Garrett Boorojian and Ambassador, Counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy who worked for five U.S. Presidents and four U.S. Secretaries of State, Author, Ph.D. from UCLA, Dennis Ross

Garrett Boorojian and Ambassador Dennis Ross discuss relationship building in a team environment.

Source: THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE for Near East Policy

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/experts/dennis-ross

"Dennis Ross

• William Davidson Distinguished Fellow
• Counselor
• Irwin Levy Family Program on the U.S.-Israel Strategic Relationship

Expertise

• Arab-Israeli Relations
• Democracy & Reform
• Peace Process
• U.S. Policy
• Gulf & Energy Policy
• Great Power Competition
• Iran
• Israel
• Palestinians
• Gulf States

Ambassador Dennis Ross is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He also teaches at Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization. For more than twelve years, Ambassador Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process, dealing directly with the parties as the U.S. point man on the peace process in both the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. He was instrumental in helping Israelis and Palestinians reach the 1995 Interim Agreement; he also successfully brokered the 1997 Hebron Accord, facilitated the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty, and intensively worked to bring Israel and Syria together. Later, he served two and half years as special assistant to President Obama and as National Security Council senior director for the Central Region, spending the first six months of the administration as the special advisor on Iran to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

A scholar and diplomat with more than two decades of experience in Soviet and Middle East policy, Ambassador Ross worked closely with Secretaries of State James Baker, Warren Christopher, and Madeleine Albright. Prior to his service as special Middle East coordinator under President Clinton, Ambassador Ross served as director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff in the first Bush administration. In that capacity, he played a prominent role in U.S. policy toward the former Soviet Union, the unification of Germany and its integration into NATO, arms control negotiations, and the 1991 Gulf War coalition. Ambassador Ross joined the Institute in 2001.

During the Reagan administration, he served as director of Near East and South Asian affairs on the National Security Council staff and deputy director of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment. Ambassador Ross was awarded the Presidential Medal for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service by President Clinton, and Secretaries Baker and Albright presented him with the State Department's highest award.

A graduate of UCLA, Ambassador Ross wrote his doctoral dissertation on Soviet decision making and served as executive director of the Berkeley-Stanford program on Soviet International Behavior. He received UCLA's highest medal and has been named UCLA alumnus of the year. Ambassador Ross is the author of six books on the peace process, the Middle East, and international relations..."