During World War II, the Nazis and their collaborators routinely destroyed Jewish cemeteries, and in many instances used the headstones as pavement. Ongoing renovations in the Czech capital’s tourist district provides evidence that the Communist government of Czechoslovakia did something similar. Moreover, this didn’t happen during the Czechoslovakian Communist party’s orgy of anti-Semitism in 1952, but far more recently. Robert Tait writes:

Jewish leaders hailed the unearthing as proof of long-held suspicions that the Communist authorities . . . had taken stonework from Jewish burial sites for a much-vaunted pedestrianization of Wenceslas Square during the 1980s. The flagship project was showcased during a walkabout tour by the then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987.

The names of the dead are unidentifiable because the headstones have been broken to form cobblestones. One person appears to have died in 1877, when Prague was part of the Habsburg empire, while the most recent death is shown to have happened in the 1970s, during the height of Communism. The stones appear to have been taken from different cemeteries.

Synagogues and cemeteries were allowed to fall into disrepair under an officially sanctioned hostile policy towards religious institutions in general and Judaism in particular, making them vulnerable to looting. František Bányai, the chairman of Prague’s Jewish community, [said that] “more Jewish synagogues were destroyed in the area of the current Czech Republic during Communist times than under the Nazis.”

In 2003, the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, spooked by the American display of might in Iraq, decided to destroy or surrender his entire nuclear program. Informed observers have suggested that the deal he made with the U.S. should serve as a model for any agreement with Iran. Robert Joseph provides some useful background:

Gaddafi had convinced himself that Libya would be next on the U.S. target list after Iraq. There was no reason or need to threaten Libya with bombing as Gaddafi was quick to tell almost every visitor that he did not want to be Saddam Hussein. The images of Saddam being pulled from his spider hole . . . played on his mind.

President Bush’s goal was to have Libya serve as an alternative model to Iraq. Instead of war, proliferators would give up their nuclear programs in exchange for relief from economic and political sanctions.

Any outcome that permits Iran to enrich uranium at any level will fail the one standard that President Trump has established: Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Limiting enrichment even to low levels will allow Iran to break out of the agreement at any time, no matter what the agreement says.

Iran is not a normal government that observes the rules of international behavior or fair “dealmaking.” This is a regime that relies on regional terror and brutal repression of its citizens to stay in power. It has a long history of using negotiations to expand its nuclear program. Its negotiating tactics are clear: extend the negotiations as long as possible and meet any concession with more demands.