A consignment of weapons clandestinely sent from North Korea to Iran is intercepted by the UAE.

Pretty big news for the UN Security Council and the different sanctions regimes against North Korea and Iran alike, huh?

Of course not, when the USA is chairing the UNSC:

At Ambassador Rice’s news briefing, she gave “an overview of the principal important meetings” to be held in September on her watch. After finishing the list of subjects without mentioning Iran or North Korea, she added: “So those are the highlights. We also have . . . three sanctions regimes that are up for regular review, chaired by the heads of the sanctions committees. We have Sudan, Iran and North Korea, and these are, I expect, likely to be uneventful and routine considerations of these various regimes.”

Even hard-boiled UN correspondents were surprised. Rice was asked to explain how the recent capture by the United Arab Emirates of containers of ammunition en route to Iran from North Korea could be construed as “uneventful and routine.” Her answer highlights the administration’s delinquency: “We are simply receiving . . . a regularly scheduled update. . . . This is not an opportunity to review or revisit the nature of either of those regimes.”

Oh well, let’s leave that tricky and, frankly, disagreeable stuff until some place like Libya is chairing the UNSC instead.

Naming names, or identifying the actual threats to world peace, would evidently interfere with the spectacle of proclaiming affection for world peace in the abstract.

It’s not what you say. Or even don’t say.

It’s the message you send.

Two examples quoted in John O’Sullivan’s book:

  • Ronald Reagan to Richard Allen privately in 1977:

My theory of the Cold War is that we win and they lose.

  • Ronald Reagan opening a Summit with Gorbachev:

Let me tell you why we mistrust you and are suspicious of you…

Magnificent.

But, more importantly, effective diplomacy.