Recently my mother has been doing quite a bit of geneological research. One of the more noteworthy people she has found in our family tree is a past occupant of an office that has been in the news quite a bit under the current administration. You see in 1928, my relative paired up with the French foreign minister, Aristide Briand, to outlaw war on a global scale. My relative was Frank B. Kellogg, Nobel Peace prize recipient and Secretary of State under President Calvin Coolidge.

When my mother first shared this with me I was astounded. “How could anyone be so naive?” I wondered to her and my father, who is a former Army intelligence officer. When I researched the times Kellogg served in a bit further, I found myself understanding the world he lived in and perhaps what led him to believe that such a thing was possible. My relative was also a lawyer, which led him to seek diplomatic or legal strategies over military ones.

What does all of this have to do with the current state of politics you ask? So glad you asked dear reader! On January 7th, Bret Stephens compared John Kerry to my relative in an article entitled “John Kerry: Secretary of Unreality”. I think that the best sentence that illustrates the attitude of the world in my ancestor’s time as Secretary of State was summed up  in a quote from Scottish historian D. W. Brogan:

“The United States, which had abolished the evils of drink by the Eighteenth Amendment invited the world to abolish war by taking the pledge. The world, not daring to believe or doubt, obeyed.”

Unfortunately for John Kerry, this naive approach to war will absolutely not work with the types of threats that face our world now. Threats like those generating from the Middle East, specifically those from Iran, Syria’s ongoing civil war and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Just last week Kerry mentioned that he would like to see Iran participate in talks to end the Syrian civil war “from the sidelines”. Because clearly our relationship with Iran is so wonderful right now and their trust of the U.S. is so solid at this moment in time (not). This incredible level of trust in the current U.S. administration was illustrated by Tehran in a statement released Friday.

“The White House statement is a unilateral and one-sided interpretation of the unofficial agreements between Iran and P5+1” major powers, foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said.

“By no means it is a criterion to evaluate or judge how the Geneva deal will be implemented,” she added in statements carried by the official IRNA news agency.”

Sounds like they have absolute trust in Secretary Kerry, right? Not so much, and on this I agree wholeheartedly with Tehran. Then there is the question of the ongoing disagreement between Israel (our long time ally in the area) and the Palestinians. Surely things for Secretary Kerry must be easier in that relationship, right? As illustrated by the following passage from the Wall Street Journal article, not really.

“The Israeli cabinet was presented Sunday with a long report on Palestinian incitement since the resumption of peace negotiations. “Official Palestinian media outlets relay that Israel has no right to exist, and that the Jewish people have no claim to the Holy Land,” reported the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.  In addition, other messages prevalent in Palestinian media include that Israel’s disappearance is inevitable and expected to happen soon, as Jews are sub-human creatures that must be dealt with accordingly.”

If Secretary Kerry is hoping to be remembered as someone who tried to outlaw war, or at least seek a diplomatic way around it, I agree with Mr. Stephens that he has a long way to go. At least Frank B. Kellogg lived in a time when things were different and the glare of the spotlight was not nearly as pervasive. He also lived in a time when the world had just been through the horrors of World War I, the “war to end all wars” and the public was weary of conflict. In many ways, the political climates of Kellogg’s time and today are startingly similar. Unfortunately for John Kerry the public is not nearly as forgiving as they were then and some of the press is paying close attention to his detachment from reality.