Colin H. Kahl is the inaugural Steven C. Hazy senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies' Center for International Security and Cooperation and a strategic consultant at the Penn-Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. From 2014 to 2017, he was deputy assistant to President Barack Obama and national security advisor to Vice President Joe Biden. From 2009 to 2011, he served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East. In 2011, he was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service by Secretary Robert Gates. He lives in Redwood City, CA. with his wife and two children. Kahl is a co-editor of Shadow Government.
Mourners wait for the funeral procession of the Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani, and eight others outside the Imam Abbas mosque in Karbala, Iraq, on Jan. 4.
Donald Trump answers a final question while departing a press conference following his historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un June 12, 2018 in Singapore. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 10: U.S. President Barack Obama speaks while meeting with President-elect Donald Trump (L) following a meeting in the Oval Office November 10, 2016 in Washington, DC. Trump is scheduled to meet with members of the Republican leadership in Congress later today on Capitol Hill. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 01: U.S. President Donald Trump announces his decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement in the Rose Garden at the White House June 1, 2017 in Washington, DC. Trump pledged on the campaign trail to withdraw from the accord, which former President Barack Obama and the leaders of 194 other countries signed in 2015. The agreement is intended to encourage the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to limit global warming to a manageable level. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
TOPSHOT - US forces, accompanied by Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) fighters, drive their armoured vehicles near the northern Syrian village of Darbasiyah, on the border with Turkey on April 28, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / DELIL SOULEIMAN (Photo credit should read DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/Getty Images)
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (R) shakes hands on January 14, 2015 with US State Secretary John Kerry in Geneva. Zarif said on January 14 that his meeting with his US counterpart was vital for progress on talks on Tehran's contested nuclear drive. Under an interim deal agreed in November 2013, Iran's stock of fissile material has been diluted from 20 percent enriched uranium to five percent, in exchange for limited sanctions relief. AFP PHOTO / POOL / RICK WILKING (Photo credit should read RICK WILKING/AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 12: U.S. President Barack Obama (C) delivers the State of the Union speech before members of Congress in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol January 12, 2016 in Washington, DC. In his last State of the Union, President Obama reflected on the past seven years in office and spoke on topics including climate change, gun control, immigration and income inequality. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
TOPSHOT - US President Donald Trump speaks during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, February 15, 2017. / AFP / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
Several hundred people, holding up portraits of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin (L), gather near the Russian embassy in Damascus on October 13, 2015 to express their support for Moscow's air war in Syria, just before two rockets struck the embassy compound sparking panic among the crowd. AFP PHOTO/LOUAI BESHARA / AFP / LOUAI BESHARA (Photo credit should read LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty Images)
