Kenneth M. Pollack is director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. From 1995 to 1996 and from 1991 to 2001, he served as director for Gulf affairs at the National Security Council, where he was the principal working-level official responsible for implementation of U.S. policy toward Iran. Prior to his time in the Clinton administration, he spent seven years in the CIA as a Persian Gulf military analyst. He is the author of The Threatening Storm and Arabs at War. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Background
Previous Positions: Director for National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations (2001-2002); Director for Persian Gulf Affairs, National Security Council (1999-2001); Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs, National Security Council (1995-1996); Senior Research Professor, National Defense University (1998-99, 2001); Iran-Iraq Military Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency (1988-1995)

Selected Publications

The Persian Puzzle : The Conflict Between Iran and America (Random House, 2004)

"Mourning After: How They Screwed It Up," The New Republic (6/28/2004)

"Spies, Lies, and Weapons: What Went Wrong," The Atlantic Monthly (January 2004)

"Securing the Gulf," Foreign Affairs (July/August 2003)

"Democracy in Iraq?" with Daniel L. Byman, The Washington Quarterly (Summer 2003)

"Iraq's Coming Democracy," with Daniel L. Byman, Blueprint (April 2003)

"Democracy in the Middle East: Democracy as Realism," with Daniel L. Byman, Prospect (UK) (April 2003)

"The Regional Military Balance," in Richard Sokolsky, ed. The United States and the Persian Gulf: Reshaping U.S. Security Strategy for the Post-Containment Era (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 2003)

The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq (Random House, 2002)

Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991 (University of Nebraska Press, 2002)

"Next Stop Baghdad?," Foreign Affairs (March-April 2002)

"Armies of Sand and Armies of Snow: The Impact of Soviet Military Doctrine on Arab Militaries," with Michael Eisenstadt, Middle East Journal (Autumn 2001)

"Let Us Now Praise Great Men: Bringing the Statesman Back In," with Daniel L. Byman, International Security (Spring 2001)