So the talks have collapsed. The great diplomatic circus has packed its tents, and the ringmaster is left with nothing but a tweet and a bitterness that would make a Victorian imperialist proud. Donald Trump, that titan of transactional diplomacy, has walked away from the Iran deal.
And where does that leave Britain? Staring down the barrel of a nuclear threat we convinced ourselves we had tamed. We wanted to believe in the power of negotiation, in the civilising force of conversation.
But history teaches us that civilisations do not die from negotiation; they die from delusion. The Iran deal was never about peace. It was about postponing the inevitable.
And now the inevitable is here, and Britain is left exposed, a soft target with a hard history. We have spent decades disarming ourselves, both literally and metaphorically, while the world has not been so kind as to disarm itself in return. The collapse of these talks is not a failure of diplomacy; it is a failure of nerve.
We wanted to believe that the old rules still apply, that a signature on a piece of paper could hold back the forces of chaos. But the world has moved on. The nuclear threat is not a relic of the Cold War; it is the defining feature of our age.
And Britain, with its shrinking military and its retreat from global responsibility, is not ready. We should not bemoan Trump's brinksmanship; we should learn from it. The only way to deal with a nuclear threat is from a position of strength, not from a position of hope.
We need to rebuild our deterrents, both military and moral. We need to remember that the price of peace is eternal vigilance, a lesson we have conveniently forgotten. The talks have collapsed.
The threat remains. And Britain, as ever, is caught between the two, hoping for the best while the clock ticks on.
