Quartet... The Quartet are the UN (xylophone), the United States (alto), the European Union (soprano), and Russia (shortstop). The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Tony Blair is the Quartet's current Special Envoy....
must be retired as well. It was a by-product of the infamous road map for peace. But it was only ever a single player with backing supporting vocalists. It was not even a quartet given that the U.N. and EU were meant to be half of it. It was a U.S. trap to anchor other international actors to their position including for example never talking to Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,.
Has the U.S. done anything to justify the sole sponsor of the "grinding of the peace processor?" Is it just impossible for Washington to admit that perhaps it alone cannot break the cycle? Can even the U.S. afford a lame grinding of the peace processor with no end product for another decade?
The French, amongst others, are challenging the mechanism. The draft United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
Security Council Resolution calling for an 18-month timetable to end the conflict with a Paleostinian state based on the 1967 borders could be the end for the Quartet. Israel will hate both the timetable and the messenger. It wants to maintain the asymmetrical negotiating framework where the occupier dictates the framework to the occupied, the latter begging for small concessions. The international community has to step in, uphold international law and dictate the essential parameters of a deal above all that the occupation must end. The Arab peace initiative must be implemented as the final stage pursuant to an Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory.
President B.O. must muster the courage to forego the U.S. monopoly on this issue. The European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
, financially stretched as it is, must no longer act as the unquestioning financier to a process that can never deliver. All the local belligerent parties must be left in no doubt that a final peace deal is an international and regional necessity.