My dear people of Aprokonation, today I spent some time over the library. Ah, the library. A sanctuary of order, of neatly arranged truths and fictions. I recently undertook a grand project of re-cataloging my personal collection. It was during the "Political Science" section that I paused, a thick, dust-collecting volume in my hand: "International Law: A Comprehensive History." It felt heavy, solid, a tome of authority.
And yet, as I held it, a strange certainty washed over me. It was in the wrong place.
With the solemnity of a high priest correcting a sacred text, I walked it over to the fiction aisle. There, I slotted it snugly between a well-worn copy of "The Lord of the Rings" and a pristine edition of "Alice in Wonderland".
A friend, witnessing this literary heresy, nodded with grim understanding. "Perfect", he said. "It belongs right there. A world of rules and order that only exists in our imaginations, a fantastical land where might doesn't make right. International Law is a lot like Bigfoot, you see. Often sighted, its existence hypothesized in countless academic papers, but never, ever reliably confirmed in the wild".
And really, who could argue? It's a charming myth we tell ourselves. A comforting bedtime story for nations. Because if International Law were real, just think of the delightful consistency we could expect.
Imagine, for instance, the outcry if Russia were to have a prominent, pesky domestic critic, let's call him Mr. Senselessky, conveniently eliminated on the streets of a European capital. The thunderous condemnations! The emergency sessions! The rounds of sanctions so potent they might... mildly inconvenience a few oligarchs' yacht holidays. The sheer, unadulterated shock!
Oh, wait.
But let's not dwell on such dreary consistencies. Let's talk about Iran. There's a persistent, almost charmingly naive theory floating around, particularly among some of my fellow Nigerians, that the simmering tensions there are some sort of grand religious crusade. A 21st-century replay of ancient schisms. They see it through a sectarian lens, and so they project a hatred onto Iranians, missing the forest for the trees.
How wonderfully simplistic. It’s so much easier to believe the world is driven by ancient, theological hatreds than by the boring, predictable lust for resources. First, it was Venezuela, with its vast, soaking-in-oil reserves. Now it's Iran. It’s a simple pattern, really. It has nothing to do with who prays which way. It's about the black gold. It's about controlling the spigot, blocking the supply lines. It's about ensuring a certain rising power in the East,let's call them China, has its energy arteries squeezed. It’s Geopolitics 101. It’s economics. It’s a chess game where the pawns are nations and the prize is global dominance.
The US wants to weaken China, and the most effective way is to kneecap its allies and major suppliers. It’s a strategy as old as empires, dressed up in the fine robes of "spreading democracy" or "curbing nuclear ambitions". The robes change; the body underneath is always the same, naked and grasping.
So, you see, my dear Nigerians who are busy hating Iranians for their faith, you’ve been sold a dummy. You’re cheering for one team in a game you don't even understand is being played. You see a religious war; I see a resource war. You see infidels; I see people fighting for a good cause, their sovereignty, their resources, their right to exist outside the unipolar dream of a superpower. They are fighting a Goliath with a sling, and whether you like their God or not, you should recognize a David when you see one.
They will win, or they will lose, but it won't be because of any divine intervention. It will be because of pipelines, tankers, and the ever-shifting alliances of global power. The Lord of the Rings had its Dark Lord Sauron, a great evil to be vanquished. Alice in Wonderland had its nonsensical rules that changed depending on the mood of the Queen of Hearts. Our real-world International Law seems to be a clumsy mashup of both. We have our proclaimed Dark Lords, and a rulebook that gets rewritten the moment a powerful nation's interests are at stake.
So yes, my copy of International Law will stay in the fiction section. It's a beautiful story. A compelling fantasy. It just has about as much impact on the real world as a hobbit has on an oil pipeline.