1. Joel Rayburn is a retired United States Army officer, former diplomat, and historian who served as the United States Special Envoy for Syria from 2018 to 2021.
13 Facts About Joel Rayburn
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Joel Rayburn has published books and articles about the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and its results.
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Joel Rayburn is currently a Fellow in the National Security Program at the New America Foundation.
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Joel Rayburn entered the United States Army in 1992 after graduating from the US Military Academy at West Point.
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From 2010 to 2013, Joel Rayburn was a frequent critic of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Maliki and of the Obama administration's decision to withdraw all US forces from Iraq in December, 2011.
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In January, 2012 Joel Rayburn wrote in an article published by the Hoover Institution that the US withdrawal would result in a security vacuum in Iraq and a potential return to civil war.
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In 2012, Joel Rayburn wrote that Nuri Maliki and his Da'wa Party allies were becoming a new authoritarian regime that was alienating Iraq's Sunnis and youthful protesters.
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In 2013, Joel Rayburn warned that events in Iraq were leading the country back into civil war.
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In 2014 Joel Rayburn published a book titled Iraq After America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance, telling the history of the conflict in Iraq from the Iraqi perspective.
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From 2013 to January 2017, Joel Rayburn directed a US Army project to produce a history of the Iraq War.
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Joel Rayburn oversaw the development of the Trump administration's strategy concerning the Iranian regime, announced by President Trump in October, 2017.
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In July 2018 Joel Rayburn was appointed to the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Levant Affairs, a position he held until November 2020.
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In December, 2020, Joel Rayburn testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where he advised members of Congress that the US policy of pressuring the Assad regime through sanctions and political pressure had brought the United States' main objectives in Syria within reach, as long as the United States maintained the pressure.