After earning degrees in history from Brown and Harvard, Bruce Riedel entered U.S. government service in 1978 as a Middle East specialist. He was thereafter involved in every Middle East development of significance in U.S. foreign policy until his retirement from the government in 2006. During that period, he advised Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush from posts in the White House, the Defense Department and the CIA. He is now a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Bruce Riedel became a senior adviser on the Middle East to (then) Senator Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. After the election, he was asked by the president to chair the group charged with developing A New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. That report was released on 27 March 2009. Since the report was released, Bruce Riedel has published prolifically, and spoken with his trademark candor all over the world about the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. His articles have created a flurry of commentary; and the substance of his articles is as scary as some of their titles, such as, “Al-qaeda Strikes Back,” and “Armageddon in Islamabad.” He is also the author of recent books on al-Qaeda and U.S. policy toward Iran. Bruce Riedel remains the Obama administration’s most influential non-governmental adviser to the president on the Middle East.