“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

The ancient maxim, whose precise origins have been lost to history, appears across cultures and civilizations. Ancient Egypt, Greece, India, China and Persia (modern-day Iran) all had iterations of this fundamental ethical principle as early as a thousand years before it appeared in the Gospel of Matthew. The sentiment crosses religious boundaries as well, appearing in Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Islamic and Confucian traditions, to name only a few.

To say the Rule is a foundational principle of human culture is perhaps even an understatement. The rule of reciprocity, some psychologists argue, may actually be part of our neurological wiring. Perhaps that is why some version of the Golden Rule appears almost everywhere humans have built civilizations. Long before philosophers and prophets put it into words, cooperation and reciprocity may have helped our ancestors survive. Groups that learned to work together endured, while those that did not died out.

The persistence of this idea suggests something profound: that we have long understood that what we inflict upon others has a way of returning to us.

If reciprocity governs kindness, it also governs cruelty. One of the world’s oldest surviving legal codes, Hammurabi’s Code, famously codified this principle by requiring, “an eye for an eye.”

Throughout history, scholars and historians have observed that cycles of violence rarely eliminate the conditions that created them; they continue when grievances are inherited by those left behind. Extremism — whether associated with jihadists or white nationalists — is fueled by retaliatory violence. Every airstrike that kills someone’s brother or son creates another family with reason to hate those responsible. So the cycle continues, and we get no closer to a resolution.

While attacks like the horrifying violence of Oct. 7, 2023, are viewed in the West as senseless cruelty, for Palestinians who have seen their homes destroyed, their land occupied and family members killed, it is not unsurprising for them to view the violence not as provocation but as retaliation. That doesn’t make it true or just, but feelings often overwhelm fact. People rarely view violence against them through the same moral lens as those suffering on the other side.

The aftermath of Sept. 11 offers another example. In the wake of the deadliest terrorist attack in American history, our nation turned its fury eastward, launching wars that have since contributed to millions of deaths. Yet despite two decades of fighting, the War on Terror did not eliminate global terrorism. Military force can destroy missile launchers, topple governments and kill terrorist leaders, yes, but it cannot bomb resentment — only grow it.

As the familiar saying goes, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

We — America, Iran, Israel, Palestine — will probably never agree on whose violence was justified, whose came first or whose grievances matter most, so that effort is folly. You can’t change a man’s heart.

But what we can do, if we are brave enough, is stop the cycle of violence.

Four months into the war with Iran, it is increasingly clear that airstrikes and drone attacks alone cannot achieve America’s long-term objectives, whether preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, degrading its proxy networks or bringing greater stability to the Middle East. Military force can destroy infrastructure and eliminate the Ayatollah, but it cannot convince a grieving child in Tehran that America is not the enemy. Every civilian caught in the crossfire risks becoming tomorrow’s extremist.

If our goal is lasting peace rather than temporary military success, diplomacy cannot be viewed as a concession. It must be recognized as a strategy. Every cycle of violence in history has ended in one of two ways: one side was destroyed, or someone chose to stop answering violence with more violence.

The hardest act in war is not fighting. It is choosing when to stop. But it is important we do, because as another famous maxim reminds us, “An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind.”