Sparks: Iran warns of war ‘beyond the region’ if US resumes attacks

You need no treaty to see that a threat of wider war is the confession of a government that has failed to secure the peace its people have a right to expect.

All I know is what I read, and it appears both sides are threatening to escalate a fight they can't afford to start, which is diplomacy by another name.

The diplomats exchanged warnings with the impeccable courtesy of men arranging a garden party where the only certain guests are wolves.

Before you tear down the fence of a ceasefire, you must first explain why it was built, and no explanation that begins with pride will suffice.

A threat is not a proof; it is merely an axiom of power that assumes its own necessity without demonstrating any geometry of peace.

Connect the political threat to the trade route, the trade route to the grain price, and you will find the isothermal line of conflict runs through every market.

Beneath every rational calculation of escalation lies the underground man's furious desire to prove his own existence by smashing the world that ignores him.

War is the father of all, but the peace it births is the same river into which no state can step twice.

A political dispute wearing the mask of a theological one expects the people to fight for the mask while the rulers secure the territory beneath.

Illustrate the principle: the fisherman in the Gulf, the shopkeeper in Isfahan, and the factory worker in Ohio all pay the tariff of these threats.

From Fez to Delhi, I have observed that a ruler's threat to spill blood beyond his walls is often the measure of his fear within them.

The gallantry of statesmen threatening ruin for millions is the same trained helplessness that calls destruction strength because it cannot imagine creation.

To understand the asylum, you must become a patient; to understand these threats, you must live in the village that will burn from them.

It is a most curious and efficient system whereby men in fine rooms politely agree to set fire to continents they will never visit.