The Middle East Policy Council's leadership and experts routinely provide analysis for domestic and international media platforms, including Al-Arabiya, Al-Ghad, Al-Araby TV, Asharq TV, BBC, NBC, NPR, Sky News Arabia, and many more. Please contact ewehbe<at>mepc.org to schedule an interview or briefing.
The views and opinions expressed by Non-Resident Scholars are solely those of the author and do not represent the positions of the Middle East Policy Council.
Resident Senior Fellows
Dr. Sultan Alamer is a Resident Senior Fellow at the Middle East Policy Council and a member of the editorial committee of Alpheratz magazine. He is also a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center of Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. Alamer’s research focuses on nationalism and nation-building, governance and technology, and regional politics in the broader Middle East, with a special focus on the Arab Gulf countries. Alamer is the co-founder and a member of the executive committee of the Arab Political Science Network. He is also a Bucerius Fellow at Zeit-Stiftung Ebling und Gerd Bucerius. He has written for New Lines Magazine, the Arab Reform Initiative, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Middle East Research and Information Project, the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, The Gulf Center for Development Policies, and Cambridge Middle East and North Africa Forum. He was a weekly syndicated op-ed writer for the Arab international newspapers Al-Hayat and Al-Arabi Al-Jadid, and the Saudi newspapers Okaz and Al-Bilad.
Dr. Kamran Bokhari is a Resident Senior Fellow at the Middle East Policy Council. He served as Director of the Analytical Development Department at the institute from 2019 to 2023. Dr. Bokhari is also a national security and foreign policy specialist at the University of Ottawa’s Professional Development Institute. He has also served as the Central Asia Studies Course Coordinator at U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute. He was a Fellow with the Program on Extremism at the George Washington University (2016-2018).
Dr. Bokhari has also been a Senior Consultant with The World Bank since 2009. He has 15 years of experience in the private sector intelligence space during which he provided intellectual leadership in the publishing of cutting-edge geopolitical analysis and forecasts.
Dr. Bokhari is the author of “Political Islam in the Age of Democratization” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). He has also contributed chapters to edited volumes: “Wars of Ideas: Theology, Interpretation and Power in the Muslim World” (Rowman Littlefield, 2021), “Strategic Analysis in Support of International Policy Making” (Rowman Littlefield, 2017), “Reassessing Order and Disorder in the Middle East: Regional Imbalance or Disintegration?” (Rowman Littlefield, 2017), “Oxford Handbook on Islam & Politics” (Oxford University, 2013) and “Debating Moderate Islam: The Geopolitics of Islam and the West” (University of Utah, 2007).
His core areas of expertise are: Central and South Asia and the Middle East, Intelligence Analysis/Geopolitics, Foreign Policy/National Security, Democratization, Civil-Military Relations, Comparative Political Systems, Geosectarianism, Counterterrorism, Islamist/Muslim Moderation, Islamism/Jihadism He has briefed various U.S., Canadian and U.K. government agencies, published thousands of analytical/theoretical/op-ed articles, presented papers in international academic/policy forums, and given hundreds of interviews to leading global media organizations.
Dr. Bokhari earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Westminster after successfully defending his thesis “Moderations Among Salafists & Jihadists.” He tweets at @KamranBokhari.
Faysal Itani is a Resident Senior Fellow at the Middle East Policy Council and an adjunct professor of Middle East Security Studies at Georgetown University.
Itani was born in and grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, and has lived and worked in several Middle East countries. Before joining the New Lines Institute, he was a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. He has also worked in private intelligence as a risk analyst advising governments, corporations, and international organizations on political, economic, and security issues in the Middle East. Itani has repeatedly briefed the U.S. government on national security challenges in the region including testifying before the US Congress. He has been widely published in prominent media outlets including The New York Times, Time magazine, Politico, Foreign Policy, War on the Rocks, and The Wall Street Journal. He is also Syria country analyst at Freedom House.
Itani holds a master’s in strategic studies and international economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, a certificate in public policy from Georgetown University, and a Bachelor of Arts in business from the American University of Beirut. He tweets at @faysalitani.
Murad Batal Shishani is a Resident Senior Fellow at the Middle East Policy Council (MEPC) and a member of the editorial committee of Alpheratz. He previously served as a Resident Senior Fellow at the New Lines Institute’s Middle East Center.
He focuses on political violence, insurgent movements, and Islamist organizations across the Middle East and the North Caucasus. His work analyzes armed non-state actors, regional power competition, and the structural conditions that shape conflict and state fragility.
With more than 25 years of experience spanning field reporting, policy analysis, and advisory work, he brings both operational exposure and strategic perspective to his research. Earlier in his career, he spent over 16 years with the BBC World Service (Arabic and English), reporting from major conflict zones including Iraq, Ukraine, Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza.
He is the founder of the London-based consultancy Remarks on Political Violence, advising policymakers and private-sector stakeholders on the geopolitical and operational implications of political violence. He is the author of three Arabic-language books on the North Caucasus conflict and militant movements in the Middle East.
Non-Resident Senior Fellows
Dr. Muqtedar Khan is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware. He is also a nonresident scholar with the Ibn Khaldun Center in Washington, D.C. He was the academic director of the U.S. State Department’s National Security Institute, 2016-2019 and is the academic director of the American Foreign Policy Institute, 2019-2025, at the University of Delaware. He was a Senior Nonresident Fellow of the Brookings Institution (2003-2008) and a Senior Fellow with the Center for Global Policy (2017-2020). He authored the award-winning book Islam and Good Governance: Political Philosophy of Ihsan published in April 2019 by Palgrave Macmillan. His articles and commentaries can be found at www.ijtihad.org. His academic publications can be found at https://udel.academia.edu/MuqtedarKhan. He hosts a YouTube show called Khanversations at https://www.youtube.com/c/ProfMuqtedarKhan.
Analysts
Zara Farouk is an analyst specializing in minority rights, inclusion, and identity politics across the Middle East and South Asia. Her research focuses on the political and security implications of religious and ethnic marginalization, including the treatment of minority communities and the role of identity-based nationalism in shaping domestic and foreign policy in the region. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution with a minor in International and Comparative Studies from George Mason University, where she focused on the Middle East and North Africa. Zara later earned a Master’s degree in International Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University, specializing in Middle Eastern affairs.
Rachel Nelson is an Analyst at the Middle East Policy Council, where she serves as the Project Lead for the Israel-Palestine Project. She was previously an analyst with the New Lines Institute's Middle East Center. Her research has included modern Middle Eastern politics, U.S, foreign policy in the Middle East, Palestinian history and politics, migration and refugees, and international human rights law. She also worked as an intern and intern coordinator for U.S. Rep. Al Green of Texas from 2018-2019. She holds a Master of Arts in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts in History with a minor in Judaic Studies from George Washington University.