Secretary of State John Kerry is basically giving the participants in the Mideast talks an ultimatum: stop squabbling or I am taking my ball and going home. Kerry is telling Israelis and Palestinians that he is fed up, and that he and Barack have better things to do with their time than continue to mediate these two factions, which are on the brink of annihilating each other and no doubt a good chunk of surrounding countries as well.

What is it that has Kerry so busy that he is about to wash his hands of the Middle East? According to John Davison of the AFP:

Kerry said Washington currently had an “enormous amount on the plate”, highlighting negotiations with the Russians over Ukraine, talks with Iran on its nuclear programme and the conflict in Syria, as other US priorities.

Hmmm. Reminds of this scene from the classic movie The Princess Bride:

I’ll tell you what Kerry should be concentrating on: finding the six BILLION dollars that the State Department has misplaced! That’s right, $6,000,000,000, with 9 zeros. How the hell do you lose six billion dollars? Here’s what a billion dollars looks like.

Multiply that my six, and you’re talking about a heckuva pile of money. Gone. Vanished. It’s being blamed on contractors, naturally. It’s never the fault of the employees or the internal officials or the secretary of the agency — at least not when Democrats control things.

Maybe Mrs. Heinz Kerry is not the wealthy one in the Kerry family after all.