Mona Yacoubian

Director and Senior Adviser, Middle East Program
Mona Yacoubian

Mona Yacoubian is director and senior adviser of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). She has more than thirty years of experience working on the Middle East and North Africa, with a focus on conflict analysis, governance and stabilization challenges, and conflict prevention. She was previously vice president of the Middle East and North Africa Center at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), where she managed field programming in Iraq, Libya, and Tunisia as well as Washington, D.C.–based staff. In 2019, she served as executive director of the congressionally appointed Syria Study Group. From 2014 to 2017, Yacoubian served as deputy assistant administrator in the Middle East Bureau at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she had responsibility for programming across Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq. Prior to joining USAID, Yacoubian was a senior adviser at the Stimson Center and a special adviser on the Middle East at USIP. From 1990 to 1998, Yacoubian served as the North Africa analyst in the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Her opinion pieces have appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and various other outlets, and she has testified to Congress six times. Yacoubian was a Fulbright scholar in Syria, where she studied Arabic at the University of Damascus from 1985 to 1986. She has held an international affairs fellowship with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and is a CFR member. She earned a master’s in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s in public policy from Duke University.

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Executive Education

Global Foresight: Preparing for Future Trends

Global Foresight: Preparing for Future Trends is Washington’s premier executive course for mid-to senior-level professionals responsible for helping their organizations identify and prepare for the global macrotrends that will drive change for the next 30 years.

Course Date: April 27, 2026
Registration Closes: April 13, 2026
State of Play

Would Regime Change Solve the Iran Challenge?

Jon Alterman, Daniel Byman, and Mona Yacoubian joined Will Todman on a live episode of State of Play.

Podcast Episode by Will Todman, Jon B. Alterman, Daniel Byman, and Mona Yacoubian — March 5, 2026

Photo: iLab/CSIS
Audio Briefs

The Regional Reverberations of the U.S. and Israeli Strikes on Iran

An audio version of “⁠The Regional Reverberations of the U.S. and Israeli Strikes on Iran,⁠” a new Critical Questions by CSIS’s Mona Yacoubian. This audio was generated with text-to-speech by Eleven Labs.  

Podcast Episode by Mona Yacoubian — March 1, 2026

Audio Briefs
Audio Briefs

If Compute is the New Oil, War in the Gulf Significantly Raises the Stakes

An audio version of “⁠If Compute is the New Oil, War in the Gulf Significantly Raises the Stakes,⁠” a new Commentary by CSIS's Mona Yacoubian and Samuel Zabin. This audio was generated with text-to-speech by Eleven Labs.

Podcast Episode by Mona Yacoubian and Samuel Zabin — February 27, 2026

Audio Briefs

State of Play: The Global Impact of the SCOTUS Decision on IEEPA Tariffs

On February 20, the U.S. Supreme Court declared President Donald Trump’s use of IEEPA to impose global tariffs against U.S. trading partners illegal. CSIS experts assess how governments and key sectors around the world are likely to interpret and react to the decision.

Commentary by Victor Cha, Nicholas Szechenyi, Oge Onubogu, Christopher Hernandez-Roy, Charles Edel, Scott Kennedy, Ilaria Mazzocco, Henrietta Levin, Bonny Lin, Federico Steinberg, Richard M. Rossow, Kristi Govella, Mona Yacoubian, and Gregory B. Poling — February 20, 2026