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The West should look deeper into environmental and cultural issues in the Middle East instead of simply considering it to be a place where terrorists operate, Dr. Akl Kairouz, a political science professor at Notre Dame University, told RT.

RT: US President Barack Obama vowed to end the war in Iraq and get out of the region. Now we see him fighting off calls to put boots on the ground in Syria. Where is all this heading?

Akl Kairouz: The issues that really we are missing and that the world powers are missing is that they are not understanding the environmental, the cultural area here in the Middle East. They are looking at the war as being simply done by groups of terrorists, people who are killing and murdering, etc. This is not the issue. The issue is the ideological, religious war that is really deeply…in the hearts and souls of those people. They are brainwashed: they know what they want and they don’t feel anything, they are ready to go to any lengths, to any type of murdering or activities in order to achieve their objectives. Their objectives are really to fight for Allah, for God – and the God of their own that they have created, not the God that Islam created, not the God that Christians created, their own God, a general, someone who is willing to fight war and they want to be his solders. This is the issue that we come around.

RT: The first strikes came just ahead of the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly. Is the timing significant?

AK: It doesn’t make any difference, it is all superficial. Those strikes came late. Definitely they have a certain advantage that they might stop the advances of ISIS, but this is not the solution. The solution has to come from the people in this area, the governments in this region who are going to stand up. Do they want to have a secular society or do they want to have a society based on religious principles?

RT: Why would the US carry out these airstrikes before getting the UN General Assembly’s approval? Why wouldn’t they just wait for some kind of global support?

AK: In my opinion, the UN is only the organization that has been used for personal propaganda or maybe by some powers. In reality has the UN so far been able to resolve any international conflict? No. Yet no conflict has been properly resolved by the UN. Look at Cyprus, look at Korea, look at Nigeria, and look at Lebanon. Now we have Ukraine, the Middle East. What is the UN? The UN is a forum where leaders come in to demonstrate their oratory, blame each other and try to use perhaps some propaganda for their own country to or justify their own behavior. Where are the leaders today? The international leaders of the world, where are they? Who are they?

RT: Do you support those who criticize the Norwegian Nobel Committee for awarding Obama a peace prize in 2009?In your opinion, does Obama really deserve this prize?

AK: I do support those who criticize the fact that this Nobel Prize was supposed to be for peace, for those people who are promoting peace, the culture of peace everywhere in the world. President Obama – with all my due respect – he is not [promoting peace]. What is he doing? Not being involved does not serve peace and being involved sometimes in the wrong manner does not serve peace. So in reality I don’t see what really President Obama brought to the world community today – economically, politically, militarily – that contributed to peace. Therefore, this entire issue was an issue of giving some people little bit more: they have the power, they maybe want to have a sort of propaganda for someone, or little bit of advertisement, or [promotion for] somebody. In reality, I personally feel, it was not done in a proper manner.