Oslo on the Strait of Hormuz

The most successful peace processes are often those that allow the stronger party to continue the war under diplomatic cover.

Not for those beneath the aircraft. Not for the states ordered to negotiate while under attack. But extremely constructive for empire, which has perfected the art of converting aggression into procedure and coercion into statesmanship.

The emerging American-Iranian “peace process” belongs to this tradition of organised fraud.

A Pakistan-brokered, 14-point memorandum was presented as a path toward ending hostilities, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, suspending attacks, and negotiating a durable settlement. Within weeks, the United States resumed strikes across Iran. Tehran retaliated against American military infrastructure and regional facilities used to sustain Washington’s war machine. The diplomats continued talking. The missiles continued flying.

The bulldozer advanced. The communiqué regretted.

Washington now offers Tehran the same poisoned chalice: suspend your momentum, surrender your leverage, enter an endless process, and trust the empire that is bombing you to define what “de-escalation” means.

In the imperial dictionary, American violence is never violence. It is “deterrence,” “force protection,” “stabilisation,” or some other phrase embalmed in Pentagon varnish. Israeli violence enjoys the same miraculous purification. Occupation becomes security. Siege becomes self-defence. Mass killing becomes an operational necessity. The victims, meanwhile, are accused of escalation the moment they refuse to die quietly.

Empire’s greatest privilege is not military superiority. It is control over chronology. History begins when the target retaliates.

The memorandum’s asymmetry is therefore not accidental. Iran is expected to prove good faith materially: restrain its forces, facilitate shipping, limit retaliation, and enter negotiations over sanctions, reconstruction, regional security, and its nuclear program. Washington proves good faith rhetorically, usually while refuelling the aircraft.

Negotiations become a waiting room in which the besieged are ordered to sit patiently while the empire rearranges the battlefield.

The Israeli precedent makes the danger unmistakable. For decades, Israel has negotiated precisely as it wages war: to gain time, divide opponents, neutralize pressure, and convert temporary advantage into permanent domination. Its “peace process” with the Palestinians was never designed to end colonialism. It was designed to make colonialism
administratively respectable.

Washington learned the lesson well because Washington financed it. The choice of Switzerland for subsequent talks merely perfects the obscenity. Imperial violence has always preferred beautiful scenery. There is something reassuringly civilized about discussing missile strikes beneath snow-covered mountains while people elsewhere are
reduced to ash. The coffee is excellent. The language is measured. The corpses, mercifully, remain offstage.

From Oslo to the Alps, the scenery changes. The choreography does not.

Iran should negotiate, but it should not confuse negotiation with peace. States negotiate because war is costly and strategy requires flexibility. The question is whether talks restrain coercion or merely reorganize it. A process that permits one side to bomb, sanction, blockade, threaten, and sabotage while demanding “confidence-building
measures” from the other is not diplomacy.