Steven Simon Keynote Speaker

  • Senior Director, Middle Eastern and North African affairs, National Security Council
  • Former Executive Director, International Institute for Strategic Studies IISS-US and Corresponding Director of IISS - Middle East
  • Author of 'Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East' (2023)

Steven Simon's Biography

Steven Simon  served on the National Security Council staff as senior director for Middle Eastern and North African affairs 2011-2012. He also worked on the NSC staff 1994-1999 on counterterrorism and Middle East security policy. These assignments followed a fifteen-year career at the U.S. Department of State. Between government assignments, he was Hasib Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, analyst at the RAND Corporation, and deputy director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies; he is currently a professor at Colby College. He is the co-author, among other books, of The Age of Sacred Terror, winner of the Arthur C. Ross Award for best book in international relations.

Before joining CFR, Simon specialised in Middle Eastern affairs within the RAND Corporation after serving as Deputy Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He came to IISS from the White House, where he served as Director for Global Issues and Senior Director for Transnational Threats on the National Security Council staff from 1994-1999. These assignments followed a fifteen-year career at the U.S. Department of State.

Previously, he was principal and senior advisor to Good Harbor Consulting, LLC in Abu Dhabi, which advised the Court of the Crown Prince and key agencies on security matters.

Steven Simon is the co-author, with Daniel Benjamin, of “The Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam’s War Against America and The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting it Right.” He edited, with Toby Dodge, “Iraq at the Crossroads: State and Society in the Shadow of Regime Change“. At RAND, he co-authored “Building a Successful Palestinian State as well as The Arc: A Formal Structure for a Palestinian State and Costs of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” Together with Dana Allin, he wrote “The Sixth Crisis: The US, Israel, Iran and the Rumors of War” .   He co-authored with Ray Takeyh, “The Pragmatic Superpower: Winning the Cold War in the Middle East” and again with Dana Allin, “Our Separate Ways: The Struggle for the Future of the US-Israel Alliance” .

His most recent book is ‘Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East‘ – published in 2023

In addition, he has published in TIME, the New York Times, the Washington Post, New York Review of Books, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and Foreign Affairs.

Read More

Videos of Steven Simon

Al Jazeera English: Empire - Extended interview: Steven Simon (2014)
Al Jazeera English: Empire - Extended interview: Steven Simon (2014)

Books by Steven Simon

Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East

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