Iran war: US wary of peace plan postponing nuclear deal

Thursday

A most diverting paragraph in the evening paper concerning the Persians and their straits. One pictures the scene in some gilded, carpet-strewn chamber in Tehran: a gathering of gentlemen, their expressions a fine blend of theological fervour and the sharper instincts of the bazaar, debating how best to handle the American blockade. Their proposal has the elegant simplicity of a child trading a prized marble for a temporary reprieve from bedtime - “You may have your strait back, if we may have our toys.” The American officials, for their part, wear the pained expression of nannies who have discovered the nursery favourite has been secretly constructing a catapult in the potting shed. They insist, with that weariness peculiar to those who must govern the ungovernable, that any agreement must include the surrender of said catapult. It is the old, old story: the guest who promises to cease playing the gramophone at three in the morning only if one first unlocks the drinks cabinet. The promise is, of course, merely a pause in the symphony, not its conclusion.

I am put in mind of Clovis’s remark last week, that international diplomacy is merely a larger, slower, and infinitely more tedious version of the negotiations between him and his aunt’s Pomeranian over the possession of a slipper. The dog understands the leverage of a threatened annihilation perfectly well; it is the principle of permanent disarmament that it finds philosophically unsound. The Americans wish to believe in the reformed character of the Persian dog, while the Persians calculate, with serene logic, how many slippers they might acquire before the next scolding. One rather hopes they reach an accord, if only for the spectacle of the signing ceremony. I imagine the pens will be checked most carefully for hidden mechanisms.

The Persian envoy whispers promises like a merchant weighing gold with leaden scales. Again, they offer to loosen their grip on the strait if we loosen ours on their coffers. You ask if this is progress? No. It is the same dance, only the music has changed tempo.

I have seen this before, Lucilius - in Nero’s court, where men bargained with their honor as if it were a thing to be traded by the ounce. The flaw is not in the terms but in the trust. Can a viper swear not to bite if you lift your foot from its neck?

The Americans fret over the nuclear clause, as if ink on parchment ever stopped a kingdom bent on power. What matters is not the deal but the nature of the hand that signs it. A man who has shown his teeth does not become gentle because he smiles.

Here is the Stoic question: What can they control? Not Iran’s ambitions. Only their own resolve. Every concession to buy time is a loan taken from future strength - and the interest is paid in blood.

Do not mistake delay for strategy. The storm does not negotiate with the ship. Either you sail or you drown.

Things that are tiresome: a negotiation that begins with a threat. A proposal that offers to cease what should never have begun. The Strait of Hormuz, choked.

Things that are hateful: a peace plan that is not peace. The mention of “nuclear deal” when the matter at hand is the free passage of ships. As if one could trade the sun for a pebble. The very idea that such a thing could be considered a “plan” makes my ink curdle.

The White House, “not ruling out” such a thing. As if indecision were a virtue, a delicate embroidery. It is a torn sleeve, nothing more. A blockade, then a lifting of it, as if the world were a child’s game of give and take. Where is the elegance in this? Where is the clarity?

A true agreement, like a perfectly folded letter, should reveal its purpose at once. Not this tangle of threats and concessions, like a badly woven cloth. One must speak of what is right, not merely what is expedient. The sea should be open. The air should be clear. These are not matters for bargaining, but for simple understanding. To suggest otherwise is to mistake the moon for a lantern.