Michael Rubin is a resident scholar in foreign policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI), where he studies Arab democracy, Kurdish society, and domestic politics in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. Prior to joining AEI, he served as a political advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad from 2003 to 2004. Previously, he was a staff advisor for Iran and Iraq in the Office of the Secretary of Defense during 2002–2004. He is currently the editor of the Middle East Quarterly. He is the co-author of Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and the author of Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami’s Iran (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001).