Westminster Institute talks

Michael Pregent is a former U.S. Army intelligence officer with more than 28 years of experience working security, terrorism, counter-insurgency, and policy issues in the Middle East, North Africa, and Southwest Asia. He served in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, served as a liaison officer in Egypt during the 2000 Intifada, as a counter-insurgency intelligence officer at CENTCOM in 2001, and as a company commander in Afghanistan in 2002. Pregent spent considerable time working malign Iranian influence in Iraq as an advisor to Iraq’s Security and Intelligence apparatus, including an embedded advisory role with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Office of the Commander-in-Chief. He also served as an embedded advisor with the Peshmerga in Mosul 2005-06. As a civilian working for DIA, he served as a political and military advisor to USF-I focusing on reconciliation, the insurgency, and Iranian influence in Iraq from 2007-2011. He was a violent extremism and foreign fighter analyst at CENTCOM from 2011-2013. Mr. Pregent holds a Masters in Strategic Public Relations from The George Washington University and is a graduate of the U.S. Army’s Defense Language Institute in Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian Dialect. He is an adjunct fellow at Hudson Institute. He is a senior Middle East analyst, a former adjunct lecturer for the College of International Security Affairs, and a visiting fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. He frequently appears as an expert analyst on Shia militias, Iran, Iraq, and ISIS with appearances on BBC World News, Al-Jazeera International, CNN, CNN International, and Fox News.

David Goldman is an American economist, music critic, and author, best known for his series of online essays in the Asia Times under the pseudonym Spengler. He is the Wax Family Fellow at the Middle East Forum, a Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, and a member of the Board of Advisors of Sino-Israel Government Network and Academic Leadership (SIGNAL). According to the Claremont Review of Books, the “Spengler” columns in the Asia Times have attracted readership in the millions. His analyses of global events have become highly regarded. Former C.I.A. National Intelligence Council Vice Chairman Herbert E. Meyer said, “Ask anyone in the intelligence business to name the world’s most brilliant intelligence service, and we’ll all give the same answer: Spengler. David P. Goldman’s ‘Spengler’ columns provide more insight than the CIA, MI6, and the Mossad combined.” Goldman concealed his identity under the “Spengler” pseudonym until 2009, when he revealed his identity in the Asia Times article, “And Spengler is…” and the First Things article “Confessions of a Coward”. Goldman regularly appears as a guest on CNBC’s Larry Kudlow Program, where he has been an outspoken critic of Federal Reserve efforts to resuscitate the American economy. He is the author of How Civilizations Die: (And Why Islam is Dying Too) and It’s Not the End of the World, It’s Just the End of You: The Great Extinction of the Nations.

At the Institute of Religion and Democracy since 1993, Faith McDonnell is the Director of Religious Liberty Programs and of the Church Alliance for a New Sudan. She writes and speaks on the subject of the persecuted church and has organized rallies and vigils for Sudan in front of the White House, the State Department, the Canadian Embassy, and the Sudanese Embassy. She has drafted legislation on religious persecution for the Episcopal Church and for the United States Congress. In June 2007, her book, Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children, was published by Chosen Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group. She is a Contributing Editor to Providence: A Journal of Christianity and American Foreign Policy and writes for such publications as Breitbart, The Stream, FrontPageMag, PJMedia, and with Chelsen Vicari has a blog site, Faith&Chelsen: Tackling Tough Topics in Church & Culture, on the Patheos Evangelical Channel. Faith is a member of Church of the Apostles, Anglican, and serves on the church’s international missions committee. She serves as a board member for several human rights organizations.

Dr. Joshua Muravchik is a Distinguished Fellow at the World Affairs Institute and teaches at the Institute of World Politics. Formerly, he was a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Instituteand a Fellow in Residence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He was also an aide to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) in 1977 and a campaign aide to the late Senator Henry M. Jackson in his pursuit of the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination. Dr. Muravchik is the author of eleven books, including Making David into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel, The Next Founders: Voices of Democracy in the Middle East, Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism, and The Imperative of American Leadership; and also more than 400 articles in newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals. Dr. Muravchik received an undergraduate degree from City College of New York and a Ph.D in international relations from Georgetown University. He also received an honorary doctorate from the Aurel Vlaicu University of Romania (2004). In 1998 he received a citation from the Polish parliament for his activities on behalf of Solidarity.

Indonesia contains the world’s largest Muslim population. Yet insufficient attention has been paid to how it sees the threat of radical Islam, a subject that Wibawanto Nugroho has studied deeply. He has served in the Indonesian government in several capacities. Presently, he is a PhD candidate at the University of Exeter, with a dissertation on the subject of Understanding Islamist Radical Terrorism. He is supervised by Dr. Omar Ashour and Dr. Jonathan Githens-Mazer of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. His research included directly interviewing some 40 terrorists, as well as relevant policy makers. He has worked as the Expert Staff, Strategist and Senior Policy Analyst with the Indonesian Army; Ministry of Defense; the Chairman of the Defense, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Information Committee of Indonesian Parliament; and the Indonesian Coordinating Ministry of Political, Legal and Security Affairs. From 2013 – 2014 he also worked as a Senior Adviser for Sanitas International, a global political consulting firm. While working on his PhD (2014 – 2017) with the University of Exeter, he was also designated as an alumni fellow/SME with NDU. He holds degrees from the University of Bradford, the U.S. National Defense University (NDU), and the George Mason University School of Public and Government. He has just been invited to give a speech at Capstone Course of the Indonesian National Resilience Agency (Lemhanas RI), on the topic of national ideology, strategy, and development, this November. His thesis at National Defense University, titled “Indonesian Armed Forces’ Roles, Strategies and Capabilities in Countering Terrorism within a Changing National Security: Looking Ahead 2007 – 2017” earned an Honors award from the university. He was also a principal speaker representing the Republic of Indonesia at the 2008 U.S. Army TRADOC-hosted global symposium on the Future Joint Operating Environment toward 2025. In 2011 he also appeared as a principal speaker along with the head of Indonesian BNPT (National Counter Terrorism Agency) in the BNPT-hosted international symposium on deradicalization in Makassar, Indonesia. Wibawanto Nugroho is a Fulbright scholar and the recipient of Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars.

Major General Abbas Ibrahim is head of Lebanon’s Directorate of General Security (DGS), which Asharq al-Awsat calls “The Eyes and Ears of the Lebanese State.” He is a highly decorated officer with first-hand knowledge of the most sensitive security challenges in the Middle East. Before his appointment as Director General of General Security in 2011, General Ibrahim held many significant positions. In 1994, he was appointed head of the counter-terrorism and espionage department at the intelligence directorate – G2. He served as Head of Counter Terrorism branch – G2 from 1998 – 2002. Before that, in 1989, he was the personal bodyguard of Arab League envoy to Lebanon Lakhdar Brahimi. He was then appointed bodyguard to late President Elias al-Hrawi and remained in that post until 1992 when he was tasked with protecting then newly appointed Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. He first enrolled in military school when he was 19 and graduated three years later with the rank of lieutenant. Throughout the 1980s, he took part in several training courses in the military, culminating in an infantry course in the United States in 1989. He also received advanced security training in the United Kingdom in 1998. Between 2005 and 2008, Ibrahim was head of the intelligence bureau in the South, putting him on the frontlines of the unrest in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh.

In 2014, Sarwah won a seat in the Iraqi Parliament as a member of the Goran (Change) party. Defending women’s rights and democracy in Kurdistan and the Iraqi Parliament, Sarwah recently became the head of the Goran party bloc in parliament. She will talk about the Kurdish independence referendum, women’s rights, and suffering under ISIS.

David Eubank, former U.S. Army Ranger and Special Forces officer and founder of the Free Burma Rangers, will discuss his time spent on the front lines of the battle against ISIS in Iraqi Kurdistan, Syria, and Mosul, Iraq, and will urge the Trump administration to continue help in that region along the following lines.

David Des Roches is Associate Professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Security Studies at National Defense University. Prior to this, he was the Defense Department director responsible for policy concerning Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Prior to this assignment, he has served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as Liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, as senior country director for Pakistan, as NATO operations director, and as deputy director for peacekeeping.

Ilan Berman is Senior Vice President of the American Foreign Policy Council. An expert on regional security in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Russia, he has consulted for both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Department, and provided assistance on foreign policy and national security issues to a range of government agencies.