France currently finds itself in the midst of a wave of jihadist terrorist attacks, which began with the beheading of a school teacher who, in a discussion of freedom of expression, had shown his students caricatured drawings of the founder of Islam. Having recently read the German Enlightenment thinker Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s play Nathan the Wise—in which a Christian knight, a Muslim prince, and the eponymous wise Jew of the title learn to look past their disagreements over religion—Michael Weiner shares some thoughts on the French situation:

In his play, Lessing offers us an idealistic model of how people of faith might work out their differences by acknowledging our essential equality and shared truths. We have made enormous progress in the last 200 years in easing inter-Christian tensions and granting Jews throughout the West equal rights and respect. But as the world grows more connected, and people of vastly different backgrounds are thrown together, this grand project will become harder to sustain, and demands an infusion of good ideas and constructive action.

Avowedly secular, post-Christian Western Europe was once a bastion of Lessingian tolerance, but a history teacher was just butchered in Paris. I’m not exactly sure how to prevent that, but I’m pretty confident our terrorist wouldn’t have been convinced by [Nathan’s] parable about rings and a rousing speech arguing that deep down, we are all the same.

Unlike Lessing and Enlightenment reformers with big dreams, my instincts tend toward admitting ignorance and setting more attainable goals. It will take a long time before France arrives at the kumbaya moment with which the play finishes. True wisdom would mean acknowledging that this problem is hard and that no matter how enlightened we think our society is, extreme forms of religion will continue to disrupt our hopes for a perfectly peaceful world.

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.