Never mind bringing peace to the Middle East; President Obama is going to find it hard to unite the pack of super-envoys that he is putting together to shower advice on to intractable conflicts.

Natural-born rivals and several who have had their hopes (even unrealistic ones) of being Secretary of State dashed have been scrapping with each other to divide up the peacebroking portfolio. There was no such job under George Bush. Now, under Obama, there are four or five highly coveted, absorbing, late-career projects. The chances of pulling off any peace deal are slim, although if the envoys deployed the same ferocity to the troublespots as they have done to winning their jobs the odds might be better.

It looks like Obama will pick those with great experience in the region as well as with the rarefied business of peace talks. The risk is that they are so well known that everyone has a view on them – and they may not seem impartial.

George Mitchell, a former envoy to Northern Ireland, now appears to be top of the list to be an envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Only a few weeks ago he seemed an outside contender partly on the ground of age (he is 75). He has been helped by the backing of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Tony Blair, who worked with him closely in Northern Ireland, likes him too. Blair has made clear however, rather than endorsing any candidate, that his prime concern is to have a US envoy dedicated to the region rather than the fitful attendance of Bush administration officials.

Mitchell, the son of a Lebanese immigrant mother and an Irish father, would be welcomed in Arab countries as a counterbalance to Dennis Ross, the Middle East negotiator for President Clinton. Ross has been widely tipped to be Obama’s main adviser on the region.

Mitchell did not want, according to those close to talks, to be subservient to Ross. After all, Mitchell has a triumph to his credit. Ross has instead the climactic frustration of Camp David. So Ross may get Iran as his main focus (the Tehran press has been appalled at the idea). On that note, Ross’s too-long book on the failed talks underpins his pro-Israel image. Drowning in myopic detail, it describes Ross taking phone calls for hours by the side of his bed, so gripped that he failed to get dressed.

However, the brisk impatience with which he related the deals put to Yassir Arafat showed that he did not acknowledge the immensity of what the US was asking of the Palestinian leader.

Richard Haass, a longtime presidential adviser on Afghanistan and Northern Ireland, is thought to be sliding off the super-envoy list. The realist is thought to be more tolerant of the notion of talking to terrorist groups such as Hamas than is palatable to the Obama team. Richard Holbrooke, a former Assistant Secretary of State, is probably in, but with the separate Afghan-Pakistan brief. Martin Indyk and Dan Kurtzer, former ambassadors to Israel, probably have advisory roles too.

These envoys face very different conditions from their glory days. The good news is that Iran and Syria are weaker and probably more open to talks.

The bad news is that the Palestinian leadership is split and the spread of Israeli West Bank settlements is so great that it may be irreversible.

All these old hands have proved their tenacity in securing the jobs. The question is whether they can deploy the same qualities and experience, while recognising that the region has changed, to get new purchase on its old problems.

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