I am writing this Main Street blog piece as we wait for the prisoner release. In the mystery of things, I hope all those who have labored over the years to bring peace to the Middle East, know of this breakthrough.
Two of my heroes are on my mind. James A. Baker III and Henry Kissinger, Secretaries of State who never mistook diplomacy for theater, nor compromise for weakness. Already Mark Rubio’s has been added to my fascination with those who have held the position and I know he will be revered too.
When Baker took office in 1989 under President George H. W. Bush, he faced the seemingly unmovable stone of Arab, Israeli distrust. Yet, with patience and persistence, he managed the impossible: bringing Israel and its Arab neighbors together at the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991. I repeat the year-1991.
Baker knew peace was not a divine act, but a human duty. His words still guide us:
“Peace is not God’s gift to His creatures; peace is our gift to each other.”
Before Baker, there was Henry Kissinger, whose relentless shuttle diplomacy redefined what a single man’s endurance could achieve.
“The art of diplomacy is not to outsmart the other side but to convince it either of common interests or of penalties if an impasse continues.”
That clarity, that refusal to romanticize or retreat, became the standard for those who followed. And when Baker left the State Department, to run the second Bush run for president, I was bereft. Without him, would there ever be peace in the Middle East?
Now, decades later, the world circles back to this ancient crossroads. Should today’s American leadership succeed in brokering peace in the Middle East, enduring peace, they will have served not just their country, but the highest calling of humankind.
For this is a spiritual labor as much as a political one, where faith and perseverance must walk side by side. The statesmen and women laboring now in this vineyard of peace deserve our gratitude and our prayers; for their steadiness, their courage, and their moral imagination in a time when the world aches for resolution.
I return to the line that whispers to me when I think of these men, Baker, and Kissinger, and those who labored for Peace in that same vineyard:
In the mystery of things, I hope they know of this success.
Stepheny Forgue Houghtlin grew up in Evanston, IL. and is a graduate of the University of Kentucky. She is an author of two novels: The Greening of a Heart and Facing East. She lives, writes and gardens in NC. Visit her: Stephenyhoughtlin.com
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