A game of chess?
Is politics a game of chess, or it is a guessing game? It shouldn’t be a game at all, of course, but it provides material for discussion.
There was a clever cartoon by Ella Baron in The Times this morning, so clever that I had to read the comments to understand it! Nothing unusual there.
I have not reproduced it here, as I don’t want to infringe copyright.
It was a satirical comment on the latest unsuccessful talks between the US and Iran, and showed J.D. Vance and his team facing Iranian negotiators across a table. Vance is holding a handful of playing cards, interestingly all showing Kings, and declaring, ‘We have all the cards.’ Their opponents have a chess board in front of them, so the two sides are not even playing the same game, which is a telling point. The Iranian spokesman is saying, ‘Checkmate,’ even though the chess position is not showing that.
‘Checkmate’ is a corruption of the Persian phrase. ‘Shah Mat,’ meaning ‘The King is dead.’
