The Middle East: Where to Now? - Dr Michael Rubin

Uprisings against governments in one country after another are consuming the Middle East, with growing violence and casualties as authoritarian rulers seek to stay in power. Iran's earlier 'Green Revolution' has been crushed for now with a brutality that mirrors that of Gaddafi's Libya and towards which Syria and Yemen are heading. The Egyptian and Tunisian revolts succeeded in their immediate aim of removing unpopular leaders.

In its regional and global impact, these revolutions are reminiscent of what took place in Eastern Europe as the Soviet Union collapsed. Unlike Eastern Europe, the political outcome is far less predictable.

To explore these seismic events and examine what they mean for the Arab, Iranian and wider Islamic world - and for the West - we are pleased to present a leading thinker on trends across the Middle East.

Dr Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Civil-Military Relations; and a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Between 2002 and 2004, Dr Rubin worked as a staff adviser for Iran and Iraq at the Pentagon, from which he was seconded to Iraq. He received his Ph.D. in history from Yale in 1999. He has lectured in history at Yale, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Johns Hopkins University and at three different universities in northern Iraq. He currently provides academic instruction on regional issues for senior US Army, Marine Corps and Naval officers deploying to Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf.

Dr Rubin is author of Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran, co-author of Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos, and co-editor of Dissent and Reform in the Arab World: Empowering Democrats. He is completing a history of US engagement with so-called rogue regimes.