A hugely influential foreign policy guru, Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Politicized as a student during the Vietnam years, Haass toiled in the trenches at the State Department in the early '80s, then moved on to the world of wonkdom with posts at Brookings Institute (where he was director of Foreign Policy Studies), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He served on the National Security Council during the Bush Sr. administration before Colin Powell appointed him chief of the policy planning division at the State Department, a job that included planning for Afghanistan in the wake of post-Sept. 11th military action. He stepped down to take the Council on Foreign Relations post in mid-2003, following the departure of Les Gelb.

A relative dove, Haass has been outspoken about his view that military force isn't always the most effective diplomatic tool, and has warned publicly that, thanks to the war, America's ability to act unilaterally has been diminished. Generally an advocate of engaging world powers rather than standing in opposition to them, Haass drew flak for inviting notorious Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to meet with members of CFR in 2006. (Members of the CFR like Hank Greenberg and Mort Zuckerman threatened to resign over the invite, but later backed down.) Haass is a frequent sight on TV political chat shows, and also regularly weighs in with op-ed pieces and articles in scholarly journals like CFR's own Foreign Affairs. [Image via Getty]