Another "Gorbachev's a Pizza Hut pitchman" moment.

 I'm probably not in the best place to process the various Arab state/Israel treaties.

 

That's for a couple of reasons.

 

First is still trying to process my mother-in-law's passing.

 

The second is that I was a student traveler in West Germany back in the late summer of 1989. I was there when the Soviet bloc started to disintegrate, and East Germans were pouring across the falling Iron Curtain.

 

I grew up with the worry of a Third World War lingering somewhere in the back of the mind, Guards divisions pouring through the Fulda Gap followed by mushroom clouds. That shapes my view of Communism in general, which is a good thing in our increasingly-nutso environment. 

 

But in 1989, all of a sudden, we saw the Domino Effect in reverse, with Soviet satellites peacefully bidding adieu to the hammer and sickle. 

 

That epochal historical happy ending was more than I had ever hoped for, and it was truly glorious. Even if it didn't lead to the necessary historical reckoning that the fall of Nazism did.

 

And a few years later, we were treated to the surreal experience of watching the former leader of the USSR sell American pizza.

 

 

 

That's pretty hard to top for a child of the Cold War.

 

And while I don't think the array of deals between Israel and various formerly-officially-hostile Sunni Arab states does top it, it is at least in the discussion.

 

It's certainly another seismic political event I did not expect to see in my lifetime. And the fact it was brokered by Donald Trump of all people helps crank up the WAT factor to near-Gorby Pizza level. 

 

May the Lord grant that this bear fruit in a lasting peace.