The Rumi Forum presented "NATO After the Summit" with Ambassador Robert E. Hunter, Senior Advisor at the RAND Corporation and Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO (1993 1998)

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NATO celebrated its 60th anniversary this month. Will it reach 70? Or even 65? Much will depend on what happens with NATO's engagement in Afghanistan. A split in interests between the United States and most of its European partners has been developing for some time, essentially since the US-led invasion of Iraq. US security policy, especially that involving the engagement of US combat forces, is increasingly rooted in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, while -- for the US -- Europe appears to have been "solved." Most European states, by contrast, are far less concerned about "East of Suez" and want to keep their primary focus on the Continent itself, especially with the slow rise of Russia and its assertion of interests in Central Europe and the Caucasus. Can the US lead in narrowing this gap of interest and perception? And where, in particular, does that place Turkey?

Ambassador Robert E. Hunter has been Senior Advisor at the RAND Corporation in Washington since 1998. He is also Chairman of the Council for a Community of Democracies, Senior International Consultant to Lockheed Martin Overseas Corporation, Associate at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Senior Concept Developer for NATO’s Allied Command Transformation, and member of the US European Command’s Senior Advisory Group. From 2003-2008, he was President of the Atlantic Treaty Association (the umbrella organization for NATO’s 41 Atlantic Councils). From July 1993 to January 1998, Robert Hunter was U.S. Ambassador to NATO and also represented the U.S. to the Western European Union. He was a principal architect of the "New NATO," Partnership for Peace, and NATO-EU relations, negotiated the air-strike decisions that ended the Bosnia war and then negotiated the post-war peace force (IFOR/SFOR). He twice received the Pentagon's highest civilian award, the DOD Medal for Distinguished Public Service. Before then, Ambassador Hunter was Vice President at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. During the Carter Administration (1977-81), he was Director of West European and then Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council (including White House Representative on the US negotiating team for the West Bank and Gaza and co-author of the Carter Doctrine for the Persian Gulf). Earlier, he was Foreign Policy Advisor to Senator Edward Kennedy (1973-77), Senior Fellow at the Overseas Development Council, and Research Associate at the Institute for Strategic Studies (London). He served on the White House staff during the Johnson Administration (health, education, welfare, labor) and in the US Navy's Polaris Project (Washington and London).

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Mr. Tariq Shafi, CPA, has over twenty-five years of accounting and tax experience in the Washington metro area and London, England. He was a tax and accounting manager for six years at a prestigious firm in Old Town Alexandria before venturing out on his own in 1995. Since then, his practice has grown steadily as word has spread about his firm's high reputation for quality service at a reasonable cost. Mr. Shafi and his staff believe strongly that building ties with the community involve giving their time and effort to worthwhile causes and they are active participants in local charitable and educational institutions.