Penn Perry World House: A New Approach to the Middle East by University of Pennsylvania

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“A New Approach to the Middle East “

On March 1, 2017, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley discussed the Middle East before approximately 300 guests at Penn’s Perry World House.

William Burke-White, Perry World House inaugural director, opened the event and introduced Jon Sawyer, executive director of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and moderator of the discussion. Albright and Hadley are speaking around the country at educational institutions affiliated with the Pulitzer Center,
which co-organized the talk with the Atlantic Council, Penn’s Middle East Center, Perry World House and Penn’s South Asia Center.

Albright and Hadley have divergent political views but have found common ground as co-chairs of the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Strategy Task Force. Albright, a Democrat, served as secretary of state and ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton. Hadley, a Republican, served as national security advisor under President George W. Bush.

“There needs to be a debate within Islam,” Hadley said, “and moderate voices need to speak up and contest this twisted view of Islam. There are voices in the region that are beginning to do that.”

The two agreed that the administration’s proposed immigration ban is not the right approach to combat terrorism.

Albright, a naturalized U.S. citizen, drew loud applause when she said, “I was raised a Catholic, became an Episcopalian, found out I was Jewish and, if in fact if there is a registry, I will register as a Muslim.”

Perry World House is a global policy research center that aims to advance interdisciplinary, policy-relevant research on the world’s most urgent global affairs challenges. More information about it is available at global.upenn.edu/perryworldhouse.

Text by Jacquie Posey
Photos by Eddy Marenco