Jonathan Greenwald, a former Lawrence University Scarff Distinguished Visiting Professor of Diplomacy and Foreign Policy, discusses current U.S. strategies for peace in the Middle East and the challenges of building democracies in the region in the fourth and final installment of Lawrence’s Mojmir Povolny Lectureship in International Studies.
Greenwald presents “Prospects for Peace in the Middle East” Tuesday, April 20 at 7 p.m. in the Wriston Art Center auditorium on the Lawrence campus. The event is free and open to the public.
A veteran foreign service officer and former director of the U.S. Department of State office of counter-terrorism, Greenwald’s address will focus on current developments in Iraq, the Israel-Palestine problem and the potential danger posed by Iran, where he recently spent two weeks. He will discuss some of the latest headlines from those areas while analyzing the strategic concepts the Bush administration is employing to foster peace and democracy.
Greenwald is currently the vice president of research and publications at the headquarters of the International Crisis Group, a non-governmental, conflict prevention organization based in Brussels. As such, he oversees some 90-100 full length reports and briefing papers the ICG publishes on conflict situations around the globe, based on extensive on-the-ground research and analysis by ICG experts. The reports make policy recommendations directed to governments and international organizations.
During a 30-year career with the U.S. State Department that began in 1969, Greenwald held embassy and consular posts throughout Europe, including Budapest, Madrid and East Berlin, where he supervised the incarceration of Nazi leader Rudolf Hess in Spandau Prison. He served as the political counselor at the U.S. Embassy when the Berlin Wall fell, providing crisis analysis to Washington and later assisting with German Unification negotiations.
From 1991-93, Greenwald directed the state department’s office of counter-terrorism. He devised diplomatic strategies for dealing with Libya, negotiated U.N. sanctions against Mu’ammar Qadhafi for the Pam-Am 103 bombing and led a State Department/CIA/Special Forces response team on a classified counter-terrorism mission abroad during the Gulf War. He spent the 1998-99 academic year teaching courses on the origins of war and the Cold War at Lawrence under the auspices of the Scarff Professorship.
Greenwald is the author of the book, “Berlin Witness: An American Diplomat’s Chronicle of East Germany’s Revolution” and serves as a member of the United States Council on Foreign Relations.
He earned a bachelor of arts degree summa cum laude in history from Princeton University, spent a year as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in Classics at Princeton and earned a degree in international law from Harvard University Law School in 1968.
Named in honor of Lawrence’s long time professor of government, the Mojmir Povolny Lectureship in International Studies promotes interest and discussion on issues of moral significance and ethical dimensions.
