Let us be clear: the United States snubbing Iran in Doha while the United Kingdom brokers a separate Gulf security dialogue is not a diplomatic masterstroke. It is an act of decadence, a symptom of a civilisation that has forgotten how to think. Compare this to the Congress of Vienna, where Metternich and Castlereagh understood that stability required engaging adversaries, not shunning them.
Today, Washington and London behave like petulant aristocrats refusing to sit at the same table as a parvenu. The result? A fragmented security order that invites chaos.
Iran is not going away. The Gulf states know this; they whisper it in their majlis. But the West, crippled by ideological purity, prefers symbolic gestures over substantive negotiation.
This is how empires fall: not with a bang, but with a series of carefully staged snubs.
