In a development that has left geopolitical analysts reaching for the smelling salts and a stiff G&T, Her Majesty’s Government has somehow blundered its way into mediating a breakthrough in US-Iran nuclear talks. Yes, the same government that can’t reliably run a train service or decide whether Dominic Cummings broke the law has apparently achieved the diplomatic equivalent of a hole-in-one at the Augusta National while blindfolded and reciting the Shipping Forecast.
The talks, held in a Swiss chateau that probably smells of lavender and low expectations, have yielded what a Foreign Office spokesperson described as “encouraging progress”. This is diplomatic code for “we have absolutely no idea what we’re doing, but at least nobody has stormed out and thrown a shoe yet.” The British team, led by a man whose CV reads like a parody of civil service casting, managed to coax both the Persian poobahs and the American ambassadors into agreeing that words mean things and that uranium is, on balance, probably best left un-enriched beyond the point of boom.
Now, I must confess a certain admiration for the sheer chutzpah of it all. Here is a nation that cannot decide if its own constitution exists, a realm where the health secretary is simultaneously in charge of pandemics and alcohol pricing, waltzing into a nuclear standoff like a tipsy uncle at a wedding. And yet, it appears to be working. The Iranians, presumably charmed by the combination of bumbling accents and the implicit threat of a Bank Holiday, have reportedly agreed to rolling back some centrifuge activity in exchange for sanctions relief. The Americans, for their part, have accepted that the JCPOA was a dead parrot and are now open to a slightly less deceased version.
But let’s not get too carried away. “Encouraging progress” is the diplomatic equivalent of “could do better” on a school report. It means we have avoided immediate catastrophe but are still one tweet away from a full-blown crisis. The real test will come when the glorious leaders of both nations have to sell this back home. In Washington, the Iran hawks are already whetting their beaks for a fight. In Tehran, the mullahs will have to convince the Revolutionary Guard that backing down is not an act of heresy. And in London, MPs will probably have a debate about something else entirely, because that is what we do.
Still, credit where credit is due. Britain has somehow reinserted itself into a conversation it was forcibly ejected from in 2018 when Trump threw the nuclear deal into a skip. That the talks are happening at all is a testament to the quiet, persistent, occasionally absurd diplomacy that the Foreign Office purports to specialise in. It helps that the British negotiators are too eccentric to be intimidating and too polite to be offensive. In a world of bullhorns and ultimatums, a diffident cough can be a powerful tool.
So raise a glass of aviation-grade gin to the glorious mediocrities of Whitehall. They may not know how to run a railway, but by God, they can string a crisis along until everyone forgets what the argument was about. The Iran deal is not dead. It is merely pining for the fjords.