Before joining AEI, Danielle Pletka served for ten years as a senior professional staff member for the Near East and South Asia on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Since coming to AEI, Ms. Pletka has developed a conference series on rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq, directed a project on democracy in the Arab world, and designed a project to track global business in Iran. She recently edited a publication on dissent and reform in the Arab World and coauthored a report on Iranian Influence in the Levant, Iraq, and Afghanistan. She was also a member of the congressionally mandated U.S. Institute of Peace Task Force on the United Nations, which released its final report in 2005.