A year after a tiny band of religious zealots managed with stunning audacity to mutilate the face of America, the world’s sole superpower trembles on the threshold of a new imperial season.

In Afghanistan, the targets are running out. Such are the frustrations of the powerful; Joseph Conrad, writing of an African “heart of darkness” a century ago, well understood: “Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast.