Sharjah: A leading political analyst has said that US President Barack Obama should reassess US policy in the region and focus on solving the main conflicts in the Gulf in order to succeed as president.

"There are three main axes of crisis in the Middle East, which are the Israeli-Arab crisis, the Gulf crisis, and the war in Afghanistan," said Professor Gilles Kepel, the director of Doctoral Studies on the Arab/Muslim World at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris.

Kepel was speaking at a conference on Monday on "American Government, Politics and Policy under President Obama".

The conference was organised by the American University in Washington and the American University of Sharjah.

Kepel said that while Obama wanted a more balanced policy for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and initially did so by encouraging Israel to put more effort on their part and freeze colony construction, the problem was now a deadlock in the situation.

Kepel said that the Gulf crisis also involved the issue of Iraq.

He stressed that this is a key point that Obama should concentrate on if he did not want to lose the mid-term election.

"If [Obama] does not want to lose the mid-term elections, the pullout [in Iraq] should not be a disaster. There has to be an agreement with Saudi Arabia so that Sunnis will be provided for, and also make sure that Iran's power is limited," since their interference in Iraq is currently in question. Therefore, Obama has to make a decision that will satisfy both the Sunnis and the Shiites.

"The war in Afghanistan has now gotten out of control and nobody knows what to do in Washington. There needs to be a major reassessment in the policy for this region," he said.

Analysts also focused on Obama's attitude and the need to enforce stricter policies in order for the peace process to work.

"If there is any fault with him, it is that he has inflated the expectations of Muslims, the Arab World and Americans. He has to refocus on the Middle East and be more aggressive in the peace process because with the right-wing conservative government of Netanyahu, we will not see [peace] soon," said Professor Abdulkhaliq Abdullah, a professor of Political Science at UAE University (UAEU).

Abdullah also stressed that even if Obama has good intentions for the region, there is a limit to his power of capabilities due to the constraints of institutions in Washington that bind him.