to get into difficult discussions about challenging issues because there is already a base of respect among the participants. I don’t know of another program where I could get such a high caliber of instruction on such complex issues.”

Alexandra Gutowski

Current Position:

Foreign Policy Analyst
Past:

Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Brookings Institution, Fulbright Grantee, University of Durham (UK)
Education:

Pomona College

HOW DID YOU FIRST HEAR ABOUT WAR STUDIES?

One of my professors at Pomona, former Ambassador Cameron Munter, was teaching a course on international crises. He recommended that I apply to the War Studies Program. Following up on my experience at War Studies with “Lessons of the Iraq War” was simply phenomenal. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a course where I learned so much so quickly or been with such committed peers.

What keeps bringing me back to Hertog Programs is the remarkable learning environment. Since the nature of the Programs is so intense, you really get to know people quickly. Everyone is willing to get into difficult discussions about challenging issues because there is already a base of respect among the participants. I don’t know of another program where I could get such a high caliber of instruction on such complex issues.

TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR CAREER PATH.

I studied international relations and Arabic as an undergrad, and went abroad to Oman and Jordan on government scholarships. Directly after doing War Studies, I went to Doha through the Georgetown Qatar Scholarship Program. Right now, I’m in an interdisciplinary Master’s program in defense, development, and diplomacy through a Fulbright Scholarship in the UK.

I do not think I would’ve gotten into my Master’s program, nor would I be doing as well as I am, without the War Studies Program. Before War Studies, I had a bit of a sense of the diplomacy and development side of U.S. foreign policy, but I didn’t even have the vocabulary or any knowledge of the major texts and discussions in the defense realm. My first experience with the Hertog Foundation, and every follow-up course, has given me the vocabulary, background, theoretical knowledge, and confidence to engage these subjects.

WHAT STICKS OUT IN YOUR MEMORY ABOUT YOUR EDUCATION EXPERIENCE WITH WAR STUDIES?

There were definitely moments when developing my knowledge of defense sort of felt like learning a foreign language. During War Studies, we visited JCS Chairman General Dempsey, and Generals McChrystal and Petraeus came in to speak with us. We all had these incredibly interesting conversations about where warfare is going, and it dawned on me that even a week prior I wouldn’t have been able to participate in discussions like that because I lacked any background in the subject. To so quickly see the return on investment in starting to develop a language for discussing war was astonishing.

There is a larger flaw in the American education system at the moment, where post-Vietnam, we’re very quick to just say, “War: What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.” But the bottom line is that our country still goes to war. So let’s go to war smarter, only in the cases where we have to. Let’s have a public discussion that goes beyond the dichotomy of war: good or bad. The Hertog Foundation does a great job of filling in those gaps and moving us towards a better way of approaching these issues as a nation.

OVERALL, WHAT IS YOUR IMPRESSION OF HERTOG PROGRAMS?

I think Hertog Programs are very empowering. One of my hesitations going in was that because the Hertog instructors are so involved in policy and have very strong political opinions, they would be pushing a certain viewpoint on the participants—that’s not what I’ve found at all.

One of the main reasons I keep coming back is that even with these extremely intellectual and experienced people leading the courses, you can have a different opinion. What they teach you to do is to develop a method to argue your own position very well. I’ve learned to put forth whatever political opinions I have, consider them rigorously, and defend them intellectually.

DO YOU THINK HERTOG PROGRAMS ARE BENEFICIAL FOR YOUNG PEOPLE INTERESTED IN SECURITY STUDIES?

Definitely. There are plenty of students who have a great theoretical background in the issues, but without knowing case studies of military history and working through a conflict decision point by decision point, you’ll always be at the hands of someone else’s analysis. Hertog Programs give you the opportunity to not just learn theories, but test them. Having that much raw material of historical knowledge allows you to craft arguments for yourself and not just take someone’s analysis at face value.

The “Lessons of the Iraq War” Institute is a great example. It’s easy to have a sound-bite understanding of that conflict without really thinking through all the decisions, the evidence, the sequence of events, and the actual outcomes of certain policies as that war unfolded. The Institute deepened our knowledge of the Iraq War to such a degree where it’s impossible to walk away without a fully formed analysis of your own.

WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 10 YEARS?

I’d really like to be involved on the civilian side of defense policy. I’m very committed to public service. I want to have a career where I’m intellectually stimulated, but also contributing to our society. I’ve been extremely fortunate in that the U.S. government has sent me all over the Middle East to learn Arabic on scholarships, so I’m eager to give back. I want to help shape U.S. policy in such a way that promotes both our national security and a positive image for America in the world.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

About the Security & Strategy Seminars

In partnership with the Alexander Hamilton Society and the Public Interest Fellowship, we are pleased to sponsor in-depth educational opportunities for public policy professionals in Washington, DC. Ideal candidates are 25- to 35-year old professionals working in national security and foreign policy institutions and organizations, such as government, academia, think-tanks, media, defense and intelligence communities, etc.

About the Alexander Hamilton Society

The Alexander Hamilton Society is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit, national organization that seeks to identify, educate, and launch young men and women into foreign policy and national security careers imbued with the Hamiltonian perspective of strong and principled American leadership in global affairs.

About the Public Interest Fellowship

The Public Interest Fellowship provides exceptional young men and women with professional opportunities and a continuing education in the tradition of freedom. The unique combination of work and study is designed to advance fellows’ pursuit of careers devoted to enriching the political and cultural life of the United States.