Kenneth Michael Pollack (born 1966) is an American former CIA intelligence analyst and expert on Middle East politics and military affairs.

Currently, he is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, "where he works on Middle Eastern political-military affairs, focusing in particular on Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf countries.

Born to a Jewish family,[3] Pollack obtained a BA from Yale University, in 1988, and went on to earn a PhD from MIT, under supervision of Barry Posen, in 1996.

In The Threatening Storm, Pollack argued "the only prudent and realistic course of action left to the United States is to mount a full-scale invasion of Iraq to smash the Iraqi armed forces, depose Saddam's regime, and rid the country of weapons of mass destruction."

"[6] Liberal writer Matthew Yglesias in the LA Times also attested to Pollack's influence: Of course, those of us who read Pollack's celebrated 2002 book, "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq," and became convinced as a result that the United States needed to, well, invade Iraq in order to dismantle Saddam Hussein's advanced nuclear weapons program (the one he didn't actually have) might feel a little too bitter to once again defer to our betters.

[7]Many have criticized his support for the Invasion of Iraq, including Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk, who called The Threatening Storm the "most meretricious contribution" to the pre-war "debate" on military action and included it in the select bibliography section of his 2005 book The Great War for Civilisation in order to "show just how specific – and misleading – were the efforts to persuade Americans to invade.

"[8] Many critics, as well as many of those who used the book to justify their support of the invasion, overlooked the more balanced presentation on the pros and cons of war to be found in The Threatening Storm.

As Chris Suellentrop of Slate pointed out before the invasion on March 5, 2003: Six months after The Threatening Storm's publication, however, Pollack's book reads as much like an indictment of the Bush administration's overeagerness to go to war as it does an endorsement of it.

He laid out some of his arguments in support of the surge in the June 2007 NY Times article "A War We Just Might Win," which was co-authored with Michael E. O'Hanlon of Brookings.

He currently teaches Security Problems of the Middle East / Persian Gulf and Military Analysis at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service.

In a review in Army Magazine, former commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq LTG James M. Dubik, US Army Retired, described the book as providing a clear description of America's vital interests in the Middle East and presenting well-documented, cogent arguments on the threats posed by the regional anger and frustration bred by crippling societal problems.