On Wednesday the New America Foundation, a public policy think tank, sponsored a forum dedicated to answering one question: How can the next president make the Middle East irrelevant?

Unsurprisingly, the consensus amongst those attending was that should the Democrats win the White House in November a major overhaul in policy and strategy is needed.

Greg Craig, the senior national security adviser on Barack Obama's campaign, told the forum that Obama's background would prove a strength when dealing with Iran, whose nuclear program has sparked a stand-off with Western powers.LINK