Foundation for Defense of Democracies

A unique combination of analytical skills, scholarship and grasp of international crises, make Emanuele Ottolenghi a valued member of FDD's staff.

Dr. Ottolenghi is a leader for his work on Iran. He has advised several foreign ministries in Europe, and testified before the Canadian and European parliaments.  Dr. Ottolenghi's extensive research exposed the connections between Iran's energy companies and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the paramilitary organization responsible for the regime's political repression and international terrorism activities.

A unique combination of analytical skills, scholarship and grasp of international crises, make Emanuele Ottolenghi a valued member of FDD's staff.

Dr. Ottolenghi is a leader for his work on Iran. He has advised several foreign ministries in Europe, and testified before the Canadian and European parliaments.  Dr. Ottolenghi's extensive research exposed the connections between Iran's energy companies and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the paramilitary organization responsible for the regime's political repression and international terrorism activities.

Dr. Ottolenghi believes Western countries should redouble their efforts and ensure that Iran's procurement networks and IRGC companies, at home and abroad, are named, shamed, and banished from the polite company of the corporate world. He also believes that Western toughness against Iran's human rights abuses would spur progress in the nuclear standoff.

Dr. Ottolenghi addressed these matters in his 2010 book, Iran: The Looming Crisis - Can the West Live with Iran's Nuclear Threat? It updates his 2009 work, Under a Mushroom Cloud: Europe, Iran and the Bomb, and includes an analysis of President Obama's overtures to Iran, the disputed re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the latest developments in Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, the diplomatic stalemate and domestic protests against the clerical regime. The former chief of the United Kingdom's Defence Staff, General Lord Charles Guthrie, praised Under a Mushroom Cloud as "an important contribution to the debate about Europe's approach to Iran." His most recent book, The Pasdaran: Inside Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, released in September 2011.

Among Dr. Ottolenghi other areas of domain expertise are Israel's domestic politics, constitutional issues, political trends and elections; the Arab-Israeli conflict; terrorism and security; Italian foreign policy; the EU's Middle East policymaking; and transatlantic relations.

Dr. Ottolenghi headed the Transatlantic Institute in Brussels, where he resides, and taught Israel Studies at St. Antony's College, Oxford University. He obtained his Ph.D. in political theory at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, preceded by undergraduate studies in political science at the University of Bologna.

He has a column in the British monthly, Standpoint Magazine and blogs on Contentions, the Blog of Commentary Magazine. His columns have appeared on many English-language publications, including Newsday, Commentary, the National Review Online, The Middle East Quarterly, The Guardian, The Australian, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Star, and the Wall Street Journal Europe; European-language publications such as Die Welt (German), Rezpekt (Czech), Il Corriere del Ticino, L'Unità, il Foglio and Libero (Italian). He writes regularly for Italian newspapers such as Il Riformista and Liberal.