A seminar at the NATO Defence College, Rome, on 4/5 March this year took place in a particularly interesting international context, only a few weeks after the end of the war in Gaza, the new American president taking office and the general election in Israel.

Some 40 high-ranking personalities representing the principal NATO member states, the Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, as well as prestigious research centres (RAND, CSIS, IISS, IFRI, INSS, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, German Marshall Fund) and universities (Harvard, Sorbonne), debated developments in the new American administration’s Middle Eastern foreign policy, in the presence of journalists from the dailies Al-Hayat, Gulf News and Haaretz.

Report

The new American administration has decided to develop its policy in the Middle East region. The personality of President Obama is a key factor. He is perceived as pragmatic, with deep convictions that lead him to want to ‘get things moving’ in the Middle East. He will not hesitate to take political risks in order to achieve his aims (he would not have got to where he is if he had not taken some major ones). Everything indicates that he will not restrict himself to management of the financial crisis, but that he will involve himself personally in order to leave his mark on the Middle East (even if only to capitalise on any success that might compensate for the lack of results in the financial crisis, if that situation continues to deteriorate). He is aware that the major challenge for the United States lies in restoring its image in that region, undoubtedly at its lowest historical level.