Israel has unleashed a wave of air strikes on Lebanon, a predictable yet tragic escalation that smacks of the old imperial farce. As the smoke rises, Iran claims a US deal is imminent. But what does that even mean?
A deal with the architects of chaos? The UK, ever the moralising bystander, calls for restraint. Restraint!
As if the region has ever known such a virtue. We are witnessing the death throes of the post-1945 order, a system that promised peace through power but delivered only cycles of violence. Lebanon, once the Switzerland of the East, is now a graveyard of foreign ambitions.
And Israel, that nervous little Sparta, acts with the fury of a cornered beast. The US and Iran play their diplomatic games, but we all know the script: bombs first, negotiations later. This is the late Roman Empire writ small: decadence at the centre, barbarism at the edges.
Britain's plea for calm is the laughable cry of a pensioner watching the house burn down. History does not forgive, nor does it forget. We are repeating the 1930s, but with worse haircuts and better drones.
The only question is: what will be left when the bombs stop?
