The Foreign Service Journal, January 2005

blocks of foreign policy forged by the Vulcans. The future has arrived. David Casavis, a frequent contributor to the Journal , works for the Depart- ment of Homeland Security. A True “Insider” Account The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace Dennis Ross, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004, $35, hardcover, 840 pages. R EVIEWED BY D AVID T. J ONES The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace is Dennis Ross’s view of Middle East events between 1988-2000. Ross, the U.S. envoy to the Middle East and the Secretary’s Special Middle East Coordinator, cannot claim to be “present at the cre- ation”— in the end, nothing was cre- ated. But he was decidedly present, and his voice is unique as creator, implementer and observer of U.S. policy throughout that 12-year period. Today, more than four years after the Camp David peace effort in July 2000 and the outbreak of the intifada that September, peace in the Middle East looks as distant as a manned landing on Mars: technically conceiv- able but with so many obstacles in its path that the effort appears futile even to begin. Yet, throughout much of the 12-year process that Ross describes, political leadership through- out the region and the United States believed that a lasting, mutually agreed peace was not only conceivable but likely. Now, at a moment when Sisyphus seems to lie crushed be- neath the boulder at the bottom of the mountain, reading Ross’s extended review of the bidding is vital for those who would contemplate another rock- pushing expedition. Ross adroitly avoids the major pit- falls of politico-historical writing. Missing Peace is not a once-over-light- ly memoir high on impression but light on substantive fact (the writings of certain former Secretaries of State come to mind). While it is engaging for the casual reader, it offers plenty of fact and commentary for the Middle East specialist. (It includes a 20-page epilogue updating develop- ments to the present.) He also avoids the infallibility myth; he is not always the hero of his own work, but admits to error both of commission and omission. Likewise, he is bluntly critical of senior U.S. policy-makers, including President Clinton, on occasion. Moreover, he directly confronts the hard-to-raise question of whether his Jewish faith was a complicating distraction to all Middle East actors, and although he concludes that such was not the case, he deserves credit for raising the point. Ultimately, what may be the most interesting portion of the Ross account is the story of the final 18 months of the Clinton administra- tion’s efforts in the region, particular- ly his unprecedented insider account of the 14 days at Camp David in July 2000 between Israelis and Palestin- ians. As he notes, the media des- cribed those efforts as a failure, but the negotiating teams thought breakthroughs were still possible. Accordingly, the United States con- tinued to devote unprecedented amounts of its scarcest resource — the time of its executive leadership — but to no avail. While Ross liberally attributes errors and shortcomings to Israelis, he saves the greatest onus for Arafat and his essential inability to seize the moment and make the compromises that only he had the psychological authority among Palestinians to make. Admittedly, in the end, only the Palestinians could decide whether a good agreement was good enough. But their rejection has come at con- siderable cost. Nevertheless, despite his generous distribution of blame, Ross flatly rejects the concept of “imposing” peace; such a fiat would simply be an exercise allowing the parties to avoid responsibility for the hard compromises necessary for per- manent agreement. There are indeed problems that belong in the “too hard” box. Missing Peace demonstrates that all parties to a dispute can make genuine compro- mises, go further than ever in seeking agreement, and still fail. And the les- son from failure isn’t always that one should try harder next time. David T. Jones, a retired Senior Foreign Service officer and frequent contributor to the Journal , recently spent two years studying the Middle East peace process as part of the State Department’s Office of the Historian. Poetry and Mayhem Shiraz in the Age of Hafez: The Glory of a Medieval Persian City John Limbert, University of Washington Press, 2004, $22.50, paperback, 192 pages (including six photos). R EVIEWED BY F RANK C RAWFORD Shiraz in the Age of Hafez: The Glory of a Medieval Persian City lives up to the promise both of its title and its subject. Ambassador John J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 55 B O O K S u