Interesting.

Without yet having read Metz' paper, from the paragraphs you've quoted here it sounds similar, at least in philosophy and intent, to the ideas presented by Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs last year on developing a new and workable US foreign policy in their FInal Report: Forging a World of Liberty Under Law, U.S. National Security In The 21st Century.

From The executive summary:

The Middle East: Preventing the cradle of civilizations from becoming the cradle of global conflict must be a top priority. Any long-term solution in the Middle East must include a comprehensive twostate solution in Israel and Palestine; the United States should take the lead in doing everything possible to advance this goal or get caught trying. This push for peace should be accompanied by a steady process of institution building to establish a framework of liberty under law among Middle Eastern nations. In an effort to combat radicalization in Middle Eastern states, the United States should make every effort to work with Islamic governments and Islamic/Islamist movements, including fundamentalists, as long as they disavow terrorism and other forms of civic violence.
...
The United States should make it clear to Iraqis that we remain willing and ready to do everything we can to rebuild Iraq and to train and support a government that is up to PAR, but that this will not be sustainable in the context of a full-scale civil war. In cooperation with the Iraqi government, America should establish a series of benchmarks that would allow U.S. forces to redeploy inside Iraq – to places where they can be useful in building order and avoid becoming entangled in internecine civil conflict – and outside Iraq. The United States must also work with the European Union and Russia to prevent a spillover of the Iraqi conflict into the rest of the region; this effort should include the provision of incentives to regional powers to behave responsibly and the imposition of costs on those countries that exacerbate the crisis.