India, April 10 -- I don't know if the Iran war will end anytime soon. But here are two things that have most certainly ended - the idea of America and the relevance of the United Nations. Never before has the UN seemed as redundant, powerless and defunct as it does today. And never has the US looked as much of a parody as it does now.

I say this as someone whose childhood and post graduation years - two major formative phases - were shaped by and in New York. If there was any sense of belonging I felt outside of my own country, it was in New York, where my parents lived and worked for a sizeable time, and where I have returned to in every possible break I get. So much so that there is a bench memorial to my father in Central Park in the...