The Return of Christopher

News that Warren Christopher, 82, a veteran of the Carter administration State Department, will serve on a small foreign policy steering committee for the Obama campaign comes just in time for the return of that old chestnut of Middle Eastern diplomacy, the Israel-Syria track. Israel has an interest in a "peace process" with Syria so as to create some pressure on the Palestinian Arabs by threatening them that Syria would join Egypt and Jordan in the group of states that have cut peace deals with Israel before the Palestinian Arabs have reached a final settlement with the Jewish state. But it has no interest in an actual peace with the current Syrian government, because such a settlement would involve surrendering the strategically important Golan Heights to an undemocratic regime hostile to Israel's values.

Syria has an interest in a "peace process" with Israel so as to avoid being classed with Iran as a terrorist pariah state, but it has no interest in an actual peace with Israel, because then the Assad regime would have to stop blaming Israel for the fact that the citizens of Syria have no freedom and not much prosperity. Mr. Christopher did his best to surmount these obstacles, making an astonishing 29 visits to Damascus in four years as President Clinton's Secretary of State. That gave the dictator there a higher priority in American foreign relations than some of our major NATO allies. But he achieved no deal, which is no doubt the best part of the wisdom he can impart to Mr. Obama.