A Return to Realism.(presidential adviser James A. Baker on the United States foreign policies and President Barack Obama)

Byline: Adam B. Kushner

James A. Baker III: Sad to say there are people in my party who regret the fact that we no longer have a big enemy out there.

White House Chief of Staff. Secretary of State. Treasury Secretary. James A. Baker has had most of the major jobs in the executive branch except the big one. He's long been known for the foreign-policy realism that characterized the presidency of George H.W. Bush, and the fraught recent history of interventionism has made Baker a Republican graybeard. He chatted with NEWSWEEK's Adam B. Kushner about the proper role for idealism in foreign policy, how to manage the peace process and how to survive the White House. Excerpts:

Kushner: How should President Obama manage the Israeli-Palestinian peace process?

Baker: You have to get Hamas involved, because you cannot negotiate peace with only half the Palestinian polity at the table. I would suggest an approach like we used leading up to the Madrid Conference in 1991. For the first time ever we got Israel's Arab neighbors--all of them--to negotiate face to face with Israel. How? Back then, we nor Israel could talk to the PLO because, like Hamas, it was a terrorist organization. So we negotiated with Palestinians from within the territories whom we and Israel knew were taking their orders from [Yasir] Arafat in Tunis. But we both had deniability, and it worked!

Should Obama engage Syria?

Yes, but with the caveats in the Iraq Study Group report. Syria's marriage with Iran is one of convenience, and if we assured them they would get back the Golan and normalized relations with the U.S., we might wean them from Iran. Hamas has its offices in downtown Damascus. The Syrians claim that they can get Hamas to acknowledge Israel's right to exist. If they can do that, you would then have 100 percent of the Palestinian polity, with whom you might negotiate a peace accord.