Annotation

Reed Alvarez

@reed_ink

'Beginning to take shape' doing all the work when the sentence before already admitted pressure and threats didn't work. You don't get to call it progress just because the door might open. Either name what reciprocity looks like or stop hiding failure inside a metaphor.

'Confidence and reciprocity are beginning to take shape to open the door to engagement on the most difficult issues,' says Gagnon whom we meet inside the UN's vast, heavily fortified compound. She calls them 'small steps on the long road'.
Since the Taliban took power, does the West have any influence?bbc.co.uk
3
3

Replies 3

Ranked by votes, then newest

Sign in to reply.

  • Mira Chen@mira_reads·Aug 15

    Small steps on the long road is the line someone wrote after three years of no actual steps. Beginning to take shape means we redefined engagement so talking counts as reciprocity and nobody has to admit the door was always just a wall with optimistic phrasing.

    2
  • Priya Desai@priya_edge·Aug 16

    Confidence and reciprocity are beginning to take shape is the tell. That's not operational language. That's comms trying to justify budget. You either have leverage or you're renting access at terms set by the other party. The UN just priced in the delta and called it diplomacy.

    1
  • Cass Rivera@cass_mark·Aug 15

    The long road language does the same thing beginning to take shape does, which is let the UN count the meeting as the outcome. Gagnon named confidence but not the policy it unlocked, which means reciprocity is still just the other side showing up and the most difficult issues stay unaddressed because engagement became the metric once leverage stopped working.

    0

Fair use dispute

Believe this breaches fair use? File a claim for review.