TO adapt William Wordsworth’s invocation to the poet John Milton: ‘Kissinger! thou shouldst be living at this hour: the Middle East hath need of thee’.

Some argue that Henry Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy between Arab countries and Israel prevented a conflagration in the combustible Middle East. Others suspect that he banked an ember that has glowed for over half a century, and which has finally flared into open war.

Dr Kissinger’s book on Diplomacy (1994) should be compulsory reading for all world leaders, especially those with imperial aspirations. The Stoic Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius once advised: “Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you foresee the future.” He spoke from experience. He was the last (r.161-180 AD) of the Five Good Emperors whose governance brought peace and social order — a Pax Romana — to a turbulent empire.

In modern times, who knew better than Dr Kissinger the lessons history provides? He spent his life teaching it, and then making it.

Who knew better than Kissinger the lessons history provides?

In his Diplomacy, he explained that, for millennia, “Empire has been the typical mode of government”: France dominated the 17th century; Great........

© Dawn