In a development that has diplomatic correspondents reaching for both the dictionary and a stiff drink, the United States has dispatched envoys to Doha to meet with mediators while pointedly ignoring Iran, the elephant not so much in the room as rampaging through the bazaar. The Americans are reportedly talking to everyone except the one party that could actually start a war, which is rather like inviting everyone to a party except the bloke with the fireworks and the grudge.
Enter British diplomats, those past masters of the art of the fudge, who have stepped in to conduct behind-the-scenes negotiations with the Iranians. The Foreign Office, smelling an opportunity to be relevant again, has deployed its finest mandarins to the Qatari capital, where they will no doubt attempt to bridge the gap between Washington’s intransigence and Tehran’s paranoia using nothing but tea, biscuits, and the phrase “let’s be sensible about this.”
The situation is a grotesque pantomime in which the US plays the petulant principal who refuses to sit next to the class troublemaker, while Britain plays the harried teaching assistant trying to keep the peace before the whole thing descends into a food fight. The mediators, presumably exhausted from years of trying to make sense of this absurd conflict, are reduced to shuttling between rooms like waiters at a particularly fractious wedding reception.
The irony is as thick as the Doha humidity. Iran, which has been accused of everything from nuclear ambition to funding proxies with the enthusiasm of a venture capitalist, is being diplomatically cold-shouldered by the very nation that demands its compliance. Meanwhile, the British, who once ran an empire on the principle of divide and conquer, are now reduced to playing marriage counsellor to a toxic relationship that should have been annulled years ago.
One wonders what the Iranian negotiators are making of this. Perhaps they sit in their air-conditioned suite, sipping pomegranate juice, and chuckle at the spectacle of the special relationship being strained by their very existence. Or perhaps they are deeply offended, which would be a first for any diplomat who has ever negotiated with the West.
The clock ticks. The gin in my glass grows perilously low. And somewhere in Doha, a British diplomat is probably saying, “The situation is fluid.” Fluid as a sewer, more like. But at least the cocktails are cold.
In conclusion, this diplomatic farce confirms the only immutable law of international relations: when America sulks, Britain smooths. And when Britain smooths, someone inevitably ends up paying for the drinks.
Cheers.
