A summary of John McLaughlin's op-ed in todays WaPo:

Lesson No. 1: Change in the mddle East occurs slowly and over time, but when it hist critical mass, surprises and disasters happen.

Lesson No. 2: Surprises and disasters are avoided when an expert, or a group, is tasked with dealing with the situation on the ground in a given region everyday.

Lesson No. 3: Withou ongoing negotiations and dialogue, there is no refrence point for dialogue when a conflict heats up

Lesson No. 4: "...even superpowers have to talk to bad guys. The absence of a diplomatic relationship with Iran and the deterioration of the one with Syria -- two countries that bear enormous responsibility for the current crisis -- leave the United States with fewer options and levers than might otherwise have been the case. Distasteful as it might have been to have or to maintain open and normal relations with such states, the absence of such relations ensures that we will have more blind spots than we can afford and that we will have to deal through surrogates on issues of vital importance to the United States. We will have to get over the notion that talking to bad guys somehow rewards them or is a sign of weakness. As a superpower, we ought to be able to communicate in a way that signals our strength and self-confidence.

Lesson No. 5: Neoconservative unilatralism has not and will not work.