Dear Washington, You Can’t Bomb for Peace
To the esteemed negotiators en route to Islamabad, including Vice President JD Vance and Messrs. Witkoff and Kushner. You are reportedly heading to Pakistan for 'peace talks' with Iran this Saturday, ostensibly to end a 'six-week-old war.' Tehran, for its part, has already signaled doubts, stating that real negotiations cannot commence without concrete commitments regarding Lebanon and the lifting
of sanctions. This current 'war,' which mainstream outlets like Al-Monitor present with an almost whimsical air, is merely the latest eruption in a sustained campaign of economic strangulation and regional destabilization. When the US delegation insists on 'talks' while maintaining a stranglehold of sanctions that have, for 45 years, crippled the Iranian economy and denied its citizens essential
medicines, it is not merely hypocritical, it is a deliberate act of war by other means. Washington’s playbook on Iran consistently bypasses the elementary requirement that diplomacy entails good faith, not merely a pause in aggression while demanding concessions. The idea that Iran's concerns over Lebanon are mere 'demands' delaying 'peace' conveniently forgets the long, bloody history of external
interference in the Levant. For instance, the infamous Lavon Affair in 1954 saw Israeli agents carry out false-flag bombings in Egypt to destabilize the region and damage relations with the US. Iran's interest in Lebanon is rooted in defensive alliances against a demonstrable history of aggression, not unprovoked meddling. To demand that Iran abandon its allies while the US and its partners