So the United States and Iran have traded blows, puffed out their chests, and then agreed to stand down. Whitehall, as ever, watches with the nervous energy of a Victorian matron at a séance. The ceasefire is fragile, they say.
Fragile? It is a joke. A pantomime of power dressed up as diplomacy.
We are not witnessing the clash of civilisations. We are witnessing the slow, creaking decline of two empires too tired to fight. This is the Fall of Rome played out in slow motion, complete with barbarians at the gate and a Senate full of windbags.
The US fires a few missiles, Iran retaliates with a symbolic volley, and then both sides declare victory. It would be farcical if it were not so dangerous. The truth is that neither Washington nor Tehran has the stomach for a real war.
The American public is war-weary, its treasury hollowed out by decades of foreign adventurism. Iran, for its part, is an empire of bluster, its economy crippled by sanctions, its people restless. What we are seeing is a ritual of honour, a dance of shadows.
The real tragedy is that the West has forgotten how to think in terms of strategy. We are trapped in a cycle of instant gratification and moral posturing. The Victorians understood power: you either wield it or you lose it.
We have chosen to lose it, slowly, comfortably, with a cup of tea and a Guardian editorial. Whitehall's role in this is particularly pathetic. Once the centre of a global empire, Britain now twiddles its thumbs while the Americans and Iranians play their little game.
We are a nation of spectators, our glory days reduced to a footnote in a history book. The ceasefire will hold, for now. But the rot has set in.
The question is not whether the West will fall, but how long we will pretend otherwise.
