WarSclerotic

Forty-one years ago, the U.S. and North Vietnam signed an agreement that allowed the American troops to end their combat mission in Southeast Asia. It was all too obvious that this was no peace deal. Any levelheaded person could have told you that. The communists and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger settled on murky language. Kissinger tried to tout the agreement as proof that the U.S. had not suffered a crushing defeat on the battlefield.

Two years later the Democratic Republic of Vietnam invaded South Vietnam and made a mockery out of the U.S. The enlightened nations of the world could share the same exact fate in the talks with Iran. Having reached an impasse, they are now focused on formulating a memorandum of understanding rather than an interim agreement.

This provides a way out for the ego-driven diplomats. It would amount to a verbal agreement that would allow each negotiator to have a triumphant homecoming. Perhaps no one would be on the losing end of such a bargain. Alas, any signed document would be only as strong as a bridge made of paper. The threat on Iran’s nuclear program will have turned out to be a paper tiger.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his various mouthpieces have tried portraying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a rejectionist. They want to drive home the notion that he does not serve Israel’s interests, that he would like any agreement with Iran be aborted. But the Obama administration has said its policy of preventing Iran’s nuclearization is a standing policy that is not necessarily linked to Israel. If that is the case, why has its conduct in the talks been so reckless?

Why let on, through various tells, that you are bent on signing an agreement? Why compromise all your cardinal principles as the talks progress? Why was there nothing over which the U.S. could say “over my dead body”? Boy, have we come full circle. Iran was the antagonist in this nuclear saga when the talks commenced; now it says it has been tormented by the West and claims it has been treated unfairly simply because U.S. President Barack Obama and European foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton do not want to hold talks, or just don’t know how to conduct negotiations. Perhaps both.

So, how will the talks conclude? It appears that Netanyahu’s logic — that the West will sign a bad agreement regardless of what happens — has been vindicated, because rather than having the Iranians court the U.S., America has been trying to please the ayatollahs in Tehran. The footage from Geneva over the past two days appears to be another variation of Kissinger’s famous statement on Israel: Foreign policy is just a manifestation of internal politics. It is designed to extract political mileage back home.

The U.S. negotiators would like to be perceived as aggressive negotiators by Congress. Likewise, their Iranian counterparts want their radical parliament to think they were tough. The French want Saudi Arabia to appreciate their steadfastness and award French businessmen lucrative contracts. After the domestic audience is convinced that its representatives in the talks stood their ground, the parties could once again convene in Geneva and finalize an agreement or a pseudo-agreement.

If history is any guide, Netanyahu’s prediction will have likely materialized by then. That said, there have been rare instances in which negotiations did not culminate in agreement. Sometimes the parties’ differences cannot be bridged. However unlikely, there is still a chance this could happen, especially if the agreement is a bad agreement.

As the song goes, “Let all our wishes come true.” Let’s hope that when all is said and done only a worthy agreement is signed.