>Surely the best way to convince people you are the peaceful victim i'm not sure that convincing people of that would play well for domestic standing of an aut

>Surely the best way to convince people you are the peaceful victim i'm not sure that convincing people of that would play well for domestic standing of an authoritarian regime. Even if there were no threat to the current Iranian regime from outside (which i suspect is a big if), a populist government, especially an authoritarian one, to stay in power has to play a strong national identity theme. So, one way or another, each step is making them closer to the bomb - only regime change from inside as the result of some rose/orange revolution may stop it, and it doesn't seem that there is any chance of it in the near decade or two (so delaying their progress until such a time is probably the best strategy, and that is what Obama's agreement was doing - delaying, not stopping/preventing, and the voting public's non-understanding of that approach is what tanked it as GOP were technically right in their attack of the agreement that it doesn't prevent the bomb in some decades down the road). Any bold external action i think would only fuel internal nationalist forces and thus would play into the regime hand.