Unraveling the Middle East Muddle

Obama's push for an Arab-Israeli peace is floundering. It's time to focus on what's actually achievable

Fadi Al-Assaad / Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking on Obama's foreign policy at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum

On the morning of Valentine's Day, as Dick Cheney was once again calumniating the President on network television, I was in Doha, Qatar, listening to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attempt to explain Barack Obama's foreign policy to several hundred restive representatives of the Islamic world. The event was the annual U.S.-Islamic World Forum, sponsored by the Brookings Institution, and the mood was a bit more testy than last year's Obama-induced euphoria. There was a universal sense among the Muslim delegates that the President had offered fine words in the past year but not much action. And now, Clinton entertained a...

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