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In the late 1980s to mid-’90s, when Dennis Ross was Middle East envoy for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, he would sometimes get phone calls at nights or on weekends from some Israeli security guard at a Palestinian checkpoint. A fistfight was about to break out, and the guard needed Ross to help calm things down.

Some thought, especially in retrospect, that Ross immersed himself too deeply in micromanaging peace, that his approach tended to infantilize the region’s players and made them too dependent on outside powers. But the region was a tinderbox, and one of Ross’ jobs was to put out fires the instant someone lit a match, because fires in the Mi

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