Mark Dubowitz

Mark Dubowitz (born 11 September 1968) is a South African-born Canadian-American attorney and former venture capitalist, and CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-profit think-tank. He is a proponent of sanctions against Iran and was a leading critic of the Iran nuclear agreement, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. According to The New York Times, "Dubowitz’s campaign to draw attention to what he saw as the flaws in the Iran nuclear deal has taken its place among the most consequential ever undertaken by a Washington think tank leader." He was a leading critic of the Iran nuclear agreement, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but then tried to save it after President Trump withdrew from the agreement according to his own account.

Mark Dubowitz (born 11 September 1968) is a South African-born Canadian-American attorney and former venture capitalist, and CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-profit think-tank. He is a proponent of sanctions against Iran and was a leading critic of the Iran nuclear agreement, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. According to The New York Times, "Dubowitz’s campaign to draw attention to what he saw as the flaws in the Iran nuclear deal has taken its place among the most consequential ever undertaken by a Washington think tank leader." He was a leading critic of the Iran nuclear agreement, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but then tried to save it after President Trump withdrew from the agreement according to his own account.

Early life and education

Dubowitz was born in Johannesburg in South Africa and raised in Toronto. In 2015 he became a citizen of the United States. He is Jewish and his great-grandparents fled the pogroms in the Russian Empire. Dubowitz earned a master's degree in international public policy from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, where he focused on China. He also earned a Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration from the University of Toronto. He has also studied at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. He spent the first 8 years after law school working on funding technology start-ups in Toronto, as an attorney and venture capitalist in Toronto. One of the start-ups was DoubleClick, where he was the director of international business development.

Career

Dubowitz is the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He co-founded FDD's Center on Economic and Financial Power and FDD's Center on Military and Political Power, and is the author or co-author of more than twenty studies on economic sanctions. He also is co-chair of the Project on U.S. Middle East Nonproliferation Strategy. He joined the FDD in 2003 and became an authority on international terrorism and sanctions against states that sponsor terrorism such as Iran and North Korea. "I was a strange kid with an obsession with terrorism and plane hijackings. On September 11th it turned out that terrorism is not just an international problem, after it hit us at home," he told Ynet news. In 2003 I joined a small organization (FDD) despite not having any relevant political or policy experience and coming from a wholly different background." In 2025, he started a podcast called "The Iran Breakdown" where he speaks with prominent voices on Iran to discuss and analyze the fundamental dynamics that shape the Islamic Republic. Notable guests included Reza Pahlavi, Crown Prince of Iran, Iranian activist Masih Alinejad, and urban warfare expert John Spencer. Dubowitz is a lecturer and senior research fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, where he teaches and conducts research on international negotiations, sanctions, and Iran's nuclear program. In 2014, Dubowitz argued the U.S. and European sanctions against Russia were a warning, and not an attempt to reverse the occupation of Crimea quickly. In 2017, Dubowitz and Jonathan Schanzer co-authored a Wall Street Journal opinion article advocating U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Iran's Foreign Ministry sanctioned Dubowitz and the FDD on 24 August 2019, alleging that they participated in designing, imposing, and intensifying sanctions against Iran. In a 2025 op-ed, Dubowitz and Ben Cohen argued that funding cuts to USAID would "bring accountability and efficiency", while preserving the soft power mission.

References

External links

FDD Bio Page Mark Dubowitz Website

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1377531569 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.