The Evening Pour | Muawiya’s Hair
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| MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2026 · DAY 199 |
| The Evening Pour |
Muawiya’s Hair
Day 199. Muawiya I (c. 602–680), who ruled from Damascus as the first Umayyad caliph, is remembered for describing politics as a single strand of hair stretched between himself and the people he governed. When they pulled, he loosened his end. When they loosened, he pulled. A strand could carry tension, but only if neither side insisted on winning every inch.
Muawiya with Councilors, an anonymous illustration from Hafiz-i Abru’s Compendium of Histories, c. 1425. It’s a much later imagining, not a contemporary portrait. Yale University Art Gallery; public domain.
In a new interview, Chas Freeman — a retired career diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during Desert Shield and Desert Storm — reached for that image. Freeman applied it to adversaries: diplomatic contact isn’t an endorsement or a reward for good behavior. It’s the line that lets governments apply pressure, sense resistance and give ground before the relationship snaps.
That’s useful context for a meeting that was supposed to happen today in Salalah. Iran had called regional foreign ministers together to discuss the Iran-Oman shipping arrangement. They didn’t meet. Saudi Arabia submitted amendments, and Oman postponed the gathering “in the interests of consensus.”
Seen through Muawiya’s metaphor, postponement is the diplomacy. Muscat felt the line tighten and loosened its end before the meeting could snap it. The test comes next: whether Saudi Arabia and Iran use the room Oman created to keep hold of the same strand.
— T.
The Dispatch
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