Newswise — WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 27, 2011) – Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University’s School of International Service, was Pakistan’s former High Commissioner to Great Britain. Ahmed is called “the world’s leading authority on contemporary Islam” by the BBC.
Ambassador Ahmed advised high-ranking officials in the Obama administration, President George W. Bush, incoming CIA Director General David Petraeus, and the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke among others on Islam and foreign policy in region.
During his government career, Ahmed served as commissioner in Quetta and Baluchistan, political agent, South Waziristan, and assistant commissioner in Abbottabad.
Ahmed is available to discuss the current state of U.S.- Pakistan bilateral relations including:
•The breaking point in U.S-Pakistan relations and why remedies must be found to protect U.S. interests.•What incoming Secretary of Defense Panetta must do differently than outgoing Secretary Gates to restore trust, confidence, and cooperation in the region.•General Petraeus’s new role at the CIA, how it will affect the strategic relationship, and whether drone attacks will be scaled back in deference to Pakistan’s sensitivities as advocated by some U.S. State Department and military officials.•The important geopolitical roles Afghanistan and Pakistan play as fulcrum states to U.S. foreign policy in the region and its indispensability with China’s bordering the north, India the east, and Iran the west—a new Great Game to establish influence. •Pakistan’s recent provocation aimed at the U.S. advising Afghanistan to choose its future course with Pakistan, China, and Russia rather than the U.S and Pakistan’s arrest of Pakistani CIA informants to carry out the bin Laden raid.•And why a dialogue should continue between the countries in order to defuse tensions and reestablish a dialogue of trust and confidence.
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