My friend Alvaro de Soto, the former Special Ambassador of the United Nations's Secretary-General to the Middle East peace process, is a legend in the UN, from which he is now retired. Peruvian by birth, an aide to Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Alvaro was an indispensable mediator in talks that resolved the bloody crisis in El Salvador during the early 1990s, and was later called in to help manage crises in Myanmar, Cyprus and Northwest Africa. He resigned his Middle East post in May 2007, frustrated by the inaction of the Bush Administration; and his End of Mission Report , leaked to, was famously frank and incisive, sparing neither the Israeli government nor Palestinian rivalries. He now teaches international relations in Paris. You can hear him speak about his mission here Alvaro wrote me yesterday about the impending UN vote on Palestine, frustrated by the simplifications he reads in the media, laying out what actions the UN can and cannot take. With his permission, I reprint his email in full:Bottom line: What the UN vote would occasion is not the creation of a state, but the various decisions of existing states to recognize Palestine and possibly sanction Israel, in bilateral trade, say, for violating international law. The real question is, what countrieswould recognize Palestine, and what would they be prepared to do to back up recognition with economic action? Indeed, what do Palestinian leaders really want?