How happy like the gods are those who make peace. Words to that effect are credited by the authors of the Gospel of Matthew to a first-century CE public intellectual known as Yeshua. Whoever he was, his thought on the subject was not original with him. But he is remembered for it nonetheless.
He is also known for giving such advice as If someone slaps your cheek, turn the other to him -- the idea apparently being that passive resistance is better than starting a war. Both Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. took that counsel to heart, and for just that they live beyond death in the pantheon of human beings who made a difference.
This history I have been pondering over past days as Ukraine came undone and Vladimir Putin sent in the clowns to take advantage of the fracture. It seems that President Obama has been channeling Winston S. Churchill, who insisted that "jaw-jaw is better than waw-waw." Mr. Obama keeps jawing, being unwilling to leave the table -- or have it left by his diplomatic envoys. He must be thinking that we do not need yet another war.
For this, the usual suspects of the other political party are lambasting him for leading the world to think America is weak rather than strong. With scarcely a harsh word, Gandhi brought the British Raj to its knees. King turned America on its head by being a willing guest of the Birmingham jailer and leading the great march of peace across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.
Who would dare say that either Gandhi or King was weak? They were, in fact, the strongest persons of their respective days. A first-century Syrian by the name of Saul figured out, as he told his Greek followers in Corinth, that when I am weak, then I am strong. I think he meant that when he was perceived as being weak, he was in actuality strong. Gandhi and King figured that out, too.
Is it so important for a nation like ours to take the bait and react in bluster, shock and awe to Putin's Soviet-like idiocy? Is there no effective way to buck up the Ukrainian government in the west of the country with aid and counsel? The threats to expel Russia from the G-8 association and to freeze what of its assets the West controls can certainly be followed up by actually doing both. That's the way the Obama Administration wisely insists upon dealing with Iran.
The human race just has to be beyond saber rattling. Nobody but the John McCains of this world and other Obama detractors want the U.S. to turn out the troops, weigh the anchors of guided missile cruisers and put Stealth bombers in the air. It is not unmanly, not weak -- rather it is a sign of strength to prolong the conversation, however heated, however wearying. It does not quite amount to turning the unsmitten cheek, but it's close enough for now.
We make peace with the tools we have, to freely paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld. They are not many and perhaps rusty for lack of use. But we have them. They should be used to keep the jaw-jaw going thus to avoid yet another disastrous, unwinnable waw-waw. Mohandas and Martin: Pray for us.
