If this news shocks you, get a clue:
Iran and six world powers made little progress in overcoming significant disagreements in the most recent round of nuclear talks, including on uranium enrichment, Iranian and Western diplomats close to the negotiations said on Friday.
Officials from Iran and the six countries had cautioned ahead of the talks in New York that a breakthrough was unlikely to end sanctions on Tehran, although they had hoped substantial progress could be made in narrowing disagreements.
Actually, it is a little shocking to even me. I fully expect us to come to an agreement where Iran pretends to forego nuclear weapons development and we pretend to believe them.
So Iran's refusal to even pretend is probably saving us from signing a document in English, French, and Farsi, festooning it with bright ribbons and official wax seals, and passing out Nobel Peace Prizes. (Oh! Be still, Kerry's heart!)
But for Iran, that's okay, too. They can still go nuclear with Plan B.
Plan B is having sanctions at a level low enough to annoy but not be fatal. They probably got that just to get talks going back last December.
And Plan B allows Iran to keep making progress toward nuclear weapons as we talk and talk and talk. And talk about what we will and won't talk about. And talk about how often we will talk about what we will and won't talk about.
And no, the November 24 "deadline" for talks to succeed doesn't scare Iran any more than any of the other deadlines the Obama administration has set for Iran since 2009.
Face it, President Obama will talk until Iran goes nuclear and be relieved that he can say, "Oops. We tried. Now we'll just have to deter Iran."
So what deters Iran, anyway?
As a bonus for a president whose Nobel Peace Prize was given as a sign of confidence in his ability to achieve nuclear disarmament, learning to love the Iranian bomb means learning to love a Middle East awash in nuclear weapons capabilities.
