Name Joel Rayburn | ||
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Books Iraq After America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance | ||
Joel Rayburn on Iran to stop using Syria as a platform to threaten regional neighbors
Colonel Joel Rayburn is an intelligence officer in the United States Army who has published a number of articles about the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and its results.
In 2014 he published a book titled "Iraq After America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance", telling the history of the conflict in Iraq from the Iraqi perspective. The book was published by the Hoover Institution. Chapter 5 of his book is frequently cited to support the assertion that the Faith Campaign of Saddam Hussein promoted Salafi ideology, and thus created a base for the rise in 2003 of the Islamic State of Iraq and the related insurgency. Chapter 6 of his book discusses the Kurdish nationalist movement and its purpose "to annex the strategic city of Kirkuk" and to reverse the demographic changes there which had been caused by the actions of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
He entered the U.S. Army in 1992 after graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.