{{Short description|American government official}} {{BLP sources|date=June 2013}} '''Flynt L. Leverett''' (born March 6, 1958, in Memphis, Tennessee) is a former senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., and a professor at the Pennsylvania State University School of International Affairs. From March 2002 to March 2003, he served as the senior director for Middle East affairs on the National Security Council (NSC).
Prior to serving on the NSC, he was a counterterrorism expert on the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. State Department, and before that he served as a CIA senior analyst for eight years. Since leaving government service, Leverett served as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy before becoming the director of the Geopolitics of Energy Initiative in the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation.
==Professional life== Professor Leverett graduated with the degrees of B.A., B.M., from Texas Christian University and went on to earn M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University. His areas of professional expertise include U.S. Middle East and Persian Gulf policy, international energy affairs, and international security. He is a founding faculty member of the School of International Affairs of Pennsylvania State University. He has testified before Congress, and has appeared on numerous major television news-oriented broadcasts.<ref>Pennsylvania State University School of International Affairs, official website faculty profiles, last accessed 9 May 2013, http://sia.psu.edu/faculty/flynt_leverett</ref>
On December 16, 2006, Leverett was denied permission to publish a 1,000 word opinion piece, co-written with his wife, Hillary Mann and based on his previously approved 35 page paper "Dealing with Tehran: Assessing U.S. Diplomatic Options Toward Iran." The longer paper and its shorter piece are critical of the George W. Bush administration's refusal to engage in "comprehensive" negotiations with the government of Iran.<ref>{{cite news |last= Goldenberg |first= Suzanne |author-link= Suzanne Goldenberg |title= Bush accused of gagging critic of Iran policy |publisher= Guardian Unlimited |date= 2006-12-18 |url= https://www.theguardian.com/usa/story/0,,1974216,00.html |access-date= 2006-12-18 }}</ref><ref>[http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2006/12/post_7/ "Flynt Leverett Blasts White House National Security Council Censorship of Former White House Officials Critical of Bush Policies"]. The Washington Note. December 16, 2006. ''URL accessed December 18, 2006.''</ref>
Leverett had intended to publish the shorter article in ''The New York Times''. In a statement to the online publication ''Talking Points Memo'', he disputed the official justification for the decision.
{{quote| The White House is demanding, before it will consider clearing the op-ed for publication, that I excise entire paragraphs dealing with matters that I have written about (and received clearance from the CIA to do so) in several other pieces, that have been publicly acknowledged by Secretary Rice, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and that have been extensively covered in the media.<ref name="tpm">[http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/dec/16/flynt_leverett_blasts_white_house_national_security_council_censorship_of_former_white_house_offici link]</ref>}}
In the same statement, Leverett places the blame for quashing the op-ed piece on
<blockquote>White House staffers... working for Elliott Abrams and Meghan O'Sullivan, both politically appointed deputies to President Bush's National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley.<ref name="tpm" /></blockquote>
In a 2010 ''New York Times'' op-ed co-authored with his wife Hillary Mann Leverett, Flynt described the Iranian opposition movement as weak and not representing "anything close to a majority." He criticised President Obama's Iran policy as "half-hearted efforts."<ref>{{cite news|last1=Leverett |first1=Flynt|last2=Leverett|first2=Hillary Mann|title=Another Iranian Revolution? Not Likely|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/opinion/06leverett.html?mtrref=undefined&gwh=C33144C1BDEA751D23F619D478E5AE40&gwt=pay&assetType=opinion|access-date=1 January 2018|work=The New York Times|date=2010-01-05}}</ref> The Leveretts' op-ed was criticized by Abbas Milani. Calling the Leveretts' op-ed "the most infuriating op-ed of the new year", Milani said that Obama's efforts to reach out to the Ayatollah had been rejected and ridiculed by the Iranian government.<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/72340/the-state-the-opposition-strong|title=The State of the Opposition is Strong |last=Milani|first=Abbas|date=2010-01-08|magazine=New Republic|access-date=2018-01-01|language=en-US}}</ref> In a 2010 article in the ''Atlantic'', Jeffrey Goldberg described the Leveretts as "cynical foreign policy realists", and criticized their reasons for a policy of conciliation between the US and a "regime that rapes and murders its own citizens" as "semi-inexplicable."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/01/bad-news-for-hillary-mann-leverett/33256/|title=Bad News for Hillary Mann Leverett|last=Goldberg|first=Jeffrey|date=2010-01-12|work=The Atlantic|access-date=2018-01-01|language=en-US}}</ref>
Together with his wife Hillary Mann Leverett, he is author of the 2013 nonfiction book ''Going to Tehran''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran {{!}} UCIS Central Calendar |url=https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/events/node/6136 |access-date=2026-05-29 |website=www.ucis.pitt.edu}}</ref>
==Bibliography== {{Expand list|date=July 2015}}
===Books and reports=== *{{cite book |author=Leverett, Flynt |title=US-Iran Relations: Looking Back and Looking Ahead |location=Abu Dhabi |publisher=Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research |year=2004}} *{{cite book |author=Leverett, Flynt |author-mask=1 |title=Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial by Fire |url=https://archive.org/details/inheritingsyria00flyn |url-access=registration |location=Washington, DC |publisher=Brookings Institution Press |year=2005|isbn=9780815752042 }} *{{cite book |editor=Leverett, Flynt |editor-mask=1 |title=The Road Ahead: Middle East Policy in the Bush Administration's Second Term: Planning Papers |location=Washington, DC |publisher=Brookings Institution Press |year=2005}} *{{cite book |author=Leverett, Flynt |author-mask=1 |title=Dealing with Tehran: Assessing U.S. Diplomatic Options toward Iran |location=New York |publisher=The Century Foundation |year=2006 |url=http://www.tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-leverett_diplomatic.pdf |access-date=2015-07-29}} *{{cite book |author1=Leverett, Flynt |author2=Leverett, Hillary Mann |title=Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran |location=New York |publisher=Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt |year=2013}}
===Essays=== *{{cite magazine |author1=Leverett, Flynt |author2=Leverett, Hillary Mann |date=November 2012 |title=The mad mullah myth: The dangers of misunderstanding Iran's strategy |department=Revision |magazine=Harper's Magazine |volume=325 |issue=1950 |pages=53–55}}
==Video== * {{cite video |people = Leverett, Flynt |title= New America Foundation Discussion on Iran Issues |url= http://www.c-span.org/Watch/watch.aspx?MediaId=HP-A-5648 | medium= TV-Public Affairs | publisher= C-SPAN | location= Washington, D.C. | date= 2006-12-18}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[http://newamerica.net/user/88 Profile]{{Dead link|date=October 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot }} at New America Foundation *[http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav111606a.shtml Bush Administration Guilty of Strategic Malpractice - Expert] *[http://www.democracynow.org/2004/4/2/ex_bush_national_security_council_member How Bush Bungled The War on Terror?] Flynt Leverett in Democracy Now *[http://www.newamerica.net/people/flynt_leverett Biography at New American Foundation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070106030216/http://www.newamerica.net/people/flynt_leverett |date=2007-01-06 }} *[https://web.archive.org/web/20110606070259/http://www.brookings.edu/search.aspx?doQuery=1&q=Leverett Publications on the Brookings Institution Website by Flynt L. Leverett] *[https://ourworldinbalance.blogspot.com/2007/10/story-of-leverett-and-mann.html The Story of Leverett and Mann] by Our World in Balance *[http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/20548 Video (with mp3 available) of conversation with Leverett] and David Frum on Bloggingheads.tv * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8yw4bIOYxI/ Flynt Leverett interviewed on ''Conversations from Penn State''] * {{C-SPAN|1006097}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Leverett, Flynt}} Category:People of the Central Intelligence Agency Category:United States Department of State officials Category:Living people Category:American male writers Category:1958 births Category:Pennsylvania State University faculty Category:United States National Security Council staffers