[tsotha]

Your read of the timelines is incorrect. It's more like (a) keep sanction and see Iran get the bomb within 5-10 years, (b) do the deal and see Iran get the bomb within a year or two, or (c) let sanctions lapse with no deal and see Iran get the bomb within a year or two.

Those are the choices. To see this deal as any impediment to Iran's nuclear program is woefully naive.

[selimthegrim]

The price of oil is about to fall in the shitter and the Iranians (and the Saudis) are going to have their hands full avoiding a balance of payments crisis and importing gasoline and essentials for the population with the "stranded assets" that are being repatriated to them. The hope is that they'll realize a war will get them minus nowhere and that the populace has some tiny degree of leverage on them. Most of these regime figures (Asgharowladi, etc) just want to make money, go look at the size of their bank accounts in Switzerland.

Other people's sovereignty doesn't go away because we don't like it. I don't like the fact that Israel basically built a porch on the Litani for 20 years and simultaneously was building nukes way bigger than needed for tactical or regional ICBM purposes but I don't go around telling people to bomb Dimona.