A Conversation with Barbara Leaf, Former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs

Free & Open to the Public

Join Barbara A. Leaf, former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, for a fireside chat on current and historical developments in the Near East region.

Barbara Leaf served as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from 2022 to 2025, where she developed and implemented U.S. policy across a region spanning 18 countries from Morocco to the Arabian Peninsula. In this role, she led interagency coordination and diplomatic engagement on a wide range of political, economic, and security issues across the Middle East and North Africa.

Prior to that, she served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the Middle East and North Africa on the National Security Council. She was U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates from 2014 to 2018, and also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Arabian Peninsula and for Iraq. In 2006, she became the first Director of the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs.

A career member of the Foreign Service, Ambassador Leaf has held overseas assignments in Sarajevo, Paris, Cairo, Tunis, Kuwait, Jerusalem, and Port-au-Prince. Ambassador Leaf holds a B.A. from the College of William & Mary and an M.A. from the University of Virginia, and speaks Arabic, French, Serbo-Croatian, and Italian.

Cosponsors: Center for International Security Studies (CISS) and Program on History and the Practice of Diplomacy