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Kimberly Kagan is founder and president of the Institute for the Study of War. A military historian, Kagan has authored—sometimes in tandem with her husband Frederick Kagan, a fellow at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute—several books, essays, and op-eds that look favorably upon long-term U.S. engagements in the “war on terror,” particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to her ISW biography, she has taught courses at West Point, Yale, Georgetown, and American University, and has served in a civilian advisory capacity to Gens. Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus in Afghanistan.[1]

Kagan was an avid backer of the troop “surge” in Iraq (which was formulated in part by her husband) and has fervently criticized the Obama administration for its drawdown of U.S. military forces there.

After President Obama announced that U.S. troops would exit the country by the end of 2011, the Kagans co-wrote a series of op-eds lambasting the decision. “The president has enunciated the Obama Doctrine: American retreat,” they wrote in the Weekly Standard.[2] In the Los Angeles Times, they declared: “The American withdrawal, which comes after the administration's failure to secure a new agreement that would have allowed troops to remain in Iraq, won't be good for ordinary Iraqis or for the region. But it will unquestionably benefit Iran.”[3]

Kimberly Kagan was also an early and vocal advocate the “surge” strategy in Afghanistan. For a 2009 Veterans’ Day column in the right-wing Washington Examiner, where she is a monthly columnist, Kagan argued explicitly for tailoring the Iraq surge model to Afghanistan. “The quickest path to success is a decisive campaign to defeat the enemy, protect the population, and to partner with the security forces so that they can in time take on the reduced challenge of maintaining order in their country,” she wrote. “That is what [Gen. Stanley] McChyrstal is proposing to try. Our experience in Iraq suggests that it is feasible.”[4]

Kagan lambasted the Obama administration for its eventual goal of withdrawing from Afghanistan. “Gone is any language about conditions, objectives, goals, American interests, or any of the fundamental principles that Americans have fought so hard to achieve in these wars and throughout our history,” she wrote with her husband. “American strategy is simply to go home.”[5]

Kagan has also written on U.S. policy in Iran. In February 2008, she coauthored a report published by the American Enterprise Institute that discussed the extent of Iranian influence across the Middle East. "Much as America might desire to avoid war with Iran,” the report warns, “continued Iranian interventions ... might ultimately make that option less repulsive than the alternatives."

The report also reflected on the part of the authors an evolution away from “openly beating the war drums,” as journalist Khody Akhavi writes, “toward an attempt to highlight the extent of Iranian influence in the region. The conclusion to be drawn is that, even without the nuclear issue at the forefront, Iran continues to exert a negative impact on U.S. interests.”[6]

Kagan also published a report in 2007 that concludes that U.S. diplomatic engagement with Iran would be counterproductive, supporting a speech made by then-President Bush alleging that Iran was supporting the arming of “Shia extremists.”[7]

Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.