Jeffrey Goldberg : “Two things about President Obama are true: He and his team approached these negotiations assuming that Iran would lie, cheat, and steal, but he also holds out hope that a deal—and the economic benefits that flow from such a deal—will strengthen the hands of Iranian moderates. I tend to doubt this last part. I don’t believe that a bullying, terror-supporting, Assad-backing would-be regional hegemon whose ideology is built on anti-Americanism becomes more reasonable once it becomes richer and more empowered.”  

“Which means that Obama will now have to do the thing he has been reluctant to do so far: confront Iran in Syria and Yemen and Lebanon in a sustained and creative way. He’s been reaching out to Israel and to America’s Arab friends in order to formulate such a strategy—a strategy U.S. allies in the Middle East have been begging him to devise—and I believe he realizes that he has a freer hand to confront Iran’s regional ambitions now that he’s secured a preliminary nuclear agreement. I hope he uses his power to check these ambitions, and I hope he spends the next three months making sure that the final deal is as stringent as possible.”