Chessboard of blood: the Middle East’s expandable pawns

1 March 2026

Breaking news:

Bombs fall, leaders posture, markets tremble, and the world is told to stay calm. The United States and Israel strike Iran. Iran responds with missiles. Gulf skies light up. Airports shut down. Oil prices twitch like nervous investors refreshing their screens.
    Children die.
    Anchors call it “retaliation.”
    Officials call it “deterrence.”
    Commentators call it “inevitable.”
    I call it what it is: a catastrophic failure of political imagination.
    We are watching so called “grown governments” with nuclear umbrellas some naming themselves “democratic” behave like teenagers with fireworks — except the “fireworks” land on apartment blocks and primary schools.
    And somewhere, in a glass building in New York, the United Nations clears its throat.
    The UN is strongly concerned since 1945: The Security Council meets. Statements are issued. “Deep concern.” “Grave alarm.” “All parties must exercise restraint.”
    Restraint? The missiles are already in the sky.
    The UN was built on the promise of “Never Again.” Today it looks more like “Again, again and again! – but with better wording.” When powerful states violate international law, the consequences are not sanctions; they are press conferences. International law is apparently sacred – unless you own aircraft carriers.

Imperialism with better branding

Let’s not pretend this is ancient tribal chaos. This is geopolitical engineering.
    Influence zones. Energy corridors. Strategic leverage. The language is always sanitised. Nobody says “empire” anymore. They say “security architecture.” Nobody says “control.” They say “stability.”
    But when bombs redraw the political map, that’s not stability. That’s imperial muscle memory.
    The Middle East is treated like a chessboard. The problem is that the pawns have names, families, and pulse rates.
    And when Gaza bleeds – when entire neighbourhoods are erased and scholars use the word genocide with legal precision – we are told it’s “complex.” Civilian suffering becomes a footnote in a security briefing.
    Complexity is the new anaesthesia.
    But we know the trend: Racism in a suit and tie. Notice the hierarchy of grief. When Western cities are threatened, it’s a civilisational crisis. When Middle Eastern cities are flattened, it’s “collateral damage.” When refugees flee bombs, they become “migration pressure.”
    Whose lives are considered strategic assets – and whose are considered expendable?
    This isn’t accidental. It’s structural. It’s the quiet racism embedded in global power: some deaths shake markets; others barely shake headlines.

Accountability? Only for the weak

We’ve seen this pattern before. Financial elites caught in grotesque scandals. Political figures orbiting figures like Jeffrey Epstein. Networks of power protecting themselves while ordinary people are lectured about “rule of law.” Whether every detail is proven or buried, one thing is clear: the powerful rarely fall the way the powerless do.
    When bombs fall, the children die.
    When scandals break, the powerful retire comfortably.
    When wars fail, the public pays the bill.
    The system protects itself first.
    The Empire’s favorite mistake is that history whispers something uncomfortable: empires often begin to fracture during wars they thought would be easy.
    Remember, Afghanistan was supposed to be swift; then Iraq was supposed to be decisive and now Iran is supposed to be manageable.
    Iran is not a footnote. It is an ancient civilisation with 2,500 years of memory. The United States is younger than some Persian poetry. When leaders talk about “quick operations,” history usually prepares a lesson.
    For sure, you cannot bomb your way into stability.
    For sure, you cannot assassinate your way into peace.
    For sure, you cannot sanction your way into legitimacy.
    And yet here we are; for sure
    Let envision the cost now; If the Strait of Hormuz closes, fuel prices spike in Oslo and Nairobi alike. Supermarket shelves feel it. Rent feels it. The “globalised world” suddenly remembers it is connected. But mostly the cost is more blood and endless revenge.
    War is sold as regional. Its consequences are planetary.
    So, here is the unfashionable proposal:
    Stop!
    Stop before escalation becomes routine.
    Stop before revenge becomes doctrine.
    Stop before another generation learns that sirens are lullabies.
    Peace is not weakness. Peace is the only way.
    Negotiation is not surrender. Palaver is the only way.
    The world does not need stronger missiles.
    It needs stronger moral spines.
    And if the United Nations still wants to matter, now would be an excellent time to prove it.
    Because if we continue this way, the question will not be “Who wins?”
    It will be “Who survives?” •

Source: rboneza.substack.com of 1 March 2026

* Raïs Neza Boneza (Democratic Republic of Congo (Ex-Zaire) in Africa, 1979). He currently lives in Norway where he works as a peace researcher and practitioner. He is also a poet who besides writing his own poetry works to promote artistic expressions as a means to deal with conflicts and maintaining mental well-being and spiritual growth after surviving war. Although Boneza may sometimes at least have wished to forget his experiences of war in the conflict-ridden Great Lake region, he has never forgotten about both the richness and misery of Africa. He has lived in the east and in the west of the D. R. Congo, in Rwanda, in Burundi, and Uganda. He has learned seven African languages as well as the European imperialistic languages and has got first-hand knowledge of the cultures of various ethnic groups in the region. This background, combined with his sensitive artistic mind and his scholarly background including his collaboration with one of the founders of peace research Johan Galtung, has equipped his analytical faculties with unique instruments to extend the project that Galtung has developed since the mid 90ies, to the African continent. Besides, his work as consultant and lecturer for different NGOs and institution around world; He is a co-convener for the Transcend Global; a network of specialist working for peace, development and environment. His work is a premise of peace, solidary and human dignity.
Some works: Nomad, a refugee poet (2003): Poetry ISBN 0-9726996-1-9; Black Emerald (2004): Poetry ISBN 9788182530348; Peace By African’s Peaceful Means (2005): Non-fiction ISBN 978-1593440992; Peace through African’s Peaceful Means (2003), ISBN 978-8-2300-0080-9; Sounds of exile (2006): Poetry ISBN 978-1-4116-0990-7; White Eldorado, Black Fever (2013) ISBN 978-8-2998-5413-9