Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski, National Security Adviser of Jimmy Carter famously said that through diplomacy and the efficacious use of the country’s soft power the US can still remain a world power also in Obama’s second term. Understanding the thrust of the contemporary history the president can conveniently focus the administration’s efforts to implement a strategy that would revitalise the West and reconcile tension in the East making the US and the rest of the world safer from political and economic anomaly and, even from war. Tackling the troubles in West Asia is, it is thought, an ideal place to start. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, though in limbo, still an explosive one but can be resolved.

According to public opinion polls, most Israelis and the majority of American Jews would support a comprehensive compromise — a two-state solution based on adjusted frontiers from 1967 lines with some sharing of Jerusalem. The continuation of conflict and the continued expropriation of land in Palestinian territory by the Israelis now remains a source of much hostility in the region towards Israel.

If this problem is not resolved in this Obama term, it may go beyond resolution. Only by moving decisively and firmly without favouring one side and discriminating against the other will the US be able to mediate a two-state solution. That will also involve facing a difficult fact: that it was Netanyahu’s insistence on building settlements in order to colonise the West Bank that made it impossible to arrive at a compromise during Obama’s first term.

If the situation gets tragically out of hand Israel will become an isolated island in a politically awakened West Asia, a region in which its people’s are prepared to pay the high physical price required for sustained warfare. But if the US moves now to bring a real peace, before too long, Israel and Palestine could become the Singapore of West Asia.

The US can play a creative and constructive role both in Europe and Asia, but in different ways. Europe needs American involvement on its mainland, in the form of NATO; conversely, one could say, on the other hand, Asia should not have an American involvement in its mainland problem.

In the long run, the US cannot continue its military support for Taiwan. Under President Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger the US had more or less conceded that Taiwan was part of China. There is no way to renege on that without participating in a real conflict with the mainland. However, China’s policies are still evolving while Hong Kong for example, has complete internal autonomy, elements of China’s Army are stationed in Hong Kong as an integral part of China. But with regard to Taiwan the Chinese have made it clear that unification could involve.

China also has added benefit of having much more access to the world than the Soviet could do at a comparable phase of its development. Hundred of thousand of Chinese study abroad including 100,000 in the US. Access to Internet is a reality for its middle class — if not for the rural classes — and that is a token of very substantial political change. Supporting such outside contact for the Chinese will benefit the US.

Europe, however, needs Turkey because if it ceases to be a rapidly westernising and modernising country with European overtones, Europe itself will become more vulnerable to some of the seductions and violence surfacing in the Near East. Turkey in turn needs to be embraced by Europe so that it can consummate the ongoing efforts that were started under Atatürk almost a century ago. The Europeans would be making a fatal mistake to abort the process.

Putin’s return to the presidency may delay Russia’s becoming part of the European Union but it’s unlikely to scuttle the process. While Russia is superficially an authoritative and nationalistic state, with Putin clearly driven by nostalgia for Russia’s imperial past, the underlying reality is the emergence of a new middle class. There is little possibility of Russia’s recovering of imperial status. However, its new middle class rather Western in its orientation will reach out for power in a context of closer association with the West.

Brig (retd) Hafiz is a former DG of BIISS.