The Game: Going Into Overtime

"We will not allow a bad deal. We will only arrive at a document that is ready to sign if it ... excludes Iran getting access to nuclear weapons."
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, center right, European Union High Representative Federica Mogherini, center left, and other officials from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States wait for the start of a meeting on Iran's nuclear program at the Beau Rivage Palace Hotel in Lausanne, Switzerland Tuesday, March 31, 2015. (Photo credit: AP/Brendan Smialowski, Pool)

Mr. Steinmeier also said that Iran's expectations are "very ambitious" and though rigorously pursued by its negotiators nowhere near acceptable to the P5+1. Or one would hope so. The question of limits on research and development permitted Iran continue to plague the discussions. And then again the burning issue [for Iran] of the scope and timing of sanctions relief remained a sturdy sticking point.

As far as the Obama administration seems concerned, any agreement that manages to lengthen the opportunity of time that Iran requires to produce a nuclear weapon from the current two to three months to at least a year will reflect timely progress. If so, the Americans are not investing too heavy an arsenal of demands by their own accounts.

President Obama's critics, and they are legion, are concerned that any agreement that results for the framework leading up to the final June deadline completing the process appears to be headed in the direction of permitting Tehran to keep its nuclear technology in fairly intact condition. It will be allowed to continue research and development.

And then there's the other issue of handing over for Russian safeguarding the vast stockpiles of enriched uranium which Iran now insists it had never, after all, agreed to; it was merely a misunderstanding. Iran is skilled at prevarication and misstatements and hesitations and promises that never see the light of practical reality.

And sanctions; sanction relief is to be immediate in praise of good intentions and proof of good faith. Faith, that is, on the part of China, Russia, United States, France, Britain and Germany. The Islamic Republic of Iran has faith only in their brand of Islamist doctrine which urges the use of deception to attain a coveted end.

And oh yes, of course, the irritating insistence that the International Atomic Energy Agency have unrestrained access to Iran's nuclear sites to ensure compliance with any completed agreement. Iran detests any intrusions, interference, inconvenient nosiness about its activities which are no one's business but its own.

The sanctions which have bitten off a good chunk of Iran's economy are what brought it to the bargaining table.

Remove them and see the nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles fly in record time. It's what has given Israel and Saudi Arabia screaming-awake nightmares as the canaries in the mine.