The ongoing peace talks in Switzerland between American and Iranian officials got off Sunday to a rocky start, according to one Emirati political analyst who went on to describe the spectacle as nothing short of “humiliation” for Vice President JD Vance, who’s leading the U.S. delegation.“This was h...
I gotta say. This is the most shallow BS I have read. How about we focus on actual progress instead of focusing on the pre fight weight check BS shinnanigans.
Pretty sure vance will lose on the negotiations too. And that is what really matters. Let’s have some substance to the well deserved bashing.
I generally agree with you, but there are also a bunch of older generation ‘norms’ and etiquette things at play in some of these situations / scenarios.
So first off, there’s definitely back channel reasons for some customs/behaviours. Consider for example the recent example from Trump’s trip to China, where Xi had Trump sitting in a lower chair, with the intent of creating a specific dynamic to the meeting and photo-ops. Or how Putin made sure to introduce Merkel to his pet dogs, having discovered she had a fear of dogs. Higher-tier diplomacy often involves such shenanigans, in part as it sends a message in itself.
One older tradition/norm, or ‘way to flex’, is exactly what the article mentions – showing up late. There’s an old saying I recall hearing my mom say (passed to her from her dad), along the lines of “If you need to meet with someone, arrive 5 mins early to be respectful of their time. If someone needs to meet with you, arrive 5 minutes late so that they understand you’re busy / getting your time is a privilege”. In more modern terms, think of it like a webinar/video meeting – if you need to attend a webinar/virtual meeting, you should be logging in to the system early to make sure there are no technical issues on your end. If it’s not something you need to attend, or if you don’t care about it that much and are just pressured to go to check a box on a list for your boss, you might not bother pre-checking connections: you don’t care if the other party has to wait 5 mins for you to sort it out, you don’t care about wasting their time.
Honestly, even in the private sector, I’ve cancelled meetings with people if they’re more than 5 mins late without notice, though you’ll usually allow for at least a 15 min window depending on what’s on the agenda.
That said, it’s clearly getting spun to try and drum up clicks. They don’t mention how long people were waiting, for example – big difference between Vance waiting 5 mins, and him waiting 2 hours.
This is part of the results. The “honor” of a state is a soft power resource, that is relevant to a lot of other states and will influence their behavior towards it.
I call BS. I don’t think anyone is saying… we better give the, what they want. They show up late.
They look at the agreements that come out of the negotiations.