Sorry, Still No Sale

In his first venture into personal peacemaking, Clinton goes head to head with Assad and comes away without any visible signs of diplomatic progress

The symbolism surrounding Bill Clinton's witness-for-peace visit to the Middle East was almost too perfect. At the desert border crossing where he met Jordan's King Hussein and Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to co-sign their treaty of friendship, the table was set up on an asphalt strip in the middle of a minefield. An area had been paved and fenced in specifically for the ceremony. "Walk 15 yards beyond that barbed wire," a U.S. Secret Service agent warned onlookers, "and you won't be coming back."

Another warning of danger outside the wire-rimmed islet of peace sounded in the north, where militiamen,...

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