3. Look, It's the Food Processors
That's what the inestimable James Baker, who served as President George H.W. Bush's secretary of state, used to joke when he'd see his team members Dan Kurtzer and me bringing him another proposal or diplomatic fix. Urgency can get things started, but process is critically important to ink the deal.
Process gets a bad name. It's easy to see why. Process can be endless and directionless; it can often hurt rather than help the chances of doing the deal. But when done right, it's essential. Indeed, when you think about it, process is just another way of managing an issue you can't resolve today.
Most conflicts evolved in phases, over time, and are resolved that way as well. It takes time to build trust and test the proposition that negotiations can get both sides what they want. Also, time is required to structure the agreements, particularly when issues of security are involved. The Egyptian-Israeli peace process played out over a period of almost nine years, from the first disengagement agreement in 1973 to Israel's final withdrawal from Sinai in 1982. That process succeeded -- but the Oslo process took about that long too, and it didn't.
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