During an off-the-record meeting in Washington, DC on November 10, one of Obama’s senior foreign policy advisers stated that pushing a two-state solution on Israel and the Palestinians had to take place with great urgency, as it was the best way to turn around the Middle East (which he defined as including Afghanistan and Pakistan). Three elements of the plan the is to push are well known (no refugee return, a divided Jerusalem , and redrawn 1967 borders), but the fourth is much less often explored. Namely that the Palestinian state be disarmed and that US or NATO troops be stationed along the River.… How can I count the ways the fourth condition is a dangerous trap?

 First of all, while the first three conditions are almost impossible to reverse once in place, the fourth one can be changed by a simple act of Congress or an order by a future American president, or—the current one. Abba Eban once compared a United Nations force stationed on the Israeli-Egyptian border, which was removed just before Nasser attacked , as an umbrella that is folded when it rains. The new umbrella is not much more reliable. Second, the American troops in , and the NATO ones in , are unable to stop terrorist bombs and rocket attacks in those parts. There is no reason to hold that they would do better in the West Bank . Third, there are very few precedents for demilitarized states—by force.

A two-state solution means to practically everyone involved, except a few foreign policy mavens, two sovereign states. A sovereign state is free to import all the arms and troops it wants. One second after the Palestinian state is declared, many in the Arab world, , and surely in Europe, not to mention and , will hold that “obviously” the new free state cannot be prevented from arming itself, whatever it says on some parchment or treaty. And if this not allowed, whatever therapeutic effects the creation of a Palestinian state may engender will be about the same size as the ending of the Israeli occupation of Gaza had—either too small to measure or a negative one.

A strong case for a two-state solution has been made, but it better be based on the Palestinians developing their own effective forces and an Israeli presence on the Jordan River . Neither can rely on the United States, beleaguered as it is, or conflict- and casualty-averse NATO to show the staying power for peacekeeping which neither mustered in Kosovo, Bosnia, or Haiti, and which they have never provided in Sudan and the Congo.

There is a new dawn in , but when the sun rises in Washington, it is often close to sunset in the Middle East .

(Amitai Etzioni is Professor of International Relations at The George Washington University .)