Making a deal with the Devil?
This is extreme talk as always when it comes to politics. But we seldom hear wise insightful and carefully thought through reasoned observations from extremists. Rather, we get a whole lot of dizzying political spin—a whole lot of clanging symbols and pounding gongs—noisy and deafening political soundbites. So, the deal with Iran is either the best deal we could ever have had, or the worst deal we could ever have gotten. Which is it?
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. It’s probably not the best deal nor is it the worst deal. Truth is, as nations go, Iran is not Satan’s Kingdom nor is the U.S. God’s Heaven on earth. Is it un-American to say such thing? I hope not, because it’s true.
Obviously there are times in which negotiating deals does no good. The 1938 Chamberlain/Hitler “Peace for our Time” Munich Agreement is a lesson well learned to that effect. Sometimes negotiating peace with an enemy merely gives the enemy wanted time to prepare a preemptive strike. Is that what this Iranian agreement does? Some extremist think so. But that’s just it: It is exactly what an extremist would say.
Whole nations can act as foolishly as individual people do. Why? People run nations. People can be laughably ignorant, ridiculously stubborn, foolishly proud, blindly arrogant, and just plain ole stupid. Hence, so can national leaders be.
But the question is: how can a nation and/or its leaders know whether or not it’s being ignorantly stupid when negotiating peace terms, for example, with an enemy nation? Or how does a nation know it is making the best decision by declaring war on an enemy nation? For example, as a nation, were we being wise by agreeing with then President George W. Bush’s declaration of war against Iraq and supporting a preemptive strike against her? Hind sight being what it is many would now say we were not being wise at all, rather the contrary.
Jesus told his disciples to be “innocent as doves but wise as serpents” (Matthew 10:16). That’s good advice. But what does that mean exactly.
One’s innocence has to do with one’s inner-being, one’s integrity, one’s inner wholeness or one’s moral and spiritual center. And that touches upon one’s motives with any action taken and one’s purpose for any goals that are set. The wisdom of the ages have always taught that where there is pride, vengefulness, abuse of power and wealth, greed, selfish interest, arrogant controlling of others, there is not only a lack of “innocence,” there is also much foolishness. And this is true on a personal level as well as on a national level.
That being said, apart from Iran’s state of being as a nation, we should take a closer look at our own national state of being. If I may be so bold as to engage in a little national self-criticism, when our nation chose to do a preemptive strike against Iraq back in 2003, we were full of ourselves with pride and were more than ready to have our vengeance; we were quite eager to throw our weight around, ready to flex our muscles and show our strength and exercise our mighty military power. And where did that get us? In short, we were neither “innocent as doves” nor were we “wise as serpents.” We acted foolishly.
Know this: Jesus’ admonishment to his disciples does not equate innocence with weakness and foolishness. Innocence is its own strength, has its own power. Innocence means having integrity, which in turn means wholeness and wellbeing, being steady, balanced, solid and true, right-thinking and right-working. All these add up to real strength. It also brings clarity of vision and purpose—Wisdom.
That’s where the wise as serpents comes in. When one is “green with envy” or is “red with anger” or is in a “blind-rage” or “drunk with power” or “flushed with greed” or is being “proud, haughty and arrogant” or is “on the attack,” or is being rude, crude, and uncaring, or abusive and demanding, or self-interested and egotistical, critical and dismissive, and so-on and so-forth, one is far from being wise as a serpent.
The question about dealing with Iran is as much a question about us as it is about Iran. We may not like to hear it, but historically speaking the people of Iran have had good and justifiable reasons for distrusting America. If we know our history with Iran we’d understand this. Suffice it to say that our history with the people of Iran does not favor us or put us in a good light—yet most of us would probably defend our past bad behavior with Iran or even flat out deny it. Nevertheless, the fact is that our previous history with the Iranian people taught them not to trust us. Still, it can safely be said that the people of Iran (as opposed to many of its present core leaders) would like to have a better relationship with us.
Things are never as black and white, cut and dry, up or down, left or right, this way and that way, as we like to think. There are complexities, mysteries, unknowns, complications, inaccuracies, and messy inexactitudes. That’s reality. That’s life. So of course the Iranian deal is not perfect. And of course there are (realistically speaking) unanswerable questions. Do you have a crystal ball that can foretell exactly what will happen, deal or no deal? Does anyone? Of course not! Deals are acts of faith and trust as well as acts of skeptical distrust requiring validation, verification, and other checks-and-balances for reassurance. That’s reality. Nevertheless, cautious deals often serve nations better than having no deals at all.
The real question then is whether or not we ourselves can be wise as serpents while also being innocent as doves in our own willingness to negotiate. A willingness to negotiate with integrity has its own strength and “innocence” about it. An absolute unwillingness to negotiate at all simply leaves both nations free to continue to hate, demonize, and threaten the other—ad infinitum. Which road has a better promise?
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