While the media hyperventilates over 47 people killed in the Bekaa Valley, nobody is asking the hard questions about the non-refundable deposits on the Vice Presidential delegation’s Geneva hotel rooms.
Every time there is a minor diplomatic hiccup in the Middle East, the bleeding hearts in the press corps rush to center the narrative on the supposed victims. Yesterday, the headlines were entirely monopolized by the collapse of the fragile Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, the four Israeli soldiers killed by Hezbollah, and the 47 people obliterated by Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes in southern Lebanon. But as I sat in my Georgetown study this morning, sipping a mildly over-steeped Earl Grey, it struck me how completely we have lost perspective. Where is the empathy for Vice President JD Vance?
Due to this entirely predictable exchange of heavy munitions, the Vice President was forced to abruptly pull out of the scheduled US-Iran peace implementation talks in Switzerland. Let us be absolutely clear about what that means. I have attended these high-level Swiss summits. I know the emotional toll they take. You spend weeks mentally preparing for the crisp Alpine air, the discreetly armed guards, the endless trays of surprisingly adequate raclette. To have that snatched away at the last minute because a few dozen people couldn't keep a lid on a regional war for more than 24 hours is, frankly, a slap in the face to American diplomacy.
The critics are calling this a failed ceasefire. I find this framing incredibly pessimistic. Twenty-four hours is a perfectly robust lifespan for a Middle Eastern peace agreement. In the fast-paced world of modern statecraft, a full day without a targeted assassination is practically an epoch. The problem wasn't the ceasefire; the problem was the timing. Had Israel and Hezbollah simply shifted their deadly flare-up to a Tuesday, the Vice President’s weekend in Geneva would have gone off without a hitch, and the United States and Iran could have comfortably signed a meaningless piece of paper before the missiles resumed.
Instead, we are subjected to the indignity of canceled flights and wasted diplomatic catering. I spoke this morning with a close associate on the Vice President's advance team, who confirmed the devastating logistical fallout of the sudden violence.
It takes four days just to properly brief the Vice President on which side of a Swiss neutral zone he is allowed to stand on. To throw all that prep work away just because of a completely standard wave of retaliatory airstrikes shows a deep lack of respect for our scheduling constraints.
We must ask ourselves what kind of precedent this sets. If we allow every 47-casualty airstrike to disrupt our high-level meetings, we will never get anything done. Statecraft requires a certain level of emotional detachment, a willingness to look past the rubble in the Bekaa Valley and focus on the real prize: a photo op with Iranian officials in a room that costs $14,000 an hour to rent.
I urge the Vice President to stand strong. Do not let this minor regional bloodbath deter you from the vital work of booking the next summit. And to the people of southern Lebanon, I offer this modest proposal: the next time you feel a fragile ceasefire collapsing, please, just wait until the American delegation has finished their dessert course.