Eliot A . Cohen Eliot Asher Cohen ( born April 3 , 1956 ) is the Robert E . Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies at the Paul H . Nitze School of Advanced International Studies ( SAIS ) at the Johns Hopkins University . Cohen is the Director of the Strategic Studies Program at SAIS and has specialized in the Middle East , Persian Gulf , Iraq , arms control , and NATO . He is a member of the Project for the New American Century and " is one of the few teachers in the American academy to treat military history as a serious field " according to International Law scholar Ruth Wedgwood . He served as Counselor to the United States Department of State under Secretary Condoleezza Rice from 2007 to 2009 . Biography . Cohen received his B . A . in government at Harvard University in 1977 . He went on to receive a Ph . D . from Harvard in 1982 in political science , and during his PhD training went through the Army ROTC program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology . He was an assistant professor of government and assistant dean at Harvard University from 1982 to 1985 . Following this , he taught for four years at the Naval War College in the Department of Strategy , before a brief period in 1990 serving on the policy planning staff in the Office of the Secretary of Defense . In 1990 , Cohen began his position at SAIS . Following the 1991 Persian Gulf War , he directed the U . S . Air Force ' s official four - volume survey , the Gulf War Air Power Survey , until 1993 , for which he received the Air Force ’ s Exemplary Civilian Service Award . This analysis of the effect of U . S . air power was widely referenced in regards to the Revolution in Military Affairs concept . In 1993 , Paul Wolfowitz , who would later become prominent as the Deputy Secretary of Defense in the run - up to the Iraq war , became Dean of SAIS . During his brief stint at the defense policy planning staff , Cohen had worked under Wolfowitz but this was the first time they were in extended contact . In 1997 , Cohen became a founding member of the Project for the New American Century , which became known as a center for prominent neoconservatives . He has been a member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee , a committee of civilians and retired military officers that the U . S . Secretary of Defense may call upon for advice , since the beginning of the administration of President George W . Bush . He was put on the board after acquaintance Richard Perle put forward his name . Cohen has referred to the War on Terrorism as “ World War IV ” . In the run - up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq , he was a member of Committee for the Liberation of Iraq , a group of prominent persons who pressed for an invasion . On March 2 , 2007 , Cohen was appointed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to serve as Counselor of the State Department , replacing Philip D . Zelikow . Political Views . Statements on US foreign policy . Cohen was one of the first neoconservatives to publicly advocate war against Iran and Iraq . In a November 2001 op - ed for the Wall Street Journal , Cohen identified what he called " World War IV " and advocated the overthrow of Iran ' s government as a possible next step for the Bush Administration . Cohen claimed " regime change " in Iran could be accomplished with a focus on " pro - Western and anticlerical forces " in the Middle East and suggested that such an action would be " wise , moral and unpopular ( among some of our allies ) " . He went on to argue that such a policy was as important as the then identified goal of Osama Bin Laden ' s capture : " The overthrow of the first theocratic revolutionary Muslim state and its replacement by a moderate or secular government , however , would be no less important a victory in this war than the annihilation of bin Laden . " Later in 2001 , Cohen , in what was becoming a dominant theme of his writing , advocated war against Iraq once again and proceeded to outline how effortless such a military campaign would be : After Afghanistan , what ? Iraq is the big prize . . . One important element will be the use of the Iraqi National Congress to help foster the collapse of the regime , and to provide a replacement for it . The INC , which has received bad , and in some cases malicious treatment , from the State Department and intelligence community over the years , may not be able to do the job with U . S . air support alone . As a result of his public statements on why a war against Iraq was necessary , Cohen was invited to appear on " CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports " and amongst other statements given in response to questioning from Blitzer offered the judgement : We know that he [ Saddam Hussein ] supports terror . There ' s very solid evidence that the Iraqis were behind an attempt to assassinate President Bush ' s father . And we - - by the way , we do know that there is a connection with the 9 / 11 terrorists . We do know that Mohamed Atta , the ringleader of the 9 / 11 terrorists , met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague . So . . . In testifying to a Congressional House committee later in 2002 Cohen was quoted as saying : . . the choice before the United States is a stark one , either to acquiesce in a situation which permits the regime of Saddam Hussein to restore his economy , acquire weapons of mass destruction and pose a lethal threat to his neighbors and to us , or to take action to overthrow him . In my view , the latter course , with all of its risks , is the correct one . Indeed , the dangers of failing to act in the near future are unacceptable . In a piece for the Wall Street Journal , 6 February 2003 Cohen fervently praised the presentation given by then Secretary of State Colin Powell in which he outlined the case for military action against Iraq to the United Nations . He went on to indicate that it was time for those who doubted that the case had been proven to support the Bush administration in their efforts . An article written for the Washington Post on 10 July 2005 , raised the attention of commentators in the media and " blogosphere " . The piece , an attempt to articulate Cohen ' s self identified roles as academic , pundit , and father , was written as his son prepared to deploy to Iraq to fight a war the elder Cohen had been calling for since early 2001 . The piece ends : There is a lot of talk these days about shaky public support for the war . That is not really the issue . Nor should cheerleading , as opposed to truth - telling , be our leaders ' chief concern . If we fail in Iraq - - and I don ' t think we will - - it won ' t be because the American people lack heart , but because leaders and institutions have failed . Rather than fretting about support at home , let them show themselves dedicated to waging and winning a strange kind of war and describing it as it is , candidly and in detail . Then the American people will give them all the support they need . The scholar in me is not surprised when our leaders blunder , although the pundit in me is dismayed when they do . What the father in me expects from our leaders is , simply , the truth - - an end to happy talk and denials of error , and a seriousness equal to that of the men and women our country sends into the fight . This piece was extensively discussed in the blogosphere at the time , with some progressive blogs decrying that Cohen continued to maintain that the invasion was justified . Other commentators expressed surprise that a figure with such access and impeccable neoconservative credentials could appear to criticise the Bush Administration in such a way . Cohen later stated that he had received overwhelmingly positive responses from senior military officials in a resulting interview on C - SPAN . Cohen also continued his criticism of the conduct of the war stating that , " Those three guys - Tommy Franks , George Tenet , and L . Paul Bremer - got the Presidential Medal of Freedom . That ' s just wrong . " As a member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee Cohen had also been engaged in meetings involving US President George Bush . During these meetings Cohen provided advice on strategy in the Iraq conflict . Appointment to Department of State . On 2 March 2007 , it was reported by the Washington Post that Cohen was to be appointed as Condoleezza Rice ' s " counselor " at the United States Department of State . Cohen replaced Philip D . Zelikow and said he would fill time before appointment in April 2007 by acting as a consultant for Rice . The tone of the Washington Post article — Cohen is described as a " critic " of the Iraq war — was soon criticised . An article by Ximena Ortiz in the " National Interest Online " called Cohen ' s ability to do the job into question and attempted to juxtapose his previous statements on the Bush administration foreign policy with the resulting war in Iraq . Adding to the criticism was Glenn Greenwald of Salon . com who , describing Cohen as " extremist a neoconservative and warmonger as it gets " , suggested an internal significance of the appointment for the Bush administration : The Cohen appointment , is clearly another instance where neoconservatives place a watchdog in potential trouble spots in the government to ensure that diplomats do not stray by trying to facilitate rapproachments between the U . S . and the countries on the neoconservative War hit list . As the controversy was played out in the media a rebuttal of sorts from Ruth Wedgwood , international law scholar at Johns Hopkins University , sought to defend Cohen from criticism . Ortiz was subsequently supported in her criticism by fellow commentator at " National Interest Online " , Anatol Lieven , who raised the levels of criticism to include Cohens efforts as a historian and analyst as well as tackling other pronouncements on US foreign policy in the middle east made by Cohen . Mearsheimer and Walt Paper . In March 2006 , Harvard ' s Kennedy School of Government Academic Dean Stephen M . Walt along with Professor John J . Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago , both political scientists , published an academic paper titled " The Israel Lobby and U . S . Foreign Policy . " The paper criticizes the Israel lobby for influencing U . S . foreign policy in the Middle East away from U . S . interests and towards Israel ' s interests . Eliot Cohen wrote in a prominent op - ed piece in " The Washington Post " that the academic working paper bears all the traditional hallmarks of anti - Semitism : " obsessive and irrationally hostile beliefs about Jews " , accusations toward Jews of " disloyalty , subversion or treachery , of having occult powers and of participating in secret combinations that manipulate institutions and governments " , as well as selection of " everything unfair , ugly or wrong about Jews as individuals or a group " and equally systematical suppression of " any exculpatory information " . Mearsheimer and Walt have denied Cohen ' s assertions as false , dishonest and ridiculous , noting that criticism of Israeli state policy and influential American advocates of that policy , such as Cohen , is not the same thing as demonization of Jewish people . Chuck Hagel nomination . As did a good number in Chuck Hagel ' s own , Republican party , Cohen opposed the possible nomination by President Barack Obama of Hagel as U . S . Secretary of Defense in late 2012 . Cohen was quoted as saying : " If you have somebody there [ at Defense ] who ' s already made it clear that he does not want to engage in a confrontation with Iran , what kind of negotiating leverage do we have ? . . . You want to have as secretary of defense somebody who ' s the heavy . Somebody who ' s the guy who looks as if he ' s perfectly capable of waging war against you and happy to do it . That ' s just kind of elementary negotiating tactics . "