Making Daily Headlines · Page 6
Tehran Visit Comes With an Ambitious Calendar Entry
· New York time
Russia's top diplomat is visiting Tehran for the first time since the United States launched its war with Iran. The envoy says the visit aims to avert a return to major hostilities, placing another diplomatic effort alongside a conflict directly involving American military policy. The stated objective is consequential, but it remains the envoy's account of the mission. A visit establishes contact, not an agreement among the governments whose decisions would determine whether major fighting resumes. Diplomatic travel can open a conversation without supplying its conclusion. For Washington, the significance is that Russia is engaging Iran about a war the United States launched. The contact belongs to a wider contest over how the conflict proceeds and who participates in efforts to contain it. An arrival in Tehran is therefore more than a ceremonial itinerary, even when the public evidence of progress begins with someone stepping off an aircraft. Diplomacy assigns extraordinary hopes to ordinary calendar entries. A meeting must somehow accommodate national interests, military calculations and the possibility that everyone arrived with a different definition of success. The appointment reminder can say prevent renewed war. Unfortunately, it cannot attach a universally accepted agenda or make every participant click accept.
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