Ali Bakir is a nonresident senior fellow with the "Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative" at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. He is also a professor at Qatar University’s Ibn Khaldon Center for Humanities and Social Sciences. Bakir has over 15 years of professional experience working with senior officials, decision-makers, and stakeholders for governmental, non-governmental, and private sector institutions in the MENA region. Before joining Qatar University, he worked as the Head of the "Gulf Studies Unit" at the Middle East Studies Center, senior researcher at the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies of the International Strategic Research Organization, and a researcher and senior editor at (AIWA) Group for defense and economy. Bakir follows closely the strategic, geopolitical, security, and inter-regional trends and dynamics in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Gulf security, Gulf – Turkey ties, as well as Turkey’s foreign and defense policies. His latest scholarly work on this issue is “Turkey’s Security Role in the Gulf Region: Exploring the case of a newcomer”.