Negotiations between President Barack Obama and congressional leaders found

a sliver of common ground this weekend. Legislation to raise the debt ceiling now seems likely, giving the government headroom to operate until 2013. But a temporary ceasefire in this fiscal war will not address the country’s longer-run problems The rating agencies are therefore justified in reconsidering America’s triple-A credit rating.

The presumed deal now seems likely to trim spending by about $2,400bn over the next decade. The participants will doubtless hail this as a historic compromise. Yet if one puts the high-decibel histrionics to one side, it becomes clear that this breakthrough marks, at best, the end of the first act of a drama that will rival the Ring of the Nibelung in length and complexity.