IIEA Talks

A joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, followed by Iranian retaliation against U.S. military assets, Israel and other U.S. allies, has engulfed much of the Middle East in a conflict with global repercussions. Israel and the United States campaign’s immediate aim was to decapitate the Islamic Republic’s leadership, and it quickly achieved this goal. But the broader objectives of the operation are still clouded in uncertainty. What might be enough for them to declare victory is still unclear. Two months in, a weak ceasefire is in place, but outbursts of hostilities remain as the U.S. seeks to break the chokehold Iran has placed in the Hormuz Strait disrupting the global economy. Evidence points at Iran, the U.S. and Israel fighting different wars in the same territory making a lasting ceasefire very difficult.

This session draws on Crisis Group’s latest analysis to assess the trajectory of the conflict, examine the strategic calculations of the main stakeholders, and explore whether pathways to de-escalation remain viable—or whether the region is heading toward a more protracted and expansive war.

Ali Vaez is International Crisis Group’s Iran Project Director and Senior Adviser to the Group’s President. He led Crisis Group’s efforts in helping to bridge the gaps between Iran and the P5+1 that led to the landmark 2015 nuclear deal. Previously, he served as a Senior Political Affairs Officer at the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and was the Iran Project Director at the Federation of American Scientists. He is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and a Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is a co-author of How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare.

'The Making of Foreign Policy'

In this edition of IIEA Insights two former foreign policy advisors – Ben Judah in the UK and Thomas Wright in the US – will recount their respective experiences of policy formulation, including the roles of advisors, civil servants, and political leaders, and how those roles have changed over time, if at all. They will also give personal views on the current state of play in some of the major issues that they were involved in as foreign policy advisors.

Ben Judah worked as Special Advisor to British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, from February 2024 until early 2026. He is an author, publishing most recently This is Europe in 2023 and has held a number of think tank positions. From 2020 to 2024, he was a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, in Washington, D.C.,where he directed the Transform Europe Initiative. From 2017 to 2020, he held a research fellowship at the Hudson Institute, also in Washington, D.C., where he led research for the Kleptocracy Initiative. And from 2010 to 2012, he was a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London.

Thomas Wright is a Senior Fellow at Brookings’s Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy and Technology and previously served as special assistant to the president and senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council in the Biden administration. At the White House, he worked on the 2022 US National Security Strategy, Russia-Ukraine and European security, US-China relations, foreign economic policy, and adversary alignment. He is the author of All Measures Short of War and co-author of Aftershocks. He holds degrees from Georgetown, Cambridge, and University College Dublin, and has held fellowships at Harvard and Princeton.

Isabelle Pérignon, a French national, is Director for Consumer Policy at the European

Commission since October 2023. She was for four years (2019-2023) the Deputy Head of Cabinet of the former Commissioner for Justice. Before this position, she worked as Head of Unit for Procedural criminal law at the European Commission. Ms Pérignon was also a member of the Cabinet of several Commissioners, including Commissioner for Values and Transparency, Vera Jourova and former Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cécilia Malmström. Before joining the Commission in 2003, Isabelle Perignon was a solicitor specialising in EU law and was a member of the French and Belgian bars. She worked at Baker McKenzie law firm under the supervision of Ms Christine Lagarde. She holds a Master's Degree in European Legal Studies (LLM College of Europe) and a Masters in Business Studies.

In Dr Julie Norman’s address to the IIEA, she discusses her new co-authored book, entitled Gaza: The Dream and the Nightmare. Dr Norman and Maia Carter Hallward tell the story of Gaza from its early foundations, across decades of occupation, to the horrors of 7 October 2023 and the devastation of the subsequent war. Rather than focusing on elites or abstract politics, at the book's heart are ordinary Gazans - students, aid workers, journalists, and teachers - whose first-hand testimonies vividly illuminate the realities behind the headlines. The book reckons with the legal, moral, and humanitarian debates surrounding Gaza, from war crimes investigations to the contested meaning of resistance and the politicisation of aid. Dr Norman will discuss how combining a nuanced narrative with hard-hitting reflections from everyday Gazans, serves as a timely and necessary disruption of media cliches and political binaries, from the perspectives of Gaza's own people.

About the Speaker:

Dr Julie Norman is an Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations at University College London (UCL). She is also the Director of UCL’s Israel-Palestine Initiative, and an Associate Fellow on the Middle East at Chatham House. She is the author of Gaza: The Dream and the Nightmare and many other books and articles on Palestine/Israel and international conflict, and she is a frequent commentator on the BBC, Al Jazeera, and other media outlets.

Full event title: "Ukraine’s Path to the EU in the Time of Ireland’s Presidency: Defending Democracy and Shaping Europe’s Security Future"

Oleksandr Korniyenko serves as the First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, a role he has held since October 2021. Mr Korniyenko is the Head of the Servant of the People Party and has been a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament since 2019. In December 2025, he was re-elected as Chairman of the Servant of the People Party for a new term. The Servant of the People Party is represented by around 40% of local council deputies and mayors across Ukraine. As part of his role, he oversees the preparing and holding of plenary session in accordance with the distribution of responsibilities and instructions of the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada. Mr Korniyenko also coordinates the work of parliamentary committees and working groups on various issues. He has played a role in the implementation of key judicial, anti-corruption and economic reforms, as well as in the removal of artificial barriers to these reforms.

As a representative of the leadership of the Ukrainian Parliament, he is actively involved in the implementation of legislative changes and European integration reforms for Ukraine’s early accession to the European Union. Since February 2022, Mr Korniyenko has been assisting the Armed Forces of Ukraine, traveling to the border, de-occupied territories and frontline areas. He is also active on the diplomatic front, holding over 350 international meetings and paying official visits to more than 40 countries between 2022 and 2026.