Rare opportunity exists now for peace in the Middle East

President Barack Obama is embarking on something I've never seen before — taking on two Missions Impossible at the same time. That is, a simultaneous effort to heal the two most bitter divides in the Middle East: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Shiite-Sunni conflict centered in Iraq. Give him his due. The guy's got audacity. I'll provide the hope. But kids, don't try this at home.

Yet, if by some miracles the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that opened in Washington on Thursday do eventually produce a two-state solution, and Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis do succeed in writing their own social contract on how to live together, one might be able to imagine a Middle East that breaks free from the debilitating grip of endless Arab-Israeli wars and autocratic Arab regimes.

Obama deserves credit for helping to nurture these opportunities. But he, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and the newly elected leaders of Iraq need to now raise their games to a whole new level to seize this moment — or their opponents will.

Precisely because so much is at stake, the forces of intolerance, extreme nationalism and religious obscurantism all over the Middle East will be going all out to make sure that both the Israeli and Iraqi peace processes fail.

The opponents want to destroy the idea of a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, so Israel will be stuck with an apartheid-like, democracy-sapping, permanent occupation of the West Bank. And they want to destroy the idea of a one-state solution for Iraqis and keep Iraq fractured, so it never coheres into a multisectarian democracy that could be an example for other states in the region.

I hope that one of my personal rules about the Middle East is proved wrong — that in this region extremists go all the way and moderates tend to just go away.

Obama was right to keep to his troop-withdrawal schedule from Iraq. Iraqi politicians need to stand on their own. But this is tricky. The president will not be remembered for when we leave Iraq but for what happens after we leave. That is largely in Iraqi hands, but it is still very much in our interest. So we need to retain sufficient diplomatic, intelligence, Special Forces and Army training units there to promote a decent outcome.