In 586 BCE, Babylonia destroyed Jerusalem and sent most of its population into exile; 50 years later, Persia overran the Babylonian empire, and the Persian king, Cyrus the Great, allowed the exiled Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild their Temple. These events are narrated in the Hebrew Bible and attested by contemporaneous evidence, but the period between the Babylonian conquest and the fall of Persia to Alexander the Great around 333 BCE is, in the words of the Yiftaḥ Shalev of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “a black hole in archaeology.” But two items recently unearthed in Jerusalem may help to change that, writes Amanda Borschel-Dan:

The two recent discoveries in an ongoing excavation in the Givati parking lot—a clay “official” seal impression and a strange . . . pottery sherd seal with fake writing—help illuminate the enigma that is 6th-century-BCE Jerusalem history. There are only ten other similar artifacts discovered in Israel that date to the Persian period.

Whereas the seal impression is made in an official imperial style, perhaps depicting a god, the crude clay seal is locally made, presumably by an illiterate underling. Combined, said Shalev, the seal and seal impression illustrate all levels of officialdom in the reviving city. They indicate, he added, that after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jews, Jerusalemites were rebuilding the city, including its bureaucracy, as told in the Bible.

The clay seal was made from an eight-centimeter in diameter reused potsherd. Shalev called it a “strange item” and said it appears that someone took a piece of a broken vessel and reused it, while carving into it “curved figures” that were made to look like letters. He called the pseudo-epigraphic seal “a very unique item” that appears to have been “very local” in its make, as opposed to the official Babylonian-style impression.

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.