Kenneth Pollack - Other Publications

Other Publications

In 2004, his third book, The Persian Puzzle, was published. In contrast to his views on Iraq, in The Persian Puzzle he argued that though the threat of force is necessary in dealing with Iran, diplomacy rather than regime change by force is the best way of dealing with Iran because Iran's policy-makers are divided between pragmatists who are motivated by a desire to improve the economy and hardliners who fear U.S. attack and so seek a nuclear deterrent, - the United States can thus exploit this divide to negotiate a favourable agreement. He also argued that the hardliners leader, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was, unlike Saddam Hussein, rational and risk-averse and so, even if Iran did acquire a nuclear capability, Iran could be deterred in a way that Saddam Hussein could not be. He does not speak Persian and has never visited the country.

In 2007, Pollack co-authored the book Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover from an Iraqi Civil War with Daniel L. Byman. This book analyzed 12 recent civil wars to derive six common ways in which fullscale ethnic civil wars "spillover" to affect neighboring states. Pollack and Byman argued that while spillover can range from modest effects to very severe problems (like causing other civil wars or triggering regional wars among neighboring states) that the early evidence so far suggested that the United States should be prepared for Iraq's potential descent into all-out civil war to be on the worse end of the spectrum. The book went on to lay out thirteen different ways that the United States and its allies might fashion a "containment" strategy for Iraq, which offered some chance of preventing all-out civil war in Iraq from destabilizing the wider Persian Gulf region in the event that American efforts to stabilize the country failed. While Pollack and Byman argued that such a containment strategy would be very difficult to make work given the historical problems of doing so and the specific problems created by previous American actions in Iraq, they also concluded that containment would likely prove America's least bad option because U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf were so important that Washington would have to try to mitigate the impact of spillover.

He has written numerous articles for publications such as the Atlantic Monthly and Foreign Affairs. He has also repeatedly testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He currently teaches Security Problems of the Middle East / Persian Gulf and Military Analysis at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service.

Pollack's fifth book, A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East, was published in July 2008. In a review in Army Magazine, former commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq LTG James M. Dubik, US Army Retired, described the book as providing a clear description of America’s vital interests in the Middle East and presenting well-documented, cogent arguments on the threats posed by the regional anger and frustration bred by crippling societal problems. Pollack recommends a grand strategy for the United States and its allies in which they “encourage and enable the countries of the Middle East to pursue a gradual process of political, economic and social reform—one that grows from within, rather than being imposed from without; one that reflects the values, traditions, history and aspirations of the people of the region themselves, not a Western guess at them; one that recognizes that reform and stability are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing—and ultimately mutually essential.”