Guide to Specialists

Scott Lasensky
Senior Research Associate, Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention

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Phone: (202) 429-3839

E-mail: slasensky@usip.org

Scott Lasensky focuses on issues relating to the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy toward the region. He has lectured and written extensively on the Arab-Israeli conflict and America's role in the Middle East. He also directs USIP's Iraq and Its Neighbors project.

Author most recently of Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East, Lasensky has published widely on issues related to U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East. He has served as adjunct assistant professor of government at Georgetown University, visiting assistant professor of international relations at Mount Holyoke College and as a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Lasensky is a frequent commentator on the BBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR, and other major media outlets, and has been published in Middle East Journal, Political Science Quarterly, Jerusalem Post, A-Sharq Al-Awsat, Beirut Daily Star, International Herald Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.

Lasensky is a graduate of UCLA and earned his Ph.D. in international relations from Brandeis University.

Publications:

• Dealing With Damascus: Seeking a Greater Return on U.S.-Syria Relations, co-author (Council on Foreign Relations, 2008).
• Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East co-author (USIP Press, 2008).
• International Intervention in Gaza: Options and Obstacles
  USIPeace Briefing (June 2007)
• "Make Sharm el-Sheikh the Turning Point for Region," Beirut Daily Star and Post Global (May 2007).
• Jordan and Iraq: Between Cooperation and Crisis
  Special Report (December 2006).
• Dollars and Diplomacy: Foreign Aid and the Palestinian Question
  USIPeace Briefing (August 2006).
• Syria and Political Change II
  USIPeace Briefing (March 2006).
• "Jordan's Role in Iraq is Modest, but Positive," The Daily Star (December 19, 2005).
• Syria and Political Change
  USIPeace Briefing (December 2005).
• "Before this Mideast moment slips away," Haaretz (June 17, 2005).
• "Chequebook Diplomacy: The US, the Oslo Process and the Role of Foreign Aid," Aid, Diplomacy and Facts on Ground, edited by Micheal Keating et. al. (Chatham House, 2005).
• "Paying for Peace: The Oslo Process and the Limits of U.S. Foreign Aid," Middle East Journal (Spring, 2005).
• "An Opening at Sharm el-Sheikh," with Phebe Marr. The Daily Star (November 20, 2004).
• "How to Help Palestinian Refugees Today," (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2003).

Other:

• Pathways to Peace: An Institute conference on Israeli-Palestinian relations struck a rare note: optimism
  PeaceWatch, April/May 2005