Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. What is known of the initial efforts of the Obama administration’s ideas about constructing a working diplomatic model for peace between Israel and the Palestinians — measures to build “trust and confidence” in pursuit of an undefined “broad vision of peace” — may well fit Einstein’s definition.

The judgment of history, as the saying goes, is merciless. From this cold-blooded perspective one can only marvel at the expenditure of American blood and treasure throughout the Middle East by successive US governments — Republican and Democrat alike — in past decades, particularly since the Clinton administration, for so little in return.

In the future, those looking back upon this extraordinary era will be able to do so liberated from the passions and prejudice driving the today's policy debates. A more objective evaluation of US efforts, stripped of the sentimentality and conventional thinking that mark contemporary assessments, will then be possible.

Yet, even today it is indeed possible to make some historical and objective judgments about contemporary US policies in the Middle East.