Kanan Makiya is an Iraqi-American author, academic, and former architect. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, he grew up there before leaving in 1968 to study architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After his studies, he returned to Iraq and joined his father's architectural firm, Makiya Associates, contributing to projects across the Middle East with branch offices in London. In 1981, disillusioned with the Ba'athist regime, he abandoned architecture to focus on writing about Iraq's political repression, initially publishing under the pseudonym Samir al-Khalil. His seminal work, Republic of Fear (1989), provided a scathing analysis of Saddam Hussein's totalitarian rule and gained prominence following Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. He followed this with Cruelty and Silence (1991), criticizing the Arab intelligentsia's silence on Iraqi atrocities. As a prominent Iraqi exile and advocate for democracy and human rights, Makiya lobbied the U.S. government in 2003 to intervene militarily and remove Hussein from power. He holds the position of professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University and is recognized as an orientalist.