I enjoyed this book. It gave a clear account of the process in getting countries in the Middle East getting the opportunity to normalize relations with Israel. I still don’t understand the Parliamentary form of government but I got good idea of the difficulties that occur with trying to “make things happen” when there is government instability. This book also points out that “ bureaucratic lifers” can really slow down true progress in any new “outside the box” ideas or processes. It takes quite a bit of self-discipline to keep from just wanting to “fire everyone” and start with a clean slate of open minded, objective workers. I always thought that this kind of stuff was going on, but didn’t realize how entrenched the poor performers were. They only cared about “their” job security and position as opposed to what actually would succeed or get closer to the reality of true peace. It’s also extremely frustrating to find that normal, common sense isn’t applied to minor situations like extending an assignment to accommodate life situations that come up in foreign service assignments. A simple phone call solved a problem instead of the common stupid practice of “submit your request” to bureaucrat “A” and he’ll forward it to Bureacrat “B” which will take at least a year, but then the request would not matter. So dumb!