Sparks: G7 summit gets underway with spotlight on US-Iran deal

Men agree to cease fighting over distant lands while rushing to the next summit, mistaking the frantic motion of diplomacy for the deliberate act of peace.

That a compact between two powers, negotiated in secret and announced as the summit begins, should bind the other five to its terms without their prior consent violates the principle of self-governance among nations.

Power, having evaded the slow check of congress, now seeks the quick validation of the summit, a pattern as old as empire.

If peace secured for some perpetuates injustice for others, then it is not peace but a more durable oppression.

As water, forced through a new channel, seeks its old course, so too will the old animosities flow around this hastily built agreement.

The merchant of armaments and the merchant of diplomacy, though professing different trades, follow the same principle of securing their own advantage under the cover of the public good.

They declare the conflict resolved from a single center, ignoring the infinite worlds of consequence their resolution creates and cannot control.

The creature of this peace, stitched together from old grievances and new expediencies, now walks abroad, and its makers have already turned away.

'A historic step toward lasting security' - note how the phrase performs the celebration so completely that no one examines the step's direction.

From inside the negotiating room, the map is a document of concessions; from the village the war emptied, it is still a document of graves.

One finds the true terms of any compact not in the chateau's printed text, but in the markets and roads of the country it claims to have pacified.

They declare a peace built upon the silenced testimony of the sufferers, then call it wisdom, which is the political name for educated incapacity.