The magazine has put Nasr among the most influential Democratic-leaning foreign policy thinkers, picking him for “influence” and “brains.”
The list, called FP 50, was released early September and includes such power players as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry and others.
Foreign Policy Magazine calls Nasr “a leading thinker on the Middle East” and a “rare breed of academic.” The magazine also credits him for “predicting” the Arab Spring in 2009. Nasr’s book, Forces of Fortune, had hypothesized that a growing middle class in the Middle East could form a strong opposition to the region’s authoritarian rulers.
Nasr is the dean of the prestigious Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. He is a key external advisor to the Obama administration on matters of foreign policy and writes regularly on Middle Eastern affairs.
Nasr advised the Obama administration’s Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrook. He has been an ardent advocate of continued diplomatic engagement with Iran.
Nasr is the son of renowned academic Syed Hossein Nasr, a prominent Islamic philosopher and professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University. The Nasrs lost everything in the wake of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and moved to the United States, where Vali Nasr grew up and studied.
The 51-year-old was born in Tehran but went to Tufts University and MIT. He is the author of multiple books on the Middle East, Islam and foreign policy.
