About Us
The Middle East is undergoing a period of profound political and strategic transformation. Wars, shifting alliances, competition among regional and global powers, economic pressures, displacement, and struggles over sovereignty are reshaping societies from the Gulf and the Levant to North Africa and the region's wider strategic neighborhood. These developments do not remain within national borders. Their consequences extend across the region and affect countries such as Pakistan, as well as international security and policymaking in Washington.
Although many institutions examine individual countries or respond to immediate crises, analysis of the region is often fragmented, externally framed, or disconnected from the perspectives of the people and communities most affected. Washington needs sustained, independent, bilingual, and regionally grounded research that connects local knowledge with broader strategic analysis.
The Baghdad Center for Policy and Strategic Studies was founded to help fill this gap. Baghdad is the Center's intellectual and historical anchor, but not the limit of its geographic scope. From its base in Washington, the Center brings voices and expertise from across the Middle East, North Africa, and strategically connected countries into the policy conversations that shape the region's future.
Mission and Vision
The Baghdad Center for Policy and Strategic Studies produces rigorous, independent, policy-relevant research on the Middle East, North Africa, and the wider strategic environment connected to the region. The Center examines political, security, economic, and social developments, including the regional and international consequences of war, conflict, governance, and geopolitical competition.
Through locally grounded and regionally informed analysis, the Center connects scholars, researchers, civil society leaders, and policy specialists from the region with decision-making communities in Washington and beyond. Its work includes Iraq while extending across the Gulf, the Levant, North Africa, Turkey, Iran, and strategically connected countries such as Pakistan.
The Center's vision is to become a leading and trusted source of policy analysis on the Middle East and its wider strategic neighborhood, an institution that policymakers, diplomats, researchers, and journalists turn to not only to understand what is happening, but also why it is happening, how events are connected across borders, and what they mean for the region's future.
What We Do
The Baghdad Center will generate three categories of output, designed to expand as the institution grows.
Publications
Policy analyses and commentaries on political change, security, governance, conflict, economic pressures, and regional and international relations, published in English and Arabic.
An annual Regional Strategic Outlook: a comprehensive bilingual assessment of the major political, security, economic, and social trends shaping the Middle East, North Africa, and the wider strategic neighborhood.
Country and thematic studies examining Iraq, the Gulf, the Levant, North Africa, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and cross-border issues that connect these areas.
Events
Closed-door roundtables for policymakers, diplomats, scholars, and embassy staff on urgent regional and country-specific issues.
Public panels and speaker series that bring political, academic, civil society, and emerging voices from across the region to Washington audiences.
Participation in and co-organization of conferences in Washington and across the region, beginning with the Gulf International Forum conference in Qatar.
Networks
A structured network of scholars, former officials, civil society leaders, journalists, and policy specialists based throughout the region and in the diaspora.
Strategic partnerships with research institutions, universities, civil society organizations, and policy platforms in Washington, the Middle East, North Africa, and the wider international community.