About the Author

Ali is an author and commentator on Middle Eastern politics and economics with a particular focus on Saudi Arabia. After a career in banking based out of Riyadh and Dubai, he retired from finance to write. Ali has also authored The Saudi Kingdom: Between the Jihadi Hammer and the Iranian Anvil, published as part of the Princeton University Series on the Middle East. He is widely published in elite media, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and Foreign Policy, among other publications. Ali is a graduate of Princeton University with a BA in politics and of the Harvard Business School with an MBA.