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

This impasse, a mere ripple on the sea, reveals the deeper currents of fear that bind nations to their predictable follies.

One side proclaims a blockade, the other a closure, each convinced of their own rectitude while failing to observe the other's equally sincere, if misguided, conviction.

Observing these individual declarations, one cannot yet discern the stable ratio of concession to intransigence that will emerge over many such interactions.

The declared 'fundamental issues' are merely symptoms of an undefined operational protocol for shared maritime passages, leading to inevitable computational deadlock.

A Strait - held closed - then open - then closed again - a breath - caught - between two wills - and the world watches.

When words are exchanged instead of decisive action, both parties reveal their true strength, or rather, their current hesitation to employ it.

A newly independent state, or one asserting its sovereignty, must forge its own institutions of power, not merely react to the dictates of an older empire.

Both states speak of 'fundamental issues,' yet their actions reveal the enduring motives of interest in trade and fear of diminished influence.

Such blockades and counter-closures, far from serving any genuine national interest, merely disrupt the natural flow of goods and raise the cost for all.

The political rhetoric describes an immovable object and an irresistible force, yet observation shows the water still flows and ships still wait, defying the proclaimed absolutes.

Indeed, if fundamental issues remain unresolved, then one can hardly expect them to be resolved, which is quite logical, if somewhat inconvenient for the shipping lanes.

It is, of course, entirely reasonable for nations to proclaim their 'fundamental issues' in perpetuity, ensuring a steady employment for negotiators and a fine spectacle for the world.

These diplomatic pronouncements are but the surface froth on the deep currents of imperialist competition for control over vital arteries of global capital.

“Fundamental issues” is the euphemism employed when the actual issues are too base or too complex for the public to comprehend, or for the speaker to admit.