¬¬MAHA YAHYA is director of the Carnegie Middle East Center, where her work focuses broadly on geopolitical dynamics, identity politics and political violence, governance, socio-economic challenges and inequality. She has two PhDs in the social sciences and humanities from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Architectural Association (AA) in London. She has consulted with international organizations including the United Nations organizations and the World Bank as well the private sector on a broad range of issues in among other countries Lebanon, Pakistan, Oman, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. She serves and has served on a number of advisory boards including the UNESCO international commission on the Futures of Education;is a global member of the Trilateral Commission;and the advisory board of the Political Science Institute at the Universite St Joseph. Yahya is the author of numerous publications, including most recently author of The Fatal Flaw of the new Middle East;co-author of Russia’s Balancing Act in the Levant;The Middle East is on the brink again;author and editor How Border Peripheries are Changing the Nature of the Arab State (Palgrave) author of Unheard Voices: What Syrian refugees need to return home (April 2018);editor of Contentious Politics in the Syrian Conflict: Opposition, Representation, and Resistance, co editor of Visualizing Secularism and Religion, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, India