The Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center will be holding its fifth annual conference on Wednesday, December 8, and Thursday, December 9, 2021, to delve deeper into what to expect in 2022.

Observers in the Middle East will scrutinize President-elect Barack Obama's early speeches for hints on the new administration's policy in the region. Given the complexity of conflicts in the region, President-elect Obama should be clear and modest in his approach but should nonetheless articulate principles that will underlie the U.S. approach.

In order to fix democracy promotion, the United States must first restore its own credibility by setting and sticking to modest goals and toning down its rhetoric. Efforts must combine top-down pressure on governments with bottom-up pressure from civil society.

The Lebanon war was a war without winners. Trends indicate that if anything, the changes that are taking place are going in the wrong direction. This was a conflict where none of the participants achieved their objectives. The Carnegie Endowment, in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, hosted Marina Ottoway, Volker Perthes, and Amr Hamzawy to discuss implications of the Lebanon War.