Another soldier lies dead in Lebanon, another feather in the cap of the endless tragedy that is the Middle East. The UK calls for de-escalation, as if the region were a fractious schoolyard and we the weary headmaster. But let us not pretend that this latest bloodshed is a surprise.
It is the natural fruit of a century of imperial withdrawals, broken promises, and intellectual cowardice. We are witnessing not a crisis but a chronic condition, a slow-motion collapse that mirrors the late Roman Empire. Then, as now, the centre cannot hold.
The UK’s limp pleas for calm are the equivalent of Nero fiddling while the East burns. We have abandoned any pretence of strategic thinking, hiding behind sanctimonious calls for 'restraint' while the violence spirals. The soldier’s death is a symptom.
The disease is our collective refusal to confront the awful history we have bequeathed. Until we do, expect more bodies, more calls, more nothing.
