Lexington

摘要

To judge by the way his bluff has just been called over Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Barack Obama is not a natural poker player. His dealings with Iran suggest that he may be rather better at chess. For the first time in more than a year, diplomats from Iran met in Geneva this week with the sextet of America, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany to discuss its nuclear programme. The meeting broke up after two days having apparently achieved nothing more than a bad-tempered agreement to meet again in January. From a chess-player's point of view, that is not necessarily a bad outcome for the Americans.