Dennis Ross: My Job is Futile

Such a nuisance, these democratic transfers of power. A fellow can work for the government for years, then someone loses an election and he's exiled to a think tank. While at the think tank he ponders and deliberates, and eventually puts his thoughts in writing, perhaps even in book form. (Books are hard to delete). Then suddenly another election rolls by, and hey presto, our fellow's folks are back in power, and they call him back to serve, perhaps even a notch higher up on the governmental ladder, since by now he's done all that thinking.

But there's a snag. Over in the ivory tower they've got this strange propensity of saying what they think may be true (sometimes), rather than what the President wants them to say.

Dennis Ross, the U.S. Secretary of State's special adviser on Iran, says in
a new book that the United States will not make progress toward peace in the
Middle East with the Obama administration's new plan...
Because of Ross' position, his superiors at the State Department do not
allow him to promote the book or be interviewed about it. In the second chapter,
entitled "Linkage: The Mother of All Myths," Ross writes: "Of all the policy
myths that have kept us from making real progress in the Middle East, one stands
out for its impact and longevity: the idea that if only the Palestinian conflict
were solved, all other Middle East conflicts would melt away. This is the
argument of 'linkage.'"

Oy. What can I say? That I feel for Obama?