This is from a press trip to Jordan that included scuba diving in the warm, crystalline waters of the Red Sea near Aqaba, traversing the surreal desertscapes of Wadi Rum, and hiking through Wadi Musa – the legendary Valley of Moses – where the ancient city of Petra lies etched into rose-hued cliffs.

Jordan revealed itself as a land of stark and stunning contrasts: silent deserts and noisy souks, pristine coral reefs and ancient ruins worn smooth by centuries of footsteps. But it was this quiet moment in Amman – a dusk-drenched scene – that lodged itself in my mind.

There, beneath the call to prayer and the fading evening light, I felt a flicker of something unexpected: hope. Hope that maybe, just maybe, people of all faiths – and the godless, like me – might one day realize how absurdly self-destructive and potentially cataclysmic it is to keep tearing each other apart over whose version of the truth is the right one.

Then again, as Eisenhower so famously warned in his farewell address in 1961, just three days before John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th President of the United States, the military-industrial complex – that cozy little partnership between weapons manufacturers and the politicians they sponsor – has no interest in peace. Peace doesn’t sell. Peace doesn’t generate quarterly growth. Peace doesn’t get you re-elected – not with patriotic slogans, war parades, and ceremonial flyovers. That’s the war business for you. And business is booming.