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The members of the leading pro-Israel lobby in the US were visibly moved as they listened to Vice President Joe Biden's speech last Tuesday. It was music to the ears of the 6,500 delegates of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who had gathered in the Washington Convention Center.

"With all the change you will hear about, there is one enduring, essential principle that will not change; and that is our commitment to the peace and security of the state of Israel," he told his audience.

Gottemoeller is an important figure. The US assistant secretary of state is one of the world's foremost experts on nuclear weapons and is currently leading disarmament talks with Russia and working on strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In her address to the UN, Gottemoeller called on a number of presumed nuclear powers to join the NPT. "Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea … remains a fundamental objective of the United States," she said.

Russia and the US are holding the first of three days of talks in Moscow on a new treaty aimed at reducing their stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

Senior diplomats need to hammer out a replacement for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start I) which expires in December.

Mr Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev agreed last month to pursue a deal to replace the Cold War-era Start I, signed in 1991.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The head US negotiator for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT), Rose Gottemoeller, has called upon Israel to become an NNPT member-state. Was this a smart move? Herf: I don't know what the purpose of such a proposal is. Is it to enhance the legitimacy of Israel's nuclear weapons? Or is it to place them on the negotiating table so that pressure can be brought to bear to bring about Israel's unilateral nuclear disarmament? If that is the purpose, it amounts to appeasement of Iran and reminds me of the Soviet Union's diplomatic efforts to disarm France and Great Britain in the course of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) negotiations in Geneva in the early 1980s. The British and French refused all such efforts and the Israelis will do so as well for exactly the same reason: such weapons are a deterrent of last resort. Moreover, it is Iran, not Israel, that is violating numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions. It is Iran whose nuclear ambitions threaten to make the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty a dead letter.

If the Obama administration is engaged in a diplomatic effort of very short duration to give Iran a chance to turn away from its nuclear ambitions, then perhaps there is some merit in doing so

If however, the Obama administration thinks that smiles and a new tone will change Iranian behavior, it is pursuing a policy that is both naive and potentially dangerous.