Reading the longer statements, I remembered the hearings that Kerry held on Afghanistan before Obama decided on the surge. This whole effort seem imbued with the insight from that. Even earlier, I remember Kerry speaking of the frustration in 2005 that Abbas was given no help or funds to provide services for people - leading to Gaza siding with Hamas who did that there. (He spoke of how providing services led to Hezbollah being acceptable in Lebanon.
It is hard to be optimistic that the Syrian conference can work - however it is possible that we are nearing a point where all sides are horrified by the damage and may see that the leverage they can get by fighting is not real. Even more a long shot would be that not only do they get a ceasefire in Syria, but the ideas here are actually implemented with the world helping in Iraq, Syria and Libya. Even if this is done in even one place, it might be the rest of the coalition would demand that a future President continue on the path.
If so, there will be MANY unhappy neoliberal and neo con think tank foreign policy people angry with the result -- just as they were with the Iran deal. (This is one area that I fear that not all Democrats will continue the work - but the better things are in 2017, the less likely they might decide they need to return to the decades of failed policies.)
I noticed that a few articles post implementation day were rather childish in references like - Kerry might be the toast of Davos and European diplomacy, but could his "hot" diplomatic streak continue. (Yeah, because major diplomatic triumphs happen every day) However, where the old inside the beltway was that he was not up to people like HRC, now his diplomatic prowess is not questioned.
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