Dr Ranj Alaaldin is a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Doha Center and Director of a Carnegie Corporation project on proxy warfare in the Middle East, which includes a Track II initiative focused on de-escalation mechanisms in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen. He was previously a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University and specializes in governance and human security issues in the Middle East. Alaaldin directs a project with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation on public sector reforms in the region and has published with peer-reviewed journals, the New York Times, Washington Post and Foreign Affairs.