On: Each side spins a different story about the US-Iran peace talks - but Tehran may

Diary Entry

The news today speaks of “peace talks” and “twists and turns,” of who has the cards stacked against them. I read these words and feel a familiar chill, the chill of a language designed to obscure. They speak of Iran, of Trump, of bewildering sagas. But beneath this diplomatic tapestry, I see the same old thread: the presumption that power negotiates with power over the bodies and futures of the people, who are but spectators to their own fate.

You say these are complex matters of state. You imply that the ordinary citizen cannot grasp the nuances. This is the eternal song of the oligarch and the autocrat. But I ask: whose sons and daughters will stand in the ranks if these talks fail? Whose blood will be spilled? It will not be the blood of the men who speak of stacked decks in distant rooms. The argument that the many must be excluded from the councils of war and peace because the matter is too delicate has a long and bloody history. It has never been made by the mother waiting for the letter that does not come.

They report the posturing of governments, the analysis of who may “have the last word.” But the last word, the only word that carries moral weight, belongs to the people both nations would sacrifice for a principle they had no hand in choosing. To speak of these maneuvers as a game of cards is to confess the heart of the matter: human lives are the currency. State that choice plainly. When you do, the question of its morality answers itself.

I am weary of “spin.” I am weary of stories told by those for whom war is a calculation and peace a transaction. Let the unflinching account be heard: peace built on the exclusion of the people is not peace at all. It is merely a pause, purchased with the threat of their children, awaiting the next turn of the card.