The Program: The Better Order Project.

The global order is facing a fork in the road. As the world continues to move away from the unipolar structure born after the end of the Cold War, there is not only a risk of the collapse of the multilateral system and international law as a whole, but there is also the risk of the system fracturing into competing and rival orders. This would create a far more unstable and dangerous situation than what existed during the Cold War.

The Better Order Project was launched to find a path to rejuvenate the multilateral system through necessary reforms that make the order better reflect the realities of today, while strengthening norms and laws that help uphold stability. The project contends that the way forward is neither the promotion of a coalition of like-minded states under the so-called rules-based international order, nor the advent of a rival order dominated by other great powers. The increasingly diffuse balance of power and the rising influence of the Global South together ensure that no state — or group of states — can set the terms of the international order unilaterally.

Presenter: Dr. Trita Parsi

Presenter: Dr. Trita Parsi is the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute. He is an award-winning author and the 2010 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. He is an expert on US-Iranian relations, Iranian foreign policy, and the geopolitics of the Middle East. He has authored four books on US foreign policy in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Iran and Israel. He has been named by the Washingtonian Magazine as one of the 25 most influential voices on foreign policy in Washington DC for five years in a row since 2021, and preeminent public intellectual Noam Chomsky calls Parsi “one of the most distinguished scholars on Iran.”

His first book, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States (Yale University Press, 2007), won the silver medal winner of the 2008 Arthur Ross Book Award from the Council on Foreign Relations. His second book, A Single Roll of the Dice – Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran (Yale University Press, 2012) and was selected by Foreign Affairs as the Best Book of 2012 on the Middle East.

Parsi’s latest book – Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy (Yale University Press, 2017) – reveals the behind the scenes story of the nuclear deal with Iran.

Parsi was born in Iran but moved with his family at the age of four to Sweden in order to escape political repression in Iran. His father was an outspoken academic who was jailed by the Shah and then by the Ayatollah. He moved to the United States as an adult and studied foreign policy at Johns Hopkins’ School for Advanced International Studies, where he received his PhD.

He is the co-founder and former president of the National Iranian American Council. Parsi has followed Middle East politics through work in the field and extensive experience on Capitol Hill and at the United Nations.

In addition to his Ph.D., Parsi holds a Master’s Degree in International Relations from Uppsala University and a Master’s Degree in Economics from the Stockholm School of Economics. He has served as an adjunct professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University SAIS, New York University, Georgetown University, and George Washington University, as well as an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute and as a Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC.

Thursday, October 2, 2025 – 6:00 PM,
Albuquerque Country Club, 601 Laguna SW