Iran attacks Americans. Trump bombs Iran. Iran attacks again. Every corpse becomes the justification for the next one while the people making the decisions continue calling themselves strong.
Five months into a war Donald Trump said would last four or five weeks, the newest plan for ending it is 10 to 14 more days of heavier bombing.
We bombed Iran.
Iran attacked American forces.
We bombed Iran again.
Iran attacked Jordan and Kuwait.
A worker is dead in Kuwait. An Iranian family is dead on Qeshm Island. American service members are dead. Ships are burning. Oil prices are rising.
Now the serious people have arrived with their solution.
More bombing.
What happens after the fourteenth day?
Perhaps its remaining leaders decide that another round of American attacks has persuaded them to abandon everything they refused to abandon during the previous five months of attacks.
Perhaps thousands more bombs will produce the surrender the first few thousand failed to produce.
Perhaps Iran launches more missiles, another American dies and we discover that the newest plan for ending the war is another two weeks of war.
Iran attacks because America attacked. America attacks because Iran attacked. Each government points to the bodies created by the previous attack as proof that it has no choice but to order the next one.
By that logic, the war can never end.
Every corpse becomes a permission slip.
Before anyone starts typing, this is not a defense of Iran.
The Iranian regime is a brutal theocracy. It imprisons dissenters, subjugates women and kills people who challenge its power. Iran deliberately fired missiles at bases used by American forces. It has attacked ships and threatened countries that had no interest in joining this war. An Iranian strike has now killed a civilian worker in Kuwait.
Iran knew Americans could die.
Iran knew Trump would retaliate.
It attacked anyway.
The leaders share the same dangerous defect.
Both experience compromise as humiliation.
Both define strength as making the other side kneel.
Both would rather absorb another funeral than allow their enemies to believe they blinked.
Iran needs to prove Trump did not frighten it into submission. Trump needs to prove Iran cannot defy him without being punished. Neither man issuing an order will be beneath the next missile.
That privilege belongs to someone else.
It belonged to the children at Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab.
On February 28, the opening day of the American and Israeli bombing campaign, a strike destroyed their school. Iranian officials say more than 175 children and teachers were killed.
A school standing beside a military target does not turn the children inside it into a military target.
Before this war had accomplished anything, it had graves full of children.
Five months later, their families are still waiting for us to explain what happened.
Are we proud yet?
Have we killed enough people to prove that killing all those people was worth it?
How many more children would make the first group of dead children feel like part of a successful strategy?
Give us a number.
The people directing this war keep talking about targets, capabilities, deterrence and leverage. Those words are useful because none of them bleed.
A command center is a target.
A missile facility is a capability.
A dead family is regrettable collateral damage.
A hungry child in Somalia does not appear in the briefing at all.
But the missiles do not stop at the borders of the countries being bombed.
The bill arrives in kitchens all over the world.
Fuel raises the cost of tractors, fertilizer, shipping, refrigeration and humanitarian aid. Families already spending almost everything on food do not have another twenty dollars available when prices rise.
They eat less.
Children leave school. Parents skip meals. Aid organizations deliver less food because every truck costs more to move.
UNICEF projects that the economic shock from the war could push 18 million to 23.4 million additional children into poverty by the end of this year. Most will live in Africa and Asia.
The World Food Programme warned that 45 million additional people could face acute hunger if the conflict continued and oil remained near $100 a barrel. Its latest analysis says the broader warning is becoming reality. Millions more people in Somalia, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan are already struggling to afford basic food.
The wealthy complain about gasoline.
The poor skip dinner.
Tell me again what any of them are receiving in exchange.
They did not close the Strait of Hormuz.
They did not launch missiles at Jordan.
They did not order the bombing of Iran.
They will pay anyway.
So will the American families burying service members. So will Iranian parents searching through rubble. So will the worker killed inside a Chinese company’s building in Kuwait. So will Egyptians whose energy system was attacked by a drone nobody has even claimed.
This is what strongmen do.
They create a world in which everyone else must suffer so they never have to appear weak.
Then they call the suffering sacrifice.
To everyone asking God to bless the next retaliation, what exactly do you imagine God sees?
The flag painted on the missile?
Or the child beneath it?
If your faith recognizes one and not the other, that is not faith.
It is nationalism wearing God’s clothes.
No serious person believes peace will be clean now. Iran cannot be trusted because someone asks nicely. Trump cannot erase five months of blood by declaring another perfect victory. Hormuz, sanctions, missiles, nuclear inspections and regional security will all require difficult agreements with people who have earned one another’s hatred.
That is what diplomacy is for.
The adult course is an immediate, verified halt to attacks on territory, military bases and shipping. Mediators can then negotiate a phased agreement in which each concession is exchanged for another concession.
Iran stops attacking.
America stops bombing.
Shipping resumes.
Sanctions relief, security guarantees, nuclear limits and missile restrictions are negotiated instead of extracted from bodies.
Neither government gets to demand a public ceremony in which the other kneels.
The agreement will be ugly.
Iran will tell its people it forced America to negotiate.
Trump will call it the greatest peace agreement ever made.
Let them.
Headlines are cheaper than funerals.
Most people do not want to control a strait, break a regime or make another president bow.
They want to afford food.
They want to come home before their children are asleep.
They want one evening when nobody is ordering them to fear, hate, sacrifice or fight.
The people demanding another round are rarely the people deciding which bill can wait or identifying a body.
Enough.
Stop trading bodies for pride.
Can the fucking adults please enter the room?
EDW•
