President-elect Obama would squander his assets and resources if he merely invested in another sisyphean effort to roll the peace process boulder up the hill again. With numerous competing demands on American leadership, energy and dynamism, the key for the new Administration is to separate those issues where American initiative is the key missing ingredient to success from those which will merely consume American effort. In this regard, it is difficult to argue that Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking is ripe for a considerable investment of the finite resources of a new President.

There is, of course, much the United States needs to do on that front—prevent the collapse of the PA, work more expeditiously and soberly for Palestinian security reform, prevent Euro-slackening on the isolation of Hamas, cajole Arab states to put meat on the bones of the Arab League summit initiative, address the recrudescence of anti-Jewish incitement, invest seriously in the Blair mission on economic development and institutional reform—all of which can be advanced, at levels below the presidential, even while Israel sorts out its political mess.

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Interesting. The posts thus far revolve around a central theme: Should the United States stay or go in the Middle East? On Arab-Israeli conflict, Aaron is making the point that a resolution to the issue is so far out of the realm that we need to reboot, take a fresh look, understand the limitation of the parties, reconfigure our underlying assumptions, and pursue an approach that has the greatest chance of doing the least amount of harm. Rachel seems to be suggesting otherwise, i.e., the very process of diplomatic activity will, regardless of its effectiveness, have a salutary effect on the region and our standing there. There is an obvious tension between these two positions that will need to be carefully considered as the Obama team tries to figure out what to do on Arab-Israeli conflict.

On Iran, Michael—not surprisingly—argues that the idea of engagement is a fool’s errand. Michael is making a more nuanced “inside-out” argument. The configuration of Iranian politics is such that any engagement with Tehran will result in another hostage crisis of sorts as different factions in Iran use (or abuse) the relationship with the United States to advance their own parochial political interests. Under such circumstances, the policy recommendation is don’t talk to the Iranians until the clerical regime is swept away. I wonder, given our strategic position in the region, whether this is a luxury we can afford.

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Having been a “Palestinian firster” for most of my years working on the Arab-Israeli negotiations, I remained compelled by the centrality of this issue to securing a durable Arab-Israeli peace. The Israeli-Palestinian situation also has an urgency and a moral dimension that defines both its tragedy and the imperative for a solution.

It’s just that a conflict-ending solution (and I choose my words carefully here) that resolves Jerusalem, borders, refugees, and security, is simply not feasible now (or maybe at all). The complexity of the issues (no, Israelis and Palestinians have never been “this close to an agreement”) and the dysfunctional politics on the Palestinian and Israeli side make a conflict-ending agreement which ends all irredenta and resolves all ends all claims is almost unimaginable during the next administration’s tenure. The Palestinian national movement is broken, divided, and dysfunctional. It lacks what any polity that aspires to be credible to its own constituencies or its neighbors must have: a monopoly over the forces of violence within Palestinian society. Without a central authority defined by one gun and one negotiating position, it seems almost impossible to envision a sustainable two-state solution.

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In its waning days, the Bush administration is setting the stage for establishment of a U.S. Interests Section in Tehran manned by U.S. diplomats. The new administration should let this ill-thought and poorly-timed initiative drop.

Today is the 29th Anniversary of the Iranian seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Both reformists and hardliners continue to endorse the seizure. Few Americans remember the details of the embassy seizure. On November 1, 1979, Zbigniew Brzezinski, president Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, met with Iranian Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan and Foreign Minister Ebrahim Yazdi in Algiers to discuss, among other issues, the restoration of the U.S.-Iran relationship. The Shah was gone, but the U.S. government wanted to cement its relationship with the new revolutionary regime. Photos of their handshake appeared in Iranian newspapers the next day. Students, with Ayatollah Ruhollah’s blessing, stormed the embassy the next day, holding 52 American diplomats for 444 days. What went wrong? In many ways, the U.S. diplomats were pawns in a struggle that had less to do with the United States and far more to do with Iran’s domestic politics. The Islamic Revolution was popular: Fully ten percent of the Iranian population took part, not only ayatollahs and seminary students, but also liberals, merchants, students, religious leftists, among others. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was a symbol but, for months, it was uncertain he would be able to consolidate the power which history demonstrates he desired. His followers—Students Following the Line of the Imam—used the manufactured embassy crisis to force Bazargan’s resignation and consolidate the revolution. Khomeini came out of the embassy seizure much stronger than his regime went into it. The Carter administration may have sought to engage moderates, but they inadvertently bolstered the hardliners.

The same pattern repeated when, in what became the Iran-Contra Affair, U.S. officials sought to engage revolutionary authorities in Tehran. One week after former U.S. national security advisor Robert McFarlane’s secret trip to Tehran, Mehdi Hashemi, the son-in-law of Khomeini’s deputy Hossein Ali Montazeri, leaked word of secret talks in pamphlets distributed at the University of Tehran. Six months later, Montazeri or his immediate aidesleaked word of McFarlane’s meetings in the pro-Syrian Lebanese magazine Ash Shira‘a. Twenty-two years ago today, former president and Expediency Council chairman Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani confirmed the meeting to the international press. Whatever one thinks of Reagan administration actions, the fact remains that Iranian officials betrayed U.S. confidence in secret talks and crippled the remainder of the Reagan presidency. They did so, not out of spite for the United States, but rather for narrow domestic political reasons.

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Especially if Obama wins, he must very quickly name a senior representative to go the Middle East. It will set back U.S. interests dramatically if he waits to put his cabinet in place, put a senior staff in place, think about a representative and only then, months or a year later establish a presence. This will be made ever harder by the pull of the domestic economic challenges.

The Middle East is the center of gravity for America’s most immediate and serious challenges. Secretaries of State from James Baker to Madeleine Albright to the foreign policy team of George W. Bush have made the mistake of thinking ‘when they are ready for peace here’s the number for the White House.’ America can’t afford to wait. An immediate presence is necessary. As President Clinton has said, as recorded in Bob Woodward’s new book, even when we just fumble around (i.e., when we engage), things get better. We need to be there, and fast.

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