From The Gormogons:

Other than the Islamic Republic’s Manichæan, escatological ideology, there is no Iranian national interest dictating hostility against the U.S. (Or its former ally Israel, for that matter, though much the population may have internalized decades of anti-Israeli propaganda.) Indeed, the Iranian pursuit of a nuclear weapon becomes a far, far more manageable problem when the government possessing it is not given to insane but not incredible statements about their desire to use it to vaporize a neighbor and—literally—imminentize the Eschaton.

Read the whole thing.