DURHAM, N.C. - U.S. foreign policy expert Elliott Abrams, who served as a White House advisor for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, will discuss "The Freedom Agenda and the Middle East," at Duke University March 16.

The event will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Rhodes Conference Room (Room 223) in the Sanford School of Public Policy. The talk is part of the von der Heyden lecture series and is free and open to the public.

"Elliott Abrams has held pivotal positions of power and influence at key turning points in American history, most recently as President Bush's point man for policy in the broader Middle East and for global human rights," said Duke political science professor Peter Feaver, co-director of Duke's Program in American Grand Strategy, which is one of the event's sponsors.

"Few people have as intimate knowledge as he has on a range of pressing issues like relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Iran, or prospects for reform in the Middle East. Student interest on these and related topics is very high, and I expect an especially lively discussion," Feaver said.

A top White House advisor on Middle East issues, Abrams is currently a senior fellow in the Council on Foreign Relations.

In 2002, during President Bush's first term in office, Abrams served as the senior director on the National Security Council for the Near East and North African Affairs. At the start of Bush's second term, he was promoted to Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy, helping advance democracy abroad and U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Under the Reagan administration, Abrams worked in the state department, where he supervised U.S. participation in the United Nations and policy in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The event is sponsored by the von der Heyden Fellows Program Endowment Fund, the Duke University Program in American Grand Strategy, the Triangle Institute for Security Studies, the Duke Islamic Studies Center and the Kenan Institute for Ethics.