The complete idiot’s guide to Mideast peace – part 271

Pope urges world to shed apathy in face of ‘third war’ | The Times of Israel  ‘Pontiff laments human toll of ‘senseless massacres,’ crimes and destruction, says ‘humanity needs to weep’ ‘

The problem here, of course, is that the world has never been very good at doing the ‘unity’ thing. Too many vested interests are often at stake; expenditures soon become much higher than expected, grand alliances weaken over time and burdens tend to fall upon those least able to sustain them.

Without a central core agenda or binding mission statement, something to which all concerned can pledge eternal allegiance and support, any concerted effort by the great and the good is almost always doomed to failure of one sort or another.

1. The immediate threat may be removed only to have a far worse one take its place. Then the whole procedure has to begin all over again  – and with much less enthusiasm than before.

2. The value in lives lost, treasure expended and damage inflicted can climb rapidly to unforeseen levels, so much so that the cure starts to rival the affliction in ways that often turn out to be very negative indeed.

3. In any coalition of forces, where each may have their own designs on what should be the ideal outcome, those endeavouring to further such aims can cause much wasted effort and loss of impetus to whatever was the original specification – if ever there was one in the first place.

It seems that, even with the best of intentions, effective conflict management in this and other parts of the world requires something much more resilient and adaptive than any of the methods used in the past, very few of which have managed to achieve whatever long-term purpose was present at the start of the process.

www.laxiankey.com  –  ‘ for those of us with better things to do.’

The power of human imagination can become the strongest force of all.

And, with all the problems facing the world today, it may well have to be.