On: Trump extends ceasefire with Iran, says Tehran regime 'seriously fractured'

I read today that the President has extended a ceasefire, and speaks of the Iranian regime as being fractured. They speak of blockades and financial collapse, of regimes and their power. And I find myself, as ever, returning to the same quiet arithmetic.

One man in Tehran claims to command the obedience of millions. One man in Washington claims to command the obedience of millions. Each points at the other as the tyrant. Each demands his own people fill the treasury and enlist in the army to confront the other. And the people do it. They always do.

The remarkable thing is not that a blockade can cause financial pain. The remarkable thing is that millions of people will accept that pain, will bear the scarcity, for a quarrel between two men in offices thousands of miles apart. If the people of both nations simply refused - not with violence, but with a collective shrug, a turning away to tend their own gardens - what would be left to fracture? The power would evaporate, like a puddle in the sun.

They call it statecraft. They use words like “ceasefire” and “regime.” But I look at it and see only a habit. The habit of believing that the edicts from these distant capitals are facts of nature, like the weather, to be endured. If my friend demanded I impoverish myself to prove my loyalty in his personal feud, I would end the friendship. Why, then, do we accept this from strangers with titles? The blockade works only because the millions on both sides continue to obey, continue to believe the arrangement is necessary. I truly do not understand why they maintain it.