On: US strikes Iran, drawing retaliatory attack on American base

Today, I heard news of a strike and a retaliation between the United States and Iran. It is a strange and sad echo of the caravan raids I witnessed in the deserts, where one tribe attacks another and the cycle of vengeance begins anew. The practical detail is always the same: a man is killed, a camp is burned, and then the other side must answer, for honor and for fear. But here, they speak of a “ceasefire” that was already in place. What is the value of such an agreement if it is so easily broken? It reminds me of the treaties between sultans, signed with great ceremony, yet forgotten when the first provocation comes.

The hospitality test is utterly failed in such exchanges. There is no welcome for the stranger here, only the calculation of the missile’s path. In the courts of Mali or Delhi, even between rivals, there were protocols - a messenger, a parley, a gift to smooth the anger before blades were drawn. This seems to have none of that. They strike, and then they are struck, as if by reflex.

I think of the network that connects these places, though they see themselves as separate worlds. The oil, the trade, the scholars - all are threads in a single cloth. To cut one thread, you fray the whole fabric. A wise ruler knows that to disrupt the caravan route hurts his own merchants as much as the other’s. But perhaps they do not see the network. They see only the node where the enemy sits.

It is a wearying pattern. I have seen it from the steppes to the coasts. The judge in one land settles a dispute with compensation and restored honor. The judge in another land settles it with fire and ruin. Both are methods of judgment. But one leaves a road open for travel tomorrow. The other leaves a road littered with stones too heavy to move.