BY DR. GLENN MOLLETTE

I give President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Marco Rubio and everyone else an A for effort. They have worked hard to try to bring about peace in the Middle East. The negotiations have gone on for a long time now. The problem is that Iran is incapable of keeping an agreement. The Iranians are all about kicking the can down the road. They love stall tactics. They are big talkers. And they love to keep the conversation going and everyone engaged in deliberation. While all the talking is going on, that gives them time to build a few more missiles or plot an attack on a neighboring country.

I want to see peace in the Middle East. You want to see peace in the Middle East. Most of the world wants to see peace in the Middle East. The main players who do not want peace in the Middle East are the evil leaders of Iran. The majority of the Iranian population wants peace. Can you imagine how disruptive war has to be to their everyday lives?

There have been some deals throughout the years. In 1979, there was the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. From 1974 to 1978, there were disengagement agreements between Israel and Syria and between Israel and Egypt. However, these periods of peace have been interrupted by conflicts.

Unfortunately, Middle Eastern conflicts date back thousands of years to Ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). There were conflicts between the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and the Assyrians around 4500-539 BCE.

Ancient Egypt and Nubia (modern-day Egypt and Sudan) experienced conflicts between 2500 and 656 BCE. The Persian Empire (modern-day Iran) fought the Babylonian Empire around 550-539 BCE. Arab-Israeli conflicts date back to the seventh century CE. The Ottoman and Persian empires also fought one another from 1514 to 1821.

If you want to go back further, you must go back to the beginning, when two Old Testament brothers linked to the Middle East conflict were Esau and Jacob. They were the sons of Isaac, and their conflict began when Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of lentils. This led to a perpetual hatred between the two brothers and their descendants, with Esau‘s descendants, the Edomites, becoming a source of constant affliction for Jacob‘s descendants, the Israelites.

Who are the Edomites today? They have been absorbed into various cultures, and their direct descendants are unclear. However, they are believed to be represented among people in modern-day Jordan and among Palestinians, as well as some Jewish people, especially Sephardic Jews. They are also believed to be represented among some Bedouin tribes in Jordan and the Arabian Peninsula. These descendants have never gotten along well.

In 1979, Iran took United States hostages, violating the Algiers Accords. In 1995, they violated the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act by purchasing Russian arms. Then in 2005, they resumed uranium enrichment, violating the Paris Agreement. In 2018, they violated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action after the U.S. withdrawal. In 2019, they attacked Saudi oil facilities, violating the September 2019 Saudi-Iran talks agreements. The next year, 2020, they violated the 2015 JCPOA by enriching uranium to 4.5%. In 2024, they violated the 2015 JCPOA by enriching uranium to 84%.

A deal with Iran is just an opportunity for them to buy time so they can do what they want to do. A deal with Iran is never really much of a deal.

(Sources: Bible Gateway, History.com, BBC News)

Dr. Glenn Mollette is the author of 15 books. He is a graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville and Lexington Theological Seminary in Lexington. He is the founder of Newburgh Theological Seminary in Newburgh, Indiana. His column is published in over 600 outlets nationwide.

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