Long War: Iran buckled at the anti-nuclear talks over the weekend. The media is portraying the talks as mildly positive to horrible. Israel is saying the talks are a disaster. The Republicans will throw their weight behind Israel and play obstructionist. The market may react negatively because of media spin. The truth is Iran caved.
The lead Iranian negotiator quoted Ayatollah Khamenei's fatwa against nuclear weapons during the talks. A version of the fatwa was turned into a flag and hung over the one-day talks. Iran was willing to bring up the subject of restrictions on uranium enrichment at 20%. So Iran is starting this massive diplomatic process by saying it is a sin to make nuclear weapons. And it also says it will at least keep talking about restrictions on enrichment. Without unrestricted enrichment Iran cannot make nuclear weapons. Those are big concessions for day one.
The media will say that this round of talks is over and another round will begin in one month in Iraq. That isn't true, the talks will be ongoing from now until the formal and public meeting in Baghdad in four weeks. Everything could fall apart by then and maybe nothing will come of the weekend's positive news, but it is encouraging.
If Iran were to truly cave and agree to stop uranium enrichment at 5%, then the oil sanctions against Iran would come down. There are tankers full of Iranian oil sitting in the Gulf. Iranian oil production is still running at high capacity. Oil prices would then crash and the global economy would get a shot in the arm.
Obviously this is a pretty rosy scenario. It looks good right now but Iran would probably turn hard line overnight if the ceasefire in Syria doesn't hold. Therefore that is the forward looking indicator for the Iran crisis: The ceasefire holding in Syria.
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