Oasis Podcast

On the sixth episode of the Oasis Podcast, we welcome Victoria Taylor, the Director of the Iraq Initiative in the Atlantic Council's Middle East program. Taylor is a national security leader with over two decades of experience in the Middle East and Europe. She has led large interagency teams and advanced U.S. economic and national security interests as a Deputy Assistant Secretary, Deputy Chief of Mission, and at the White House National Security Council. Prior to joining the Council, Taylor served as a career Senior Foreign Service Officer with the rank of Minister Counselor. She served most recently as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iraq and Iran in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, where she advised senior State Department leaders on Iraq and Iran in the aftermath of the Gaza conflict. She holds a bachelor's degree in international relations and diplomatic history from the University of Pennsylvania and a master's degree in development studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

On the fifth episode of the Oasis Podcast, we welcome former U.S. Diplomat Alan Eyre, a Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow at the Middle East Institute and the founder and president of EyreAnalytics LLC. He retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in September 2023 after a 40-year government career. Most of Alan's government service related to the MENA region, with a focus on Iran. He was the sole U.S. career diplomat to be a core member of the U.S. nuclear negotiating team from its 2010 start to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement with Iran, serving as the team's Iran subject matter expert and also as the State Department's first Persian Language Spokesperson. He was also the first U.S. diplomat to serve in the political section of the newly reopened U.S. Embassy Kabul in late 2001. In addition, he served as Director of the Iran Regional Presence Office (IRPO) at US Consulate Dubai, the State Department's main field office for monitoring Iran. His overseas tours include Nigeria, Syria, the UAE (twice), Azerbaijan, the United Kingdom, and Jordan, where in his final tour he served as Political Counselor. His only Washington assignment was as Director of the Office for Middle East and Asia in the Bureau of Energy Resources (ENR).