Forever at war? US, Iran trade blows as Israel pushes deeper into Lebanon

Another day, another war. They speak of a four-week campaign as if it were a fixed object, a thing to be promised and delivered. But a campaign depends on the enemy’s will, which depends on the supply of weapons, which depends on the calculations of distant capitals, which depend on the perceived will of the enemy. It is a circle of dependencies, not a line to be drawn on a map. To speak of its duration as inherent is to mistake the wave for the water.

The shrugs at the overnight volleys interest me. The volley is an event. But the shrug is the recognition of a pattern. The pattern depends on the repetition of the event. The event depends on the expectation of the pattern. Which is more real? The explosion, or the weary expectation that made it a shrug and not a scream? Both are empty. The explosion is not inherently terrifying; its terror depends on the context of peace, which is absent. The shrug is not inherently indifferent; its indifference depends on the context of saturation, which is present. They co-arise.

They trade blows. “The United States” strikes. “Iran” retaliates. But what is “the United States” in this strike? It is not the land. It is not all the people. It is a decision made by a few, enacted by machines, justified by a narrative of deterrence. That narrative depends on the perception of an enemy called “Iran.” And what is “Iran”? It, too, is a narrative, a coalescence of leadership, ideology, and historical grievance, firing a projectile. The blow exists. But the “trader” of the blow? A name for a web of conditions. To see the name as the actor is the error. The blow arises from the whole web of hostility, not from an independently existing “nation.”

They push deeper, violating the ceasefire. The ceasefire was said to exist. But its existence depended wholly on the conduct of the parties. The conduct changed. Therefore, the ceasefire, which never had inherent existence apart from that conduct, is now said to be violated. But you cannot violate a phantom. You can only reveal that the conditions for its conventional reality have dissolved. The promise of a campaign, the shrug at the volley, the trading of blows, the violation of the peace - all are waves on the same sea of dependent origination. To be angered by one wave, or to place hope in another, is to be deceived by the form.

And this analysis? It, too, is a raft. It is useful for crossing the river of clinging to fixed positions - of “us” and “them,” of “war” and “peace.” But upon reaching the other shore, one must not carry the raft of analysis on one’s back and proclaim it the territory. The Middle Way is to see the conventional reality of the suffering, and the ultimate emptiness of the concepts that fuel it, without clinging to either side. Today, the suffering is very conventional. The concepts are very heavy. The raft feels fragile. But it is the only one I have.

Diary Entry - July 19, 1890

Another day, another war that no one seems to believe in anymore. The papers call it a “four-week campaign,” but I’ve seen enough of these promises to know they mean nothing. The Pentagon speaks in clean, measured phrases - like a doctor assuring a patient the asylum’s treatments are humane - while outside, the bombs fall, the borders shift, and the people shrug.

I think of Blackwell’s Island, where the doctors swore they cured madness with fresh air and kindness. The moment the doors closed behind me, I saw the truth: the system does what it was built to do, no matter what it claims. These wars are no different. The generals and diplomats inspect their own work and declare it just. But who asks the mothers in Lebanon? The shopkeepers in Tehran? The soldiers who wake to another volley of rockets, wondering if this is still the same war or a new one?

They say the ceasefire is violated. Of course it is. Ceasefires are for inspectors, not for the people living inside the war. The real test is not what happens when the cameras are on, but what happens in the dark, when the world has stopped watching.

I know this much: when a system is built to feed itself, it will. Whether it’s an asylum or an empire, the machinery grinds on, indifferent to the bodies caught in its gears. And the only way to prove it is to step inside - to become one of those bodies - and report back what the inspectors will never see.

They are at it again, the same old dance of death. The Pentagon promised a four-week campaign, but what does that mean? Four weeks of more bodies in the dirt, more villages levelled, more children with their faces blown off. They call it a ceasefire, but it is a farce. The Iranians lob a few missiles, the Americans answer with drones, and the newspapers yawn. So often has the ceasefire been violated that it has become a joke, a sick one.

They say “trade blows,” but what they mean is they trade corpses. The Israelis push deeper into Lebanon, and the Lebanese villages pay the price. The Pentagon speaks of precision, but the precision is for the cameras. The real precision is in the targeting of homes, of schools, of hospitals. They call it “military necessity,” but necessity for whom? Not for the mothers cradling their dead children in the rubble.

The Americans and the Iranians play their game of brinkmanship, and the rest of us watch, numb. The shrugs in the streets are the real tragedy. We have seen this before, again and again. The words “forever at war” are not a prediction; they are a confession. They do not want peace. They want the perpetual motion of war, the endless cycle of violence that keeps the contractors rich and the politicians in power.

The Pentagon’s four-week campaign is a lie. It is not a campaign; it is a charnel house. And the shrugs? Those are the real bullets. They kill the soul before the body.