In the anxious early hours of Wednesday, as the world held its breath and oil prices spiked, a quiet announcement came from the Foreign Office: the US and Iran had agreed to ‘stand down’ after a series of retaliatory strikes that had brought the region to the brink of war. The news was met with relief, but also a nagging question: what, exactly, had been achieved?
For those of us who watch the human cost of geopolitics, the past week has been a masterclass in brinkmanship. It began with the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, a man whose death was celebrated in Washington but mourned in Tehran. Then came Iran’s missile strikes on US bases in Iraq. Miraculously, no one was killed. That fact alone speaks volumes about the choreography behind the chaos.
Enter the British diplomats, those perennial architects of fudge. For days, Boris Johnson’s government had been walking a tightrope: too close to Trump and you risk being dragged into a war; too close to Europe and you alienate your most important ally. The solution was classic British: propose a ‘stability’ deal that allows everyone to climb down without losing face. And so, the ‘stand down’ was born.
But what does this mean for the people on the ground? In Tehran, the streets that had been filled with mourners now buzzed with a new tension: the economy, already battered by sanctions, faces more uncertainty. In Baghdad, the protests that had demanded an end to Iranian influence have been overshadowed by the threat of all-out conflict. The deal may have averted immediate war, but it has done little to address the deep-seated resentments that fuel this proxy struggle.
There is a class dynamic here, too. The decision to strike Soleimani was made in the White House, but the consequences will be borne by the poor and the powerless. In the Gulf, migrant workers from South Asia are already feeling the pinch as businesses brace for disruption. At home, the price of petrol edges ever upwards, a silent tax on the suburban commuter.
And what of the cultural shift? War, even averted war, changes the way we see ourselves. For the first time in years, the spectre of a major conflict has become a topic of conversation in pubs and on the school run. The casual assumption that peace is the natural state of things has been shaken. People are asking questions about foreign policy that they didn’t know they had.
Is this a victory for diplomacy? Perhaps. The UK, so often sidelined in the post-Brexit landscape, has found a role as the world’s firefighter. But firefighting is not the same as fire prevention. The underlying tensions between Iran and the US remain, as potent as ever. The ‘stand down’ is a pause, not a solution.
For now, we can exhale. The bombs are not falling, and that is something. But as we return to our routines, let us not forget the fragility of the peace we enjoy. It is held together by phone calls, by back channels, by the quiet work of diplomats who know that history is not made in headlines alone. It is made in the small, human moments of compromise and restraint. And sometimes, as this week has shown, those moments are enough to save us from ourselves.
