Flynt L. Leverett

An expert on U.S. foreign policy, the Middle East, Chinese foreign policy, economic dimensions of international security, and energy, Flynt Leverett is a professor at Penn State’s School of International Affairs, with affiliate appointments in Asian Studies and Law. Before joining Penn State, Prof. Leverett had a distinguished U.S. government career. He served for over a decade as a senior CIA Middle East analyst, on the State Department Policy Planning staff, and at the White House as National Security Council senior director. On the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, he earned a Superior Honor Award for contributions to forming a global coalition against al-Qa’ida after 9/11 and to diplomacy that renormalized U.S. ties to Libya after years of estrangement. In the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he resigned from government.

Prof. Leverett has written extensively on the international relations of the Middle East and U.S. Middle East policy. He is known for a large body of work on U.S.-Iran relations, including a groundbreaking book, Going to Tehran: Why America Must Accept the Islamic Republic of Iran (in paperback). Written with his wife and frequent co-author, Hillary Mann Leverett, Going to Tehran was excerpted in Harper's and picked by Foreign Policy as a “Book to Read”; it was also the launch point for a Penn State Journal of Law and International Affairs symposium on “The U.S.-Iranian Relationship and the Future of International Order.” Prof. Leverett’s work on Iran has been lauded by leading scholars and public intellectuals like Andrew Bacevich, Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald, Rashid Khalidi, John Mearsheimer, and Stephen Walt. Outside the United States, Going to Tehran was recommended by the Indian Council on Global Relations and published in Chinese by World Affairs Press. Leverett's first book, Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial by Fire (2005), was a Foreign Affairs bestseller, profiled by The Economist, and highlighted on Foreign Affairs' “What to Read on Syrian Politics” list.

Prof. Leverett has published highly cited chapters and articles in the Washington Quarterly, the National Interest, and the China Journal on key aspects of Sino-U.S. competition for influence in the Middle East and across the international economic order. His “The New Silk Road and China’s Evolving Grand Strategy” (co-authored with a Chinese scholar) continues its run as one of the China Journal’s “Most Read” articles. The Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) invited Prof. Leverett to write on “Middle East Policy After 2016” for its US Election Notes series on how upcoming U.S. presidential elections will affect U.S. foreign policy; he then authored a chapter on what Trump’s election portended for U.S. Middle East policy for a Chatham House report, America’s International Role Under Donald Trump. He has also written for China’s top foreign policy journal, China International Strategy Review, published by Peking University’s Institute of International Strategic Studies.

Prof. Leverett has been a visiting professor at MIT and Yale and speaks at top universities around the world—e.g., Cambridge, Chicago, Harvard Law, Istanbul Zaim, Johns Hopkins SAIS, MIT, NYU, Peking, Tehran, Toronto, and Yale. He has been interviewed on major news/public affairs programs, such as Al Jazeera (Arabic and English), BBC’s Doha Debates and HARDtalk, the University of California’s Conversations with History, Charlie Rose, C-Span’s BookTV and Washington Journal, NHK’s Close Up Gendai, PBS Newshour, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He was featured in the BBC/PBS Israel and the Arabs: The Elusive Peace and in PBS Frontline’s Showdown With Iran. He has also published dozens of op eds in high-profile outlets, like the New York Times and Fortune.

Prof. Leverett has testified to congressional committees and is a frequently invited public speaker. In 2023, the 20^thanniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he was a plenary speaker for the Georgetown University Qatar conference in Doha, The Invasion of Iraq: Regional Reflections, delivering an address, “U.S. Foreign Policy Towards the Region: The Bush Presidency and Beyond” (starts 15:45 in the video). Following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, he headlined a Penn State event organized by SIA and posted on its YouTube channel, “The Israel-Gaza Conflict: A Discussion with SIA Professor Flynt Leverett,” Oct. 23, 2023. He also was featured on SIA’s Inside International Affairs, discussing “The Role of Iran in the Middle East,” Dec. 20, 2023. In 2024, he was on a faculty panel, “Global Implications of the U.S. Presidential Election,” hosted by SIA and posted on its YouTube channel Oct. 9, 2024.

Prof. Leverett also speaks to distinguished business audiences—e.g., Asia House’s Future of Trade conference (co-hosted by the Dubai Multi Commodities Center). He has been a peer reviewer for the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook and a consultant to the World Economic Forum’s “Gulf Cooperation Council and the World 2025” scenarios project.

Besides teaching an MIA core course, “Foundations of Diplomacy and International Relations Theory,” Prof. Leverett offers elective courses on U.S. policy in the Middle East; grand strategies of established and rising powers; dynamics of international economic order; and energy, international security, and the global economy. He also advises MIA students on Capstone papers in his areas of expertise and has been an external member of Ph.D. dissertation committees at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy and Georgetown University’s Department of Government. In 2025, he will coordinate SIA’s annual simulation with the U.S. Army War College on a hot-button international conflict or crisis.

Prof. Leverett is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Books

Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran (Metropolitan, 2013) [with Hillary Mann Leverett]; paperback ed., Going to Tehran: Why America Must Accept the Islamic Republic of Iran [with new Afterword] (Picador, 2013)

Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial by Fire (Brookings, 2005) [Arabic ed., Arab Scientific Publishers, 2005]

The Road Ahead: Middle East Policy in the Bush Administration's Second Term (Brookings, 2005) [ed. and contributor]

Monographs

US Election Note: Middle East Policy After 2016, Research Paper, US Election Notes Series, Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), Oct. 2016

Moving (Slightly) Closer to Iran: China's Shifting Calculus for Managing Its “Persian Gulf Dilemma”, Asia-Pacific Policy Papers (Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies, John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, 2009) [with John Garver and Hillary Mann Leverett]

Academic articles/chapters

“The New Silk Road and China’s Evolving Grand Strategy,” The China Journal 77 (Jan. 2017), 110-132 [with Wu Bingbing]

“The Middle East and North Africa” in X. Dormandy, ed., America’s International Role Under Donald Trump, Chatham House Report (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2017), 37-41

“The Iranian Nuclear Issue, the End of the American Century, and the Future of International Order,” Penn State Journal of Law and International Affairs, 2, no. 2 (Nov. 2013)

“The Balance of Power, Public Goods, and the Lost Art of Grand Strategy: American Policy toward the Persian Gulf and Rising Asia in the 21st Century,” Penn State Journal of Law and International Affairs, 1, no. 2 (Nov. 2012) [with Hillary Mann Leverett].

“Consuming Energy: Rising Powers, the International Energy Agency, and the Global Energy Architecture” in Rising States, Rising Institutions: Challenges for Global Governance, A. Alexandroff and A. Cooper, eds. (Brookings for CIGI, 2010)

“Resource Mercantilism and the Militarization of Resource Management: Rising Asia and the Future of American Primacy in the Persian Gulf,” in Energy and Global Politics: The Militarization of Resource Management, D. Moran and J. Russell, eds. (Routledge, 2008)

“The New Axis of Oil,” National Interest 84 (July 2006), 62-70 [with Pierre Noël]

“Managing China-U.S. Energy Competition in the Middle East,” Washington Quarterly 29, no. 1 (Winter 2005-06), 187-201 [with Jeffrey Bader]

Other articles/op-eds

“How Trump Should View North Korea’s Nuclear Ambitions,” Fortune, Apr. 23, 2017

“North Korea and the Dangers of Trump’s Diplomacy-Free Asia Strategy,” The Conversation, Mar. 15, 2017

“The Sino Russian Hydrocarbon Axis Grows Up” National Interest, May 21, 2014 [with Hillary Mann Leverett]

“America's Iran Policy and the Undermining of International Order,” World Financial Review, July-Aug. 2013 [with Hillary Mann Leverett]

“Rouhani Won the Iranian Election. Get Over It.,” Al Jazeera, June 16, 2013 [with Hillary Mann Leverett and Seyed Mohammad Marandi]

“Another Iranian Revolution? Not Likely,” New York Times, Jan. 5, 2010 [with Hillary Mann Leverett]

“Ahmadinejad Won. Get Over It.,” Politico, June 16, 2009 [with Hillary Mann Leverett]

“Have We Already Lost Iran?,” New York Times, May 23, 2009 [with Hillary Mann Leverett]

“Why Libya Gave Up on the Bomb,” New York Times, Jan. 23, 2004

Media Interviews

“The Role of Iran in the Middle East,” Inside International Affairs, School of International Affairs, Penn State, Dec. 20, 2023

“The Israel-Gaza Conflict: A Discussion with SIA Professor Flynt Leverett,” School of International Affairs, Penn State, Oct. 23, 2023

“Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Conversations with History (UCTV), May 24, 2013

“Flynt Leverett: Going to Tehran,” Conversations with Penn State (WPSU), May 2, 2013

“Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett on Iran,” Charlie Rose, March 29, 2010

“Flynt Leverett: American grand strategy in the Middle East,” Macmillan Report (Yale University), Dec. 6. 2010

Faculty panel examines potential global effects of upcoming presidential election

Leverett in Fortune: 'How Trump should view North Korea’s nuclear ambitions'

Professor Leverett writes that Trump's Asia strategy could trigger war

Professor Leverett discusses myths about Iran for Consortium News

Professor Leverett comments on China and the Trans-Pacific Partnership for 9Finance

Professor Leverett writes that as U.S. steps away from global stage, China steps up

America must contend with a “rising China,” Professor Leverett writes in new publication

Professor Leverett: What's really at stake in South China Sea ruling against China

Leverett comments on China's president and the meaning of Xi's visit to Tehran

Professor comments in the media regarding Iran’s implementation of the nuclear accord

Leverett comments on the Chinese president's visit to Egypt, Iran, and Saudi Arabia

Leverett comments on proposed railway linking China and Iran

Huff Po points to SIA's Leverett as SIA foreign policy expert to oppose Bush-Cheney view

Professor Leverett calls Iran agreement ‘a very good deal’ for nuclear nonproliferation

In interview with CNBC Leverett says he is hopeful of Iran deal

SIA professor Leverett argues the US should not blame Iran for instability in the Middle East

Expert on Iran and SIA professor explains how Obama panders to Gulf sheiks

Expert on Iran and SIA professor discusses nuclear talks and nonproliferation on CNBC's "Squawk Box"

Leverett reviews negotiations with Iraq and how US policy contributed to an unstable Middle East

Flynt Leverett: Why America needs Iran

Middle East expert writes about America's failed policies with Iran

Leverett shares insights on China’s reform, economic development, and outlook

Leverett's book cited by Huffington Post Politics

Leverett explains China's policy of expanding it's political influence to the west

Professor explains repercussions of the U.S. change in policy toward Syria

Global News interviews SIA professor about U.S.'s role in the Syrain and the Irani conflicts

SIA professor: U.S. failure to reach nuclear agreement with Iran will boost Iran-China relations

Professor Flynt Leverett's review of Obama's war policy in Iraq and Syria.

School of International Affairs Professor and Middle East expert discusses Obama’s strategy for dealing with the Islamic State