Ali Allawi served in the Iraqi government immediately following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and has since then been one of the more resounding voices discussing the challenges on the ground and in the region. Appointed by the Interim Iraq Governing Council in 2003, he served as both Minister of Trade and Minister of Defense, and he served as Minister of Finance in the Iraqi Transitional Government. Allawi is the author of The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace and The Crisis of Islamic Civilization (2009), which was praised by The New York Times Book Review as “…the most comprehensive historical account of the disastrous aftermath of the American invasion.” Allawi has also served as a professor at Oxford University and a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.