Colourful tourist brochures depicting a picture of cultural diversity, a rich history and a blue sea sharply contrast the doom and gloom over the Mediterranean region’s present and future outlined at the Mediterranean Leadership Summit yesterday.

The dim lighting in the large conference hall at the Hilton helped put the spotlight on the panel but did little to detract from the bleak picture painted by the speakers of a Mediterranean region plagued by conflict and tension.

Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle Eastern politics at the London School of Economics, provided what was probably the most dramatic description of the situation in the Middle East. “This is the most dangerous moment faced by the Middle East… There is an organic crisis that encapsulates State and society,” he said.

The underlying problem of countries like Syria was the failure to build the State, economically, politically and socially.

This is the most dangerous moment faced by the Middle East… There is an organic crisis that encapsulates State and society

But there was also an injection of real politik from Paddy Ashdown, the former leader of the UK Liberal Democrats and former EU High Representative for Bosnia Herzegovina.

Taking to task the western world’s fixation that world problems can be solved with “high explosives”, he insisted in Syria the world powers failed to build a “diplomatic coalition” as they argued for Bashar Assad’s removal.

The solution had to span the Muslim Sunni-Shia divide, he added, which did not happen and allowed regional powers like Saudi Arabi and Iran to take opposing stands by supporting sympathetic groups.

“A similar situation developed in Libya where high explosives were used but no diplomatic coalition was formed to help the country transition to peace in the aftermath,” Lord Ashdown said.

In Syria, he continued, the situation had developed to an extent that any solution would have to include Assad as an interlocutor.

Prof. Gerges said the reality on the ground, unpalatable as it was, showed that dislodging Assad would create a political vacuum that would be filled by radical Islamist groups like the Nusra Front and Islamic State.

“The democratic opposition in Syria is the weakest link in the chain,” he added.

And if the gloom fest was not enough, Lord Ashdown insisted the EU countries seemed to have lost the will to deal with the migration challenge together. The numbers reaching European borders were small when compared to the population of Europe, he added, and, yet, the pressure on certain countries was disproportionate.

“If you do not use your humanity to solve the migration crisis you are left with barbed wire,” he said.

There was some light at the end of the tunnel though. Former Italian prime minister and European Commissioner Mario Monti said the Iran nuclear deal was a victory for EU diplomacy. While in Syria the EU was largely absent, the bloc had an important role to play through its Foreign Affairs Representative, Federica Mogherini, in the Iran deal, Mr Monti said.

The Mediterranean Leadership Summit is organised by The Economist Events, a subsidiary of the renowned international magazine by the same name.

The summit ends today and is expected to be addressed by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.

‘Britain, France lacked vision for post-Gaddafi Libya’

James Rubin. Photo: CNG fotography

Britain and France did not have the “wherewithal to lead” the post-war reconstruction in Libya, according to a former US government official.

James Rubin, a former assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration, said the European powers were eager to help overthrow Muammar Gaddafi but had no plan for nation-building afterwards.

“The appetite to intervene, which was the correct thing to do, was not followed through after Gaddafi was removed and this contributed to the chaos that developed afterwards,” he said.

However, Mr Rubin also blames the US for taking a backseat role in Libya. He said the US “over learnt” its lesson in Iraq and adopted a policy of leading from behind. “I wish President [Barack] Obama had not made preventing another Iraq a predominant feature of his thinking because this put the US in a position of leading from behind. It seemed like a clever idea but one, two, three years down the line, look at what happened in Libya,” Mr Rubin said.

He was speaking to the Times of Malta on the sidelines of the Mediterranean Leadership Summit organised by The Economist, where he was one of the keynote speakers.

Mr Rubin acknowledged that nation-building was complicated and very difficult but planning had to start before intervening in Libya. “It required a strong leader to negotiate the terms of engagement with the rebels on condition that disarmament happened afterwards and a peace-keeping mission be deployed on the ground when the job was done,” Mr Rubin said. But he shunned the argument that Libya would have been better off with Col. Gaddafi.

“The revolution in Libya was started by the Libyans and had western powers not intervened we would have been spectators to a massacre in Benghazi at the hands of Gaddafi’s troops… Can you imagine what people would have said then?”

He pointed at the Kosovo experience, where military intervention worked because it had international legitimacy, there was political will to see it through and was backed by a post-war plan.

“Kosovo may be a small country and it is in Europe but it worked. We also saw the fastest repatriation of refugees. It was not all perfect… It shows that, with leadership, shown by the US at the time, nation-building can be done,” he said.