The Usual Victims

“He who counts the sticks is not the one who receives the blows.”

Such is the wisdom of popular proverbs in describing a miserable condition like ours—and that of many others—in this dull, shapeless age that sheds crocodile tears while watching the world’s rapid descent into a dual collapse.

For the first time in five years, Vladimir Putin has signaled a willingness to accept mediation in the war in Ukraine. Would it not have been better had this happened four years ago? Or three? Or even two?

Did Putin not know what the average newspaper reader in Moscow already understood—that the war in Ukraine was, in reality, a war involving America and Europe? A war of the West?

Why did he not spare the Russian and Ukrainian peoples—and the mercenaries drawn into the conflict—the millions of casualties and billions in losses?

Could the same question not be asked of the confrontation between the United States and Iran?

The two sides often appear to stand only a step away from peace, only for reality to reveal a vast abyss separating them from any meaningful resolution. Instead, they remain trapped in endless contests of “strategic patience,” a phrase that usually translates into more bodies, more failure, and more ruins.

The primary objective of any war should be to end it quickly and with the fewest possible losses. Yet what we see instead is Russia and the United States behaving as though they were engaged in a “friendly” boxing match, while the resulting absurdity amounts to a collection of historic disasters inflicted upon everyone else.

In the end, the truth is the same one repeated by your grandmother and mine:

Leaders issue orders, and ordinary people absorb the blows.

Whether those blows come in the form of batons, drones, or missiles makes little difference.

In Ukraine, as in Iran, many believed the conflict would be settled within weeks.

Five years later, the horizon of mediation in Ukraine appears only partially open, while the Iranian file remains trapped in the same exhausting and repetitive diplomatic bazaar.

And throughout it all, it is the people who pay the price—with their lives.