WarSclerotic

The citizens of the West and Israel are not paying much attention to the Iranian nuclear program these days, but three weeks remain before the deadline for a final nuclear deal, and things are not looking promising.

Next week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, outgoing EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will meet in Oman, but the gaps remain large. Iran is refusing to dismantle its 19,000 centrifuges. The West is confused, and Iran, having noticed this, has even stopped answering questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

U.S. President Barack Obama is ready for a far-reaching compromise, such as a sham deal that would leave Iran as a nuclear threshold state, but even this has not garnered an Iranian response. According to Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, Obama attributes as much importance to an Iran nuclear deal as he did to health care reform. Yet Iran is playing it cool, maintaining its silence until it gets even more attractive proposals.

It is easy for Obama administration officials to belittle Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “coward” for not ordering an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Yet this is the opposite of the truth. Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Ehud Barak wanted to give the world a credible impression that Israel could strike Iran. The West was horrified by this possibility, leading it to impose tougher economic sanctions on Iran. While there may have been hysteria over a potential Israel strike against Iran, Netanyahu and Barak in fact were just seeking the West to increase pressure on Iran and they succeeded. They did not plan to actually to bomb Iran.

Coward? That is a compliment. It means that Netanyahu is not crawling around Iran’s nuclear facilities like a hot-tempered officer with a knife between his teeth. Instead, Israel gave the West the tool that, accompanied by wise diplomacy, could lead to success in the negotiations with Iran. But Israel cannot take the place of the U.S. or Europe at the negotiating table. Without proper determination, Obama and Ashton will not achieve any real results, not even marginal ones.

During his years in the White House, Obama has promised he would prevent the nuclearization of Iran. The argument between him and Netanyahu has remained the same — how far away from a nuclear bomb must the ayatollahs be kept? Or, how far is enough? America has behaved bizarrely, with its officials turning a cold shoulder to Netanyahu every time the talks with Iran hit an impasse.

Now the talks are entering the final stretch. International Relations, Intelligence and Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz is traveling around the world, and an Israeli delegation, led by National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen, was in Washington last week for talks. But Obama is showing lethargy. Apparently he is sick of the Iran nuclear issue.

The expected Democratic losses in Tuesday’s midterm elections will weaken Obama. Negotiators will likely continue to chatter over the next few weeks, but, when push comes to shove, the deadline, Nov. 24, will be postponed again. The talks will go on, mostly consisting of empty words, and Iran’s centrifuges will continue to spin.