It has taken President Obama just 10 months to achieve something each of his immediate predecessors delivered in their final year in office: failure in the Middle East peace process. Riding a wave of optimism in January, the President on his second day in office named retired Senator George Mitchell as his Middle East special envoy, tasked with kick-starting the dormant negotiations over a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Despite his best intentions, Mitchell’s — and Obama’s — efforts have managed only to undermine peace advocates on all sides and have pushed hopes for a final agreement into the distant future. The President now faces tough choices over how to proceed.(See pictures of Israeli soldiers sweeping into Gaza.)

Obama distinguished himself from his predecessors by attacking the problem early; Bill Clinton and George W. Bush waited until their lame-duck years to do so.

Moreover, Obama faced perhaps the worst Middle East peacemaking environment inherited by any President in decades. He took office as Israel was wrapping up its costly and controversial offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, an operation that produced accusations of war crimes by a U.N. human-rights investigation and galvanized anti-Israel sentiment around the world. Within weeks, Israel’s electorate had installed a right-wing governing coalition beholden to parties opposed to a Palestinian state and committed to expanding Israeli settlements on territories captured in 1967. On the Palestinian side, he faced an enfeebled and fractured leadership, further burdened by rising expectations owing to a perception that Obama would be more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.