Tehran knows that the Obama administration dreams of a nuclear deal and, unwilling to act in Iraq, hopes that Iran will slay the Islamic State beast. So the U.S. cedes ground in the nuclear talks and temporizes.
The Obama administration lately projects an anti-Islamic State campaign of three to five years at best, or a decade perhaps at worst. Meanwhile, U.S. leaders hope to tame Iran’s nuclear hunger and bloody misdeeds with inspections and respect, a coin that must be paid in years of restraint. Maybe the administration believes regional powers can be goaded into not just pricking, but, with limited U.S. aid, defeating Islamic State and Iranian ambitions.
Whatever the reasoning the net consequence is the same: Iran and Islamic State have won years to gather weapons and riches, inflame hatreds, reap recruits and plot. The time will come, Islamic State and Iran know, to settle scores between them. But that will be another day. In the interim, both prosper.
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