Vali Nasr

Vali Nasr
Born	1960 Tehran, Iran
Nationality	Iranian American
Fields	Political science International relations
Institutions	The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
Alma mater	The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy MIT

Vali Nasr (Persian: ولی‌رضا نصر, born 1960) is a leading expert on Middle East and Islamic world, a best-selling author, influential commentator and Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University, Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings Institution, and a columnist for Bloomberg View. He is a member of the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Policy Advisory Board to advise the Secretary of State on global issues.

Between 2009 and 2011 he served in the Obama Administration as Senior Advisor to U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.

He has previously served as an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and Senior Fellow at the Belfar Center of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Vali Nasr is one of America’s leading experts on the Islamic world and Middle East politics. He is internationally renowned and has influenced critical public debates and policy decisions in both U.S. and Europe. His two books, Shia Revival (2006) and Forces of Fortune (2009) correctly foretold of sectarian conflict following Iraq war and the potential for an Arab Spring. He has advised presidents and senior policy makers, members of the Congress, presidential campaigns, and global political and business leaders. He was featured on the front page of Wall Street Journal; quoted by Senator John Kerry on the floor of the U.S. Senate; and described as a “national resource” by Richard Haass, the President of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Vali Nasr is the author of Forces of Fortune: The Rise of A New Muslim Middle Class and What It Means for Our World (Free Press, 2009; also published in paperback as The Rise of Islamic Capitalism: Why the New Middle Class is Key to Defeating Extremism and in U.K. as Meccanomics: The March of the New Muslim Middle Class); The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam will Shape the Future (W.W. Norton, 2006); Democracy in Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty (Oxford University Press, 2006); The Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power (Oxford University Press, 2001); Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism (Oxford University Press, 1996); The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama`at-i Islami of Pakistan (University of California Press, 1994); an editor of Oxford Dictionary of Islam (Oxford University Press, 2003); and co-editor of Expectation of the Millennium: Shi`ism in History (SUNY Press, 1989); as well as numerous articles in academic journals and encyclopedias. His works have been translated into Arabic, French, German, Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Italian, Turkish, Persian, Chinese, Hindi and Urdu.

He has written for The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The New Republic, Newsweek, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, and has provided frequent expert commentary to CNN, BBC, National Public Radio, Public Radio International, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Frontline, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, and has been a guest on the Charlie Rose Show and Meet the Press, Larry King Live, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report and Real Time with Bill Maher, GPS with Fareed Zakaria, and ABD News' This Week with Christiane Amanpour. His interviews have appeared in Al-Hayat, Al-Sharq al-Awsat and Al-Jazeera in the Middle East, Der Spiegel and Die Welt in Germany, La Repubblica, La Stampa, and Corriera della Sera in Italy, El Mundo in Spain, and Le Monde in France, as well as in leading media outlets in Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Iran, Japan, Turkey, Sweden and Switzerland.

He is a member of Board of Trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Board of Trustees of National Democratic Institute; Board of Directors of the Foundation for Iranian Studies; and the Fund Board of the Public Affairs Association of Iranian-Americans (PAAIA). He has been the recipient of grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. He is a Carnegie Scholar for 2006.

Biography

He was born in 1960 in Tehran. He received his BA from Tufts University in International Relations summa cum laude and was initiated into Phi Beta Kappa in 1983. He earned his masters from the Fletcher School of Law in and Diplomacy in international economics and Middle East studies in 1984, and his PhD from MIT in political science in 1991.

Work

Nasr is the author of Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What It will Mean for Our World, The Shia Revival, The Islamic Leviathan, Democracy in Iran, The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama`at-i Islami of Pakistan, and Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism. He has work on Islamic activism in Pakistan, and more recently also on Iran and the Arab world. His work on the role of states in Islamization and evolution of democratic ideas in the Muslim world presented new analysis. He has been engaged in debates in the Muslim world on Islam and democracy and accommodating modernity. His most influential work has been on the importance of sectarian identity in Middle East politics and the growing importance of Shia politics following the Iraq war, which he was one of the first to identify. His book, Forces of Fortune focused on the importance of a new middle class to future of the Muslim world, which presaged the role of the middle class in democratic uprisings of 2011. Dr. Vali Nasr was appointed to co-direct President Obama's foreign policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He has advised senior policy makers including the president, and also testified before the US Senate and advised members of both houses of the US Congress on Middle East issues. In 2007-08 he served as an adviser to Democratic presidential candidates. In 2009 he joined the Obama administration as Senior Advisor on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since 2008 he has been Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University.

He appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on the 1st August, 2006 and the 22nd of September, 2009.

Family

Nasr is married to Darya, a technology executive, and has three children, sons Amir and Hossein, and daughter Donia. They reside in Washington, DC.

Selected Publications

• Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What It will Mean for Our World (Free Press, 2009)[2]
• The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam will Shape the Future (W.W. Norton & Company, 2006)[3]
• Democracy in Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty (coauthor, Oxford University Press, 2006)[4]
• The Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power (Oxford University Press, 2001)[5]
• Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism (Oxford University Press, 1996)[6]
• The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama`at-i Islami of Pakistan (University of California Press, 1994)[7]
• Oxford Dictionary of Islam (editor, Oxford University Press, 2003)[8]
• Expectation of the Millennium: Shi'ism in History (coeditor, State University of New York Press, 1989)[9]
• "When Shiites Rise" from Foreign Affairs
• "The Cost of Containing Iran" (coauthored with Ray Takeyh) from Foreign Affairs
• "Who Wins in Iraq? Iran" from Foreign Policy
• "The Rise of Muslim Democracy" from Journal of Democracy
• "The Conservative Consolidation in Iran" from Survival
• "The Regional Implications of Shi'a Revival in Iraq" from The Washington Quarterly
• "Iran’s Peculiar Election: The Conservative Wave Rolls On" from Journal of Democracy
• "The Democracy Debate in Iran" (coauthor) from Middle East Policy Journal
• "Military Rule, Islamism, and Democracy in Pakistan" from The Middle East Journal
• "Lessons from the Muslim World" from Dædalus

External links

• Nasr's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy bio
• Nasr's Bloomberg View bio
• Works by or about Vali Nasr in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Interviews

• Interview with Newshour on crisis in US-Pakistan relations [1]
• Interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show on U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan [2]
• Interview with Christiane Amanpour on ABC News and Yahoo! Around the World on the threat of the Haqqani network [3]
• Interview with NPR's Morning Edition on Egyptian Military's resistance to democracy in comparative perspective [4]
• Appearance on ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour on U.S. Afghanistan and Pakistan policy [5]
• Appearance on ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour on the Arab Spring [6]
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Vali Nasr on Charlie Rose
• Vali Nasr at the Internet Movie Database
• Big Differences Between Iranian and Egyptian Revolutions CFR Interview
• [7] The Rise of A New Middle Class
• MIddle Class Plays Role in Egypt NPR Interview
• Islam and the State Interview for the Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
• Saudi Time Bomb? Interview with Vali Nasr from PBS' Frontline.
• Showdown with Iran Interview with Vali Nasr from PBS' Frontline.
• Nasr on Jon Stewart's daily Show discussing his book Forces of Fortune.
• Webcast of Vali Nasr's interview with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show
• Webcast of Vali Nasr's interview on the Colbert Report
• Webcast of Vali Nasr at the World Economic Forum 2007
• Video of Vali Nasr interview on The Charlie Rose Show
• Webcast of Vali Nasr interview on PBS's Wide Angle
• Nasr gives some pointers to Americans who wish to better understand the Mideast, in conversation with Big Think.

Columns and Opinions

• Hard-line U.S. Policy Tips Iran Toward Belligerence column by Vali Nasr on U.S. Sanctions Encouraging Aggressive Iranian Behavior
• Dangerous mix: Iranian oil and U.S. sanctions column by Vali Nasr on Iran's Reaction to New U.S. Sanctions
• Making Real the Obama Iran Victories That Never Were Real column by Vali Nasr on shortcomings of Obama's Iran Policy
• Why Contain Iran When Its Own Aims Will Do That? column by Vali Nasr on managing Iranian policy after the Arab spring
• If True, Iran Plot a Giant, Dangerous Mistake opinion by Vali Nasr on the Alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's Ambassador
• Partnership, Not Pressure, Will Win Pakistan's Help column by Vali Nasr on the imperative stabilizing US-Pakistan relations
• Beyond Good Politics, Egypt Needs Economic Remodeling column by Vali Nasr on the imperative of economic reform in Egypt after the Arab Spring
• If the Arab Spring Turns Ugly opinion by Vali Nasr in New York Times on implications of the crisis in Syria for sectarianism in the broader Middle East
• Unrest in Syria Tests Turkey’s Role as Regional Power column by Vali Nasr in Bloomberg View on impact of unrest in Syria on Turkey
• Showdown in Tehran Opinion PIece by Vali Nasr in Foreign Policy on power struggle between Iranian leaders in 2011
• Draw Down Troops, Boost Diplomacy in Afghanistan column by Vali Nasr on imperative of diplomatic initiative in solving the Afghan crisis
• Will the Saudis Kill the Arab Spring? column by Vali Nasr in Bloomberg View on challenges facing the Obama Administration's decision in managing the Arab Spring
• Draw Down Troops, Boost Diplomacy in Afghanistan column by Vali Nasr in Bloomberg View on Obama Administration's decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan
• America Must Hug Pakistan Ever Closer Opinion PIece by Vali Nasr in Financial Times on managing failing U.S.-Pakistan relations
• In Pakistan, No More Secrets Opinion Piece by Vali Nasr in Washington Post on U.S.-Pakistan relations after death of Osama bin Laden
• How to Squeeze Jihadi Culture Out of Pakistan Opinion Piece by Vali Nasr in The Christian Science Monitor on the challenges facing the U.S.-Pakistan relationship.
• Musharraf Fears Democracy Not Extremism Opinion Piece by Vali Nasr in The Christian Science Monitor on the challenges facing the U.S.-Pakistan relationship.
• Get Iran Inside the Tent Opinion Piece by Vali Nasr and Ray Takeyh in International Herald Tribune on U.S.-Iran relations.
• The Iran Option That Isn't on the Table Opinion piece by Vali Nasr and Ray Takeyh in the Washington Post on how the integration of Iran into the Global Economy is more important and effective in democratizing Iran than Containment and support of dissidents (February 8, 2007)
• What We Can Learn From Britain About Iran Opinion Piece by Vali Nasr and Ray Takeyh in the New York Times on U.S.-Iran relation
• Sects and Violence Opinion Piece by Vali Nasr in the New York Times on sectarian violence in Iraq
• Foxes in Iran's Henhouse Opinion Piece by Vali Nasr and Ali Gheissari in the New York Times on political rise of the Revolutionary Guards in Iran
• Iran on Its Heels Opinion Piece by Vali Nasr in The Washington Post on Iran's role in Iraq
• Obama is Right About Talking to Iran in The Wall Street Journal on Implications of Engaging Iran for America's Russia Policy