The US will need multi-faceted approaches in the Middle East to achieve an effective strategy, former US Special Envoy for Peace in the Middle East David Hale says.
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00:00I mean clearly we've got four fascinating years ahead of us and with
00:04regards to what's happening in the Middle East, developments had already
00:07begun these last few months. You allude to Iran, we've seen the toppling of
00:13Bashar al-Assad in Syria, we've seen the demise of significant leaders in Hamas,
00:18in Hezbollah, in a number of organisations. I mean just to sort of sum
00:23up really, I mean does all of this, do all of the dots when you join them, does
00:28everything lead back to Iran or are there other factors at play here as well?
00:31I do see Iran as the major challenge. Up until this campaign they had been
00:39setting the agenda and the tone and the pace for the rest of us, we were all
00:43responding. The Israelis have changed that, so now the question for an incoming
00:48administration is how do you go from here? And there are other issues, I'm
00:52not saying it's all about Iran, but Iran is able to exploit the weaknesses and
00:55vulnerabilities that we all know exist in the Middle East, the states that are
01:00weak, the issues that are unresolved. And so we need multifaceted approaches, one
01:05that's focused on Iran but also strategies that deal with local problems,
01:09whether it's in Lebanon to really bring home the reorientation of a country away
01:13from Iran, whether it's to deal with this emerging situation in Syria, Turkey is
01:17ascendant, these are all questions that the administration's going to have to
01:20knit together into a strategy that makes sense.