by Dr Rahim Said
The missiles fall, the sirens wail, and somewhere in Tel Aviv, a dishwasher door swings open, its contents shattered on the floor.
In Tehran, the hospitals brace for the next strike. In Gaza, what little remains of a skyline is reduced further to dust. In Washington, someone calls it strategy.
What began as yet another round of posturing between old enemies has now mutated into something far more dangerous — a forever war without clear objectives, without achievable victory, and without any intention of ending. A conflict not measured in battlefields but in the charred remains of apartment blocks, in empty streets, and the faces of the displaced.
The US claims it has “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Iran insists its facilities remain intact. The truth is almost irrelevant.
The narrative of total destruction sells better, and both regimes need an audience convinced of their righteousness. What matters is not whether the bombs hit their mark, but that they were launched at all. Violence for its own sake.
Israel’s leadership, emboldened by American missiles, dreams of toppling regimes and neutralising threats.
Iran responds with promises of relentless retaliation. But no military strike, no covert operation, no missile barrage has ever resolved the hatred that drives this region’s endless bloodletting.
The casualties are not policies or governments. They are ordinary lives, erased in silence.
Now, as businesses shutter, skies empty, and the world teeters on the edge of an energy crisis, the implications stretch far beyond Tel Aviv and Tehran.
The global economy, fragile and over-leveraged, cannot withstand a protracted conflict in the Straits of Hormuz.
Terror cells, lone wolves, and state-sponsored assassins will answer the call for vengeance. Embassies, cafes, airports, and public squares become battlefields.
And for what? The illusion of control? The myth of security?
There will be no peace, no resolution, no decisive moment when one side claims triumph. This is the shape of modern warfare: perpetual, scattered, and impossible to contain. It exists because those who wage it are never the ones who suffer its consequences.
The forever war is here. It will be fought in the shadows, in cyberspace, in back alleys and crowded streets.
It will leave behind not heroes, not victories, but only despair — everywhere.
(The views expressed here are entirely those of the writer)