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Heard on the Street

Keep Mideast Peace on the Agenda

posted on 04/21/08

Daniel C. Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt, interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, April 16, 2008:

“We’re a country that can walk and chew gum. We can manage a complex diplomacy across a number of fronts. Sometimes we have failed to try that diplomacy, but when we have tried working on North Korea and Middle Eastern issues, and Russia and China, we have enough expertise, and with a good national security structure, we can manage complex negotiations across a wide front. The president needs to articulate that [the Annapolis process] issue is important to him or her, to invest in a team, whatever the structure is that the president decides, and to periodically let people know that this is important, and that the president is following up."