"Timing is everything in life," George Mitchell said this year while discussing his daunting job as a Middle East envoy. It's a piece of wisdom that applies perfectly to the Obama administration's troubles in the region -- and one that, curiously enough, Mitchell and his boss have willfully ignored.
The United States faces three big strategic challenges in the Middle East. One is the threat of Iran. The second is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And the third is the corrupt and crumbling Arab autocracies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and half a dozen other states, which fuel Islamic extremism and provide almost all of al-Qaeda's recruits.
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