REGIONAL SECURITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST. Dr. Sanam Vakil is the Deputy Director of the Middle East North Africa programme at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London where she leads project work on Iran and Gulf Arab dynamics. Iranian by birth, Dr. Vakil has lived most of her life outside of the Middle East. She obtained a Master's and then a PhD in international relations at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington DC. She then lived in Germany with her husband before moving to London, and she commutes to Bologna twice a month to teach for Johns Hopkins University SAIS Europe.