The talks with Iran can easily unravel. They are held against the backdrop of an American foreign policy train wreck, with one disaster following another: from Baghdad to Sanaa; from Tripoli to Damascus. This week Obama made a gaffe when he said Iran's breakout time would essentially be reduced to zero in 13 years. He later tried to walk back that jaw-dropping statement. "Six times in the last generation, secondary nations have launched programs aimed at producing a nuclear arsenal," former Prime Minister Ehud Barak wrote on TIME.com last week. "Two were persuaded to surrender their ambition voluntarily: Libya and South Africa. Two were stopped by surgical air strikes: Iraq and Syria. The final two -- Pakistan and North Korea -- got the bomb, and got it following a path not so different than the one the ayatollahs are treading today." With no real military option, an exhausted West opted for a diplomatic solution. This is how the Lausanne agreement was born. It may very well end up as one big charade. But it may not. As our sages said, prophecy was given to the fools. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, goes the famous idiom. But Obama has, in my assessment, promised nothing more than a bird in the bush. There is no guarantee that Iran would cease to be a nuclear threat for the next 13 years. His critics have so far focused on what happens after those 13 years elapse, saying he has failed to properly address the Iranian threat. This requires a serious discussion. There is an ongoing earthquake in the Middle East. The region is ablaze. That said, the Lausanne agreement merits some hard thinking, even if one considers it an interim deal that is nothing more than a truce like those struck during the conquests of the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th Century. Since everything is in flux, there is no way of telling what things will look like 13 years from now. As the Communist bloc fell apart, Professor Francis Fukuyama wrote "The End of History-," an essay that looked into the future through rose-colored glasses. He did not anticipate the rise of rogue forces in the form of al-Qaida, the Islamic State group and a nuclear North Korea. Reality has turned on its head. What will America look like in 2028? And the Middle East? Who knows. Likewise, there is no way of telling where Iran will be 13 years from now, considering the combustible relationship between the ayatollahs and their people. I once asked Menachem Begin whether he believed the peace treaty with Egypt would hold forever. He reacted with bewilderment, telling me that if such a scenario existed, humankind would have been spared the 3,000 or so peace treaties it has signed throughout its history. His deal with Egypt -- the best deal Israel has ever signed -- has remained intact for the past 37 years, and it appears to be on a strong footing. But one must tend peace treaties; they need nutrients and proper irrigation, as they constantly evolve. If all goes well, they grow and develop, but if they are breached, they become history's roadkill. A period of 13 years provides ample opportunity to temper Iran and extinguish its fire.
