There is a delicious irony in settling Middle Eastern conflicts within the very walls where European monarchs once plotted their own catastrophes. One imagines the ghosts of Louis XIV nodding approvingly: if you wish to broker peace, do it surrounded by enough gilt and marble to distract everyone from actually reading the fine print. Trump, playing statesman beneath the chandeliers, has apparently accomplished what Biden's turgid diplomacy could not—or has he simply discovered that all geopolitical disputes dissolve when one dines handsomely enough? Macron, ever the romantic, provided the setting; Trump provided the signature. The Iranians provided the suspicion.

Yet here lies the paradox worthy of contemplation: we live in an age where a former hotel owner can resurrect deals at Versailles while simultaneously flooding the planet with cruise missiles, where he insists on peace in one breath and weaponry in the next. It is not hypocrisy, precisely. It is rather the logic of a man who has discovered that consistency is for people without a Twitter account. Meanwhile, Europe watches, applauds politely, and wonders if this is diplomacy or merely very expensive theater with nuclear weapons in the audience.

The real miracle? That amid canicules, epidemics, and various societal collapses, we still pretend that what happens in gilded rooms actually changes anything on the ground.