September 06, 2019
Trita Parsi, who founded and led the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) until a few months ago, has now become one of the leaders of a new group being formed to oppose the use combat force in US foreign policy.
The new group is called the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. It will officially be launched in November to promote “ideas that move US foreign policy away from endless war and toward vigorous diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace.”
The organization is named after President John Quincy Adams who said in an Independence Day speech in 1821 that the United States “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.”
The group has drawn a good deal of attention because its two chief funders come from opposite ends of the political spectrum. One is George Soros, a Hungarian Jewish immigrant who has promoted liberal causes including “color” revolutions in several countries, and Charles Koch, who has long funded rightwing causes but strongly opposes the Trump Administration.
Parsi is one of the co-founders of the group along with Soros and Koch. Parsi will become the executive vice president and apparently will be the senior full-time person in the group.
Born in Iran, Parsi moved with his family to Sweden when he was four tears old in order to escape political repression. Parsi earned a master’s degree in International Relations at Uppsala University and a second master’s degree in Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics.
Early in his career, Parsi worked for the Swedish Mission to the United Nations in New York. In 2002, he founded NIAC.
Parsi is an Iranian-Swedish dual national and a permanent resident of the United States.
He is married to Amina Semlali, of Swedish and Moroccan origin, who is a human development specialist at the World Bank.