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During the 1990s, the Clinton administration funneled millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority and its gangster-in-chief, Yasser Arafat, in the vain hope that the Palestinian leadership would focus on development and reconcile itself to the existence of the state of Israel. The funds, however, ended up doing no such thing. Fueled in part by American dollars, Arafat and his cronies preserved and strengthened their anti–Israeli animus, all the while entrenching a culture of corruption and cronyism that has crippled progress toward a Palestinian state. Yet today, the Obama administration is poised to make much the same mistake in post-Arafat "Palestine."

In February, the Obama administration sent a secret letter to Moscow in which it reportedly offered up its predecessor's plans for missile defenses in Europe in exchange for a more constructive Russian role on dealing with Iran's nuclear program. The Kremlin happily pocketed that proposal, but made no firm commitments as to its cooperation in squeezing Tehran. So what does Russia really think of Iran and its nuclear ambitions?

Last month, as part of his plans to "push the reset button" on U.S.-Russian relations, the new president sent a secret letter to his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev. The missive reportedly contained a simple offer: America would move to scrap Bush administration-era plans to deploy missile defenses in Eastern Europe in return for the Kremlin's help in dealing with Iran's persistent nuclear ambitions.