Steven Simon Book Talk — Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East
Grand Delusion reveals that this story, while episodically impressive, was too often tragic and at times dishonorable. As we enter a new era in foreign policy, this is an essential book, a cautionary history that illuminates American’s propensity for self-deception and misadventure at a moment when the nation is redefining its engagement with a world in crisis. 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. Simon will be joined in conversation with Aaron David Miller, vice president for new initiatives and a distinguished fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, served for two decades as a State Department analyst, negotiator and adviser on Middle East issues.
This is an in-person only event at Politics and Prose Connecticut Ave NW location.
This event is free with first come, first served seating.
Program
Panelists
Steven Simon
Steven Simon is Senior Research Analyst at the Quincy Institute and the Robert E. Wilhelm Fellow at the MIT Centre for International Studies. Prior to this, he was Executive Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies for the U.S. and Middle East. From 2011 to 2012 he served on the National Security Council staff as senior director for Middle Eastern and North African affairs. He also worked on the NSC staff 1994 – 1999 on counterterrorism and Middle East security policy. 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. His most recent book, The Long Goodbye: The United States and the Middle East from the Islamic Revolution to the Arab Spring will be published this spring.
Aaron David Miller (Moderator)
Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focusing on U.S. foreign policy. He has written five books, including his most recent, The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President (2014) and The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace (2008). He received his PhD in Middle East and U.S. diplomatic history from the University of Michigan in 1977.