Council on Foreign Relations – THE VANDENBERG COALITION https://vandenbergcoalition.org A network of foreign policy scholars Tue, 29 Jul 2025 14:38:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://vandenbergcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cropped-cropped-Screen-Shot-2021-04-27-at-9.44.39-AM-32x32.png Council on Foreign Relations – THE VANDENBERG COALITION https://vandenbergcoalition.org 32 32 Ray Takeyh https://vandenbergcoalition.org/experts/ray-takeyh/ Thu, 29 Apr 2021 13:13:37 +0000 https://vandenbergcoalition.org/?post_type=experts&p=3501 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. He was previously a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Takeyh is, most recently, the author of The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty. He is the coauthor of The Pragmatic Superpower: Winning the Cold War in the Middle East and is the author of three previous books, Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs, Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic, and The Origins of the Eisenhower Doctrine: The US, Britain and Nasser’s Egypt, 1953–1957. He has also written more than 250 articles and opinion pieces in many news outlets including Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

Takeyh has testified more than twenty times in various congressional committees and has appeared on PBS Newshour, Charlie Rose, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, BBC, FOX, and CSPAN.

Takeyh has a doctorate in modern history from Oxford University. He speaks Persian and has a working knowledge of Arabic.

]]> Elliott Abrams https://vandenbergcoalition.org/experts/elliott-abrams/ Fri, 11 Feb 2022 23:11:20 +0000 https://vandenbergcoalition.org/?post_type=experts&p=4168  

Elliott Abrams is the Chairman of the Vandenberg Coalition. He is Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Abrams was educated at Harvard College, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Law School.  After working on the staffs of Senators Henry M. Jackson and Daniel P. Moynihan, he was an Assistant Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration and headed the International Organizations,  Human Rights, and Latin America bureaus. In 1988, Mr. Abrams received the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award from Secretary George P. Shultz for his work in the Department.

He served as Special Assistant to the President and NSC Senior Director for the Near East and North Africa in the first term of George W. Bush, and as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor in the second term. In the Trump administration he served in the State Department as Special Representative for Iran and for Venezuela.

Mr. Abrams is a member of the board of the National Endowment for Democracy, and taught U.S. foreign policy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service until returning to the State Department in 2019.

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