On Friday morning, the colonel returned to the staging area, where his staff had set up aforwardcommandpost -- a tent and a series of antennas in the compound yard of an abandoned three-room house with barrel-vault ceilings made of mud brick.
Unlike previous presidential envoys who have come to Israel every few weeks and then disappeared when reality proved stronger than their peace fantasies, Obama has ordered Mitchell to cast reality to the seven winds and set up a permanent forwardcommandpost in Jerusalem directly subordinate to the White House.