Joel Rayburn
Joel Rayburn is an American diplomat who holds the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Levant Affairs and Special Envoy for Syria in the U.S. State Department.  He is a former member of the U.S. National Security Council staff and a retired U.S. Army officer. He has published books and articles about the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and its results.

From 2013 to January 2017, he directed a U.S. Army project to produce a history of the Iraq War. In that capacity, he was editor and co-author of the two-volume history "The U.S. Army in the Iraq War," which was published in January 2019.

In July 2018 Rayburn was appointed to the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Levant Affairs and Special Envoy for Syria.  Previously, from January 2017 to July 2018, he served as Senior Director for Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon on the U.S. National Security Council staff at the White House.

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.

Rayburn entered the U.S. Army in 1992 after graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.