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Gregory Aftandilian Senior Professorial Lecturer Foreign Policy & Global Security

Degrees
B.A. in History, Dartmouth College;

M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago;

M.Sc. in International Relations, London School of Economics

Favorite Spot on Campus
The Quad
Book Currently Reading
A Hundred Suns, by Karin Tanabe
Bio
Gregory Aftandilian, an expert on Middle East politics and US foreign policy, is a senior professorial lecturer and term faculty member in the US Foreign Policy program of the School of International Service. He commonly teaches SIS-682: Foreign Policy Institutions and Processes as well as courses on the Middle East. He is also a Non-resident Fellow at Arab Center, Washington DC, and has been a lecturer in the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He has authored of several monographs and books on Middle East politics and US foreign policy as well as numerous journal articles.

He worked in the government for more than twenty years as a Middle East analyst in the Departments of Defense and State and as a foreign policy advisor for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Edward Kennedy, and Congressman Chris Van Hollen. He has also consulted for the National Democratic Institute, and the Middle East Center at University of Massachusetts-Lowell. Previously, Professor Aftandilian held fellowships at the Center for National Policy, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Belfer Center at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

Teaching

Fall 2024

  • SIS-653 Topics in U.S. Foreign Policy: USFP Toward the Middle East

  • SIS-682 Foreign Pol: Institutions/Proc

  • SIS-750 Res/Prof Meth in Int'l Affairs: Pol Analysis for Int'l Affairs

Spring 2025

  • SIS-653 Topics in U.S. Foreign Policy: Continuity & Change in USFP

  • SIS-750 Res/Prof Meth in Int'l Affairs: Pol Analysis for Int'l Affairs

  • SISU-215 Contemporary Middle East

Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Selected Publications

Egypt's Bid for Arab Leadership:  Implications for U.S. Policy (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993)

A Security Role for the United States in a Post-ISIS Syria? Opportunities and Challenges for U.S. Policy, 2018

Book Review for US Democracy Promotion in the Arab World: Beyond Interests vs. Ideals, by Mieczyslaw Boduszynski in the Middle East Journal (Spring 2020, vol. 74. no. 1)

"The Cold War Writings of Reuben Darbinian in The Armenian Review," in The Armenian Review (Fall-Winter 2019, vol. 56, no 3-4)