The transcript is available here

In light of the recent dramatic events within Lebanon, our webinar with Ratnadeep Chakraborty has been postponed until further notice. Tomorrow’s webinar will now feature Dr. Walid Phares, an American scholar born in Beirut, and a Middle East expert.

Dr. Phares will tell us what the view is from Lebanon, how the various ethnic groups within Lebanon are regarding the demise of Hassan Nasrallah, and most of the Radwan force, whether Hezbollah has sufficient expertise within its ranks to replace those whom the IDF has eliminated, whether Hezbollah has sufficient recruits to mount a challenging offensive to the IDF ground force which is posed to enter Lebanon. Will the IDF be able to meet its goals of making the Hezbollah retreat north of the Litani River? Can the Lebanese Armed Forces be a sufficient force to be able to curtail Hezbollah’s retreat south of the Litani River? Will it be necessary for Israeli forces to remain in this area for a temporary period? And if so, how will the United States and the international community respond?

About our Speaker: Dr. Walid Phares is an engaging and highly sought after Middle East and foreign policy expert and pacesetter, often predicting trends and situations on the ground years before they occur. He has been a Fox News Terrorism Expert, is now Newsmax Foreign Policy analyst and has appeared on world and national media, including BBC, CNN, NBC, France 24, al Arabiya, al Jazeera, al Sharq,  and has been widely published in many countries. He has co-launched two recent projects, “Educate America” platform to help reform US education of the Middle East and counter disinformation in the classroom, and “War and Freedom: Insights Talk” Podcast available on Yutoube,

He has served as an advisor to the US Congress and the European Parliament and has also served as an advisor on foreign policy to former President Donald Trump and a national security senior advisor to presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012. Dr Phares is the only expert/author who predicted the Arab Spring a year before it occurred in his pacesetting book, The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East (Threshold, a division of Simon and Shuster 2010). His book Future Jihad: Terrorist strategies has predicted the spread of the Jihadi ideology worldwide and his other book “The Lost Spring” has accurately predicted Iran and Jihadists strategies. His last book Iran An Imperialist Republic and US Policy (2003) has exposed the transaction between the Islamic regime and the US administration.

Dr Phares holds an extensive CV and noteworthy achievements in the fields of academia, government strategies, media and publishing critical advice on combatting terrorism and countering jihadi radicalization both stateside and abroad.

He holds a Ph.D in international relations and strategic studies from the University of Miami, and a Political Science Degree from St Joseph University and a Law degree from the Lebanese University in Beirut and a Master in International Law from Universite’ Jean Moulin in Lyons, France.

Dr Phares taught political science and Middle East studies at Florida Atlantic University between 1993 and 2004. Since 2006, he taught Global Jihadi strategies at the National Defense University in Washington DC, and was Vice President of BAU private university in Washington DC until 2018. Dr Phares lectures on campuses nationwide and internationally, including at the US Intelligence University. He lectured at Georgetown University, George Washington University, American University, Columbia, University of Chicago, Pepperdine, Boston College, Brandeis, UC Berkley, University of Colorado at Boulder, Loyola New Orleans, UC Santa Barbara, and many others including Ecole Militaire of France in Paris. Dr Phares lectures also to various academic associations including the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa in Washington DC and Middle East American ethnic organizations.

After having authored six books on Middle East politics and history (in Arabic) in the 1980s, Dr Phares authored another seven in English stateside since the mid 1990s. His most important volumes were published after 9/11 starting with Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against America, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and a critically acclaimed book that was ranked in the top ten books of the 2006 Foreign Affairs List. Future Jihad was read and cited by many members of Congress and the European Parliament. Dr Phares predicted the rise of jihadi urban networks and set forth strategies to counter them in the West and overseas. Dr Phares published two more books on global strategies: The War of Ideas (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) explaining the ideological indoctrination and The Confrontation a policy strategy book designed to isolate radicals. In 2014 he published The Lost Spring: Avoiding Catastrophes in US Foreign Policy. And last year Dr Phares published “The Choice” a comparative analysis of the Obama, Trump and Biden agendas in world politics.

Media and colleagues alike, rave about Phares’s hallmark book, which predicted the Arab Spring a year before it occurred: The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East (Simon and Shuster, 2010). The book was endorsed by US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and praised by many leading figures in Congress, political circles and media on both sides of the Atlantic.

For almost two decades Dr Phares led seminars and trained analysts and officials at several US national security, defense and counter terrorism agencies. He also addressed international officers from two dozens countries on terrorism and conflicts.

Dr Walid Phares is a native of Beirut, Lebanon, and immigrated to the United States in 1990. He speaks fluent Arabic and French as well as English. Prior to moving stateside, Dr Phares was a student union leader, a lawyer, a publisher, a university professor, and founded a social-democratic party, which he represented in several political coalitions.