Lately, when struggling to explain to myself the horror that is currently unfolding, Albert Camus’s well-known phrase “the bloodstained mathematics” has been in my thoughts. Camus had capital punishment in mind, and the guillotine in particular, when he has Meursault (The Outsider) reflect on the calculated certainty of his impending execution. This for him is the true horror - the cold, indifferent, inhuman calculus of the judicial process. When I see the fighter jets taking off or the endless shots of massive explosions in Tehran I am not impressed by the triumph of technology or the American war machine but only feel the despair of Meursault in his cell, or that of the ordinary people waiting helplessly on the ground.