Get to Know a Speaker: Danielle Pletka

As a long-time Senate Committee on Foreign Relation senior professional staff member for the Near East and South Asia, Danielle Pletka was the point person on Middle East, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan issues. As the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI, Pletka writes on national security matters with a focus on Iran and weapons proliferation, the Middle East, Syria, Israel and the Arab Spring. She also studies and writes about South Asia: Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.

Pletka is the co-editor of “Dissent and Reform in the Arab World: Empowering Democrats” (AEI Press, 2008) and the co-author of “Containing and Deterring a Nuclear Iran” (AEI Press, 2011). Her most recent study, “Iranian influence in the Levant, Egypt, Iraq, and Afghanistan,” was published in May 2012. She is currently working on a follow-up report on U.S.–Iranian competitive strategies in the Middle East, to be published in the fall of 2012.

Pletka was the Senior Professional Staff Member for Near East and South Asia, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 1992-2002. She was also a staff writer for Insight Magazine from 1987-92 and an editorial assistant for the Los Angeles Times and Reuters, Jerusalem from 1984-85.

Pletka received an M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and a B.A. from Smith College.