So here we are, ladies and gentlemen, at yet another chapter in the endless, tedious drama of Western supremacy. Iran, that perennial bogeyman, has evidently decided that the path of defiance is not worth the candle. Vance’s announcement that nuclear inspectors are to return is a clear signal: the mullahs have blinked.
And the usual chorus of pundits will, no doubt, hail this as a triumph of diplomacy, a victory for the civilised world. But let us not be so hasty. For what this really represents is a further entrenchment of the very decadence that has undone every great empire from Rome to the British.
The West, with its obsessive micromanagement of global affairs, cannot seem to stop itself from poking its nose into every corner of the earth. And when the locals finally submit, we congratulate ourselves on our cleverness. It is a farce.
The inspectors will go in, they will find nothing because there is nothing to find, or they will find scraps and declare victory. Meanwhile, Iran will continue its slow, patient march towards whatever destiny it has chosen. The real story here is not Iranian submission but Western exhaustion.
We are spending our treasure and our moral authority on a game that has no end. And the Victorians would have wept to see such a pathetic display of imperial decline. So yes, by all means, celebrate the return of the inspectors.
But know that you are celebrating the symptoms of a civilisation that has lost its nerve, its purpose, and its stomach for the hard realities of power.
