(CBS) CBS News Reporter Charles Wolfson is a former Tel Aviv bureau chief for CBS News who now covers the State Department.

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One can be forgiven for not understanding the Bush administration's policy as it tries to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons.

The evolution of policy, from naming Iran a member of the “axis of evil” in 2002, to last week’s dispatch of the State Department’s third ranking official, Under Secretary William Burns, to join Washington’s allies at a negotiating table with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, has been quite a long and frustrating path.

On the one hand, President George W. Bush and his administration have been pretty straightforward: isolate Tehran as much as possible and use the pressure of sanctions to get it to change course and give up what Washington sees as its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The problem is the strategy hasn’t worked.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recognized the need for a new direction when she spoke in May, 2006 about the U.S. joining its allies at the negotiating table “if” Iran suspended its enrichment activities.

Fast forward a couple of years and stir in several sanctions resolutions from the U.N. Security Council - Iran hasn’t done what, not only the U.S., but also the international community has demanded. Still, Ambassador Burns turned up in Geneva last week. Rice said it was a “tactical” not a substantive change in policy.

The Woodrow Wilson Center’s Aaron David Miller, who has followed the region for several decades, says the move to send Burns to Geneva shows the administration’s, “capacity for pleasant surprises is still pretty high.”

Miller thinks it compares to the Bush administration strategy in Middle East peacemaking; “It’s like Annapolis,” he said in a telephone interview. “It’s little risk for little gain.” And, one could say, possibly no gain at all.

In the wake of Iran’s response in Geneva to representatives of Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Amb. Burns at the table, even Secretary Rice seems to agree the concession bore little fruit. “Well, we expected to hear an answer from the Iranians,” she told reporters, “but as has been the case so many times with the Iranians, what came through was not serious.”

Another administration official, Under Secretary of Commerce Mario Mancuso, in remarks prepared for delivery at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, underscores a key to Iran’s ability to defy the will of the international community. Noting the global unity against its policies, Mancuso says, “Iran has a long history of making the most out of a losing hand.”

This brings us to where we go from here. Iran was given a couple of weeks to come up with a better answer than they furnished in Geneva last week.

“If there is not a serious answer, then we still have the New York channel,” said Rice. Great. Another three to six months will be spent spewing out another sanctions resolution at the United Nations. The sanctions resolutions already passed and the actions taken by various countries acting alone have, administration officials say, started to bite, even if they have not yet changed Tehran’s policy.

Iran’s ability to access the international financial markets has been pinched, but it's obviously not brought about the desired response in Geneva. Meanwhile, Iran keeps perfecting its efforts to develop the nuclear capability it so badly wants. While Washington would like Tehran to follow Libya’s example and give up the pursuit of nukes, the model Iran seems to have in mind is North Korea. First, develop a weapon or the capability to make one and then, perhaps, negotiate in good faith.

For now, there is virtually no indication Iran will give up its nuclear pursuits. Washington has dangled the notion of re-establishing diplomatic relations which were cut after the 1979 hostage crisis but even a move like that is no guarantee of seeing a suspension in nuclear enrichment activities.

Such a move, however, combined with sending Amb. Burns to Geneva, would serve to show the world the Bush administration has tried to make the diplomatic route work. That could be critical since there are still those in the administration who advocate the use of the military option, if necessary, to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state.

With six months left of the Bush administration, it appears a safe bet Tehran will let the clock run out and take its chances on “making the most out of a losing hand” with the next set of policymakers in Washington.

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