The Qatari capital has become a theatre of the absurd. US envoys have arrived in Doha to meet with mediators, yet they steadfastly refuse direct talks with Iran. This is a diplomatic farce worthy of Evelyn Waugh’s darkest satire.
One must ask: what is the point of mediation if the principal parties refuse to address each other? It is as if two duelists agreed to negotiate through their seconds while standing ten paces apart, pistols drawn. The Biden administration, like its predecessors, suffers from a peculiar form of intellectual decadence: the belief that one can indefinitely defer unpleasant confrontations by multiplying interlocutors.
This is not statecraft; it is bureaucratic cowardice dressed in the language of multilateralism. History shall not judge kindly a great power that shies away from direct engagement with a regional adversary while its proxies bleed in Ukraine and the Levant. The ghost of Metternich would weep.
Either Washington believes it can browbeat Iran into submission through intermediaries alone, which is delusional, or it is simply kicking the can down the road, which is worse. The Qataris, ever the nimble hosts, facilitate this charade while pocketing the limelight. But the clock is ticking.
Iran’s nuclear programme advances, its regional influence grows, and America’s credibility shrinks. Direct talks are not a concession; they are a sign of strategic seriousness. To refuse them is to admit that the empire’s nerve has gone the way of its industrial base.
We are seeing the late imperial phase: a preference for shadow-boxing over decisive engagement, for process over outcome. It did not end well for Rome. It will not end well for us.
