Unlike the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) has no mechanism to ensure compliance and verification.

Given the dramatic advances in the life sciences over the past decade, the international community urgently needs to discuss strengthening the BWC.

On June 26, Sir Richard Dalton, the former UK ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Iran and an associate fellow with the Middle East & North Africa Program at the Chatham House, joined Steve Clemons at the New America Foundation to shed light on current events in Iran and what the long term effects of the Iranian election will be.

On June 22, 2009 Ken Ballen, Steve Clemons, Flynt Leverett, Afshin Molavi, and Nader Mousavizadeh came together with Nicholas Schmidle at the New America Foundation to share their varied views on the current events in Iran, and how they will impact future U.S. policy toward Iran. This discussion among some of the world’s most prominent experts on the region ranged from how to interpret the riots in the streets of Tehran to the forceful debates that continue in the media, and even touched upon the information wars on Twitter.

On June 17, Imran Khan, a member of the Pakistani parliament and the chairman of the Movement for Justice Party, discussed the evolution of the Taliban in Pakistan and the role the Pakistani government plays in the Taliban’s development with Patrick Doherty, co-director of the New America Foundation’s Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative.