“Integrity, Skill, Insight, and Expertise to Understand and Advance Freedom in the Region”

Contact:  Kevin Fahey, Institute on Religion and Public Policy, 202-835-8760, Fahey@religionandpolicy.org

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 /Standard Newswire/ -- Institute on Religion and Public Policy President Joseph K. Grieboski today announced that Dr. James P. Lucier, former Staff Director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will head the Institute’s Program on the Middle East and its Iran Information Center.

The Iran Information Center, a project of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, is an objective, non-profit, non-partisan program established to gather, analyze, and disseminate impartial information and expert synthesis of developing trends in Iran and its activities as they affect and intertwine domestic and foreign policy of countries throughout the Middle East and Central Asia.

Dr. James P. Lucier is a foreign policy specialist, historian and journalist who served on the U.S. Senate staff for 25 years. For six years of that time, he was a Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, responsible for briefings, preparing hearings, writing speeches, drafting legislation, developing parliamentary strategy and maintaining liaison with the Senate leadership offices, the U.S. Department of State, the Pentagon, the CIA and the White House on issues within the Committee’s jurisdiction.

Upon leaving the Senate, Lucier was appointed as a scholar in the Congressional Reading Room of the Library of Congress, one of six slots which give the scholar complete access to the collections of the Library, and a private office for research and writing on any topic. At the same time he was awarded the James Monroe Medallion for Public Service by the James Monroe Memorial Foundation, and also named Senior Fellow of the Monroe Foundation. At the Library and the U.S. Archives, Lucier began the preparation of an edition of the selected papers of President James Monroe, The Political Writings of James Monroe, published in 2001. The 800-page volume, with extensive notes and introductions was the first edition of Monroe’s papers in 100 years.

Throughout his years of service, Lucier has always believed that a sound foreign policy should seek to reform and retain traditional social mediating structures without imposing the paradigm of 20th Century rationalism which sweeps everything away. These mediating structures include religion, culture, clan, family, philosophy and literature. Lucier’s formal and informal study of traditional Catholic theology, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Mahayana and Hinayana Hinduism, Sikhism, and Confucianism has provided insights into the inner working of other cultures and led to close interpersonal relationships with foreign leaders. But this dimension is often ignored by policymakers.

“Jim has more than the necessary integrity, skills, insight, and expertise to understand and consequently advance freedom in the Region,” Mr. Grieboski commented. “I am proud and honored that he has joined the Institute team, and I am sure that at this critical juncture, Jim will provide much-needed insight and imaginative possibilities to the situation with Iran and in the Middle East.”