It's funny how most presidents start on some type of foreign peacemaking mission toward the end of their presidency. I guess they want to leave behind some image that they really weren't so bad.
Nixon traveled to China and made overtures of peace.
Jimmy Carter had the Camp David Accords with Egypt and Israel back in 1978.
Reagan pretty much tore down the wall and Russia (that was his way of bringing peace)
George senior whupped Iraq then pushed for the Madrid conference between all the arab states and Israel back in 1991.
Clinton pushed the Oslo agreement in 1993, then the Israeli/Syrian talks in 1995, then the Camp David talks in 2000 and the Saudi Pease Plan in 2002.
George junior pretty much ignored peace until now, 40 years after the 1967 war, finally pushing for peace in the middle east.
It always comes as an afterthought in most presidencies that we still don't have peace in the middle east after all these years. And the sad thing is that we still don't understand the people from that portion of the world any better today than we did 50 years ago. We still try to force our philosophies and attitudes on to people who are completely different in their attitudes and perspective. They have traditions established over 1,400 years ago that they still hold dear and we are not going to change that. We need to study them and learn to understand them and then try to work with them toward a mutually satifying solution.
Since George will never admit to a mistake, we won't get any lasting peace from this attempt. Maybe with the next president there will be some hope.
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