In a stunning turn of events that has left Benjamin Netanyahu looking like a man who has just discovered his favourite gin has been watered down, the Iran nuclear deal has been resurrected, exposing the Israeli Prime Minister's political isolation with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to a greenhouse. The West, in a collective display of common sense that would make a sloth look zippy, has opted for diplomacy over the perpetual drumbeat of war that has been Netanyahu's signature tune.
Let us paint a picture, dear reader. Imagine a man so obsessed with his own rhetoric that he has convinced himself he is the sole guardian of Western civilisation, standing on a stage built entirely from his own self-importance. Now imagine that stage being kicked away by the very people he thought were his allies. That is the spectacle unfolding in Jerusalem today.
The deal, which has been hammered out in Vienna like a piece of sausage that nobody really wants to eat but acknowledges is better than starvation, has left Netanyahu sputtering about existential threats and broken promises. Yet the rest of the world, from Washington to Brussels, is breathing a collective sigh of relief that they no longer have to pretend that the Iranian bogeyman is the only thing standing between us and a nuclear holocaust.
The irony is so thick you could spread it on toast. Netanyahu, a man who has built his entire political career on the premise that he alone can stare down the Persian peril, now finds himself an outlier in a global consensus. The West has decided, much to his chagrin, that talking is cheaper than bombing, and that perhaps, just perhaps, the Iranian people are not the cartoon villains he has painted them to be.
But let us not be naive. This deal is not a panacea. It is a compromise, a messy, ugly, bureaucratic compromise that will make nobody entirely happy. But it is a step away from the abyss, and for that we should be thankful. Netanyahu's tantrums, his threats of unilateral action, his desperate appeals to a hawkish American congress, all ring hollow in a world that has tired of the endless march to war.
The real question now is whether the Israeli public will continue to buy into this narrative of isolation and victimhood, or whether they will see that their leader has been left behind by history, a relic of a bygone era when strength was measured by the size of your bombs rather than the wisdom of your diplomacy.
In the meantime, I shall raise a glass of airport gin to the diplomats who have managed to drag us back from the brink. It may not be the smoothest of beverages, but it is a damn sight better than the alternative.
