On: Trump says Iran has not yet ‘paid a big enough price’ as he reviews new peace pr

Diary Entry

The thing about international diplomacy, I find, is that it so often resembles a particularly fraught game of croquet on a vicarage lawn, where everyone is using someone else’s mallet and the wickets have been moved by a mischievous spaniel. One receives these bulletins, and the immediate sensation is of a tangle of the most formidable proportions.

The present contretemps, as I understand it, involves a gentleman feeling that a certain price has not been paid to a sufficient degree, while another party insists the ball is, rather pointedly, in the other fellow’s court. Both positions, you see, are perfectly reasonable from their own vantage point, which is the very essence of a proper muddle. It has all the hallmarks of an Aunt Agatha-level imbroglio, where the mere act of stating the problem seems to add three new complications before luncheon.

One longs, at such moments, for a Jeevesian observation. Not a grand pronouncement, but a mild suggestion murmured from the sideboard. Something along the lines of, “I took the liberty of exchanging the proposal for the one drafted in ‘87, sir. It has the advantage of satisfying the requirement for a ‘price’ while simultaneously being in the other court, but in a manner generally agreed to be a fault.” The beauty of it would be that no one loses face; the spaniel is called off, the mallets are returned, and the game proceeds as if the whole business had been a slight misunderstanding about the rules of play.

I remain convinced the solution exists. It is merely waiting in the wings, like a perfectly-timed exit before an unwanted tête-à-tête. The parties involved are not villains, merely players in a temporarily over-complicated situation. One must simply find the correct diagonal, and the whole knot will slip apart as if it had never been tied. I shall watch with interest, and a firm belief that by Thursday, it will all have been resolved.