The Bush administration’s decision to send the No. 3 official from the State Department to Geneva to meet with representatives of Iran and other nations has been taken as confirmation of the wisdom of Barack Obama’s policy of entering into high-level negotiations with our enemies. It is no such thing. The meeting itself was a bust, and for reasons that illuminate why Obama’s prescriptions are not very promising.

According to this New York Times article, the Iranian representatives had no real interest in negotiating. They presented two pages of demands billed ungrammatically if appropriately as a “None Paper” (apparently they meant “nonpaper,” diplomatic shorthand for an unofficial negotiating position). Apparently it was so insubstantial that “Sergei Kisliak, the Russian deputy foreign minister, could not suppress a laugh when he read it.”

The other countries had offered Iran a deal. “For six weeks, Iran would not add ‘any new nuclear activity,’ refraining from the new installation of centrifuges that enrich uranium, and the United States and other powers would not seek new United Nations sanctions.” Said Secretary of State Rice: “We expected to hear an answer from the Iranians, but as has been the case so many times with the Iranians, what came through was not serious.”

Instead of making serious concessions, the Times reports, the Iranians “left the impression that they wanted to lure the parties into an open-ended, cost-free, high-level negotiating process.” Barack Obama is playing right into their hands.