History reveals some interesting lessons. Who would have thought that the Irish Revolutionary Army (IRA) and the British government in Northern Ireland could ever reconcile? The crimes they committed against each other were unforgivable: The British massacres of the Irish, the IRA terrorist bombs indiscriminately killing in Northern Ireland and England. Who would have thought that a fanatic Ulster Protestant such as Ian Paisley would accept a settlement with the hated Sinn Fein? Or that the IRA would compromise the blood of its martyrs by settling for peaceful legislative participation? But they have.

In his recent “Worshipping the Myths of World War II,” Edward W. Wood Jr., a wounded World War II vet, acknowledges what he called the apocalyptic myth often drawn from that war: That there will always be evil people, a la Hitler, who must be smashed by the good forces. This myth constitutes, he thinks, the “refusal to ever consider compromise with others we define as enemies,” that we must militarily and totally defeat them.

We can only persist in this myth as long as America perceives itself as absolute goodness, victimized by malevolent others.

This illusion is not a worthy ideal for a mature, decent country. We act better when we are conscious of our moral weaknesses. Even at our inception, inspiring as are our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, American ideals of “all men are created equal” were compromised by the brutalities of slavery (three times approved in the Constitution) and by the virtual genocide against the Native Americans (regarded as the pagan “other”). And even now we have only partly recovered from these “original sins.” Moreover, our labor history has often been brutal and exploitive, and our foreign policy has been marred by imperialistic ventures.

To understand these historical factors is not to deny the country, but to allow us to humanely and humanly resolve our conflicts and interests to be a better country.

When John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev had the necessary humility and understanding to compromise during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, avoiding nuclear war and destruction, by both nations agreeing to remove missiles on the borders of their enemies (Cuba and Turkey, respectively), was principle violated, or was a decent peace maintained?

After terming the Soviet Union “the evil empire,” even President Reagan modified this absolutist good versus evil idea in his meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik, Iceland, where he and Gorbachev began to agree on the need to radically shrink both countries’ nuclear arsenals.

When President Carter brought Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt to a compromise settlement between these two hostile neighbors, an uneasy but important way was forged.

Now, again, the Palestinians and Israelis, who regard each other as intractable enemies bent on each other’s destruction, must come to some hard-to-swallow agreement, despite the unforgivable atrocities each cites against the other, or there will be no peace. If we had decent presidential leadership, we could force this sort of painful compromise on these two implacable enemies instead of our present one-sided and unproductive support for the Israelis.

There is a need to prevent terrorist attacks, such as occurred on 9/11/01. And in many ways we have responded to this threat. Terrorists usually can’t be negotiated with. However, many tactics short of trying to kill them off can be effective.

A real settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would greatly reduce Arab anger and sources of terror. Ceasing to treat countries such as Iran (a country that cooperated with the U.S. after 9/11) as evil threats to be bombed or invaded would be an improvement. Negotiating our fears about its capacity for nuclear weapons would be important.

Iran is not “a bad guy,” but may be motivated toward these weapons through fear. And, withdrawal from those countries we occupy (and that England occupied 75 years previously) would undercut the incentive of Middle Easterners to revenge themselves on those they may see as foreign dominators.

Jim Scofield of Richland Township is an associate professor of humanities at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. His views do not necessarily represent those of the university.