Dr Simon Mabon is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Lancaster University, where he is also Director of the Richardson Institute. Mabon is the author of a range of books and articles relating to Middle Eastern politics and the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran in particular, most notably Saudi Arabia and Iran: Power and Rivalry in the Middle East (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015). He is currently working on a follow up, to be published in 2019, along with directing the Sectarianism, Proxies and ‘De-Sectarianisation’ Project (SEPAD), a Carnegie Corporation funded project that looks at the impact of the rivalry on the contemporary Middle East.