The Iran nuclear talks in Vienna have stalled, albeit for the wrong reason: Russia, which astonishingly remains part of this sordid attempt at normalising the Tehran regime, tried to use the conference as a Trojan Horse to undermine sanctions for its own invasion of Ukraine. It is a development that exposes how wildly naive this whole process is.

Western leaders have been trying for years to re-integrate Iran into the global community by bribing it not to produce nuclear weapons, running afoul of the obvious problem that one cannot trust a duplicitous cabal of theocrats whose raison d’etre is to dominate the Middle East and annihilate its neighbours. In 2015, the Obama administration shook hands on a deal that created a framework the Iranians could, on paper, appear to obey while pushing their new-found advantage. Tehran continued to export terrorism; its military infrastructure remained intact; it even developed new rocket technologies. Donald Trump was right to tear up the deal.

Joe Biden, whose contributions to geopolitics are becoming ever more destructive, has revived it, despite Iran’s recent technological progress. The new agreement being discussed at Vienna will merely mothball the nuclear programme while injecting cash into Iran. It comes with sunset clauses. Russia’s role renders the talks a sham, and is a reminder of why one does not want to allow rogue states to develop nuclear weapons.

If Russia did not have nuclear capabilities, then Nato would have imposed a no-fly zone on Ukraine by now. The bomb has dramatically changed calculations, allowing a criminal regime to act with impunity: no wonder North Korea has been starving its people for decades in a bid to build one, and Tehran is getting closer. In 2015, it was estimated that it would take around a year for Iran to produce enough nuclear fuel for a bomb. Today that estimate has shrunk to one month.

Britain’s foreign policy has improved dramatically under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. The one glaring exception is our attitude towards Iran: our government and diplomats are entirely wrong to be seeking to sign a deal that won’t work and will be remembered as an historic failure. While states such as Iran appreciate money and trade, on their own terms, it’s not what matters most to them. Whatever the West agrees to at Vienna, it will be ignored or exploited to advance Iran’s military programme, because the mullahs want nuclear weapons at any cost – and the terrifying power of blackmail that comes with them.

Why can’t the Foreign Office see the parallels with Putin’s disgusting expansionism?