François Picard is pleased to welcome Barbara Slavin, Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center. She describes the US-Iran conflict as a dangerous combination of military escalation, diplomatic ambiguity and political calculation. Slavin sees an absence of true diplomacy: the recent indirect contacts between Washington and Tehran, mediated by Qatar, have been too limited and too fragile to produce any serious breakthrough. For her, this amounts to "kabuki diplomacy": they half engage while positioning themselves against any appearance of compromise.
The consequences are already extending well beyond the US war on Iran. Saudi Arabia has been drawn deeper into the conflict, the Houthis continue to pose a threat to regional security and shipping, and the disruption around the Strait of Hormuz has been incredibly consequential for global energy markets.
