Sparks: US and Iran exchange strikes and accuse each other of violating ceasefire

The matter is this: you are told of complex violations and strategic retaliations, yet any child sees that two men burning each other’s houses while shouting about a signed paper have simply returned to their natural state of folly.

Watching the smoke rise over the ports of Bahrain, I note that the hospitality of the Gulf is now measured in the range of missiles rather than the warmth of the guesthouse or the wisdom of the kadi.

When the word of the Republic is pledged in a treaty, only to be dissolved by the first convenient impulse of steel, I ask how long we shall allow the sword to dictate the laws of our Senate.

Men in high offices exchange these thunderbolts with a terrible ease, quite forgetting that it is the quiet households beneath the flight path who must gather the scattered remains of their grand political designs.

They have painted the word 'peace' on the walls of the iron house, yet the occupants continue to sharpen their knives in the dark, proving that a ceasefire is merely the time required to catch one's breath.

The explosion at the terminal is reported as a military datum, yet its true measure lies in the severed currents of trade and the atmospheric tremor that links the burning oil of Kuwait to the global climate of fear.

This sudden eruption of fire is a fever in the body of the world, where the humors of wrath have burst their vessels because the leaders have forgotten the greening power of justice that sustains all living things.

If the practical result of this ceasefire is identical to the conduct of open war, then the word itself has lost its cash-value and we are merely entertaining a theological dispute with high-explosive consequences.

Examining these twin reports of aggression is like observing a contagion in a crowded ward; the surgeons may argue over who coughed first, but the clinical fact remains that the entire room is now profoundly infected.

Both parties have expressed a firm commitment to the ceasefire while simultaneously exploding each other’s infrastructure, which is a perfectly logical way to ensure the peace is kept in as many small pieces as possible.

We are told this conflict is a matter of high principle, yet I observe only the blind struggle of two organisms competing for the same narrow habitat, where each strike is an inherited variation of an ancient, predatory instinct.

It is a marvel of modern enlightenment that we now use the most sophisticated machinery to ensure that the peace is violated with the same enthusiasm and meticulousness that our ancestors reserved for the most holy crusades.

‘The parties exchange strikes to preserve the integrity of the agreement’ - note how the verb 'preserve' is used to describe the act of demolition, proving that the language of diplomacy has finally achieved its goal of total self-annihilation.

Behind the diplomatic talk of violations lies the raw, cold reality of steel meeting flesh, a primitive exchange of force that proves the thin veneer of civilization is no match for the hungry animal of capital.

There is something truly sublime in the way these two nations accuse each other of starting the fire while they are both standing there with empty kerosene cans and the most innocent expressions ever seen on a battlefield.