Last evening we watched the second part of an excellent PBS television documentary on President John F. Kennedy. This second installment included what came to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1962 Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev played a tense game of nuclear chicken as the Americans established nuclear warheads in Turkey and the Soviets responded by setting up a missile base in Cuba, just 90 miles from the U.S. Virtually all of Kennedy's advisors, including brother Bobby, urged him to first-strike the Cuban base. Instead he and Krushchev inched their way back from confrontation.
This was a crisis of global significance, including here in Canada. As we watched last night Ruth and I recalled the classroom drills in which we crawled under our desks as the rather pathetic response to nuclear attack. What were our leaders thinking?
This morning we woke up to discover that a deal has been struck with Iran to curtail enrichment of uranium which could be used in nuclear weapons. The hawkish leadership in Iran has been replaced, in part, and there is a different tone. The international sanctions against Iran have created great hardship and crippled the economy. It hasn't been pretty, but it hasn't resulted in war.
As with Syria, the option has been there for military strikes, and with a fair degree of justification. We know that Israel would have been happy with those strikes in both instances, and Israeli PM Netanyahu is disappointed with today's outcome.
As Christians we do need to pray for diplomacy and solutions which avoid military aggression, even though we know that at times conflict may be necessary. We trust that every diplomatic effort is hopeful.
Well, I do. What do you think?
2 comments:
The middle east is a mess, and probably always will be. It's not only Israel vs the surrounding countries, but even the bickering between arab countries themselves.
I'm glad there has been a change in leadership in Iran. He does sound more moderate than his predecessor, but nothing is ever easy in that part of the world.
This is encouraging to say the LEAST.
Reducing tensions in the area is a massive step forward for easing tensions, and as I understand it, part of the initial deal is daily inspections of the Iranian nuclear industry by U.N. inspectors to ensure nothing fishy is going on.
The Huffington Post is also speculating this morning that one of the value-added side benefits of this deal would be lower gas prices (sanctions on Iranian oil would likely be some of the first to go, thus altering the market substantially.)
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