Will Iran really be on this list? At present the west, covered in blood and expense, is trying to leave Iraq and Afghanistan, yet at the same time it stumbles into an identical trap in Iran.

But Iran is wholly different from Iraq or Afghanistan. It is a big, semi-modern state of 80 million people, compared with 20 million each for Iraq and Afghanistan. Bombers can lay waste to Kabul and Baghdad. Doing likewise to Tehran, a city the size of London, should be unthinkable. Iran's politics may be unstable but its national pride is fierce. To challenge it would be disastrous, a final sign that western democrats can no longer contain the globalised moral arrogance shown by their leaders.