The United States’ importance to the world order, with the Middle East at the heart of it, cannot be overemphasized. Similarly, the importance of the US President cannot be overemphasized. Regardless of the clichés about the “state of institutions” in Washington, or the enormous power of the Congress and other forces within the official and non-official American state apparatus, perhaps no one on earth is as capable of mobilizing military and economic resources, or exploiting soft power, as the US President. It is true that sometimes the US presidency encounters bouts of weakness, perhaps due to the nature of the electoral system and the length of presidential terms, or perhaps due to the character of the president himself, who may prove an abject failure or encounter a personal dilemma. Richard Nixon’s “Watergate” scandal crippled the US administration for many months and had quite an impact on the country and the wider world. To another degree we can recall Jimmy Carter’s failure to deal with the US hostage crisis in Iran, and America’s inability to push forward the Egyptian-Israeli peace process. Further examples include Ronald Reagan’s “Iran-Contra” scandal, Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, and George W. Bush’s acknowledgement that his war in Iraq was flawed. It is noteworthy that all these crises took place during the second term in office of each president. In other democratic states, such scandals would have been sufficient to cripple the state’s internal and external mobility, yet none of these crises have undermined the US president’s ability or stature in the world, for he remains the one who sets the agenda and determines the future of war and peace.

Barack Obama began his second term of office amidst less frenzied circumstances than his first. This time we did not see the tearful eyes of leading African-American figure Jessie Jackson, who had heralded the realization of Martin Luther King’s dream, nor was Obama’s election likened to a new beginning for humanity. It is true that President Obama has made some considerable achievements but none of them will ensure he goes down in history as a great president, even if he is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. His most notable accomplishments have been the avoidance or aversion of catastrophes. The US has ridden the wave of the economic crisis, yet it will be a long time before its economy flourishes again. It withdrew from Iraq but only after creating problems that are no less thorny than those the country experienced during the days of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. It seems almost inevitable that Afghanistan will return to Taliban rule, whether amended or otherwise. As for the Middle East, the peace process has come to a deadlock. Furthermore, Obama now seems less interested in achieving harmony between Islamic states and the West. Perhaps Obama will go down in history for functioning as an innovative and open leader rather than a closed one, and this requires further elaboration because it will be the basis for identifying America’s policies in the future.

Barack Obama’s ascension to power marked a victory for the alliance between diversity and modern technology. Obama is an expert in this and is well aware of how to use the young generations for his advantage. It seems that we sometimes forget the Marxist wisdom behind the fundamental change in the forces in production. Ever since the last decade of the 20th century, we have talked extensively about “globalization” and the global technological revolution, but we have failed to grasp what this means in reality; the relationship between production, ideas and values. Most importantly, we have failed to realize the balance of power between those situated inside this new historical process, and those that find themselves outside it. Obama formed such an alliance [between diversity and modern technology] in the US, which, alongside other elements, granted him victory for his first presidential term and brought him to the White House. This alliance also contributed to his victory in the second term, but Romney was a different candidate to McCain and the Republican Party’s status was somewhat weaker second time round. Furthermore, this same alliance has allowed Obama to achieve his few accomplishments, such as revitalizing American industry, providing the country with the opportunity to be self-sufficient in energy, and handling severe environmental disasters such as the huge oil spill in the Mexican Gulf or Hurricane Sandy that ravaged the eastern coast of the US.

President Obama’s approach in his second term will not be markedly different to his first, but he will be more confident in it. At the end of his first term, before taking oath for a second time, Obama found common ground with the Republicans to avoid the “fiscal cliff”. Yet we cannot neglect the fact that he offered considerable concessions to do so, which suggests that the “socialist” Obama has gone for good, and that now is the time to concentrate on economic growth. Of course, this is not for the sake of the US alone, but also for the sake of its allies, especially those in Europe and Japan where Obama is seeking to expand further.

It is natural for us to question what role the Middle East and the Arab region will play in Obama’s policies during his second term. As for Obama himself, he is constricted by a group of well-known constants on which US policy has been built ever since World War II, whether on the European side, represented by NATO and the European Union, or on the Asia Pacific, side represented by Japan, Australia and South Korea. Overcoming the economic crisis is America’s main aim, alongside confronting or placating Russia and Iran. There are also other objectives as Obama is keen for his new alliance to open ground in China and India as well as in other developing states in Asia and Central and South America.

Simply put, the world is large and time is short. Hence Obama has no interest in dealing with the Middle East as long as Iran cannot produce a nuclear bomb and Israel’s security remains impregnable. He is happy only to deal with crisis management in the region from time to time. At one point, President Obama thought that the Middle East could be a springboard for his new alliance, either through Arab-Israeli peace or through the “Arab Spring”. However, Arab-Israeli peace remains prisoner to a century of struggles, and the states of the Arab Spring have found out that it is easier to regress fourteen centuries back in time than catch up with the 21st century.