President Obama needs to send Clinton to the Middle East -- and no, I don't mean Hillary Clinton.

Following the failure of the George Mitchell intervention, Obama badly need to have a new Middle East policy in place otherwise he risks the US becoming irrelevant.

It has been clear for some time that neither the Israeli or Palestinian leadership was ever committed to what George Mitchell was doing.

The difference in Northern Ireland was that Mitchell had leaders like Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern utterly committed to his strategy as well as Sinn Fein and Ulster Unionist leaders.

Without that goodwill, George Mitchell might just as well have sacrificed a goat and hoped for more success.

Bill Clinton would be a different kettle of fish however.

No one carries more authority, including Obama in the Middle East.

He is regarded in both camps as the man who barely missed making an historic peace towards the end of his presidency, thwarted in the end by Yasser Arafat who would not make the final leap.

Clinton would likely relish another opportunity to settle the conflict for once and for all.

With Obama's stock rising domestically after the bin Laden killing it is time for him to really focus on Middle East peace, key to the whole region, as his next Mission Impossible.

And Bill Clinton is the only man who can achieve that impossible goal.