kim ghattas speaks. we will sit up here and i will ask some questions and ca then e your questions from the cards area to pleas please join me ing kim ghattas to the stage. [applause] good evening, everybody. it's a delight to be here this evening. thank you for the very generous introduction and for. i see in the front of my good friend. thank you for helping to make this happen. i am really delighted to be back in texas. i haven't been here in a very long time and i must complain about the weather but this gives me a good excuse to return. as any bucket is the result of the journey and every writing endeavor is a journey many of you i'm sure have written books this is a journey more of the writing. as the combination of body experience growing up in the region as a child of war and in beirut. i wanted to write a story about that region that isn't a typical story about the region. experts sitting here this evening. i wanted to write our story because i had questions that ii did not find the answers to i

i want to talk about all of this with kim ghattas, a veteran middle east reporter and the author of athe cold war between iran and saudi arabia called "black wave." kim, a pleasure to have you on. explain how you came to write this book. because there's a personal angle. >> there was a personal angle. i was trying to answer the question of what happened to us. unlike what most people think today, particularly in the west, the middle east wasn't always this torn. we've always had upheaval but not to this extent. there are three misconceptions i think people have about the region. one, they believe iran and saudi arabia have always been enemies. it's not true. they became rivals in 1979 after the iran revolution, before that, they were twin pillars in the u.s. policy in the region. they were friendly competitors. the other mistake is to think that sunnis and shias have always had sectarian violence between them. that is also not true. the theological divide is real but over the course of history sunnis and shias have probably killed each other less than catholics and protestants. it's j

i'd like to welcome our special event this evening with kim ghattas who is going to speak on her recent book, "black wave: saudi arabia, iran and the forty-year rivalry that unrivaled culture, religion and collective memory in the middle east." i spend the week reading it. i didn't quite get through if

foreign policy, kim ghattas author of "black wave" on the ongoing btle to dominate the region. >>> pruson't ultimately see a situation where you have any kind of seismic shift. >>> "the washington post" winfield cunningham tells our