Pressure on President Obama to recast the failed American approach to Israel-Palestine is building from former senior officials whose counsel he respects.

Following up on a letter dated Nov. 6, 2008, that was handed to Obama late last year by Paul Volcker, now a senior economic adviser to the president, these foreign policy mandarins have concluded a "Bipartisan Statement on U.S. Middle East Peacemaking" that should become an essential template.

Deploring "seven years of absenteeism" under the Bush administration, they call for intense American mediation in pursuit of a two-state solution, "a more pragmatic approach toward Hamas," and eventual U.S. leadership of a multinational force to police transitional security between Israel and Palestine.

With his bold message to Iran's leaders, President Obama achieved four things essential to any rapprochement.

He abandoned regime change as an American goal. He shelved the so-called military option. He buried a carrot-and-sticks approach viewed with contempt by Iranians as fit only for donkeys. And he placed Iran's nuclear program within "the full range of issues before us."

By doing so, Obama made it almost inevitable that one of the defining strategic issues of his presidency will be a painful but necessary redefinition of America's relations with Israel as differences over Iran sharpen. I will return to that below.