Michael Allan Rubin, born in 1971 in Philadelphia, is an American political scientist, historian, and foreign policy analyst specializing in Iran, Turkey, the Middle East, terrorism, and regional security. He is a leading neoconservative voice known for hawkish policy positions advocating robust U.S. engagement and regime change in Iran, as well as an adversarial stance toward Iranian and Turkish regimes. Rubin serves as a resident scholar and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and, since late 2023, as the Director of Policy Analysis at the Middle East Forum (MEF). His career combines high-level academic research with practical government service; he was a staff advisor for Iran and Iraq in the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon from 2002 to 2004 and served as a political adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq during the early years of the Iraq War. Rubin has lived and conducted research in post-revolutionary Iran, Yemen, and pre-9/11 Afghanistan, and has taught at several universities in northern Iraq. He is a prolific author and commentator with frequent contributions to The Wall Street Journal, National Review, and the Washington Examiner, providing critical analysis of authoritarian regimes and radical movements. Notably, in 2017, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan filed a criminal complaint against him, and Turkish authorities reportedly placed a bounty on him. Rubin’s recent work in 2025 and 2026 continues to focus on the potential collapse and partition of Turkey and the necessity of regime change in Iran.