“In the Middle East,” the Israeli general and politician Ehud Barak once said, “a pessimist is simply an optimist with experience.” Barak would know. He was Israel’s prime minister in 2000, a year ...

For more than a decade, war has ravaged the Middle East. From Syria to Lebanon, Israel to Gaza, hundreds of thousands have been killed or wounded. After so much bloodletting, the region now stands at ...