Hudson Institute Holds Conference on Syria

 WASHINGTON, March 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --As the Obama administration begins to engage countries isolated diplomatically by the Bush administration, Hudson Institute will hold a timely conference on Thursday, March 26th entitled "Syria: Challenges and Opportunities."

Damascus has been in the news of late. Its decision to name an ambassador to Lebanon suggests Bashar al-Asad's regime is seeking to play a more visible role in the Middle East. And yet further revelations concerning Syria's secret nuclear facility cannot help but set off alarm bells throughout Western capitals as Damascus' Iranian ally is also on a steady march toward realizing its own nuclear program. These are among a few of the topics to be raised during the course of this conference, with leading U.S. analysts providing the view from Washington, while Syrian opposition figures give an account of what the regime looks like from the inside.

WHAT - Conference - Syria: Challenges and Opportunities for the New Administration

WHO - Keynote Speaker:Lee Smith, Hudson Institute Visiting Fellow and Levant Analyst

First Panel (11:00-12:30 PM) The Syrian Regime: Between Terror and Diplomacy

John Hannah, twenty-year veteran of Republican and Democratic administrations, who served from 2005-2009 as Vice President Cheney's national security advisor

Bashar Elsbihi, Washington Executive Director of the Syrian opposition group the National Salvation Front

Tony Badran, Research Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, where he specializes in Levant affairs

Abdulbaset Sieda, an educator and author of numerous books, including Forgotten Seasons of Continual Sufferings: The Kurdish Question in Syria

Ahed Alhendi, a human rights activist and ex-political prisoner and is a founding member of the unofficial youth movement Syrian Youth for Justice

Second Panel (1:00-3:00 PM) The Future of the Syrian Opposition Movements

Abdul Razak Eid, Ph.D., one of Syria's leading reformers who drafted the Damascus Declaration and fled Syria last year for exile in Europe

Najib Ghadbian, Ph.D., an Associate Professor of Political Science and Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas and author of The Second Assad Regime: Bashar of Lost Opportunities

Radwan Ziadeh, Ph.D., Founder and Director of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies and a Visiting Scholar at the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard University

WHEN - Thursday, March 26, 2009

10:30 AM - 3:00 PM (lunch will be served)

WHERE - Hudson Institute, Betsy and Walter Stern Conference Center

1015 15th Street, NW, Sixth Floor

Washington, DC 20005

RSVP - Phil Ross, events@hudson.org

MORE INFORMATION - http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=hudson_upcoming_events&id=668

Hudson Institute is a non-partisan policy research organization dedicated to innovative research and analysis that promotes global security, prosperity, and freedom.