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The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.

When it comes to the Middle East, this is always a very difficult issue for any American president.

The situation of any leader in the Middle East is not easy.

When you project weakness throughout the world, and you have a failed foreign policy, this is what you get. And now we have chaos in the Middle East, have ISIS taking over Iraq, Syria, Northern Africa, Egypt.

The problem of the Middle East is poverty more than politics.

There is a real problem in terms of the refugee flow, the ability of ISIS to infiltrate those refugee flows, our inability to track them.

The conflict in the Middle East needs to be solved for the same reasons. It is necessary to reach a two-states solution, built on international law, for sustainable peace and development, and it can only be achieved through joint efforts by the international community.

I have long argued that ISIS and Assad are not separate problems to be chosen between, but are action and reaction, cause and symptom, chicken and egg: impossible to untangle no matter how much we might like to.

Like most Americans, I hope and wish is that there is a peaceful resolution to the Middle East conflict. Unfortunately, there are extremists on both sides who oppose a peaceful resolution and instead choose violence.

No matter what's happening in the Middle East - the Arab Spring, et cetera, the economic challenges, high rates of unemployment - the emotional, critical issue is always the Israeli-Palestinian one.