Of cabbages and kings

It was autumn 1977 and I was in the beautiful city of Isfahan for a conference. A colleague joined me at breakfast one morning and began by saying, 'I had a fascinating conversation in the hotel bar last night with a fellow who claimed he worked in intelligence.' 'And what secrets did he have to tell?' I prompted, already harbouring doubts. 'Well, he said that within eighteen months the Shah would be out of power and Russia would invade Afghanistan.'

Needless to say, these were not common predictions at the time, least of all in diplomatic circles, and sounded rather far-fetched. But I had reason to reflect on the first of these prophecies a day later as it happened that the Shah was visiting the city, and I watched the royal motorcade sweep by at something approaching the speed of light. For those who had eyes to see, this was not the behaviour of a king secure in the love of his subjects. We knew that there had been street protests over the past year, ferociously put down, and we had also been told that every university class had its informers, and that secret police watched over everything. Even children in school were encouraged to denounce their parents for criticism of the regime. But it was the speed of the ruler's passage through the city that made me think the very centre was unravelling with fear.

As we now know, both of these barfly prophecies came to pass by the end of 1979. By the end of January 1979 the Shah had fled with his family to --  interestingly -- Egypt, which is now inviting comparison with that final year of imperial rule in Iran. Diplomacy and intelligence at the highest level are yet again, it seems, taken by surprise. Who would have thought, a year ago, that Mubarak would now be out of power and hidden from sight in his Sharm el Sheikh villa? Well, if you had been in the right bar in Cairo on the right evening, you might have met someone with the vision of what was to come. Perhaps diplomats don't hang out in the right bars.

Who would have predicted, though, a year ago, that all those despotic kingships from Bahrain to Tunis, most of them built literally on sand, would now be simultaneously trembling or already fallen? Yet, for those with eyes to see, the signs have been there ... (to follow)

And on that note:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Percy Bysshe Shelley