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One of the interesting ironies of the successfully concluded preliminary agreement between Iran and the P5+1 nations is the venue: The opulent Beau Rivage Palace hotel in Lausanne, Switzerland. This sprawling playground of the rich and famous has long represented the epitome of hedonistic western cultural values so bitterly denounced by the austere Islamic regime that overthrew the US-backed Reza Shah Reza Pahlavi in the 1979 revolution that marked the start of tensions with the Great Satan.
Beau Rivage is also where the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in 1923, bringing the long-drawn negotiations after World War I to an end. This treaty has plenty of contemporary significance. Among other things, it defined the borders of modern Turkey, divesting the once-mighty Ottoman Empire, by then the “sick man of Europe”, of its Arab lands that had already been secretly divided between Britain and France under the infamous Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. The consequences of those agreements, together with the Balfour Declaration of 1917 that committed Britain to a Jewish homeland in Palestine (without consulting the Palestinians!), are with us today.
It has been suggested that the Treaty of Lausanne was actually signed in another hotel nearby but the management of Beau Rivage has robustly maintained otherwise. During an official 1999 visit courtesy the Swiss government, the room where the treaty was signed was proudly displayed — a slightly claustrophobic mahogany lined room with long windows covered by thick velvet curtains. “You can still smell the cigar smoke,” the manager told us proudly — indeed we could and were appropriately thrilled.
Beau Rivage, which is majority owned by the Sandoz family, promoters of the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, is extremely proud of its legacies and nurtures them. The property represented — and from all accounts continues to reflect after a major makeover — the Belle Epoque, the time of the Long Peace in Europe from the late 1800s to World War I when art, culture, science and industry flourished.
A reporter covering the negotiations for the Los Angeles Times described the hotel as a gilded cage under constant surveillance. Gilded is about right: With its spectacular view of Lake Geneva and the Alps, everyone who is anyone in Europe — from nobility to pop stars and everyone in between — have made a pit stop at this opulent lakeside hotel-resort where guests are allowed to bring pets.
The hotel even maintained a large picture gallery of its famous guests in the vast reception area. I was suitably awed by the photographic roster but far more fascinated, in the wide-eyed way of all have-nots, by the careless sophistication of the guests. There was nobody obviously famous there at the time but there was plenty of haute couture tailoring and exquisitely shod and coiffured ladies, one of them accompanied by a petulant and singularly unappealing shaved poodle, to gawk at. A walk around the grounds revealed a pet cemetery with heartfelt messages to “Darling Fifi” and so on, underlining the culture of luxurious self-indulgence that would have horrified Ayatollah Khomeini had he been alive. And yet, 26 years after his death, the breakthrough at Beau Rivage on April 2 could mark the start of a new chapter in Iran-US relations.
Beau Rivage is also where the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in 1923, bringing the long-drawn negotiations after World War I to an end. This treaty has plenty of contemporary significance. Among other things, it defined the borders of modern Turkey, divesting the once-mighty Ottoman Empire, by then the “sick man of Europe”, of its Arab lands that had already been secretly divided between Britain and France under the infamous Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. The consequences of those agreements, together with the Balfour Declaration of 1917 that committed Britain to a Jewish homeland in Palestine (without consulting the Palestinians!), are with us today.
It has been suggested that the Treaty of Lausanne was actually signed in another hotel nearby but the management of Beau Rivage has robustly maintained otherwise. During an official 1999 visit courtesy the Swiss government, the room where the treaty was signed was proudly displayed — a slightly claustrophobic mahogany lined room with long windows covered by thick velvet curtains. “You can still smell the cigar smoke,” the manager told us proudly — indeed we could and were appropriately thrilled.
Beau Rivage, which is majority owned by the Sandoz family, promoters of the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, is extremely proud of its legacies and nurtures them. The property represented — and from all accounts continues to reflect after a major makeover — the Belle Epoque, the time of the Long Peace in Europe from the late 1800s to World War I when art, culture, science and industry flourished.
A reporter covering the negotiations for the Los Angeles Times described the hotel as a gilded cage under constant surveillance. Gilded is about right: With its spectacular view of Lake Geneva and the Alps, everyone who is anyone in Europe — from nobility to pop stars and everyone in between — have made a pit stop at this opulent lakeside hotel-resort where guests are allowed to bring pets.
The hotel even maintained a large picture gallery of its famous guests in the vast reception area. I was suitably awed by the photographic roster but far more fascinated, in the wide-eyed way of all have-nots, by the careless sophistication of the guests. There was nobody obviously famous there at the time but there was plenty of haute couture tailoring and exquisitely shod and coiffured ladies, one of them accompanied by a petulant and singularly unappealing shaved poodle, to gawk at. A walk around the grounds revealed a pet cemetery with heartfelt messages to “Darling Fifi” and so on, underlining the culture of luxurious self-indulgence that would have horrified Ayatollah Khomeini had he been alive. And yet, 26 years after his death, the breakthrough at Beau Rivage on April 2 could mark the start of a new chapter in Iran-US relations.
