The nuclear talks between the United States and Iran have ground into an overnight session, a sure sign that the diplomatic machinery is either grinding towards a breakthrough or about to seize up entirely. We have seen this play before. The West, desperate for a triumph of statecraft over sabre rattling, pushes for a deal that will be hailed as historic in Washington and reviled in Tehran.
The irony is rich: the same Western powers that once waxed lyrical about the fall of the Persian Empire now beg for its nuclear forbearance. The clock ticks, the coffee grows cold, and the diplomats scribble furiously. One wonders if they have read their Gibbon.
The decline of empires is never linear, but it is often punctuated by such marathon negotiating sessions. In the Victorian era, we would have called this ‘gunboat diplomacy in reverse’. Today, it is the theatre of the absurd.
And yet, what alternative is there? A nuclear Iran? A regional arms race?
The West has painted itself into a corner where it must either embrace the ayatollahs or prepare for a conflict that would make Iraq look like a skirmish. So the talks drag on. The sun will rise over Vienna, and with it, perhaps, a piece of paper that will either save us or damn us to another decade of managed decline.
Read into that what you will.