Create an FP account to save articles to read later and in the FP mobile app.

Sign Up

ALREADY AN FP SUBSCRIBER? LOGIN

A meaningless departure: Rudman out; Middle East folly continues

Last week, Laura Rozen of Politico reported that Mideast envoy George Mitchell’s chief of staff, Mara Rudman, was resigning to take a job with USAID. Her article suggested that it was a sign of friction in Clinton’s Middle East team, and for all I know that’s correct. But the real problem isn’t "friction" inside Obama’s ...

By Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

October 18, 2010, 1:11 PM

Last week, Laura Rozen of Politico reported that Mideast envoy George Mitchell's chief of staff, Mara Rudman, was resigning to take a job with USAID. Her article suggested that it was a sign of friction in Clinton's Middle East team, and for all I know that's correct. But the real problem isn't "friction" inside Obama's team; the problem is that nobody there seems to have any idea what they are doing.

Last week, Laura Rozen of Politico reported that Mideast envoy George Mitchell’s chief of staff, Mara Rudman, was resigning to take a job with USAID. Her article suggested that it was a sign of friction in Clinton’s Middle East team, and for all I know that’s correct. But the real problem isn’t "friction" inside Obama’s team; the problem is that nobody there seems to have any idea what they are doing.

I used to think that the 2000 Camp David Summit was the most ill-prepared and mishandled peace discussion in Middle East history — which is saying something — but I’m beginning to think that Obama and his team are making a serious try at breaking that dubious record. First they raise expectations sky-high in the Cairo speech, then undercut their own credibility by retreating steadiliy in the face of Israeli intransigence, until they end up literally begging and bribing Netanyahu to continue a settlement slowdown (not freeze) for a mere two months.

Question: Is this how a smart great power behaves?

Answer: Not if it wants to get anything done or be taken seriously.

Rudman’s departure, however, is essentially meaningless. There is no evidence that anyone in the Obama team is committed to doing what it takes to actually get a meaningful deal, and so there won’t be one. Full stop. You’d have to fire the whole lot of them and start over, and appoint people who were willing to get really mad when they were repeatedly diddled by a client state, and who didn’t think that the best way to negotiate was to give one side a lot of goodies up front (in exchange for very little), while expecting the other side to accept a lot of promises to be redeemed at some unspecified point down the road (and maybe never).

Unfortunately, the odds that Obama will clean house and bring in a new team are about the same as the odds of my sprouting wings and flying to the moon. And the result, as I’ve said before, will be not "two states" but one, with all the attendant difficulties that this outcome will produce for all concerned. So I guess Rudman should be congratulated for having the good sense to abandon this charade. My question remains: Why hasn’t George Mitchell done the same?

Stephen M. Walt is a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University. Twitter: @stephenwalt