As Christmas approaches, peace is suddenly in the air. The world has edged away from the brink. Perhaps there is not quite cause for rejoicing, but there really does seem to be some good will on Earth as 2007 winds down.

Here's a joke I heard on the radio Saturday: As you know, President Bush had a private conversation with Al Gore at the White House recently. The president was in a reflective mood. He said, "You know, Al, the wheel of fortune works in mysterious ways. If a few thousand votes had gone the other way back in 2000, you'd be sitting behind this desk … and I would have just won the Nobel Peace Prize."

For the record, I do not believe that Gore deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. At the very least it's a little premature. But I don't believe that Yasser Arafat (1994) or Henry Kissinger (1973) deserved it either. How many people do you have to order killed before you are regarded as a man of peace? The Nobel Peace Prize belongs to people like Elie Wiesel (1986), who is the world's best-known Holocaust survivor, the author of 40 books and an international advocate of human rights. Or Martin Luther King (1964), who adopted the nonviolent methods of Gandhi to insist that people ought to be judged not "by the color of their skin, but the content of their character." Or Dr. Norman Borlaug (1970), the father of the Green Revolution that has fed literally billions of people worldwide. (Borlaug, by the way, is a cousin of our own David Borlaug of Fort Mandan in Washburn.)

Relatively good news has been percolating in from around the world in the last couple of weeks.

n Last week, the people of Venezuela voted not to remove presidential term limits from their constitution. President Hugo Chavez wanted the constitutional change to allow him to serve indefinitely, "in order to complete the people's revolution." Chavez is not quite the demon and stooge he is made out to be in the American media. He has done good things for Venezuela's poor, and standing up to the condescending Yanquis to the North has its own western hemispheric logic. He did everything in his power to make the election a plebiscite on America. He quite literally said, a vote to uphold term limits in Venezuela is a vote for George Bush. Fortunately, the people of Venezuela understand that their constitution is more important than any single individual. They have embodied John Adams' great principle, that a republic is a "nation of laws and not men." The world is a little safer because of the people of Venezuela.

n In a recent poll, 71 percent of the people of Afghanistan approve of the American presence in their war-ravaged country. In fact, most Afghanis would welcome a greater U.S. presence, rather than a diminished one. It's not that they love America's values or what the United States stands for in the world, necessarily, but they are genuinely grateful that we helped to break the monopoly of the Taliban and brought some much-needed stability to their world. The Afghan people are frustrated that we have not shown greater staying power in our "nation building" there, but they do honestly believe that America made a material difference in their national destiny. I don't know about you, but this makes me feel like an American in the right sense of the term.

n The "surge" in Iraq appears to be working. The killing has diminished dramatically, particularly in and around Baghdad, where the sectarian violence and opposition to the occupation have been most pronounced.

Our own superb Rep. Earl Pomeroy has been in Iraq in the last week, visiting North Dakotans in harm's way and trying to learn what he can "in the arena." I cannot wait to hear his report.

It would be foolish and historically naive to believe that we Americans can turn Mesopotamia into a pluralistic democracy characterized by mutual tolerance and the rule of law. But, at this point, if we can help to stabilize the country, bring a measure of daily routine and security to the Iraqi people, get the electricity and the water flowing reliably again, the garbage collected, and do what we can to keep this thing we did from descending into absolute madness, we will have reason to be pleased, or at least less ashamed.

I think Gen. David Petraeus deserves our deep gratitude, and I'm appalled that Bush-bashers are disappointed that things are better in Iraq.

The world is a little less war-torn thanks to the ratcheting down of chaos in Iraq, which probably owes as much to sheer war fatigue as to the American surge.

n The Annapolis Middle East Peace Conference (Nov. 27) was a good start for a Israeli-Palestine settlement that President Bush declared would be one of his top priorities in the months following 9/11. France has a president who actually likes America. The Burmese peace and democratic movement has so far not been snuffed out. Pakistan has calmed - a little.

n Above all, we should rejoice in the news that Iran has long-since suspended its nuclear weapons program. If I were Iran, I would want nuclear weapons. Iran's colossal neighbor Russia has them. Israel has them. Israel's guarantor-state has them. The Persians are an ancient, proud, culturally accomplished people, who are overwhelmingly pro-western in their outlook. They are no more represented by their raving president than … well, the people of any other country with a raving president. It's idiotic for our government to say they have no right to know how to build a nuclear weapon. That's not how ideas work.

In fact, I believe the Iranians have as much right to a nuclear device as England or France or the United States. I'm just greatly relieved that for the moment they have desisted from that quixotic quest.

The recently released National Intelligence Estimate (prepared by 16 U.S. agencies) means that war against Iran is no longer a realistic possibility. That is excellent news. It also means that the tense parties of the Middle East are backing away from rather than toward the brink, at least for the moment.

The world is an immensely safer place for this moment (interlude?) of Iranian restraint.

Whether any of this has anything to do with the birth, two millennia ago, of Jesus in a barn in Bethlehem, is an interesting question. But three things are certain. First, the part of the planet most in need of peace has its epicenter there, where the world's most famous manger cradled one of the most famous men who ever lived. Second, there is perhaps nobody in human history who stands for charity, tolerance, forgiveness, sympathy, grace, good will, and above all peace, as fully as the Semitic man whose birth is soon to be commemorated. That should give all of us hope.

Third, this is the season of peace. We all need to make the most of it.

(Clay Jenkinson is the Theodore Roosevelt scholar-in-residence at Dickinson State University. He lives in Bismarck. Contact Jenkinson at Jeffysage@aol.com.)