Barbara Slavin is a regular contributor to foreignpolicy.com, aolnews.com, and the author of a 2007 book on Iran entitled "Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the US and the Twisted Path to Confrontation." She served as assistant managing editor for World and National Security for the Washington Times from July 2008 until December 2009. Prior to joining the Times, she was senior diplomatic reporter for USA TODAY, responsible for analyzing foreign news and US foreign policy. Beginning in 1996, she covered such key issues as the US-led war on terrorism and in Iraq, policy toward "rogue" states and the Arab-Israeli conflict. She accompanied three secretaries of State on their official travels and also reported from Iran, Libya, Israel, Egypt, North Korea, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Barbara, who has lived in Russia, China, Japan and Egypt, is a regular commentator on US foreign policy on National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting System and C-Span. She wrote her book on Iran, which she has visited seven times, as a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 2006 and spent October 2007-July 2008 as senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace, where she researched and wrote a report on Iranian regional influence, entitled “Mullahs, Money and Militias: How Iran Exerts Its Influence in the Middle East.”

Prior to joining USA TODAY, she was a Washington-based writer for The Economist and the Los Angeles Times, covering domestic and foreign policy issues, including the 1991-93 Middle East peace talks in Washington. From 1985-89, she was The Economist's correspondent in Cairo. She traveled widely in the Middle East, covering the Iran-Iraq war, the 1986 US bombing of Libya, the political evolution of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism. Earlier in the 1980's, she served as The Economist's correspondent in Beijing and also reported from Japan and South Korea.

Prior to moving abroad, she was a writer and editor for The New York Times Week in Review section and a reporter and editor for United Press International in New York City. She got her B.A. in Russian language and literature at Harvard University and also studied at Leningrad State University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.