After a lifetime of studying and participating in the politics and diplomacy of the Middle East, Daniel C. Kurtzer has measured U.S. diplomacy in the region against one event — one he helped shape more than 30 years ago.
Back in 1991, Kurtzer was serving as a member of the Middle East peace team of Secretary of State James A. Baker III. Although the U.S. had been trying to convene an international Middle East peace conference since the previous administration, it took a public directive to end the Arab-Israeli conflict by President George H. W. Bush to set the stage for a breakthrough.
Kurtzer, who has been the S. Daniel Abraham Professor of Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs (Princeton SPIA) since 2006, recalls the stars aligning.
"We had the right president, the right secretary of state, and the right national security advisor," he said. "We had an administration that knew how to do policy and diplomacy, did it well, and established an objective to create what ended up being a procedural breakthrough in the peace process."
As a result, all parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict came together during the Madrid Peace Conference for the first time, a catalyst that leaders hoped would yield progress toward a lasting comprehensive peace. After the conference, they engaged in sustained direct bilateral and multilateral negotiations. Since then, Kurtzer has often watched diplomacy in the Middle East falter, with moments of promise evaporating and diplomats falling short on the world stage. "For a variety of reasons, it has been a succession of moments that were pregnant with possibility but were not consummated," he said.
Kurtzer remained an active Foreign Service officer until 2005. After his retirement he joined the faculty of Princeton SPIA, where he has co-authored or edited four volumes on the quest for Arab-Israel peace while teaching undergraduate and graduate courses. Recently promoted to Professor of the Practice in International Affairs, a title that recognizes his sustained accomplishment and activity in his field, Kurtzer continues to translate decades of diplomatic experience into research and teach courses that shape future policymakers and inform contemporary policy debates.
At Princeton, his goal is to share with students an approach on how to think systematically about policy, policy making, and diplomacy — just as Bush and Baker and their teams did in Madrid.
"The point I try to make in class is that, if you've assimilated the idea that there is a systematic way of thinking about policy and how to implement it, the likelihood of better policy will be higher — not guaranteed, but higher — than if you articulate an idea without having thought it through," he said. "So many of our policymakers today articulate an idea on social media without any thoughtful, systematic policy planning behind it, and that's how we end up with bad policy, with the chances of success much lower."
Though he regards Madrid as the apogee of diplomatic skill, Kurtzer draws on a wide breadth of experiences for his lessons, including periods as U.S. ambassador to Egypt and to Israel. He worked closely with so many secretaries of state that today he is able to size them up in only a few words. James Baker was "head and shoulders above every other Secretary of State I worked with." Warren Christopher? "Not as significant a presence." Colin Powell struck Kurtzer as "probably one of the finest human beings one could come across," notwithstanding his reluctance to voice his reservations about the Iraq war to President George W. Bush.
Those experiences demonstrate the fulfillment of a goal Kurtzer formulated after he received two master's degrees and a doctorate from Columbia University: He didn't want to spend his entire career studying diplomacy; he wanted to be in the arena practicing it. After 29 years in the Foreign Service, however, Kurtzer saw the value in returning to academia.
Being a seasoned veteran of diplomacy made him an ideal candidate when Princeton created the S. Daniel Abraham Visiting Professor in Middle East Policy Studies in 2005. The University wanted a scholar who was also an experienced practitioner in the position. Kurtzer views the role as a platform that has allowed him to teach, conduct research, and write and speak publicly about topics that have animated him for more than 50 years.
"I wanted to keep working on Middle Eastern issues, which meant either a think tank or a university," said Kurtzer. "Coming to Princeton — the best university in the country — was a no-brainer relative to everything else."
Kurtzer continues to measure effective diplomacy against those same standards he learned in Madrid: systematic thinking, clear objectives, and the resolve to pursue them. That approach, grounded in decades of experience, has left him neither cynical nor naively optimistic about the prospect of lasting Palestinian-Israeli peace, which, in his view, remains an achievable goal.
"There is no alternative to a two-state solution," he said. "One state doesn't work because neither party really wants it. Three states doesn't work. Israeli annexation doesn't work. So two states — Israel and Palestine — are required, and that's why, even if the timing is not there now, I don't see an alternative."
Photo by Guillermo A. Viera