Middle East crisis live: Iran says ‘fundamental’ issues’ still to be resolved with US amid strait of Hormuz impasse

Diary Entry

What a vexing spectacle these modern nations present! Here we have Iran and the United States, each so convinced of their own rectitude, yet behaving like the most obstinate of my Hertfordshire neighbors - those who would rather let a harvest rot than concede an inch of disputed land. The Strait of Hormuz, it seems, is their latest battleground, though one wonders if either party truly recalls the original quarrel.

The Iranians, much like a proud but impoverished gentlewoman, refuse to yield what they consider their due, while the Americans, with all the bluster of a newly rich merchant, insist upon their right to dictate terms. Both sides posture as if the very fate of the world hangs upon their stubbornness, yet I suspect the truth is far simpler: neither wishes to be seen as the first to blink. How very like human nature - to prefer mutual ruin over the humiliation of compromise!

And what of the people who must endure these theatrics? They are scarcely mentioned, of course, for in such disputes, the ordinary souls - the fishermen, the traders, the families - are but pawns in a game played by those who will never suffer the consequences of their own pride. One cannot help but think of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who would sooner see Rosings burn than admit she had misjudged a situation.

A pity, indeed, that diplomacy so often resembles a bad marriage - each party convinced of their own virtue, while the household crumbles around them.

The impasse in the Strait of Hormuz presents itself not as a failure of execution, but as a catastrophic failure of specification. The reports speak of “fundamental issues” remaining - this is the language of an ambiguous plan, not a precise instruction set. One cannot command a fleet with “prevent passage” without defining the conditions under which passage is permitted, nor can one negotiate with “end the blockade” without specifying the exact sequence of verifiable actions that constitutes its end. It is a conditional branch with no clear predicate: “If relations improve, then open the strait.” Improve by what measure? From which register is this value to be read? The result is a mechanical deadlock, each side operating on a stale or misinterpreted state from the store, each mill performing operations based on that corrupt data. The carry propagation of mistrust corrupts every subsequent calculation. They are debugging at the output - the closed strait, the heightened rhetoric - when the error was introduced paragraphs ago in the initial diplomatic communiqué. A complete specification would have required punched cards for each reciprocal de-escalation, the state of the store after each card clearly defined. Instead, they have a vague narrative, and the engines of state, like my Difference Engine with an undefined variable, grind to a halt, producing not progress but heat and friction. It is the tragedy of the underspecified conditional, playing out with dreadnoughts instead of brass gears.

Diary, 10th.

Another dispatch from the theatre of definitions. The headline announces an ‘impasse’ at the Strait of Hormuz. A useful word, impasse. It suggests two parties, equally thwarted by circumstance, staring at a locked door. The corrected definition presents itself.

Impasse, n. A state of mutual and performative obstruction, meticulously engineered by both parties to provide continuing justification for the roles they have already assumed. See also: stalemate, n. A conflict in which the only movement is the ritualized production of communiqués declaring the impossibility of movement.

The Iranian negotiator speaks of ‘fundamental issues’ remaining. Of course they remain. They are the fundament. To resolve them would be to dismantle the stage upon which the play - ‘Crisis,’ Act LIV, Scene MCMXC - is performed. The closure of the Strait, the American blockade; these are not escalations toward an end. They are the steady-state. The ‘issue’ is not the distance between positions. The ‘issue’ is that the distance is the engine. Each side requires the other’s intransigence as proof of its own necessity.

The language is a perfect cover. ‘Fundamental issues’ sounds like deep philosophical disagreement over sovereignty or security. The operational reality is simpler: a fundamental issue with ceasing to do what you have always done. The Strait is closed, then it is not, then it is. The blockade is affirmed, then deplored, then maintained. The dispatches are filed. The dictionary of statecraft writes itself: Negotiation, n. The process by which the permanence of a conflict is given the appearance of temporary management.

It is all very dull. A null result of monstrous proportions, confirming the only hypothesis that ever mattered: that the machinery, once built, will run. No signal of change registers above the noise of its own operation. One could define the entire endeavor in a single entry.

Diplomacy, n. The art of saying ‘we are far apart’ in such a way as to ensure you forever remain so.