Instead of opining on the proposed deal with Iran taking shape in Geneva, let's decode it.
From the reported outline of the proposal, we learn four things:
1) Iran remains intensely committed to achieving a nuclear weapon.
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At Geneva, Iran gained a promise of the potential release of $3 billion in frozen international reserves and the right to import potentially up to $9.5 billion of gold. For a major oil producing nation, these should be petty sums. (Iraq's oil revenues amounted to about $7 billion per month in 2013.)
Iran itself holds title to an estimated $80 billion of international reserves. The Kirk-Menendez sanctions passed by Congress at the end of last year, then reluctantly accepted by the Obama administration, have effectively denied Iran the use of these funds. Any bank anywhere in the world that deals with Iran will be cut off from the international payments system. If Iran earns $1 billion inside a sanctions-busting country, it must either buy goods worth $1 billion inside that country or else find a way to physically move that much cash -- assuming the sanctions-busting country has that much physical cash, which few do. (A billion dollars in cash would fill all the carrying space on a large truck.)
A study conducted for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies by Roubini Global Economics estimates that Iran's actual on-hand, accessible foreign reserves have dwindled below $20 billion, and maybe further. This amount could cover only three months worth of minimally essential imports, a level that would normally be considered a warning of crisis ahead. In Iran's case, however, the crisis has already arrived. In just the past two years, the rial has plunged from 10,800 to the dollar to about 32,000 to the dollar. Prices have soared, and goods have vanished from Iran's shelves. By any usual definition of the word "desperate," Iran desperately needs a deal on its nuclear program. If Iran still won't yield, that is one more confirmation of point 1.
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