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1:00 PM Pacific / 4:00 PM Eastern / 20:00 UK / 22:00 Israel–Palestine

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Organized by the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. Co-sponsored by the UCLA Department of Public Policy and the UCLA Center for Middle East Development.

About the Event

The United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, 2026. The war has now spread across most of the Middle East, with Iran firing missiles and drones at Israel and at US assets and non-US targets in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Oman, Qatar, Iraq and Syria. The conflict raises profoundly important questions regarding US foreign policy and the region's future. What are the Trump Administration's goals for the war? Why did it attack when it did? How will success be measured? Will the Islamic Republic collapse? If so, what sort of government will replace it? How will the war impact the region's future security architecture? What new alignments and new contestations will emerge within the region? How will the war impact the region's relationship with the United States, Russia and China? Please join this fascinating and important discussion with Ambassador Dennis Ross, who spent decades as a top American diplomat dealing with a range of Middle East issues.

About the Speakers

Ambassador Dennis Ross is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He also teaches at Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization. For more than twelve years, Amb. Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process, dealing directly with the parties as the U.S. point man on the peace process in both the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. He served two and half years as special assistant to President Obama and National Security Council senior director for the Central Region, spending the first 6 months of the Administration as the special advisor on Iran to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. His newest book is Statecraft 2.0: What America Needs to Lead in a Multipolar World (Oxford University Press, March 2025).

Professor Steven E. Zipperstein (moderator) is the Director of the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. He teaches in the Department of Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He is a Visiting Professor at Tel Aviv University Law School and a member of the Adjunct Faculty at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. He serves as a Distinguished Senior Scholar at the UCLA Center for Middle East Development and as a Senior Fellow at The Hague Initiative for International Cooperation in the Netherlands. Zipperstein is the author of three peer-reviewed books, most recently The Legal Case for Palestine: A Critical Assessment (Routledge, 2024).

DISCLAIMER: The views or opinions of our guest speakers and the content of their presentations do not necessarily reflect the views of the UCLA Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. Hosting speakers does not constitute an endorsement of the speaker's views or opinions.

Sponsor(s): Center for Middle East Development, Department of Public Policy