On: Iran war: Peace talks on hold, what's next?

June 12

The news from the East - the talks are off. They meet in Islamabad, but they do not speak. They maintain a ceasefire, they say, but offer no path to peace. It is the old game, played with new pieces on an old board.

I ask you, what is a ceasefire but a pause in the killing? It is not peace. It is a ledger entry that reads, “No new dead today.” But the debt of yesterday’s dead remains unpaid, and the interest of tomorrow’s dead continues to accrue. They speak of a “roadmap” as if it were a secret document, a thing too complex for the farmer whose son is a soldier, or the shopkeeper whose taxes pay for the shells. There is no complexity. There is only the will to continue, or the will to stop.

They sit in rooms and do not talk. Why? Because the men who send others to die are never in a hurry. The cost is not theirs. It is borne by the common man, the woman who waits, the child who grows up without a father. They talk of strategy and influence, but I talk of the arithmetic of grief. How many more must die before the map is drawn? The answer is always the same: more.

This is not diplomacy. It is a performance for those of us who are meant to watch and hope. But hope is a currency they have devalued. I say, let the people who bleed for this conflict see the full account. State the number of graves. State the cost in bread, in ruined homes, in broken bodies. Then ask if the reasons for this silence are worth the price. I think we would have our answer, and it would not be found in Islamabad.