Kanan Makiya

Iraqi-born professor Kanan Makiya teaches Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at Brandeis University, outside Boston. He is one of the leading Arab intellectuals who called for the removal of Saddam Hussein; he also advised the Bush administration before the invasion of Iraq.

Iraqi dissident writer Kanan Makiya wrote, under the pseudonym Samir al-Khalil, the book "Republic of Fear," about Saddam Hussein's regime. It was one of the first alarms about the brutality of Hussein's regime. Makiya has a new book, "Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising and the Arab World," in which he criticizes Arab intellectuals for keeping silent over escalating cruelties in the Arab world.