Patrick Clawson is Morningstar senior fellow and director of research at the Washington Institute, where he directs the Viterbi Program on Iran and U.S. Policy. Widely consulted as an analyst and media commentator, he has authored more than 150 articles about the Middle East and international economics and is the author or editor of eighteen books or studies on Iran.
Dr. Clawson appears frequently on television and radio, and has published op-ed articles in major newspapers including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. He has also testified before congressional committees more than twenty times and has served as an expert witness in more than thirty federal cases against Iran. Prior to joining The Washington Institute, he was a senior research professor at the National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies, a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and a research scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Ken Timmerman is a consultant with expertise in terrorist-related asset collection, especially Iran, Iraq, and Middle East terrorist groups. A lecturer at the Pentagon’s Joint Counter-Intelligence Training Academy (JCITA), he has authored both fiction and non-fiction books. Timmerman’s 2005 book, Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, remains a key source on this topic. His 2018 book, ISIS Begins: A Novel of the Iraq War, is a politico-religious thriller about persecuted Christians in the Iraq war.
Timmerman also serves as president of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (iran.org), formed in 1995, meeting regularly with Iranian dissidents. He was the Republican nominee in Maryland’s 8th Congressional District in 2012 and has extensive political experience and contacts on Capitol Hill and beyond.