Sparks: Middle East crisis live: Witkoff and Kushner head to Pakistan for Iran negotiations

Men who trade in power forget that the very ground they seek to secure is the same that will one day open beneath them.

Why do so many millions consent to be governed by the ambitions of just one?

What do we mean by 'negotiation' when both parties have already sworn they will not speak to each other?

Private envoys now conduct the public’s business, a quiet shift in accountability that history will not judge kindly.

Observe how the formal equality of sovereign states is daily humiliated by the informal influence of private interests.

In every land, I find the real conversation happens not in the great hall but in the antechamber where the coffee is poured.

Count the public denials against the private arrivals and you will have the true measure of their intent.

The infinite space between a public statement and a private meeting is where all real wagers are placed.

A root grown in bitter soil cannot produce a sweet fruit, no matter the hands that seek to transplant it.

'No direct negotiations' the announcement reads, a sentence whose grammar is perfectly designed to conceal the indirect ones already underway.

We have always been a people who prepare the finest banquets for our guests while sharpening the knives in the kitchen.

To solve the problem of resistance, one must first stop trying to force a current through a broken circuit.

Before you tear down the old wall of diplomacy, could you first tell me why every generation has found it necessary to build one?

The envoys arrived with all the solemnity of a state funeral, which was fitting, as they had come to bury the pretense of their own disinterest.