This past Monday marked the 60th anniversary of the signing of the armistice agreement between Israel and Syria. The deal, signed near Mahanayim in the Galilee, was the last of the four agreements that ended the War of Independence and established Israel's place among its neighbors. The coming weeks will also bring the anniversaries of Camp David I, the first Oslo agreement, the failure of Camp David II, the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, the 2006 cease-fire in Lebanon, the signing of Oslo 2 and the second intifada (both on the same date, five years apart). A few weeks later, they will apparently be joined by President Barack Obama's peace plan.

The Obama plan will be based on the strategic changes emerging as Iranian power contracts. The internal conflict that erupted after Iran's presidential election has made the regime's future unclear. No one knows whether the Islamic Republic will survive in its current form, or for how long. Iran's allies - Syrian President Bashar Assad, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas leader Khaled Meshal - don't know either.

The uncertainty is strengthening the United States and Israel, encouraging Syria to get closer to America, and driving Hamas to issue moderate statements. In 1991, the Soviet Union's downfall and Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War pushed then-Syrian president Hafez Assad into the peace process with Israel. The current riots in Tehran should be impelling his son Bashar to start the second chapter, this time with Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Before Obama and his Middle East envoy George Mitchell present the new peace initiative, they would do well to study the 1949 armistice agreements achieved by the American mediator for the United Nations, Ralph Bunche. They give rise to an almost banal conclusion. In a diplomatic agreement, as in marriage, real life begins after the celebrations are over, the guests have gone home and the newlyweds are alone. Then they learn that the effort needed to produce an impressive wedding is very different from that needed to maintain a successful relationship over time.

There are two opposing forces in every agreement: The attempt to predict problems and find solutions, and the desire to finish quickly, before the Nobel Prize list closes. While winning models are hard to find, one can use past examples to learn what not to do.

The armistice agreement between Israel and Syria contained all the problems that reappeared in the Oslo agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. In 1949, the parties hoped and believed this was an interim agreement that would pave the way to a permanent peace. The signing was delayed because of a disagreement over the location of the border, and the talks in the military tent dragged out as the oppressive summer heat set in. There were no air conditioners back then. Bunche concocted a diplomatic formula that left a large demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria, without establishing sovereignty over it. This was the breakthrough that led the sides to sign the agreement, while postponing the decision on the permanent border.

However, instead of the deal becoming the basis for a quiet border and Israeli-Syrian cooperation, the opposite happened. The vague sovereignty over the demilitarized zone only encouraged both sides to grab what they could, and thereby establish facts on the ground.

The war over the demilitarized zone lay at the heart of Syria and Israel's border conflicts before the Six-Day War, and it is still going on today. It led to the argument over the border around Lake Kinneret, which has tripped up peace talks for the past 18 years.

The same thing happened in the Oslo agreements: They focused on the desire to achieve an agreement and postponed the real decisions. In the aftermath, each side tried to improve its position. Israel expanded the Jewish settlements in the territories and the Palestinians waged a military and diplomatic struggle to undermine Israel's bargaining power, and both sides established facts in Jerusalem, each in its own way.

The second lesson of the armistice agreement involves the influence of regime stability on the diplomatic situation. In 1949 Syria was ruled by Husni Zaim, who not only agreed to the armistice with Israel but also suggested a path-breaking initiative. He offered to meet with his Israeli counterpart, David Ben-Gurion, to achieve a permanent peace. Syria would absorb hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees - in exchange for "half of Lake Kinneret," as Ben-Gurion reported in his diary. Well before the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, Zaim established the formula of a handshake in return for territory. Since then, none of Syria's leaders have agreed to meet the Israeli prime minister without first getting a territorial concession. As there never has been a concession, there never has been a meeting.

Ben-Gurion refused. He did not want to give up half the Kinneret and preferred to focus on establishing the young state and absorbing immigrants rather than on achieving peace. To this day, historians still argue as to whether he was right.

Three and a half weeks after the signing at Mahanaiyim, Zaim was deposed and executed in a military coup. His successors, Sami Hinnawi and Adib Shishakli, were not interested in meeting Ben-Gurion and chilled relations with Israel. Two years later, came the assassination of King Abdullah of Jordan, who had conducted peace negotiations, though without fanfare and public meetings. Decades passed before Abdullah's grandson and successor completed the task. And speaking of assassinations, there is no need for a reminder of what happened in Israel after the Oslo 2 went into effect.

The armistice agreements won Bunche a Nobel Peace Prize in 1950, but history showed them to be a failure that worsened the conflict - like the Oslo agreements. They lead one to conclude that it is better to close as many loopholes as possible and not to rely on vague formulas that encourage the sides to continue fighting in an attempt to improve their position. It is not necessary to reach a final-status agreement: There are examples of successful interim agreements, first and foremost the 1974 separation of forces agreement between Israel and Syria, which did not end the state of war but did bring quiet and calm to the border.

Obama and Mitchell should know the "diplomatic horizon" doesn't end at the Oslo city hall, where the Nobel Peace Prize is bestowed. Only if they lay down the proper foundations for relations after the agreement will there be a point to their mediation. If they're only looking toward the the signing ceremony, they will be remembered in the Middle East as a footnote to history. Like Ralph Bunche.