Karim Sadjadpour

Karim Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on Iran and U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East. He regularly advises senior U.S., European, and Asian officials and has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress as a witness for both Republican and Democratic leadership. He is also an advisor to the Aspen Institute’s Congressional Program on the Middle East and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

A frequent contributor to Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, his work has been recognized by Foreign Affairs as a “Best Essay” in both 2025 (for “The Autumn of the Ayatollahs”) and 2024 (for his analysis of the ideological battle between Saudi Vision 2030 and Iran Vision 1979). In 2023, he received an Emmy Award as a Consulting Producer for the HBO documentary Hostages.

Sadjadpour is currently writing a book on radicalism for Random House/Knopf and appears frequently on media outlets such as the PBS NewsHour, NPR, and CNN. Previously an analyst with the International Crisis Group based in Tehran and Washington, he has lived in Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East. He speaks Persian, Italian, and Spanish, and is proficient in Arabic.