Geneive Abdo

Geneive Abdo is a resident scholar at the Arabia Foundation where she specializes in political Islam and Iranian geopolitics. She was previously a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and the liaison officer for the Alliance of Civilizations, a UN initiative which aims to improve relations between Islamic and Western societies. Prior to joining the United Nations, Ms. Abdo spent twenty years as a Middle East correspondent for The Guardian, The Economist, and The International Herald Tribune. She was the first American journalist to be based in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Ms. Abdo is a lecturer at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University and the author of four books, including The New Sectarianism: The Arab Uprisings and the Rebirth of the Shi’a-Sunni Divide. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy Magazine, the Washington Post, and other major publications.