The unipolar moment is over. The US remains the only truly global power. But the hubristic notion that it had the ability and right to rearrange the world at will has met its doom in Iraq. Many Europeans have desired a chastened America. But few have sought an isolationist one.

I learnt how far the mood had altered at this year’s meetings of the Bilderberg group in Ottawa. Three years ago, the mood of American participants echoed the words of the unnamed aide to George W. Bush quoted by Ron Suskind in The New York Times Magazine of October 17 2004: “We’re an empire now and when we act, we create our own reality.” Reality turns out to bite.