“Peace, peace to those far and near,” says the Lord. “And I will heal them. But the wicked are like the tossing sea which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.” (Isaiah 57:19-21)
In the final week of negotiations over the regulation of nuclear development in Iran, the tensions are rising on both sides of the table, making peace more fragile and less attainable. On Tuesday the New York Times reported that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “demanded that most sanctions be lifted before Tehran has dismantled part of its nuclear infrastructure and before international inspectors verify that the country is beginning to meet its commitments. He also ruled out any freeze on Iran’s sensitive nuclear enrichment for as long as a decade, as a preliminary understanding announced in April stipulates, and he repeated his refusal to allow inspections of Iran military sites” (June 23, 2015).
Whether the Ayatollah’s objections to the treaty are irrevocable or just a ploy to strengthen the hand of his negotiators in the last week is impossible to fathom, but he does recall the “the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud” in the passage from Isaiah above.
For much of the book of Isaiah, the prophet portrays the nations beyond Israel’s border as pawns in hands of God. They rise and fall as part of a broader plan to humble the nation of Israel and to later restore it to peace and security. But the messianic chapters of Isaiah, beginning around chapter 50, suggest a salvation for the wider world and a division of the world between the righteous and the wicked, rather than along national boundaries. “‘Peace, peace to those far and near,'” says the Lord. ‘And I will heal them'” (Isaiah 57:19). This suggests peace is the ultimate goal of history, rather than one nation holding sway over another.
On the other hand, “There is no peace for the wicked” suggests the restlessness of those still gunning for an advantage. Even in peace negotiations there are those who really want a settlement and those who ultimately have no stake in peace. In peacetime some soldiers are content to exercise their skills while others are itching to employ them against some enemy. For some peace is always counter-productive, because it subverts the driving purpose to gain advantage over some rival or perceived threat.
So peace is not everyone’s goal, especially those who are “like a tossing sea. . . whose waves cast up mire and mud.” Whether the Ayatollah’s objections are examples of this “mire and mud” is not clear. He may just be a bad cop, trying to make it easier for the good cops, but he plays the role of agitator very well. He seemed to assault the very heart of the negotiations, as though they threaten to blunt his competitive edge of being the bad boy of the Middle East. Is it possible the Ayatollah would lose his supreme identity by making concessions to his enemy?
God, alone, knows the heart of those sitting at or behind the negotiating table, and God promises in Isaiah, “I will heal them.” So even those with bad intentions might be won to the cause of peace. In today’s Times former advisors to these negotiations warn that the emerging treaty “may fall short of standards,” but in their letter to President Obama state “there is no poison pill here” to indicate that they wish for a negotiated settlement despite their current objections. So healing may continue.
Treaties may be the beginning of conflicts as often as they are their resolution. No one believes all will be settled by a document, despite the painstaking work gone into it. But peace is not an illusion, even if it lies foremost in the heart and to a lesser extent in the words of agreement. The settlement and signing of this nuclear treaty with Iran represents the heartfelt desire of antagonists to live in peace.
“There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.” Woe to those who “cast up mire and mud” to merely obstruct the sacred hope that nations may live peaceably, even if it means “Trust, but verify.”