Sherman Jackson, who specializes in Islamic law and theology, has previously taught at Wayne State University, Indiana University, University of Texas at Austin, American University in Cairo, Egypt, and Middlebury College. He has received numerous fellowships and awards and has served as interim president of the Shari'ah Scholars Association of North America. Professor Jackson is the author of Islamic Law and the State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shihab al-Din al-Qarafi, and Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abu Hamid al Ghazali's Faysal al-Tafriga Bayna al-Islam wa al-Zandaga (Oxford, 2002)

Amira Sonbol specializes in women, gender, and Islam and is the author of several books including The New Mamluks; Women, Family, and Divorce Laws and Divorce in Islamic History; The Creation of a Medical Profession in Egypt: 1800-1922; The Memoirs of Abbas Hilmi II: Sovereign of Egypt; and Women of the Jordan: Islam, Labor and Law. Professor Sonbol is co-editor of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, a quarterly journal co-published with Selly Oak Colleges (UK) and the forthcoming HAWWA: Journal of the Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World to be published by E.J. Brill, 2003. She teaches courses on the History of Modern Egypt, Women and Law, and Islamic Civilization.

Lunch served to those who respond to Okky Choi by Wednesday, February 26 by 12:00 noon. You can reach Okky at 650-724-8271 or via email at okkychoi@stanford.edu.

The forum, which is jointly organized by the Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Law School, will seek to outline the legal, security, economic, and human options and implications of US foreign policy towards Iraq. The discussion will be moderated by Stanford Law School Dean, Kathleen M. Sullivan, a constitutional law expert, whose latest books include "First Amendment Law" and "New Federalist Papers: Essays in Defense of the Constitution."

Nearly 200 died in the bombing of Paddy's Irish Bar and the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali, Indonesia, on 12 October -- the worst toll from terror anywhere since 11 September 2001. In the Philippines, terrorists have struck five times in the last month alone. Also in September, suspected terrorist Omar al-Faruq apparently told his CIA interrogators that US $74,000 had been transferred from the Middle East to Southeast Asia to fund a planned attack on U.S. Navy ships docked in Indonesia. Cutting off terrorist financing has been and remains a priority in the American war on terror. What exactly is the nature of the problem of terrorist financing in Southeast Asia? How should the United States, other governments, and international agencies respond to this challenge? What strategies and tactics are most and least likely to succeed? What are the obstacles to that success, and how can these too be addressed? What has been and will be the role of the U.S. Pacific Command in seeking and implementing the answers to these questions? Leif Rosenberger has been the economic adviser to the commander of American forces in the Pacific since 1998. As chair of the Pacific Command's Economics and Security Working Group, he works at the intersection of economic and security issues related to the war on terrorism in the Asia Pacific region. Prior to coming to Camp Smith, where the Command is headquartered, Dr. Rosenberger was a professor of economics at the U.S. Army War College, where he held the General Douglas MacArthur Academic Chair of Research.

Professor Ehud Sprinzak is dean of the Lauder School of Government, Policy, and Diplomacy at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel and Professor of Political Science at Hebrew University. He has been a visiting professor at Princeton, Georgetown and American universities, and was a Senior Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center and the United States Peace Institute. In 1995 he received the Gedalia Gal Fellowship from the Association for the Commemoration of Israel's Intelligence Community and was selected as the 1992 Baruch Yekutieli fellow of the Jerusalem Institute for the Study of Israel. In 1992 Sprinzak was awarded the Landau Prize for best political science book for The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right. Professor Sprinzak holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.

The terrorist attacks on September 11 threw Afghanistan back into the international spotlight. This time, the events impacted not only Afghanistan's relationship with the United States and Russia, but also its relations with Pakistan. Dr. Amin Tarzi will work to put this change in relations between Afghanistan, her neighbors, the United States, and Russia into a perspective that will allow for a discussion on the current situation in the region and the future geopolitical role of Afghanistan. Amin Tarzi is a U.S. national of Afghan origins. His academic and professional expertise is in the history and politics of the Middle East and Central Asia, with a particular focus on the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, as well as Iran and Afghanistan. Dr. Tarzi has written extensively on topics related to the proliferation and politics of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems, the politics of oil, the United States vis a vis the Arab world, and current affairs in Egypt, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan -- including the Taliban and U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.