Sparks: Can EU find a Russia whisperer to mediate an end to war in Ukraine?

The diplomat arranges the chairs with great care, ensuring each is equidistant from the empty one at the head of the table.

Liberation demanded a sword, but governance now requires a constitution that the victors themselves cannot agree to write.

Why do the millions keep offering their obedience to the one who has already demonstrated his willingness to devour them?

A mediator who does not rectify the names of 'aggressor' and 'sovereign' before sitting down will achieve nothing but a false harmony.

The habit of seeking a single, charismatic negotiator reveals democracy's dangerous fondness for the aristocratic solution it claims to have outgrown.

What do you mean by 'whisperer,' and does not the very need for one confess that the language spoken aloud is a lie?

Observe how the stress in the arch shifts when one keystone is removed, just as the balance of a negotiation fails when a principal pillar departs.

This search for a special, delicate handler merely entrenches the fiction that the brute requires a gentler, more flattering reason than the one that governs all other men.

'We seek a constructive dialogue partner' - a phrase which means we have agreed to pretend the man holding the knife is merely offering a different opinion.

No sequence of diplomatic operations, however elegantly programmed, can produce an outcome not already latent in the initial, unalterable conditions of conquest.

They are searching the continent for a suitable nanny to mind the wolf they've invited to stay in the nursery.

They ask the bleeding man to wait for a more convenient season, while the man with the knife is asked what would make him more comfortable.

In Fez, the judge would consult the law; in Delhi, the Sultan's whim; here, they look for a traveler who can speak both languages as if they were the same.

One 'incident' is a crime; ten thousand, documented across the map with dates and names, constitute a policy requiring not a whisper but a shout.

It is a most admirable solution, to find a gentle voice for explaining why the ploughshares must continue to be beaten into swords.