The Obama administration’s lack of success in reviving negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians highlights a paradox. The US has a great deal of power in the Middle East, but it is often practically impotent.

How can this be?

The scope of American power, in the Middle East or anywhere else, depends on circumstances and local conditions. Yet Washington policy wonks all too often tend to overlook this uncomfortable fact, viewing situations exclusively from inside the Beltway.

Throughout the many decades of US involvement in the Middle East, there is a pattern of success as well as failure, and it is this pattern that constitutes the backdrop to the knowledgeable and timely new book by Dennis Ross and David Makovsky—the one a veteran of Mideast peace negotiations under several American presidents, the other a seasoned journalist and analyst.

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