Here we are again. Another alarm bell rung by a sober-minded analyst, this time Jeremy Bowen, warning that the double act of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu is hurtling the Middle East into a state of permanent crisis. And what does Britain do? It prepares evacuation plans. Typical. We are becoming experts in managing decline rather than preventing it.
Bowen, the BBC’s veteran Middle East editor, is not prone to hyperbole. When he speaks of a ‘permanent crisis’, he means something far more sinister than the usual round of diplomatic spats and occasional skirmishes. He envisions a region where conflict is not an interruption of stability but the baseline condition. A perpetual state of low-grade war punctuated by eruptions of catastrophic violence. And the enablers? A President who treats foreign policy as a reality TV negotiation and a Prime Minister who sees existential threats around every corner.
Let’s be unflinchingly honest. Trump’s approach to the Middle East has been that of a property developer with a short attention span. Recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital? Check. Broker a peace deal that ignores the Palestinians? Check. Withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal? Check. Each move, by itself, arguably defensible. Together, they form a pattern of reckless unilateralism that has alienated allies, emboldened extremists, and eliminated any remaining trust in American impartiality.
Netanyahu, for his part, has proven himself a master of exploiting crisis for political survival. On the brink of indictment, he clings to power by painting himself as the indispensable guardian of Jewish statehood. Every threat real or imagined becomes a reason to delay elections, to tighten security, to annex more land. And Trump, with his transactional instinct, sees a kindred spirit. The result is a mutual admiration society that treats the region as a playground for their egos.
But here’s the kicker: Britain’s response. While Bowen warns of impending catastrophe, Whitehall reportedly dusts off evacuation plans for British nationals in the region. This is the reflex of a nation that has convinced itself it no longer shapes events but merely reacts to them. Remember the Victorian era? Britain did not evacuate; it dispatched gunboats. Today, we fret about consular services. The contrast is nauseating.
Do not misunderstand me. I am not advocating a return to gunboat diplomacy. The world has changed, and rightly so. But there is a difference between sober restraint and pathetic fatalism. Our great strategic thinkers appear to have abandoned the very concept of strategy. Instead, we toggle between moralising from the sidelines and scrambling for the exits when trouble erupts.
What Bowen is really warning about is the collapse of the old order. The post-1945 framework of international law, of negotiated settlements, of two-state solutions – all of it is being dismantled before our eyes. And in its place, we get ‘maximum pressure’ campaigns and ‘deals of the century’ that satisfy no one but the dealmakers themselves.
The irony is bitter. The West, and particularly the United States, spent decades cultivating the architecture of stability in the Middle East. It was imperfect, often unjust, but it prevented the worst. Now, we are witnessing its demolition by those who claim to be its greatest defenders. Trump and Netanyahu are not statesmen; they are wrecking balls.
And Britain? Once the arbiter of the region, today we make contingency plans. If this is not intellectual decadence, I do not know what is. We have traded influence for insulation. We no longer seek to shape outcomes; we merely aim to survive them.
Bowen’s warning should be a call to action. But I fear it will be filed away alongside countless other warnings, as the evacuation plans gather dust and the crisis deepens. When the Fall of Rome came, it was not with a bang but with a whimper of administrative collapse. Our fall may be the same: not a single cataclysm but a slow procession of avoidable disasters met with impotent handwringing.
Let us hope Bowen is wrong. But I would not bet on it.
