Samuel Helfont is an assistant professor of Strategy and Policy in the Naval War College program at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. His research focuses on international history in the Middle East. He is the author of "Iraq against the World: Saddam, America, and the Post-Cold War Order" (Oxford 2023), and "Compulsion in Religion: Saddam Hussein, Islam, and the Roots of Insurgencies in Iraq" (Oxford 2018). Prior to his current position, he completed a post-doctoral lectureship at the University of Pennsylvania.