CAIRO, Sept. 26 -- When Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty took the floor at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, he spoke for a government that has spent fourteen months managing the Rafah Crossing - the only land passage between Gaza and the outside world. He spoke for the institutional home of Al-Azhar University, whose Grand Imam had declared Israeli actions in Gaza a genocide. And he said nothing about the Iran ceasefire framework that Washington had spent the week selling to every delegation it could corner in Midtown Manhattan.

The silence was not diplomatic paralysis. It was the only position six structural constraints permitted simultaneously.

The US-led roadmap proposed negotiated limits on Iran's nuclear pro...