By Tim Butcher, Middle East Correspondent
Dear Mr Blair,
The last two international peace envoys to the Middle East – Alvaro de Soto who represented the United Nations and James Wolfensohn who represented the UN plus others – shared one thing in common.
They both quit, driven crazy by the job.
In the spirit of finding a way for you to avoid the same fate, I write with what I hope are helpful suggestions about your new post-Premiership role as Middle East envoy.
First, you are going to have to change. As a prime minister who came to power through media spin and who was never shy to appear in front of camera, you are going to have to learn to embrace silence.
The issues are too complex and the egos of the regional leaders, Arab and Israeli, Muslim, Christian and Jewish, too delicate for you to feed half-digested gobbets of news each day to the world’s media.
You will have to learn that in the Middle East patience not profile is a blessing.
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