Steven Simon is adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Goldman Sachs visiting professor in public policy at Princeton University. He is the co-author, with Dana Allin, of the new book The Sixth Crisis: Iran, Israel, America, and the Rumors of War, recently published by Oxford University Press. Prior to joining CFR, Mr. Simon specialized in Middle Eastern affairs at the RAND Corporation. He came to RAND from London, where he was the deputy director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and Carol Deane senior fellow in U.S. security studies. Before moving to Britain in 1999, Mr. Simon served at the White House for over five years as director for global issues and senior director for transnational threats. During this period, he was involved in U.S. counterterrorism policy and operations as well as security policy in the Near East and South Asia. These assignments followed a fifteen year career at the U.S. Department of State.