We do not know how the Iranian tragedy will end. We do not know what Benjamin Netanyahu —whom we have come to recognise as the true global master — has in mind, nor what Trump is prepared to concede to him under the pretext of the Strait of Hormuz and the brutality of the ayatollahs’ regime. The apocalypse, deferred by barely a fortnight, seems perpetually on the verge of eruption, sustained by a false truce that, in the absence of any substantive negotiation, presages a global equilibrium founded on terror. ...

As expected, just one hour before the deadline set by Donald Trump to “unleash Hell,” the United States announced a new trucewith Iran. An event that was easy to foresee, given the international contextin which a highly significant role is played by a clownish president whose truevocation is that of a speculator capable of extracting personal profit fromabrupt stock market fluctuations. Fluctuations that are themselves easy toanticipate, since he can provoke them directly by virtue of the political roleto which Americans have unwisely elected him. ...

Iran is a political entity in which the ethno-confessional dimension is essential. The millennia-old tradition of the Persian Empire was based on tolerance toward all minorities. The most powerful Persian emperor, Darius I, described himself as “the king of the land of all ethnicities.” This phrase is engraved on his tomb in Susa (Shush), in 486 BC. This tradition of tolerance was broken in 1928 in favor of a hyper-centralized system of repression of minorities. ...