It was announced with some gravity that a United States fighter jet had gone down over Iranian skies, and then, as if the day had decided to pile on a bit more drama, a second American aircraft met its end in circumstances not yet fully explained - though the Pentagon, ever obliging, offered a generous helping of uncertainty to fill the gaps. One wonders, in the kindly, Missouri way, whether the two incidents were related, or whether the second crash was simply the aircraft saying, “Well, if that was considered an act of war, I shall decline to participate in further hostilities today.”

The official statements, as such things go, were delivered in the tone of a man who has just stepped in something unpleasant but insists it was not his foot. There was talk of “de-escalation,” of “vigilance,” of “protecting American personnel” - all fine words, as fine as any you’d find in a dictionary printed on good paper - but when you translate them into plain English, as one might translate a love letter from a diplomat, you get something like: “We lost two planes. One may have been shot down by people who don’t much care for our planes being shot down over their houses. The other - well, we’re still trying to figure out whether it was us, them, the weather, or a rogue committee of pigeons with military ranks.”

The curious thing is how quickly the language shifts, like water finding the shape of whatever vessel it’s poured into. In peacetime, such an event might have been met with a shrug and a note to check the maintenance logs. But now? Now it is “a serious incident,” “a provocation,” “a challenge to regional stability” - all of which sounds very serious, until you ask the guileless question: What, exactly, is regional stability, and who gets to decide whether it’s been achieved? Because if you listen closely, “regional stability” is often just a polite way of saying “the situation remains convenient for us.”

Iran, of course, has not yet confirmed shooting the plane down - though they have not denied it either, which is to say they are doing what nations do when they wish to be taken seriously without having to actually do anything decisive. They issue statements that sound like warnings, but in a language that requires interpretation, just as our own warnings sound like warnings only if you already agree with them. It is the diplomacy of the half-open door: inviting entry, but only if you knock softly and do not expect a handshake.

What strikes me - aside from the sheer, baffling inefficiency of modern military aviation - is how little the facts seem to matter once the narrative has been assembled. The facts are still out there, like lost buttons in the sofa cushions, waiting to be found: Who was flying? What was the plane doing there? Was it even supposed to be there? But the public record, as it so often does, has already moved on. The story has been filed, the headlines written, the commentators sharpened their knives - not to cut through the noise, but to carve themselves a little more authority from the confusion.

And yet, for all the posturing, I have yet to hear either side say, outright, “Let’s just not do that again until we’re sure we mean it.” There is always more ground to cover, more signals to send, more proof to offer that one’s side is not to be trifled with - though, curiously, no one seems to be trying to prove they’re trustworthy. The difference between being feared and being trusted is a small one, in terms of syllables, but in practice it’s the difference between a locked door and a door held open. One keeps people out; the other keeps people in - in the room, in the conversation, in the business of getting along.

I do not pretend to know what the generals are thinking. But I do know this: when a man stands on a hilltop waving a flag and shouting at another man on a different hilltop, and neither of them has walked the ground between them in ten years, it is not surprising when one of the flags gets shot down. The problem is not the flag. The problem is the hill. And the problem is that no one wants to admit the hill is steep, or that the wind has changed direction, or that perhaps, just perhaps, the view from the other side looks just as fine, if not better, and certainly less lonely.

So let us hope the pilots are safe. Let us hope the investigation is thorough. And let us hope that, before too long, someone in a position of authority asks the simplest question of all: What would happen if, for once, we both put the flags down and talked?

I shall be checking the next day’s papers to see whether anyone has the courage to print it.