Dr. Muriel Asseburg is the head of the Middle East and Africa division at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. Her research focuses on the Middle East conflict; German, European and US Middle East policies; European civil and military deployments; and questions of state building, political reform and political Islam in the Middle East. Asseburg has lived and worked in Damascus, Beirut, Jerusalem and Ramallah. She also teaches at the Free University of Berlin.