Here Comes Obama's Peace Plan?

According to the NYTimes, the time may be coming when President Obama will put forward his own proposal outlining what a peace deal should look like:

...Brent Scowcroft and Samuel Berger, the national security advisers to Presidents Carter, Ford, the senior Bush and Clinton, advocated such a move, according to several current and former administration officials in the room. Mr. Scowcroft cast the issue in terms of United States national security and its relations with the Arab world. He argued that only American leadership would break the cycle of distrust, hostility and violence that has prevented Israel and its Arab neighbors from forging a lasting peace deal.

...Mr. Obama gave very little away about his intentions, attendees said. “He asked a lot of questions,” said one official at the meeting. “He didn’t say ‘great idea, bad idea.’ But he listened.”

For Mr. Obama, the issue of the status of East Jerusalem is central to his ambitions to forge a peace plan between Israelis and Palestinians during his presidency, a stated goal. But coming up with an American proposal has drawbacks of its own.

No one seated at the table disagreed with Mr. Scowcroft outright, the officials said — most of the men appeared to agree that Israelis and Palestinians, if left to their own devices, would not come up with anything. But a couple of the participants, including Gen. Colin L. Powell, who was national security adviser to Ronald W. Reagan, urged caution, arguing that the administration had to figure out what “Acts 2, 3, and 4” would be if one or both of the two sides balked at an American-designed peace deal.

...One Israeli worry is that once Mr. Obama puts American parameters on the table, the Palestinians will refuse to accept anything less...

...most Middle East experts draw the same outline for an eventual peace deal. First, Palestinian officials would have to accept that there would be no right of return for refugees of the 1948 war...Second, the two sides would have to share Jerusalem...Third, Israel would return to its 1967 borders — before it captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank in the Six-Day War — give or take a few negotiated settlements and territorial swaps. Fourth, the United States or NATO would have to give Israel security guarantees...And finally, Arab neighbors like Saudi Arabia would recognize Israel.

Easy, right?

Smart? No.