On: Iran considering US proposal as Trump says war will be 'over quickly'

Another day, another headline written from the perspective of capitals and generals. “Iran considering,” “Trump says,” “Pakistan endeavors.” The grammar of power insists that history is made by statesmen in rooms, that war is something declared and ended by men with titles. But I have seen this play before. The Haitian revolution was not “considered” in Paris - it was fought in the cane fields, and the generals and diplomats scrambled to catch up.

Who will do the dying if this war comes? Not the men making the declarations. The people of the region - the workers, the farmers, the mothers keeping children from shrapnel - they are the real historical actors, even when the headlines erase them. A “quick war” is a fantasy told by those who will not bear its weight. The real duration of conflict is measured in generations of displacement, in the silent erosion of hope.

And Pakistan as mediator? Another former colony playing the diplomat, trying to manage the fires set by empires. The irony is not lost on me. The periphery is always cleaning up the core’s mess, always trying to convert ceasefires into peace while the great powers treat war as policy by other means. The real story isn’t what Trump says or what Iran considers. It’s what the people in the line of fire are doing to survive, to resist, to build something lasting when the men with titles have moved on to the next headline.