OPINION:
We’ve got peace institutes, peace initiatives and even professors of peace. But the real thing remains elusive. We were told that would change with the election of “the peace president.” A man of black and white parents, with one from the third world, would vanquish racial enmity, jealousy and envy. Such a man of vast intellect, steeped in enlightened liberalism, would end the wars imposed on a helpless world by American imperialism.
For good measure, Barack Obama would start the healing of the planet and stop the rise of the oceans. Alas, nothing changed; indeed, the world is at least as grim as it was, and unlike in golf, the president’s beloved pastime, there are no mulligans in war and peace.
The ninth annual Global Peace Index, produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace, revealed last week that the scale is approximately balanced, with 81 nations becoming more peaceful and 78 becoming more violent. This kind of stability is nothing to celebrate. The corpses left in the wake of terrorists keep piling up. If the lion and the lamb want to lie down together, they won’t find a safe place to do it.
The average annual human toll from terrorism has exploded from 2,000 a decade ago to 20,000 last year. The number of refugees or internally displaced persons reached 50 million for the first time since the end of World War II. “The world is less peaceful today than it was in 2008,” as reckoned by the index. “The indicators that have deteriorated the most are the number of refugees and [internally displaced persons], the number of deaths from internal conflict and the impact of terrorism.”
The year 2008 was promised to be a watershed moment in history. President Obama was duly elected, and his promise of “hope and change” won the Nobel Peace Prize before he lit the first candle in the wind, bought the world a Coke or sang a single verse of Kumbaya. Instead, global indicators for the prevalence of human accord have slipped 2.4 percent. Some hope. Some change. Some peace. One man can’t be held responsible for all the world’s woes, but he promised to banish them all.
The peace index names Iceland the world’s most peaceful nation and Europe the world’s most peaceful region, including 15 of the most 20 peaceful nations. The Middle East and North Africa, no surprise, are the least peaceful, with Syria the most violent, followed by Iraq and Afghanistan. (The Confederate States of America didn’t make either list, flag or not.)
Mr. Obama’s presidential decisions have had a direct bearing on strife in those nations with his hurried withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, his reduction of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, and his red line in Syria’s civil war. The Global Peace Index measures the state of peace in 162 countries by gauging the absence of violence or the fear of violence. The United States placed an unexceptional 94th — one place ahead of Saudi Arabia, where Islamic authorities have publicly beheaded 182 persons so far this year.
If yearning could produce peace, brotherly love would be bustin’ out all over. A Fox News poll in March found that 53 percent of Americans think the United States is less safe now than after Sept. 11. Only 38 percent think it’s safer. Initiatives like “leading from behind” have failed. Peace, as history teaches, prevails only when and where stern and determined men and women stand ready to defend against abundant evildoers.
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