Is Obama about to unveil his Middle East peace plan?

Laura Rosen/ here

Is the U.S. about to unveil its Middle East peace plan?
In the face of the stalled peace process, rumors that the U.S. is about to unveil, and some fear, impose, such a vision for a two-state solution, have circulated, some sourced by Israeli government officials.

Reports today by The Washington Post’s David Ignatius and The New York Times’s Helene Cooper say a group of former national security advisers including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and Sandy Berger recommended that the president “put forward his own proposal outlining what a peace deal should look like” in a meeting last month with National Security Adviser Jim Jones, to which Obama popped in:

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and Samuel Berger, the national security advisers to Presidents Carter, Ford, the senior Bush and Clinton, advocated such a move, according to several current and former administration officials in the room. Mr. Scowcroft cast the issue in terms of United States national security and its relations with the Arab world. He argued that only American leadership would break the cycle of distrust, hostility and violence that has prevented Israel and its Arab neighbors from forging a lasting peace deal.

The fact that President Obama was willing to have such an impromptu discussion with former advisers illustrates his increasing frustration with the foot-dragging over Middle East peace talks, and a growing sense that he may have to present a specific plan, rather than wait for the two sides to come to any sort of agreement. ...

“[Obama] didn’t say ‘great idea, bad idea.’ But he listened.”

The former national security advisors' recommendation aside, I am skeptical that this is anything more than messaging and outside-advocacy at this point. Nothing I have heard from officials would indicate that the U.S. is close to putting out its plan, if it has even formulated one, and is still stuck trying to get proximity talks launched. The reality they describe is reflected in this part of the Cooper piece:

Such a move is “absolutely not on the table right now,” a senior administration official said, adding that the United States wanted to first see the start of the indirect, American-brokered peace negotiations, which diplomats refer to as “proximity talks.” But the official said those talks would “undoubtedly get mired down, and then you can expect that we would go in with something.”

What’s interesting is if, per the Ignatius and Cooper pieces, someone high up at the White House wouldn’t mind Netanyahu thinking otherwise, to push him to avoid that fearsome outcome by getting as close as possible to U.S. requests for putting in writing that there would be no more settlement surprises, among other confidence-building steps.