The famous phrase “hindsight is 20/20” is usually offered in derision – as in, “Sure, you can see things perfectly now, but what’s the difficulty in that?”

Lately, though, I’ve been thinking that perfect vision, even if it takes years or decades to develop, is worth waiting for. Indeed, it’s funny how much history informs the present, and how investigating the past can help us better understand current times.

Case in point: I just finished reading Michael Oren’s excellent book about the Six Day War, titled Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. It’s a detailed history, with comprehensive day-by-day mini-histories of the war, but in many ways, it’s also a psychological thriller in which the author attempts to get inside the heads of the major players.

There were, of course, heroes and villains in the story of the Six Day War, although I suppose who falls into which category depends on whom you’re talking to. In Oren’s account, the Arab leaders are mostly disorganized and inept (though Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser is portrayed in a somewhat more positive light), and the Israelis mostly brave and heroic.

Oren sees Israeli prime minister Levi Eshkol, foreign minister Abba Eban, virtually all the major military leaders, and even politicians from the religious right who vehemently opposed war (and, once the war started, opposed extending it) as displaying great strength and courage of conviction.

Those Israeli leaders whom Oren is less inclined to laud – such as defence  minister Moshe Dayan, who is portrayed as apt to change his mind about whom to attack and when, and chief of staff Yitzhak Rabin, who suffered a nervous breakdown in the days before the war – are presented as eccentric anti-heroes rather than outright bad guys.

Forty-plus years after the Six Say War, we can see clearly what happened – who won and who lost – but we can also judge the leaders involved. And so, I wonder: 40 years from now, how will history judge Prime Minister Ehud Olmert?

Olmert is done as a politician – that much we know. It would be hard to find a leader of a democratic country who has left office under worse circumstances than this prime minister (the current U.S. president may tie him by the time his term ends). He was a failure in every sense of the word: as a wartime leader, as a gatherer of popular domestic support, and as a protector of his political party – not to mention his alleged criminal dealings (although these are hardly a surprise, given the pathetically shady world of Israeli politics).

Is there anything good to say about Olmert? The best one can say about his tenure as prime minister is that he didn’t do too badly. Yes, the Second Lebanon War was something of a disaster, although, as I’ve written before, Olmert didn’t lose the war as much as he didn’t win it. Also, Olmert did little to stop rockets from continuing to fall on Sderot, although he is hardly alone in having failed at that endeavour.

Could Olmert have been a better prime minister? Yes. Could he have been worse? Maybe, but it’s hard to imagine how. Case closed. Ehud Olmert: failed statesman.

But let’s briefly consider one more question: 40 years from now, will we judge Olmert’s career differently? On that we’ll have to wait and see, for time, as we know, has a way of improving our vision, at least when we gaze back over our shoulders.

What we can say with certainty is that Olmert’s legacy is out of his own hands. It will be up to the historians – who will break down and investigate his every word and action – to decide his place in history.

It will hinge on the leaders who follow him. If they do a worse job running Israel than he did, might we change our minds about Olmert somewhere down the line? Stay tuned.