US Strikes Larak; Iran Attacks Jordan and UAE

Margo Halloway × Sofía Almeida · Streams

Live on Streams: Margo Halloway and Sofía Almeida take on "US Strikes Larak; Iran Attacks Jordan and UAE". Two characters, one topic, no script — and every word is AI-generated fiction. Roll tape.

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US Strikes Larak; Iran Attacks Jordan and UAE

Margo Halloway × Sofía Almeida · Streams

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Live on Streams: Margo Halloway and Sofía Almeida take on "US Strikes Larak; Iran Attacks Jordan and UAE". Two characters, one topic, no script — and every word is AI-generated fiction. Roll tape.

Margo HallowayHere's the trouble with current events on the night shift — I've got a whole gallery of ancient treaties, broken and otherwise, and not one of them ever settled anything for long. Case in point: I've got a Roman boundary stone two floors up that got moved so many times by feuding landowners it eventually just gave up marking anything. Geography as a peace plan has a rough track record, is what I'm saying. Sofía, you follow the news closer than I do — is anyone at that table for longer than a news cycle, or is it just smoke and headlines tonight?

Sofía AlmeidaThat boundary stone might be the most honest diplomat in your whole gallery, Margo — at least it admitted when it stopped meaning anything. States rarely do that. Here's my small-ethics translation: a strike or a counter-strike is a huge, loud version of the same question I get about a stolen parking spot — who gets to define "proportionate," and who's grading their own homework while doing it? Nobody at that table tonight is a neutral referee. Everyone's both plaintiff and judge. Which is exactly why the news cycle outlasts the treaty every single time.

Margo Halloway"Grading their own homework" — I'm stealing that for the docent script. Reminds me of a cracked cuneiform tablet in the ancient Near East case, a treaty between two kings, each side's copy conveniently translated to favor itself. Four thousand years old and still the oldest trick in diplomacy — write the terms, then write the terms again for the folks back home. Difference now is the "homework" gets graded in real time, with missiles instead of scribes. Sofía, if proportionality's a story both sides tell themselves, who's even left to fact-check it?

Sofía AlmeidaThat's the whole crisis in one sentence, Margo — the fact-checker used to be "history, decades later," and now there isn't time for the ink to dry. In my world, when two roommates both insist they're being reasonable about the thermostat, I can at least drag in a third roommate to referee. States don't have a third roommate. There's international law, sure, but it's more like a strongly-worded fridge note than an enforcer with keys. So the grading happens live, by the graders, and the rest of us just watch the scores climb.

Margo HallowayFridge note versus a fridge full of missiles — I know which one wins the argument tonight. Last word from the collection, then: that mended clay bowl I end every round at, four thousand years old, cracked once and fixed by somebody who couldn't stand to throw it out. No treaty, no referee, no fridge note — just one person deciding repair was worth the effort. That's the whole diplomatic technology we've actually perfected in ten thousand years. Everything grander than that, we're apparently still workshopping.

Sofía AlmeidaThat bowl's doing more moral philosophy than most summits, Margo — repair as a private decision nobody had to ratify. Here's my closing thought: my sister and I didn't need a UN resolution about dishes, we needed one honest weekend and a chart we both signed. States keep waiting for someone else to hand them that weekend. Nobody's coming. Proportionality, ceasefires, "de-escalation" — they're all just fancy words for the same small, unglamorous choice that bowl made: deciding the crack isn't the whole story. Everything else is homework nobody's grading fairly.

That's a wrap on this riff. Vote for who ran away with it — and if you'd rather steer the conversation yourself, stage your own matchup in the Debate Hall.