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Middle Easterners are good at pointing fingers but have recently not been so good at finding solutions to serious problems facing the region, Middle East political professor Farideh Farhi said Tuesday night during a panel discussion arranged by the Juneau World Affairs Council.

The finger pointing was evident in more than one Middle East panel at the council's forum, when opposing sides on some of the world's most pressing problems discussed possible solutions. Even simple points spawned disagreement Tuesday.

"As Middle Easterners, whether we are Arabs, we are Iranians, we are Turks and Israelis, we are very good at pointing fingers. That's what we excel at amazingly," Farhi said. "In 2009, we are sitting in a world that is a lot worse in terms of the Middle East than it was 10 years ago."

Farhi, who teaches at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and taught at the University of Teheran and Shahid Behest in Iran in the 1990s, was a member Tuesday of the "Syria or Iran First?" panel. The panel discussed whether President Obama's campaign pledge to focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should take a back seat to the new developments in Iran and the warming U.S. relations with Syria.

Matthew R.J. Brodsky, a research fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C., said Syria's claim that it wants peace in the Middle East has not been genuine and that its rhetoric is aimed at gaining more regional power. The Syrian government's claim that it wants to help secure a peaceful exit of American troops from Iraq is laughable, he said.

Brodsky claims that 85 to 90 percent of suicide terrorists in Iraq have come through Iraq's Syrian border. The U.S. has seized documents that prove Syrian agents have brought weapons, passports and money into Iraq to fight American troops, he said.

"This is essentially the Syrian government, which has essentially for all intents and purposes, declared war on the United States," Brodsky said. "They have sent troops and people, money, they have done everything to kill American troops and they're talking about securing an exit for the United States? This is ridiculous."

Ahmed Salkini, a spokesman and political advisor of the Syrian ambassador to the United States since 2006, said many U.S. generals have said that fighters coming through the Syrian border carried out a very small percentage of attacks in Iraq. The border has two sides, and the Syrian government alone can't secure the entire border successfully, he said.

"It takes cooperation. A previous (U.S.) administration did not want to cooperate, even if it cost American lives," Salkini said. "This administration is realizing you have to cooperate in order to save American lives, in order to advance U.S. interests and that's what we're looking forward into the future. Let's cooperate."

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a journalist and expert on the Middle East, said the United States should not trust the Syrian government because Syria has a track record of saying one thing and doing another and remains a police state.

"Just to prove how the Syrian government has two faces in dealing with things, they say stuff to foreign media that's different (than) what they say in Arab media," he said. "What you hear from Syrian officials everywhere around the world, you don't hear, read actually, in state run newspapers and editorials."

The real key to American success in the region is opening dialogue with the different powers in the region, Salkini said.

"Let's push it further. Let's see where dialogue will get us," Salkini said. "Not talking we've tried and it's failed. Let's give dialogue a chance."

Farhi believes the U.S. cannot continue the foreign policy measures it took following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The U.S. and Middle East countries must mutually acknowledge they have different regional interests and accommodate some of each others' interests.

"Without that, we are going to have continuation of war forever," Farhi said. "That's the reality of the Middle East."