Attiya Ahmad

For many, an interest in the natural resources of the Middle East begins and ends with oil. However, in a region where systems of agriculture and manufacturing are threatened by increasing desertification and pervasive aridity, the amount, distribution, and control of water is drawing increased international attention.

Social globalization has brought groups with different values and worldviews into contact with each other—in a physical and institutional sense to be sure, but also in the sense that the international exchange of ideas, information, and images has increased. This exchange occurs in both directions; American readers can reflect on the fervor in U.S.

Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here to open this important event.

As I started to think about what I wanted to say today, a series of events came to mind: Fort Hood, Texas, 2009; Times Square, New York City, 2010; Boston, 2013; Paris last January; Madrid 2004; and London 2005. I also thought of Oklahoma City in 1995, Oslo and Utoya Island in 2011, and the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin in 2012. Each involved citizens or residents of the country concerned.

Esteemed Colleagues, Ladies, and Gentlemen,

On behalf of the EU Head of Delegation and Ambassador David O’Sullivan, I would like to thank The Middle East Institute and the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique for organizing this conference and for their efforts in leading this dialogue on countering violent extremism.

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Three months after Saudi Arabia rounded up a few allies and began an intensive bombing campaign against the rebels known as Houthis across the border in Yemen, a conventional wisdom has developed. “It has not worked,” as The New York Times put it in a front-page article, and it probably can’t work because the strategic goals are too murky, the factions are too entrenched, the rivalries are too intense, and the conflict is too complicated to be resolved by a simplistic solution.

Renewable energy accounts for an ever-growing share of worldwide electricity generation capacity. Solar power, in particular, is on the rise globally. Indeed, within a decade solar power could become the most inexpensive source of electricity in many regions, including in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This essay examines the growth trajectory of solar energy in the MENA region and its relationship to developments in Asian, notably Chinese and Japanese, solar markets.

Despite the barrel bombs and chlorine gas, despite the threat from extremists—both religious and political—and despite the punishing dearth of resources, Syrian civil society continues to provide and protect. Though relatively little is written about it, Syrian civil society is remarkably active.

Saudi Arabia is a Sunni-majority state and home to a significant Shi‘i minority, most of whom live in the Eastern Province. The Shi‘a there are mainly of the Twelver sect, which is also the major Shi‘i sect in Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and Bahrain. The Eastern Province Twelvers are not the only Shi‘a in Saudi Arabia—there are sizable communities of Twelvers in Medina and Isma‘ilis in Najran—but it is they who sit at the center of the Shi‘i political movement in the kingdom.

After more than four years of war, former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford sees a fragmented country emerging, with six or more fluid and shifting zones of control:

**An Alawi/Hezbollah-controlled area along the Lebanese border and the Mediterranean coast, backed by Iran and Russia;