Kanan Makiya, author and architect born in Baghdad and trained as an architect at MIT, will discuss A Model for Post-Saddam Iraq at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum at 6:45 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 31. He will outline the kinds of discussions going on inside the Iraqi opposition, and the extent of U.S. interest in these ideas. He is the author of several book on Iraq, including Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq; and Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising and the Arab World, which won the Lionel Gelber Prize for best book on international relations.
He has also written extensively for the New York Times, New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Independent, under the pseudonym Samir al-Khali. In 1992 he acted as convener of the Human Rights Committee of the Iraqi National Congress, a transitional parliament based in Northern Iraq. His television documentary, "Saddam's Killing Fields," received the Edward R. Murrow Award in 1992. He now teaches at Brandeis University.
The lecture, sponsored by the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies and the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum, is free and open to the public. Seating is available on a first-come basis. For additional information contact the Athenaeum at 621-8244 or visit http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/mmca/.