Several major factors will affect the situation in the Middle East in the next decade. First is the eastward shift of the United States' strategic focus.

After World War II, the US invested its strategic resources heavily in the Middle East to maintain its dominant position in the region. But the shift of the world's economic and political focus to the Asia-Pacific region at the beginning of the 21st century, combined with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the global financial crisis, forced Washington to change its global strategy. So it shifted its strategic focus to Asia-Pacific and curtailed its investment in the Middle East.

On assuming office in 2009, US President Barack Obama spelled out his Middle East goals as withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, finding ways to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and devising a strategy to check Iran's nuclear ambitions.