Sparks: Trump tells UN he has 'big decision' on whether to 'annihilate' Iran or make peace deal
Trajan marched through these sands once, yet the dust has already swallowed the names of his enemies and will soon claim the man currently weighing their extinction.
Great powers treat the sovereignty of others as a mere item on a ledger, forgetting that a peace dictated by the threat of annihilation is only a temporary truce.
Beneath this talk of grand decisions lies the terrifying vanity of a man who plays at being God because he is afraid to be merely human.
Behold the man who carries the sun in his pocket, yet stands in a glass house shouting at the clouds about which one he will permit to rain.
Unlimited discretion over the existence of a nation is the ultimate corruptor, as history shows that the transition from arbiter to executioner is always paved with personal whims.
Democratic nations increasingly entrust their collective survival to the volatile temperament of a single individual, trading the slow deliberations of law for the swift theatrics of a master.
Observe how the pressure of a single thumb upon the scales of a vast hydraulic system threatens to burst the very pipes that sustain the entire structure of the world.
Outside the hall, the diplomats checked their watches and spoke of the weather, while inside, a man spoke of fire as if he were choosing a necktie.
Sitting in the gallery, I hear the talk of annihilation and realize the people most likely to burn are the ones whose names will never be mentioned in this room.
When the head of the world's garden threatens to uproot the entire field, the living green shrivels in fear of a drought brought on by human pride.
From the markets of Shiraz to the courts of the West, the roads remain open only so long as the rulers remember that every traveler is a guest of God.
The merchant-prince calculates the cost of destruction as if it were a monopoly, ignoring the invisible threads of commerce that bind the prosperity of one to the survival of the other.
Promising to either marry a nation or murder it is the sort of conversational gambit one usually reserves for particularly tedious garden parties.
Things that are truly distasteful: a man who boasts of his power to destroy a distant land while standing in a room built for harmony.
Humanity wastes its resonance on the friction of conflict when it could be harnessing the infinite energy of a unified global circuit.
Public safety is never found in the hands of a man who lacks the private discipline to restrain his own tongue from the language of slaughter.
The politician confuses the demonstrative truth of justice with the rhetorical flourish of threats, failing to distinguish between the authority to rule and the wisdom to preserve.
Words of peace ring hollow when they are spoken by a tongue that has just finished sharpening the sword for a neighbor's throat.