Berkley Center

Bilal Wahab is a doctoral student at George Mason University where he studies economic and political transition in the petroleum-rich Middle Eastern states. He is affiliated with the university’s Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center. He received his M.A. from American University on a Fulbright Scholarship. In Iraq, he served as a governance advisor for citizen participation in public decision-making at USAID's Local Governance Program. He worked with local authorities and civil society organizations in five northern Iraqi provinces to promote transparency and accountability toward democratic governance. Prior to that, he worked for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. In the run up to Iraq's first democratic elections, he worked for the International Republican Institute, where he trained election candidates and monitored the elections. He has made frequent media appearances on Aljazeera, National Public Radio, News Hour with Jim Lehrer and other media outlets. He also consulted at the World Bank's Institutional Integrity Vice Presidency. His most-cited article appeared in Middle East Quarterly, entitled "How Oil Smuggling Greases Violence in Iraq.”