Hope for peace

It is the time of the year to bid farewell to 2017 and welcome the dawn of the New Year 2018.  

The year 2017, in fact,  ended on a sour note after US President Donald Trump surprised the world at large and this part of the world in particular with his unorthodox decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel coupled with his decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. 

To be sure, the passing year was turbulent enough as it is without the added complications made by Trump’s decision on Jerusalem. Neither the Palestinian conflict has registered any movement or advancement in its stalled peace process nor the conflicts in Iraq and Syria had seen the complete end of their domestic violence. 

Of course, the year 2017 saw the war in Yemen intensify even more with no end in sight with the Houthis in the country now deployed to execute policies of Iran in the area. The relations between Qatar and its neighbouring Arab Gulf states remain sour for obvious reasons. 

The mere thought of a nuclear war over North Korea’s ballistic missile programme haunts the world at large. The stand-off between Washington and Pyongyang troubles humanity at large as the risks of a major configuration between the US and North Korea could go nuclear and would not be confined to the two countries and can easily spread across the region. 

It is a fact that the world remains in the grip of many geopolitical rivalries. 

The bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington have seen better days in the past with their conflicts on Ukraine and Syria still grave and threatening and accentuated by the build-up of permanent Russian naval and air bases in Syria and the deployment of more NATO forces along the Russian European borders.

Still, when a new year dawns on the world, it brings with it new hopes for better tidings between nations. Human beings must remain sanguine about their future despite all the odds against the beginning of a new era on the regional and international scenes. 

There is hope that world leaders may have learnt a lesson or two from their bitter experiences during 2017. If not, the new year will also be as gloomy and disappointing as the passing year.