Dec 3, 2025
AGSI Announces Iraq Program and Welcomes Abbas Kadhim
The Arab Gulf States Institute is pleased to announce that Abbas Kadhim has joined the institute as a senior scholar and the director of the Iraq Program.
WASHINGTON, December 3, 2025 – The Arab Gulf States Institute is pleased to announce that Abbas Kadhim has joined the institute as a senior scholar and the director of the Iraq Program.
Previously, he was a resident senior fellow and the director of the Atlantic Council’s Iraq Initiative. He is an Iraq expert and author of Reclaiming Iraq: The 1920 Revolution and the Founding of the Modern State. He was a senior foreign policy fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. He was formerly an assistant professor of national security affairs and Middle East studies at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and a visiting assistant professor at Stanford University. He also previously held a senior government affairs position at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington. He earned a PhD in Near Eastern studies from the University of California, Berkeley.
Kadhim commented, “Establishing an Iraq program at the Arab Gulf States Institute carries significant meaning and strategic value. It will create a focused hub for high-quality research and dialogue on Iraq’s political evolution, economic challenges, cultural history, and regional role at a time when Gulf-Iraq relations are deepening and U.S. engagement is shifting. Such a program will enable more informed policymaking by providing timely analysis, fostering expert networks, and amplifying Iraqi perspectives that are often underrepresented in regional policy discussions. Ultimately, it will strengthen the institute’s ability to shape constructive engagement among Iraq, the Gulf states, and the broader international community.”
AGSI President Douglas A. Silliman said, “I am excited to bring Dr. Abbas Kadhim onto the AGSI team as a senior scholar and to launch AGSI’s Iraq Program. Our focus for the new program will be to examine how the United States and the Arab states of the Gulf can best expand and deepen relations with Iraq and thereby increase stability and prosperity across the entire region.”
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The Arab Gulf States Institute is an independent, nonprofit institution dedicated to highlighting the importance of the relationship between the United States and the Gulf region through free and open exchange of multiple points of view on issues that concern the Gulf.
AGSI strives to support this goal by:
- Providing expert analysis and thoughtful debate on the economic, energy, environmental, security, social, cultural, and political dimensions of the Gulf Arab states as well as their relations with the United States and other countries.
- Informing a global audience of policymakers, legislators, businesspeople, academics, media, youth, and others as the foundation for strategic decisions regarding this important region.
- Employing multiple avenues to inform public understanding of the importance of the relationship between the United States and the Gulf Arab states.
- Encouraging strong academic coverage by developing scholars who concentrate on the study of the region.
