Zarif laughs as deceit wins

Tehran was prepared to celebrate the nuclear deal's signing on Monday. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's victory speech was ready. After all, he deserves to celebrate, that moderate president, the role he has played since he won the elections in 2013, the "good cop," as he will be remembered by history, or at least by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The victory speech was ready and waiting and Iran's diplomatic victory has already been won. From Tehran's perspective, it was not such a big deal to postpone the party by a day in order to get an even better deal. The Iranians have already won; they may as well go all the way.

Iran has achieved the right to enrich, the right to maintain centrifuges, the right to maintain nuclear sites that were fraudulently built (even if they were temporarily converted for other uses), the right to watch international sanctions lose steam, the right to become a normalized country and the right to join the "good" side in the fight against the Islamic State group. Wait a moment: What about the right to procure weapons from the Russians? Iran also needs to defend itself. There are bad guys out there and Iran -- for those who didn't yet get the message -- is crossing over to the good side.

Rouhani is the epitome of the West's innocence and Iran's deceit. Rouhani, who accompanied the father of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in exile to Neauphle-le-Chateau in France until his victorious return to Iran in 1979, is pinching himself. He cannot believe how, without changing its character as an extremist, revolutionary, terrorist regime, Iran managed to get the West to bend to its will and not the other way around.

And that is exactly why the nuclear deal with Iran, which should be a great historic moment, has become yet another shameful chapter to be catalogued alongside the Munich Agreement.

It was enough to see the smiling face of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday as he looked out from his hotel balcony in Vienna, to understand who the winner is here.

On Monday, the economic deal between Greece and the European Union was signed and lauded. Yet many questions have arisen concerning the deal. It is not at all clear whether Greece will actually be able to pay off its debts, but the important thing is that it signed.

Almost simultaneously, in Vienna, negotiators were working on the final details of the deal between Iran and the world powers. Many questions have also arisen about that deal. It is not clear at all whether Iran will keep its promises, but the important thing is that it will sign.

There is, however, a difference. The deal with Greece is, obviously, expected to have consequences. The deal with Iran has the potential to shake our region and the world as a whole. The deal with Greece will affect our pocketbooks. The deal with Iran will affect our lives.

"Diplomacy is the art of negotiating with crooks," said the visionary of the Jewish state, Theodor Herzl.

The same Herzl who died in July 1904 in Vienna -- the same city where on Tuesday, in July 2015, the vision of an Iran free of nuclear weapons also died.

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