The Ballroom and the Brink

A lot of people argue that we Brits should stop obsessing over the United States. After all, we have enough on our plate, not least energy bills set to jump another 20% in July, and a right-wing press determined to see the back of Keir Starmer. But for all our domestic troubles, we are not—yet—the ones most likely to start a third world war. There may be talk here of a war footing—Russia playing silly buggers in the Channel, China accused of sending missiles to Iran. But the eye, inevitably, remains locked on the United States.

Watching a noticeably leaner JD Vance step onto the tarmac at Rawalpindi—a garrison city I remember well—it was hard not to believe that had there been any real prospect of peace, Donald Trump would have been in the capital Islamabad already, hovering, announcing, playfully shadow-boxing, enjoying the light. As it was, he was at a clammy UFC event with Marco Rubio. Vance was said by some to be in Pakistan only because the Iranians wanted him there. Some men arrive. Others make an entrance. He, it was said, was the fall guy. So when he left empty-handed, it was no surprise. This was the man after all who once said it was the UK that was turning into an Islamic state with nuclear weapons. A better definition of Pakistan today, perhaps? “They soon could be a serious threat to us in America,” he said of us Brits.

In the meantime, we are asked—again and again—to contemplate cultish images of a brand-new, self-aggrandising arch in Washington, D.C. An arch. The oldest symbol of triumph, of empire and pomp. I’ve travelled several times to Washington, D.C. Whatever one’s politics or nationality, despite the countless shenanigans, it insists on being taken seriously. Decisions made there do not remain abstract for long. They travel. They harden. They land.

From spiky crossings of the state line between Virginia and Washington, D.C. to the contemplative hare of Barry Flanagan at the National Gallery of Art, there is always something to hold onto. In the worst of times, art has a way of standing slightly to one side, watching.

But now the ballroom, and the arch, tilt the balance. They suggest—not just to critics, but to passive observers—that the city has opened two fresh wounds it did not need. Monuments are meant to outlast us, to reassure us that something endures. These two blights feel premature, almost impatient—as if permanence were being declared in advance of events.

Let us not dwell on the possibility that something worse is still to come—something darker, harder to contain. But if the mind still goes there, as it sometimes will, what becomes of these gestures afterwards? What becomes of arches when the story shifts? What becomes of ballrooms when the music stops?

What if the real news is quieter, more enduring? What if an Iran acting defensively tightens its hold forever on the Strait of Hormuz? What if that pressure accumulates and calcifies? What if the Middle East and the Gulf settle into a harder, colder arrangement—one that no longer even pretends to be temporary? Will that future be attributed to the man of the vast ballroom and the ever-expanding arch? And will the stone, let alone the people, remember him kindly?

Everyone says Russia is the big winner in all this—again said with the confidence of those who think history is already complete. I do not believe there are any winners, at least not in ways that will last. Victory, in such circumstances, has a habit of curdling. Though my own opinion will be worth about as much as a grain of sand on a page of a William Blake poem, I feel bound—even just as a parent—to remain super-alert to the insidious ‘drift’ of things right now.

And still, almost reassuringly, some things refuse to change at all. The long, rolling waves of self-congratulation on social media. The slick, fast cars on higher purchase sliding past the window as if nothing were at stake. The smaller rituals of attention—football scores, baths, books opened and closed. Life continues to offer its quieter consolations, its manageable frames.

Yet the pull back to the news is constant, almost tidal. A president’s wife makes a statement. Kushner and Witkoff move through the world like a cabaret double-act. A ceasefire is announced, then quietly unravels. Gaza is not silent. Lebanon begins to echo it, with Israel destroying entire villages. The arrest of over 500 largely elderly people in London in support of the banned Palestine Action group on Saturday does not an Islamic state make. One of the blindspots of Tucker Carlson is always that he forgets football fans can’t even get US visas for the World Cup because of previous social media comments.

Someone once said to me that everyone in the Middle East deserves each other. It is the kind of sentence that settles badly. Do they really? Can that be said of anyone, anywhere? I cannot believe that in the mind of a child there is an appetite for wanton destruction, no matter which side they are said to belong to. Anyway, categories come later. The damage does not wait. And with Iran playing a long game, what exactly were the United States—still moving troops to the region—thinking? This, in part, traces back to Trump’s decision to abandon the previous nuclear agreement—whatever its flaws—in 2015.

We watch, and our hearts respond—sometimes too quickly, sometimes not at all—but even the most sincere act of witnessing is a poor substitute for what is actually happening. The real measure is elsewhere: children, families, journalists, conscripted soldiers.

The coffins go on being filled.

Somewhere, the arches continue to rise.

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