No. of Recommendations: 8
Each side wants to get to Islamabad LAST. Apparently, making the other side wait for them is the game.
It’s the amateur’s game of “who can piss higher on the tree?”.
I think that's a little bit unfair to them.
Neither side trusts each other. And both sides are trying to manage restive constituencies in their countries. So both sides would be significantly hurt if they agreed to talks, and then the other side backed out.
The U.S. doesn't want to put officials on a plane and then have Iran refuse to show up. That would be embarrassing and damage the Administration's position at home. But similarly, Iran doesn't want to agree to participate in talks and then have President Trump decide that's he's not going to have anyone show up, either - because Iran's government has factions in it that disagree on whether participating in talks at this time makes strategic sense, and that would severely damage the pro-talk faction.
It's not just childish. These are legitimate concerns with real stakes in an environment where neither side trusts the other to engage fairly. It's going to be hard to break through that. Pakistan was able to broker it before, but it seems like they're having trouble overcoming the obstacles now.
