| Raed Jarrar is an Iraqi political analyst currently based in Washington, DC. A professional architect, Jarrar obtained his first degree from the University of Baghdad in 2000. Jarrar continued postgraduate studies at the University of Jordan in Amman, Jordan where he researched community based post war reconstruction in Iraq.
After the US‑led invasion, Jarrar returned home to become country director for CIVIC Worldwide, the only door‑to‑door casualty survey group in post war Iraq. He then established Emaar, (meaning "reconstruction" in Arabic), a grassroots organization that coordinated with political leadership and civil society throughout Iraq in order to rebuild Iraqi civil society and physical infrastructure. Emaar successfully implemented hundreds of community-based projects with minimal funding.
In 2005, Jarrar moved to California and continued to contribute to a series of Iraq related projects. On the environment, he worked as consultant and translator for UNEP Japan to preserve Iraqi marshlands.
Jarrar has acted as political analyst and interpreter for a UNDP Iraq sponsored conference in South Africa on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He canvassed door to door with California Peace Action to solicit support for an initiative urging Congress to outlaw the maintenance of permanent US military bases in Iraq.
Most recently, Jarrar became the Iraq Consultant for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Washington, DC. Jarrar endeavors to advance discourse between Iraqi leaders and members of the US Congress. To that end, he has organized a series of meetings between US and Iraqi officials and helped facilitate the publication of numerous policy papers and op eds by Iraqi leaders in prominent US newspapers. In addition, Raed Jarrar is a contributing writer and analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus and AlterNet.
Jarrar has appeared on various news channels, including CNN, CNN Intl, Al Jazeera, Al Alam, BBC, and Democracy Now. Several radio stations including member stations of NPR, BBC, CBC, CBS, Fox, and Pacifica have engaged his expertise and his analyses have been published in numerous newspapers. Jarrar maintains Raed in the Middle, a widely read web log (on which portions of this book are based), dedicated to a timely analysis of current Iraqi political conditions.
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