Middle East: Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot An Egyptian peace plan wins support -- except where it counts

It is astonishing how many ways the Middle East's antagonists can find to thwart peace. Lately, the preferred method has been to dither. Now Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has stepped in with a proposal to goose the main parties into conversation, only to find even those modest efforts mired in debate. After an inconclusive round robin of talks in Cairo, Washington and New York, Mubarak went home warning -- not for the first time -- that a "golden opportunity" was about to be missed.

All he was trying to do was "get the wheel moving," Mubarak said, when he drew up...

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