Alex Vatanka

Alex Vatanka (Persian: آلکس وطنخواه) is a senior fellow and the founding director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C.

He is also a senior fellow in Middle East Studies at the US Air Force Special Operations School at Hurlburt Field and teaches as an adjunct professor at Wright-Patterson AFB.

As a senior fellow at Middle East Institute, Vatanka's research covers Iranian foreign and domestic affairs, including political-military relations and intra-regime power competition.

When Tehran has been able to make inroads in the region - specifically in Armenia and less so in Georgia - it has done so overwhelmingly because those states lack alternatives and not because of a convincing Iranian message."

The two main antagonists of the book are Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and the man who put him in that position, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.