The Arab Strategy Forum is an annual conference, held in

Dubai Dubai (Help:IPA/English, /duːˈbaɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''doo-BYE''; Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic: ; Emirati Arabic, Emirati Arabic: , Romanization of Arabic, romanized: Help:IPA/English, /diˈbej/) is the Lis ...

, United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is managed by the Ruler of Dubai,

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (; born 15 July 1949) is an Emirati politician and royal who is the current ruler of Dubai, and serves as the vice president and prime minister of the UAE. Mohammed succeeded his brother Maktoum bin Rashid ...

. It stated aim is to be a platform for public and private sector leaders to develop future strategies. Arab_Strategy_Forum_2018

Launch

Launched in 2004, originally as a biennial three-day event titled the Dubai Strategy Forum, the Forum was conceived to promote debate on policy in the Arab world. It was renamed the Arab Strategy Forum in 2006. The keynote address at the inaugural forum was given by former US President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

. It was relaunched in 2009 under the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation. In 2015 it published a report costing the

Arab Spring The Arab Spring () was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings, and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began Tunisian revolution, in Tunisia ...

at $833.7 billion (attributing this to losses in GDP, drops in tourism; stock and financial market losses and drops in Foreign Direct Investment). In 2016, addressing the forum,

Leon Panetta Leon Edward Panetta (born June 28, 1938) is an American retired politician and government official who has served under several Democratic administrations as secretary of defense (2011–2013), director of the CIA (2009–2011), White House chi ...

, former director of the CIA and former US Secretary of Defence, together with former British Prime Minister

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. Until 2015, he led the first coalition government in the UK s ...

, jointly called for a regional alliance against terrorism. Panetta asserted such a coalition “could be a powerful signal to Iran that it can’t go into countries as it did in Yemen and Syria.” The forum has often hosted contradictory views. In 2015 former British Foreign Secretary

William Hague William Jefferson Hague, Baron Hague of Richmond (born 26 March 1961) is a British politician and life peer who was Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1997 to 2001 and Deputy Leader from 2005 to 2010. He was th ...

pointed to the growing threat of

Daesh The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS occupied signif ...

, while in 2014

Francis Fukuyama Francis Yoshihiro Fukuyama (; born October 27, 1952) is an American political scientist, political economist, and international relations scholar, best known for his book '' The End of History and the Last Man'' (1992). In this work he argues th ...

claimed the threat posed by the group had been overblown by media and the US. In 2018 both former French President Francois Hollande and former US Defense Secretary

Robert Gates Robert Michael Gates (born September 25, 1943) is an American intelligence analyst and university president who served as the 22nd United States secretary of defense from 2006 to 2011. He was appointed by President George W. Bush and retained b ...

used the Forum as a platform to roundly condemn the US decision to open an embassy in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

References

{{Reflist Events in Dubai International conferences in the United Arab Emirates Recurring events established in 2004