I haven’t followed the Iran-EU nuclear negotiations close enough, but I’m still skeptical. The Iranians made this decision to produce unnecessary “peaceful” nuclear power a long time ago and I doubt a lot of Euro-talk dissuaded them at the last minute. I heard the other night that the Iranians need to have their parliament approve the deal — which is a joke since the parliament does whatever the dictators say in Iran. However, to the extent this deal is progress at all, I wonder to what degree the US deserves some of the credit. After all, is it impossible that the US is the bad cop here? The EUers go in, chat ‘em up and say, “Do this for us or we’ll be forced to invite that guy in here — and none of us want that!” Indeed this is the normal state of things for the last forty years. We protect Europe, the Europeans think they solved their problems through chit-chat.