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What Happened to Middle East Peace?
As President Obama's Middle East peace envoy and as a member of President Clinton's Middle East peace team, Ambassador Indyk is in a unique position to tell the inside story of why it has proven so difficult to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His intimate knowledge of all the key players on both sides of the conflict and his detailed negotiating experience as America's top diplomat in the room enables him to provide a fascinating account of what's holding up the achievement of peace in the Middle East.
Can Iran's Nuclear Program Be Stopped?
Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons would be a game-changer for the volatile Middle East, already awash in revolution and insurrection. Ambassador Indyk's detailed understanding of Iran's regime and its nuclear program, based on his years of responsibility for Iran policy during the Clinton Administration and his knowledge of Israeli calculations about this threat, gives him an ability to speak with experience and authority about the prospects for the U.S.-Iran negotiations and the consequences of failure.
U.S. Strategy for a Middle East in Turmoil
The old Middle East order is crumbling into chaos with a new and unusual alignment emerging between Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel to counter the increasingly threatening Jihadist anarchy. The United States is awkwardly positioned on the other side of this alignment because of its negotiations with Iran, its reluctance to get involved in Syria and its strained relations with Egypt. What should the United States do to adjust its Middle East strategy to the emerging threats to regional stability? Ambassador Indyk's 35 years of experience in developing U.S. policy toward the Middle East places him in a unique position to analyze current developments and assess their implications for U.S. economic as well as strategic interests.
Martin Indyk provides historical insights into today's Middle East politics and the challenges it poses for U.S. policy
More than twenty years have elapsed since the United States last brokered a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. In that time, four presidents have tried and failed. MARTIN INDYK—a former United States ambassador to Israel and special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations has experienced these political frustrations and disappointments personally.
In his talks based on his own experience and his new book Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy, Indyk provides historical insights into today's Middle East politics and the challenges it poses for U.S. policy. In helping us understand past attempts at Middle East peacemaking, Indyk gives us the context we need to understand today’s events and the future outlook for the region and its global impact. Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, gave a rave review of the book, sharing “This is an extraordinary work of diplomatic history. It is at once a brilliant analysis of one of the pivotal moments in America’s involvement with the Middle East and at the same time a wise reflection on the art of statecraft. Martin Indyk is a seasoned diplomat and negotiator. In this book, he shows himself also to be a great historian. In a crowded field, this book will stand out for a long time.”
Martin S. Indyk is a Distinguished Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he was the John C. Whitehead Distinguished Fellow in International Diplomacy in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. From February 2015 to March 2018, he served as executive vice president of Brookings. Indyk served as the U.S. special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from July 2013 to June 2014. Prior to his time as special envoy, he was vice president and director of the Foreign Policy program and a senior fellow and the founding director of the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings.
Indyk served as U.S. ambassador to Israel from 1995 to 1997 and again from 2000 to 2001. He also served as special assistant to President Bill Clinton and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the National Security Council (1993–95) and as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in the U.S. Department of State (1997–2000).
Before entering government, Indyk was founding executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy for eight years. He serves on the boards of the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Australia, the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel, and the Aspen Institute’s Middle East Investment Initiative. Indyk also serves as a member of the advisory boards of the Israel Democracy Institute and America Abroad Media.
Indyk is the author of Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East (Simon and Schuster, 2009) and the co-author of Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy with Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Lieberthal (Brookings Institution Press, 2012). He is currently completing a book titled Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy to be published by A.A. Knopf in 2021.
Indyk received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Sydney and a doctorate in international relations from the Australian National University.
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