U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday that the future of his country is bound to the Middle East region by forces of "economics and security; history and faith," calling for a change of U.S. policy dealing with the region.
In his major speech on the Middle East policy, Obama said for decades the United States has pursued a set of core interests in the region, such as countering terrorism and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, securing the free flow of commerce, and safe- guarding the security of the region, standing up for Israel's security and pursuing Arab-Israeli peace.
But he admitted that a strategy "based solely upon the narrow pursuit of these interests" and a failure to change the U.S. approach threaten a "deepening spiral of division" between the United States and Muslim communities.