Asad of Syria. This was largely a favor to Israeli prime minister Barak, who hoped to make up for his rebuff of Syrian overtures at Shepherdstown in January. Clinton brokered nonbinding ideas to rekindle Asad's interest. Perhaps Syria could reclaim full sovereignty right up to the northern shore of Lake Tiberias—if Asad would lease back to Canada, or some other nonaligned nation, a negotiable buffer strip of empty land around the lake. This would soothe Israel's concerns about water rights. The president had scarcely begun, he recalled on tape, when Asad declared the whole subject a waste of time. Asad misremembered or retracted prior positions. He seemed crotchety and weak, yet decisive—to the point that he cut the president short. No need to hear this, he snapped. Histwenty years, Mubarak had missed this historical flash point between Muslims and Jews. Appalled, Clinton doubted that his appeals did much good.

He found the stalemate intact, if slightly more civil, on his return from Okinawa, and they suspended the Camp David summit after two more all-night marathons. Now the president assessed diminishing chances for success before he left office. Their timing had been consistently out of phase. Barak missed chances. Also, Arafat romanticized the memory of Yitzhak Rabin into an excuse for inaction—telling himself Rabin would have given him what he asked from Barak. This was never true, said the president. Besides, Barak's political constraints were tighter than Rabin's. Elected as the peace candidate, Barak was delivering neither peace nor security. Clinton clung to optimism. He thought Israelis