The Lost Years: Bush, Sharon, and Failure in the Middle East

George W. Bush first met Ariel Sharon in 1998 on a fact-finding trip to Israel when he was governor of Texas and contemplating a run for the White House. From the memorable helicopter tour he gave the future president on that visit until he was incapacitated by a stroke seven years later, Sharon tried to enlist Bush in his dual strategies of quelling a Palestinian uprising and fixing the Jewish state's permanent borders. Bush met him part way but had his own bold ideas: a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a Middle East where democracy replaced tyranny. Neither leader grasped the essential first step toward achieving his vision: a process of tedious negotiation and mutual compromise between Israel and its longtime enemies. Lost Years describes how two risk-taking leaders worsened the Middle East situation by pursuing parallel preemptive wars that destabilized the region. Mark Matthews documents how a series of opportunities to stem the bitter conflict were allowed to lapse due to a combination of inattention, deliberate evasion, political pressure, and sheer blindness.

Mark Matthews, 55, is one of the most experienced and insightful journalists reporting on American policy in the Middle East today. He has covered the Arab-Israeli conflict for The Baltimore Sun for the past fifteen years and has earned a reputation for balanced, tough articles. During that period, he covered all the landmark events in Mideast diplomacy: the Madrid conference of 1991, the Yitzhak Rabin-Yasser Arafat handshake, the aftermath of Rabin's assassination, and the rise of the Intifada in 2000.

Matthews,entered journalism while a student at Antioch College, where he received a BA in 1973. He is the widower of Ann Devroy, White House correspondent for Gannett News Service and the Washington Post for more than a decade.