Feisal Istrabadi is Deputy Permanent Representative of the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations, which position he has held since 2004. In 2004 he was also appointed as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at the Iraqi Ministry for Foreign Affairs. As a legal advisor to the Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. al-Istrabadi negotiated U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546 (June 2004). He was also a principal legal drafter of the Law of Administration of the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period, i.e. the transitional constitution of the country (2003-2004) and author of the bill of Fundamental Rights. Before engaging in the reconstruction of Iraq, Mr. al-Istrabadi had been a practicing barrister in the United States for 15 years, with approximately 70 jury and bench civil trials in federal and State courts, and numerous administrative hearings. He is a Senior Fellow for Legal Reform and Development in the Arab World, the International Human Rights Law Institute, College of Law, DePaul University, Chicago.

Ambassador Istrabadi holds a JD degree from Indiana University and a Master of Laws degree from Northwestern University.

Rami Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune. He is an internationally syndicated journalist, author, and director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. He is currently a visiting fellow with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.

Mr. Khouri will speak about the war in Lebanon this summer. He will provide an analysis of the Israeli-Hezbollah war and discuss its fallout for Lebanese society and government, and its impact on the region's power dynamics. He will also comment on escalating violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and heightening tensions between the U.S. and political movements in the region, including Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran was an assistant managing editor of The Washington Post. From April 2003 to October 2004; he was The Post's bureau chief in Baghdad, where he was responsible for covering the American occupation of Iraq, leading a team of American correspondents, and supervising more than two dozen Iraqi staffers. He also spent much of the six months leading up to the war in Baghdad, reporting on the United Nations weapons-inspections process and the build-up to the conflict. Mr. Chandrasekaran will discuss American policy and decision-making in the "green zone," which is the subject of his new book Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone.

He currently heads The Post's Continuous News department, which provides breaking news stories to the paper's Web site, washingtonpost.com. He has appeared on National Public Radio and numerous television programs and stations, including the News Hour, CNN, Fox News, Nightline, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, and the BBC.

Lawrence F. Kaplan is senior editor at The New Republic, where he writes about U.S. foreign policy and international affairs. At this seminar, he will discuss military operations in Iraq, the implications for politics here at home, and competing explanations for what went wrong. On this last point, the speaker hopes to engage in a dialogue with the audience.