What If?

President Obama told world leaders on Tuesday that he was devoting the rest of his presidency to a negotiated end to the Iran confrontation, and creating a separate state for the Palestinians.

And Lincoln spent the rest of his presidency trying to win the Civil War and Roosevelt spent his trying to end World War II.  Great!  So you have an obvious problem and you bring all your brute force to bear and if you are Lincoln or Roosevelt, you bring it off.  But to devote the brief window of opportunity that belongs to a president trying to do what no one has ever done – or can do!  What a waste!

Does no one understand that “a two state solution” is no solution?  Suppose Lincoln had gone for a “two state solution.”  Life would be easier today.  We wouldn’t have to worry about crazed politicians like Ted Cruz or getting a good health care plan in place.  But what would the South be like today if it had gone its separate way?  Still segregated?  African Americans still living in share cropper shacks and getting lynched at regular intervals?  Reconstruction wasn’t a lot of fun and the era of segregation was a real downer, but we forced ourselves to work through it and come out in a better place.

What if Europe had settled for a multi-state solution after World War II instead of trying to build a Europe in which Germans have to worry about Greeks and Italians realize that the Dutch and Norwegians are watching them?

A two-state “solution” – if the politicians get lucky – might even last for a generation or two and that might be worth something.  But what if someone had the vision to go for a one state solution.  What if someone said, “You know, this land isn’t big enough to divide.  It puts all of us in small prisons.  What if we forced ourselves to find ways to live together?

Is that just crazy enough to be worth trying?

As someone once said, “I have a dream.”