US-Islamic World Forum highlights US presidential election

Participants in the US-Islamic World Forum, which concludes later today, highlighted the US 2012 presidential election. The participants in today's discussion session included William. A. Galston, Senior Fellow for Governance Studies at Brookings Institution, Dalia Mogahed, Executive Director and Senior Analyst of the Gallup Centre For Muslim Studies, Shibley Telhami from the University of Maryland and Adraha, Michael Doran, Senior Fellow at Saban Center for Middle East Policy. The participants discussed a number of topics relating to the foreign policy directions of each US Candidates of the presidential election, due to be held on November 6, Democratic candidate and current President Barack Obama and the Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Public opinion polls on US foreign policy and the impact of the presidential elections on the Arab world, especially in the light of the Arab Spring and the mounting pressure inside the American administration on Iran's nuclear program as well as the Peace Process in the Middle East were also discussed during the session. In this context, participants tackled the most important points in Romney's white paper released under the title 'An American Century: A Strategy to Secure America's Enduring Interests and Ideals', which explains his foreign policy views, US National Security and Obama's foreign policy. Regarding the Syrian crisis, the participants discussed Romney's criticism of Obama's administration, which gave a lot of time to the Assad regime, calling at the same time the United States to work with its partners "to organize and arm Syrian opposition groups so they can defend themselves."