THEY came together at a moment of acute international crisis, three powerful leaders dedicated to peace in our time. They emerged, after nearly 17 hours of gruelling, cut-and-thrust negotiations behind locked doors in the presidential place in Minsk, looking tired, rumpled, and grimly satisfied.
There was Angela Merkel, in trademark trouser-suit, plainly exhausted after another sleepless night. It seemed like only yesterday that Germany’s chancellor was in Washington, briefing Barack Obama. Actually, it was. Judging by her ashen face, this was world diplomacy’s version of Fifty Shades of Grey.