Bill Clinton: Middle East ‘not all a bad news story’

The American presidential election campaign is picking up speed. And as presidential candidate Hillary Clinton travels across the US to meet what she calls “everyday Americans”, people are wondering whether Bill Clinton is helping or hurting her prospects.

So far, the former US president has remained at the sidelines, occupied with a busy schedule of his own. He is devoting time and energy to his Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative, an effort to focus the attention of international leaders on problems facing the developing world.

”They

by ”Bill

will probably try… to make every problem we have look like it was her [Hillary’s] fault.”]

Ironically, he is particularly involved in the region that created more headaches than any other for his wife when she was Secretary of State: the Middle East and North Africa.

Recently, he travelled to Morocco, a country that seems to have weathered the storm of the so-called Arab Spring.

High on the agenda of the first “Clinton Global Initiative, Middle East and Africa” meeting in Marrakech were development issues, the conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya and ISIL, and the potential game-changer: a nuclear deal with Iran.

Aside from the Middle East, Bill Clinton is using his influence and name recognition to raise funds for programmes in Africa to fight HIV/AIDS and Ebola.

But apart from all that, Clinton sees a dramatic geopolitical change on the horizon. He is convinced that the 21st century will be shaped by what is about to happen on the African continent. 

We discuss the challenges facing the Middle East, what the future holds for Africa and his wife Hillary Clinton as former US President Bill Clinton talks to Al Jazeera.

You can talk to Al Jazeera too. Join our Twitter conversation as we talk to world leaders and alternative voices shaping our times. You can also share your views and keep up to date with our latest interviews on Facebook.