Jackson Diehl's weary analysis of George Mitchell's return to the Middle East makes some fair points, but doesn't actually draw out its own conclusion. The fact that Mitchell's recommendations were not implemented by George W. Bush does not mean his approach did not work. Rather, it wasn't tried. Indeed, the implication of Diehl's article that the power in the conflict lies not with the envoy but the President. Mitchell is a famously evenhanded -- almost too evenhanded! -- negotiator who can be depended upon to articulate the most sober version of America's consensus position on Middle East peace. The question is whether the President transforms Mitchell's product from a recommendation into a policy. America has plenty of carrots and sticks for both sides. Israel cannot get by without our aid and international support, and the Palestinian Authority's only hope for resurgence is to be seen as extracting genuine concessions from the Israelis, which means they're dependent on us to secure those concessions. The importance of Mitchell's appointment is that his plan for the conflict is well-known, and Obama is presumably signaling that he means to use American power to implement it. Whether that proves true is not, at the end of the day, in Mitchell's control.
