Vision to Reality: The Reut Blog

The pathology of the Bush Administration – and of the Olmert Government – has been setting unattainable objectives and then going for them.

I’ve heard many people advising the new administration “not to repeat W’s mistakes” citing primarily his lack of high-level American involvement and not being evenhanded. However, in my view, Bush’s main mistake was repeatedly misreading what was achievable and letting wishes become objectives.

His administration repeatedly set unattainable objectives and then spent enormous resources pursuing them, expectedly, to no avail. For example, as their objectives for the Annapolis Process were to achieve an agreement that would be short, quick, substantive and different than the Clinton Ideas (there is no such animal), it ended in inevitable failure. From what I am hearing, the advice that Obama has been getting suffer from the same fault.

Read more on Gidi’s assessment of the Israeli – Palestinian process here.