At the United Nations this week, American ambassador Mike Waltz offered a rare and sobering admission: the conflict with Iran has no defined end. The U.S. naval blockade tightens around Iranian waters, designed to break an economy and bend a government's will — yet Tehran holds firm, and Washington signals it is prepared to wait. In the long human story of coercion and resistance, this standoff asks an ancient question: whether suffering, applied from the outside, can truly change what a people have decided to endure.