Public Program: What Lies Ahead for Saudi Arabia?

On Thursday, February 21, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum will host a public program featuring American Enterprise Institute Scholar Karen E. Young and journalist Hassan Hassan in conversation about what the future holds for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

A power player in the Middle East and a frequent U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia has been increasingly embroiled in controversy following the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and increased scrutiny of Saudi involvement in the Yemeni Civil War. And yet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman claims to be dedicated to moving the country forward with his Vision 2030 plan. Dr. Young and Mr. Hassan will help us dissect these dissonances and explore what they mean for the future of Saudi Arabia’s sociopolitical and economic climate.

Dr. Karen E. Young is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute where she focuses on the political economy of the Middle East, the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. She also teaches courses on the international relations of the Middle East at George Washington University and at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Dr. Young was previously senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute and a research fellow at the Middle East Centre of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, and she has been interviewed by CBS News, NPR and Al Jazeera, among others. She has authored “The Political Economy of Energy, Finance and Security in the United Arab Emirates: Between the Majilis and the Market,” and she obtained her Ph.D. in political science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Hassan Hassan is a columnist for The Atlantic and a senior nonresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy focusing on militant Islam, Syria, Iraq and the Arab Gulf States. He was previously an associate fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Program in London and a research associate at the Delma Institute in Abu Dhabi.

Mr. Hassan has over a decade of experience working in journalism and his work has been published in The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs and the New York Times, among others. He is also the author, with Michael Weiss, of the internationally acclaimed New York Times bestseller “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.”

Join us on Thursday, February 21 at 7 p.m. for "What Lies Ahead for Saudi Arabia?" Click here to reserve tickets.

By Harmony Barker, Public Programs Coordinator, 9/11 Memorial Museum